Development of thinking and Reasoning Piaget (1896-1980)

Piagetian terminology Schema – an organized mental

representation of the world, such as how to interact with objects in the world.

Grasping and sucking schema Assimilation - applying an old schema to

new material or information. Accommodation modifying an old schema

to fit the new material or information.

Baby with a new toy

Ball. Try to suck it like a bottle

assimilation of sucking schema Open mouth more to suck it

accommodation of sucking schema Grasp and shake it

assimilates ball to grasping schema accommodating it to fit the ball.

Piaget’s stages of intellectual development

Sensorimotor - birth to 2 years preoperational - 2 to 7 concrete-operations - 7 to 11 formal-operations - 12 on

The sensorimotor stage: Infancy (birth to 2 years) At this stage behavior consists

mostly of simple motor responses to sensory stimuli. They can grasp things, they can suck

things. Babies do not look for things they

cannot see Lack object permanence Lack cognitive abilities.

Preoperational stage (2-7 yrs)

Piaget called this the preoperational stage because he thought the child lacked operations. Operations are reversible mental

processes A boy with one brother, will say that his

brother does not have a brother. He is unable to apply the concept of

brother to himself.

The peoperational stage

Lack concept of conservation - too much milk in a tall skinny class,

becomes acceptable if poured into a short wide glass

The peoperational stage

Tend to be egocentric if asked to show you a book they

might tend to hold it facing themselves.

They think you see what they see. When asked to describe how a model

of three mountains looks to someone standing on the opposite side from them - they describe their own view

Can this boy report what the clown doll sees?

Egocentric Communication Communicate from their own

perspective Collective monologues

Frequently talk “at” rather than “with” people

John: “My dad is a fireman.” Mike: “So what, I’m 6 years old.” John: “He is a real hero.” Mike: “I had my birthday yesterday.”

Declines between ages of 4 & 7

Lack Theory of Mind When asked what was in a Band Aid box. Children said Band Aids

They were surprised to find pencils Researchers then asked what other

children would expect to find in the Box. 3 yr olds said pencils By age 4 to 5 children’s theory of mind had

increased. They were delighted to think that their friends would expect Band Aids

More Theory of Mind A child sat in front of a screen covering

four cups and watched as one adult hid a surprise under one of the cups.

Then, that adult and another (who had not been present initially) each pointed to one of the cups to signal where the surprise was hidden.

Many 4 year olds consistently followed the advice of the informed adult; 3 – year olds did not.

Using models of the real world

A 2 1/2 year old cannot use a model of a room to find an object in a large room.

At about 3 they can.

What if they are tested differently? Hide object in model of the room. Tell the child you are going to expand

the room. They hear noises (chunkata, chunkata,

chunkata). Now 2 1/2 year olds can find the object.

Seems they are unable to use a model to represent reality, unless they are tricked into it.

The concrete operations stage - later childhood (7-11 yrs old) The beginning of this stage is marked

by mastery of the principle of conservation.

they now think logically, and are no longer egocentric understand the principle of reversibility roll a ball of clay into a long sausage

shape understand that the ball can be reproduced

by reversing the action

Concrete operations continued

Limitations They are bound to the concrete,

physical reality of the world. They have difficulty understanding

questions of an abstract or hypothetical nature

If you could have a third eye anywhere on your body where would you put it?

The formal operations stage: adolescence to adulthood (12 yrs – adult)

Formal operations - Piaget’s term for the mental processes used to deal with abstract, hypothetical situations.

The pendulum problem What determines how fast a pendulum

swings? Length of string weight of the pendulum force at which the pendulum is pushed

Children in the concrete operations stage will approach this problem haphazardly. Change string length weight and force all at

the same time. People in the formal operations stage

approach this problem systematically - scientifically. They change one variable at a time and

examine the effects. They rule out competing possibilities

Infant abilities

Newborns can only make purposeful mouth and eye movements. That is why it is hard to study them.

Vision. Look at pictures of faces more than

other types of pictures An indication that they can see and can

discriminate between faces and nonfaces

Imitation

Newborns can imitate sticking out your tongue, or opening your mouth wide. Shows they can see Implies that imitation is reflexive?

Newborn Hearing. Measure sucking on a pacifier. First time an infant hears a sound they

will suck more. As they hear it more often they suck less

habituation. Play a new sound and infant starts sucking

faster dishabituation

Using this procedure, researchers have found newborns can discriminate between ba and pa.

At 4 weeks infants can process information across sensory modalities

Learning and memory of newborns Can learn to suck a pacifier at a

certain response rate to turn on a tape recording of the mother, at 3 days old. Learning

Prefer recording of mom over another female voice. memory perhaps from before birth?

Rovee-Collier

Trained infants to kick their leg to jiggle a mobile. String attached to leg went up to

mobile. Can remember this for several days.

Train task = press bar to make a train go around a track

Infants of the ages tested in the mobile and train tasks, from left to right, they are 2, 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, and 18 months of age. Note the dramatic physical and behavioral differences between the younger and older infants.

The maximum duration of retention (in weeks) over the first 18 months of life. Independent groups of infants were studied in the mobile (2-6 months) and the train (6-18 months) tasks. Six-month-olds were trained and tested in both tasks.

Newborns and object permanence

Peak-a-boo. Piaget thought infants lacked object

permanence. Won’t reach for things that were there

and now are hidden.

The possible vs. impossible experiments.

The car and box experiment 6 - 8 months - watch car roll down ramp

impossible event a box blocked the cars path. A screen was lowered the car went through anyway.

Possible event the box did not block the cars path.

Screen was lowered the car went through

Infants stared longer at impossible event. What does this say about object permanence?

Do infants (5 months) have a concept of number? - Wynn, 1992

Possible = (1+1 =2) or (2-1 =1) impossible = (1+1 = 1) or (2-1

=2).

Sense of self?

At about 1 1/2 infants will touch a spot placed on them if allowed to look in a mirror.

The development of moral reasoning

Kohlberg believed that humans develop different reasons for what is right and wrong. Children tend to equate wrong with

punishment Adults realize that something can be

wrong, even if you are not punished for it

According to Kohlberg there are no moral or immoral decisions, just moral and immoral reasons for making decisions

He devised moral dilemma’s - problems that pit one moral value against another, to examine people’s moral reasoning

Overview of stages

Level 1 - Preconventional morality 1. Obedience and punishment orientation

Rules are obeyed simply to avoid punishment If I keep the money I could get spanked

2. Naïve egotism and instrumental orientation

Rules are obeyed simply to earn rewards If I keep the money I may get to keep some of it.

Level 2 - Conventional morality 3. Good boy/girl orientation

Rules are conformed to in order to avoid disapproval and gain approval

I’m a good boy because I returned the money

4. Authority-maintaining orientation Social conventions blindly accepted to avoid

criticism from those in authority. You shouldn’t keep the money because it is

against the rules and you will get in trouble if you are caught.

Level 3 – Postconventional morality 5. Contractual- legalistic orientation

Morality is based on agreement with others to serve the common good and protect the rights of individuals

I should return the money – if everyone kept things that don’t belong to them it would lead to anarchy.

6. Universal Ethical Principal Orientation Morality is a reflection of internalized standards Rules are obeyed to avoid self condemnation Right is what is universally ethical and respects

human worth, individuality, and other similar abstract concepts.

Keeping the money is wrong – period. In order to maintain respect for myself and humanity – I cannot keep something that does not belong to me.

Limitations of Kohlberg James Rest (1983) divided moral

reasoning into four components 1. Interpret the situation 2. Decide on the morally correct thing to do 3. Decide what you will actually do

may not be the morally correct thing 4. Actually do what you decided to do

Kohlberg’s stages only relate to the first two things on this list

criminals can do well in the abstract, but still do immoral things

Gilligan

Carol Gilligan argued that Kohlberg only presented one type of moral reasoning “justice” orientation -- focuses on rights

and duties. She thought that there was another

aspect to morality The “caring” orientation -- focuses on

helping oneself and others.

Gilligan’s stages

Preconventional - what is helpful or harmful to myself

conventional - what is helpful or harmful to others

postconventional - what is helpful or harmful to myself and others

Vietnam - a group of soldiers is ordered to shoot unarmed civilians One soldier’s refusal to shoot would rank high

on Kohlberg’s list if he did so because he thought it was wrong to kill when unprovoked.

The civilians would still get shot by the other soldiers

It would not rank high for Gilligan. For Gilligan saving the civilians would be a more caring approach

Attachment

A long-term feeling of closeness between people, such as a child and a caregiver comes from satisfaction of biological

needs, but also emotional needs such as social attention.

Harlow (1958)

Studied attachment in Rhesus Monkeys

He had tried to raise baby monkeys in isolated bare wire cages. Even though they were well fed they did

not survive. He found that if a scrap of terry cloth was

in the cage with them, that they did survive.

Harlow inferred that the terry cloth provided some measure of security

He attempted to discover whether infant monkeys had an inborn desire for love or warmth Contact comfort

He raised baby monkeys with “surrogate” mothers.

A wire figure covered in terry cloth A wire figure with no terry cloth.

Both figures could be fitted with bottles of milk.

In some cases the wire mother provided milk, in other cases the terry cloth mother provided milk.

Which do you think the babies preferred? Do you think the monkey’s grew up to be

normal?

Harlow’s Monkeys Did not have normal social and sexual

behavior Females, became very poor mothers,

that ignored their babies. Later Harlow found that if he took

babies reared by artificial mothers and integrated them into a social group of younger monkeys they turned out normal.

The message from the Harlow study, is that even for nonhumans, more is needed than just food and water from care givers.

For Infants to develop normally, they need comfort and support, as well as social signals.

How do we measure Attachment in humans? Ainsworth (1979) - The Strange

Situation A mother and an infant (12-18 months)

come into a room with many toys. A stranger enters The mother leaves, then returns both the stranger and the mother leave the stranger returns the mother returns

A researcher watches the infant through a one-way mirror

Four categories of infant responses. 1) Securely attached –

Infant uses the mother as base of exploration

shows mother toys. Shows some distress when mother leaves, but

cries only a little if at all. Baby greets mother with delight when she

returns.

2) Anxiously Attached

Infant clings to mother Cries profusely when she leaves,

as if worried she won’t come back. Clings to mother when she returns.

3) Anxious and avoidant

Infant does not interact with mother when she is present.

The infant cries when she leaves, but does not go to her when she returns

4) Disorganized

The infant pays little attention to the mother

Doesn’t seem to notice when she leaves, or when she returns. An anxious and avoidant child can

grow up normally, but research shows that a disorganized child is likely to be troubled

deviant aggressive behavior by age 5.