PSYC 160 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: 18 Months, Mental Representation, Object Permanence
Psychology Notes
Chapter 5
Fudaetals of Piaget’s Theor:
• Action = Knowledge
• All children pass through 4 stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete, formal)
• Movement between stages occurs at certain level of physical maturation
• Schemes – basic building blocks of understanding; mental structures
o Organized patterns of functioning that adapt and change with development
o Assimilation and accommodation underlie schemes
Sensorimotor Stage:
• Age at which infants reach stage vary among children
• 6 substages:
1. Simple reflexes (1st month)
▪ Ior reflees at eter of ifat’s phsial/ogitie lies deteriig
interactions with world
▪ Soe reflees aoodate ifat’s eperiee ith ature of orld
2. Habits and circular reactions (1st-4th months)
▪ Coordinate separate actions into single, integrated activities
▪ Schemes reflecting repetition of enjoyable actions
3. Secondary circular reactions (4th-8th months)
▪ Shift of cognitive horizons beyond themselves and beginning of actions
on world
4. Coordination of secondary circular reactions (8th-12th months)
▪ Goal-directed behavior – schemes are combines/coordinated to a single
act to solve problem
▪ Object permanence – realization that people/objects exist even when
not seen
5. Tertiary circular reactions (12th-18th months)
▪ Miniature experiments to see consequences
▪ Interest in unexpected
6. Beginnings of thought (18th month-2 years)
▪ Capacity for mental representation/symbolic thought
▪ Mental representation – internal image of past event/object
▪ Ability to pretend (deferred imitation)
Preoperational Thinking (2-7 years):
• Symbolic thinking grows, use of concepts increases
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Document Summary
Sensorimotor stage: age at which infants reach stage vary among children, 6 substages, simple reflexes (1st month) Interest in unexpected: beginnings of thought (18th month-2 years, capacity for mental representation/symbolic thought, mental representation internal image of past event/object, ability to pretend (deferred imitation) Preoperational thinking (2-7 years): symbolic thinking grows, use of concepts increases. Concrete (7-12 years): active and appropriate us of logic, reversibility. Formal (12-15 years): ability to think beyond concrete, current situation, thinking abstractly via formal principles of logic, fully settle in formal operational stage at age 15, adolescents become more argumentative. Critics of piaget: concept of stages, overlooked importance of sensory/perceptual systems, u(cid:374)deresti(cid:373)atio(cid:374) of (cid:272)hild"s (cid:272)apa(cid:271)ilities, claims that preschoolers have little understanding of numbers, time of appearance of conservation does not match recent experiments, cultural issues. Labouvie-vief: post-formal thought, acknowledges that adult predicaments mist sometimes be solved in relativistic terms. Perry developmental growth includes mastering new ways of understanding world.
