Chapter 9 ( Development Across the Lifespan)

Object Permanence (Piaget)

- is the understanding that even if something is out of sight, it still exist. - Age: 0-2 - World experienced through senses and actions

Egocentrism

(Piat) Childs difficultly in taking someones else's point of view. Common in young children in the preoperational stage of cognitive development. The child is not able to take the perspective of others. A child at this stage thinks that everyone sees, thinks, and feels just as they do. Example: upon seeing his mother crying, a young child gives her his favorite stuffed animal to make her feel better.

Cognitive Development

involves learning, attention, memory, language, thinking, reasoning, and creativity.

Piaget's assumptions about children

is another stage theorist who studied childhood development (Figure). Instead of approaching development from a psychoanalytical or psychosocial perspective, Piaget focused on children's cognitive growth. He believed that thinking is a central aspect of development and that children are naturally inquisitive. However, he said that children do not think and reason like adults (Piaget, 1930, 1932). His theory of cognitive development holds that our cognitive abilities develop through specific stages, which exemplifies the discontinuity approach to development. As we progress to a new stage, there is a distinct shift in how we think and reason.Piaget said that children develop schemata to help them understand the world. Schemata are concepts (mental models) that are used to help us categorize and interpret information. By the time children have reached adulthood, they have created schemata for almost everything. When children learn new information, they adjust their schemata through two processes: assimilation and accommodation. First, they assimilate new information or experiences in terms of their current schemata: assimilation is when they take in information that is comparable to what they already know. Accommodation describes when they change their schemata based on new information. This process continues as children interact with their environment.

Four stages of cognitive development (Piaget)

sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational

centration

tendency to focus on one aspect of the problem and ignore other aspects

Conservation

the principle (which Piaget believed to be a part of concrete operational reasoning) that even if you change the appearance of something, it is still equal in size as long as nothing has been removed or added. due to centration: tendency to focus on one aspect of the problem and ignore other aspects

Highest level of cognitive development?

formal operational which develops between 11 and 20 years old. However, many developmental psychologists disagree with Piaget, suggesting a fifth stage of cognitive development, known as the post-formal stage.