PSYC 2450 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Social Learning Theory, Little Albert Experiment, Street Children
14 Apr 2013
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Document Summary
Major controversies about human development: nature/nurture issue. Nurture: environmental influences are most important: active/passive issue. Passive: children are passive recipients of environmental influence: continuous/discontinuity issue. Discontinuity: development is a series of discrete stages. Quantitative change: incremental change in degree without sudden transformations. Qualitative change: change in kind that makes individuals fundamentally different than they were before; the transformation of paralinguistic infant into language user is viewed as qualitative change. Developmental stages: discontinuity theorists say we progress through developmental stages, each with a distinct phase; a period characterized by a particular set of abilities, motives, behaviours, or emotions that occur together and from a coherent pattern. Parsimony: a criterion for evaluating the scientific merit of theories- a parsimonious theory is a theory with few principals that account for a large number of empirical evidence. Heuristic value: a criterion for evaluating the scientific merit of theories- a heuristic theory is one that continues to stimulate new research and discoveries.
