PSY1011 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Lev Vygotsky, Fallacy, Baby Boomers
15 May 2018
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Vygotsky’s Theory: Social and Cultural influences on learning
All higher cognitive processes have their origins in social interactions.
Interested in how social and cultural factors influence learning.
The children is an apprentice.
Scaffolding – provision of assistance by a parent/teacher that allows child to perform at a level
above what they would not have been able to do without that assistance.
o Can’t do on their own and needs assistance.
Zone of proximal development – Difference between what a child can do independently and
what they can do with assistance from a more competent other.
o Ideal range where children learn.
CONTEMPORARY THEORIES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT:
❖ Focus on internal mental operations e.g. information processing models.
❖ Active process with no stages.
❖ Treats mind as a set of interacting components.
o General cognitive accounts (resembles Piaget):
▪ Emphasises general cognitive abilities and acquire rather than innate
knowledge.
▪ Piaget’s commitment to general cognitive process and experience-based
learning.
o Sociocultural accounts (resembles Vygotsky)
▪ Emphasise the social context and the way in which interactions with
caretakers and other children guides children’s understanding of the world.
o Modular accounts (resembles Vygotsky):
▪ Emphasises idea of domain specific learning
▪ E.g the knowledge base for understanding language may be independent of
the ability to reason about space with no overlapping cognitive skills between
them.
o Carey – conceptual change:
▪ Emphasis on the role of experience in cognitive development.
▪ Children as ‘naïve scientists’.
▪ Full cognitive potential is attained at a much earlier age (7-9)
▪ Children can be at different levels for different knowledge domains.
▪ Incremental, no stage like.
▪ Process of theory-building within different cognitive domains.
▪ Being to understand the internal workings of the body.
▪ Capable of perceiving the inside of living things as being composed of many
internal parts and can understand their functions.
• E.g stomach does not want to digest food, that’s just the way the
body works.
Self-concept and the concept of ‘other’
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Document Summary
Vygotsky"s theory: social and cultural influences on learning. All higher cognitive processes have their origins in social interactions. Interested in how social and cultural factors influence learning. Scaffolding provision of assistance by a parent/teacher that allows child to perform at a level above what they would not have been able to do without that assistance: can"t do on their own and needs assistance. Zone of proximal development difference between what a child can do independently and what they can do with assistance from a more competent other. Focus on internal mental operations e. g. information processing models. Incremental, no stage like. internal parts and can understand their functions: e. g stomach does not want to digest food, that"s just the way the body works. 3 months can distinguish self from others. 1 years old can recognize self in mirror, imitate people"s behaviour. 2 years old can recognize pictures of self.
