PSYCO105 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Imaginary Audience, Egocentrism
1 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Cognitive Developments
A) Piaget’s Stage Theory → Proposed that children go through 4 stages of development.
a) Need to Pass the previous stage to advance.
i) Stage 1: Sensorimotor (birth to 2 years) → Understand world through sensory
experiences & physical interactions with objects.
(1) Achieve Object Permanence → at about 8 months old, where they understand
that objects continue to exist even when they can no longer be seen.
ii) Stage 2: Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 years old) → World represented symbolically
through words and mental images. Symbolic thinking enables pretend play. Children at
this stage show egocentrism.
iii) Stage 3: Concrete Operational Stage (7-12 years old) → Easily perform basic mental
operations involving tangible problems and situations.
(1) Learn Conservation → Confused by appearance
iv) Stage 4: Formal Operational Stage (After 11 to 12 year olds) → Think logically about
concrete and abstract problems (factoring math equations)
(1) Form and test hypotheses.
b) Beyond Piaget’s Stage Theory → Adolescent Egocentrism
i) Overestimation of uniqueness of feelings, experiences (personal fable).
ii) Oversensitivity to social evaluation (imaginary audience)
c) Stage 5?; Post-formal operational thinking (Adulthood) → Allows for new and more complex ways
people can reason logically about opposing points of view. Accept contradictions and irreconcilable
differences.
B) Theory of Mind → ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others and to understand that others have
their own, possibly differing mental states.
a) The False Belief Task → Wimmer H. & Perner J (1983) → A task which measure one’s level of
understanding of others’ perspective.
i) Sally puts a ball under a red box, does the observer pick the red box or the blue box? →
Children under 5 tend to say “Sally opens the blue box” (Lack a theory of mind), while
children over 5 tend to say “Sally opens the blue box” (have a theory of mind)
C) Scaffolding → Students are pushed just beyond their limit with scaffolding (support)
a) Requires collaborative interaction between the learner and learning helper.
b) Needs to push learner to zone of proximal development
c) Learning helper provides scaffolding support as needed → Helper removes themselves as the
learner gets more proficient.
Social Developments
A) Attachment → A strong emotional bond between children and primary caregivers. These will affect children
in their adulthood.
a) Harlow → Contact comfort more important than nourishment in fostering attachment.
i) Found that physical contact is the important factor in creating attachments. Whereas
providing nourishment does not create a strong sense of attachment. Therefore, physical
contact results in a stronger attachment than nourishment.
b) Studying Attachment
i) Strange Situation Test → Baby (12-18 months) → Tests how the baby reacts to this
‘strange situation’
(1) Mother plays with Child
(2) Stranger enters to interact with child
(3) Mother leaves (alone with stranger)
(4) Stranger later leaves (baby alone)
c) Attachment Styles
i) Secure Attachment → Explore & React positively to strangers.
Document Summary
Cognitive developments: piaget"s stage theory proposed that children go through 4 stages of development, need to pass the previous stage to advance. i) ii) iii) iv) Stage 2: preoperational stage (2 to 7 years old) world represented symbolically through words and mental images. Stage 3: concrete operational stage (7-12 years old) easily perform basic mental operations involving tangible problems and situations. (1) learn conservation confused by appearance. Stage 4: formal operational stage (after 11 to 12 year olds) think logically about concrete and abstract problems (factoring math equations) (1) form and test hypotheses: beyond piaget"s stage theory adolescent egocentrism i) ii) Overestimation of uniqueness of feelings, experiences (personal fable). ; post-formal operational thinking (adulthood) allows for new and more complex ways people can reason logically about opposing points of view. Learning helper provides scaffolding support as needed helper removes themselves as the learner gets more proficient. Social developments: attachment a strong emotional bond between children and primary caregivers.
