GCSE Psychology 9-1

@TuxfordAcademy

5. Development

Development: How did you develop?

Early Brain Development

When the foetus is ¾ weeks old, a long tube develops in the brain. It forms 3 distinct
sections.

By 5 weeks old, the forebrain and hindbrain have split into two (anterior and posterior
parts)

Anterior: front part of the brain

Posterior: back part of the brain

At 6 weeks old the cerebellum develops as well as the medulla oblongata.

Cerebellum: Joins the midbrain and spinal cord. It is responsible for balance, coordination
and moving.

Medulla Oblongata: Responsible for automatic/involuntary responses e.g. breathing,

blinking and sneezing.
Neural connections development

From birth to three years old is a time of rapid brain development! There is an increase in
the amount of neural connections. With 700-1000 (tel:700-1000) forming every second. The
brain doubles in size in the 1st year and reaches 80% of its size by three.

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Cognitive development are the changes we go through in terms of our thinking, problem
solving, perception and language.

Piaget suggested that all children will go through FOUR stages of cognitive development
like a transition. These stages are UNIVERSAL and INVARIANT.

Universal: Relating to all everyone

Invariant: Never changing

Stages of Cognitive Development

0-2 years – Sensorimotor

2-7 years – Pre Operational

7-11 years – Concrete Operational

11+ years – Formal operational

Sensorimotor Stage

Infants explore the world using their senses. They learn through smell, hearing and touch.
At 6 months, they develop object permanence and often repeat actions such as dropping
items.

Object permanence: They know that an object exist even when it is out of sight.
Pre-Operational

This stage is divided into two aspects: Symbolic Stage and Intuitive Stage.

Symbolic Stage is when children use symbols to represent objects. Animism can also be
seen and children are egocentric.

Animism: believe that all objects are alive e.g. children talk to their teddies and dolls

Egocentric: Only see the world from their own view.

Intuitive Stage is when children use reasoning to understand the world. Children can only
focus on one aspect of a situation. This is known as Centration. There is
also Irriversibility. This is when a child is not able to use thought to reverse an event such
as knowing that if water from a wide glass is poured into a tall glass so it looks as if there is
more water, when the water is poured back into the wide it will look the same as it did.

Concrete Operational

Children can apply rules and strategies to aid their understanding and thinking.
Abilities in this stage include:

Seriation: Sorting objects, such as into size

Classification: Naming and identifying objects

Reversibility: can reverse actions

Conversion: Understanding quantity and length stay the same

Decentration: Taking multiple views

Formal Operational Stage

Children’s thinking has more control. They can understand abstract though, understand
time and how it’s changed and can examine consequences.

Evaluating Piaget’s stages of Cognitive

Development

Strengths:

Real work application: Piaget’s work has practical applications and can be used in
education to help children to develop into the next stage.

Research support: Research shows the existence of  the stages which increases the validity
of the theory.

Useful: Piaget’s data came from interviews and observations with children which means
there is a lot of in depth data which increases the validity of the theory.

Weaknesses:

Lack of research support: Some studies show children develop earlier than Piaget thought
which reduces the validity of the theory.

Not useful: Piaget’s theory did not look at the influence of social interactions or cultural
setting which could impact on a child’d development.
Not useful: Piaget’s data came from interviews and observations with children. The
children may have lied or provided socially desirable responses and the observations may
be subjective to the interpreter.

Lack of research support: Repeating Piaget’s research in a more natural setting produced
different results therefore the theory is not reliable.

Schema development

Equilibrium: Children experience the world around them and the schemas work for them.
For example, a child sees an animal with four legs and calls it a horse this is their schema.
Therefore, every four legged animal is a horse = equilibrium

Disequilibrium: As they experience new things in life, new information is added which does
not make sense in terms of their schema. E.g. A child sees a zebra, it has four legs but its not
a horse??? = disequilibrium

Assimilation: Children need to incorporate new information into their schema to

accommodate new info. E.g. A child learns about new animals = assimilation

Accommodate: when new information or experiences cause you to modify your

existing schemas
Developmental Study 1

Piaget and Inhelder (1959)

Background: Children in the pre-operational stage sees the world from their own
viewpoint. Understanding there are other viewpoints is something that develops. This helps
move into the concrete operational stage where they ‘decentre’.

Aims: The extent to what ages do children take the view of another person and children’s
system of putting together different views of what they see.

Procedure: 100 participants took part between the ages of 4-12

4 – 6.5 years = 21 children

6.5 – 8 years = 30 children

8 – 9.5 years = 33 children

9.5 – 12 years = 16

Materials:

1. A model of three mountains including a house, red cross, snow and a path
2. 10 pictures the three mountains from different positions
3. Pieces of card in the shape of mountains to represent the mountains
4. A wooden doll

Ways of questioning:

1. Place the shapes to show how the mountain looked for them and the doll
2. Pick out of 10 pictures what they could see and the doll could see
3. Choose a picture and position the doll to see that view

Findings:

Pre-operational stage (4-6.5 years): Chooses pictures and shows picture for what they can
see.

Concrete operational stage (7-9 years): Start to understand that others see the model
differently. Children 9-10 years old understand the doll has a different view.
Conclusions:

Children up to 7 were egocentric

Older children were non egocentric
The ‘three mountains’ task supports Piaget’s stages of development

Piaget and Inhelder (1959) Evaluation

Strengths

Validity: Piaget provided a lot of detail about children’s development. We know when
children stop being egocentric.

Reliability: Piaget used careful controls in his study. The same mountain was used every
time.

Validity: Piaget used qualitative data. Data is in detail and from the individual which makes
it valid.

Validity: Children were from Switzerland and familiar with mountain scenery so the task is
argued to be a natural task.

Weaknesses

Validity: Piaget’s study did not have a realistic task. Children were asked to look at
mountains so the study lacks mundane realism.

Validity: Piaget used qualitative data. Participants may give socially desirable responses
which reduces the validity.
Generalisability: Piaget did not have a range of cultures. He only used Swiss children.

Counter research evidence

Helen Borke (1975) stated that children were not egocentric but they found the ‘three
mountains task’ too hard as the task was unrealistic.

Borke changed the wooden doll to Grover (a character from Sesame Street) and the
mountain model was on a turn table that the children could turn themselves.

Borke found that children of 3 years old accurately recalled the view of Grover over 79% of
the time and children ages 4 years old correctly recalled 93% of the time.

Dweck’s mindset theory

Mindset: A set of beliefs we have about our ability to succeed in education and other areas
of our life.

Growth mindset: Believing that practice and effort can improve abilities
Fixed mindset: Believing that your abilities are fixed and unchangeable

Key points of the theory

1) Children should be praised for effort rather than ability

2) Children can develop a fixed mindset and give up on challenges because it is not ‘in
them’ to succeed

3)Teachers also have fixed or growth mindsets – a teacher with a fixed mindset will focus on
a child’s ability whereas a teacher with a growth mindset sees a child can improve with
sticking at things (perseverance).

Strengths 

Research Support: Dweck’s theory of development has support by scientific evidence.For

example, Yeager and Dweck found that using a growth mindset improved 1500 low
achieving students grades.

Free will: Dweck’s theory acknowledges that we have free will. Dweck believes we have the
power to change our thinking and thoughts about challenges and that we can move
mindsets.

Useful: Dweck’s theory is useful. For example, we can use the theory in schools. Teachers
are now instructed to praise effort and give continuous feedback about how to improve
their work, rather than being grade focused.

Weaknesses

Lacks research support: For example David Dadau (2017) wrote an article questioning the
theory as he believed that just because you believe you have a growth mindset doesn’t
increase your abilities.

Not useful: For example, the methods used to support the theory include questionnaires
which are lack validity because participants might lie and provide socially desirable
responses.
Willingham’s theory of practice

Willingham suggested that to learn and develop skills you must have previous knowledge.
Knowledge frees up space in our working memory. This allows us to practice skills such as
problem solving.

Practice and effort

Practicing allows knowledge and skills to move from STM to LTM. Enough practice allows
you to do things automatically. This leaves space in your working memory to learn new
things.

Cognitive, Physical and Social Development

Willingham believed that we can boost children’s cognitive, physical and social
development and suggested strategies that teachers should do to support this:

Cognitive development:

Use problems that are not too far out of student’s reach.
Remember that children’s abilities change every day.

Physical Development:

Focus on what movements would be necessary for a task.

Practice the muscle movements in front of children.

Social Development:

Encourage self-regulation (do not be influenced by others)

Demonstrate appropriate behaviour for children to model.
Evaluating Willingham’s theory of cognitive
development

Strengths:

Real work application: Willingham’s work can be applied to education and other situations
to promote a child’s development in a positive way.

Research support: Betty Repacholi and Alsion Gopnik’s (1997) study provides experimental
support, showing that young children needed the knowledge in Piaget’s experiment before
they could understand the skills.

Weaknesses:

Not useful: Willingham ignored the importance of individual differences in learning. Some
of his theory relates to genes (e.g working memory). What is in someone’s genes cannot be
changed easily using strategies.

Not reductionist (holistic): Willingham’s ideas come many areas of neuroscience, memory
theory and cognitive development. This means that his ideas are not really one singular
theory.

Developmental study 2

Gunderson et al (2013) Parent praise to 1-3 year

olds predicts their motivation. 

Background: There are two types of praise given to children. The type of praise can affect
the type of motivational framework that the child develops.

Person praise (praising the individual) can lead to a child developing an entity motivational
framework.
Entity motivational framework: Behaviour and ability is fixed and based on a child’s
nature.

Process praise (praising the child’s behaviour) can lead to a child developing an incremental
motivational framework.

Incremental motivational framework: Behaviour and ability can be changed with effort

Aims:

1. Are children affected by different types of parental praise?

2. Do parents give more person praise to girls than boys?
3. Does the use of parents praise predict their motivation in later life?

Procedure:

The sample included 29 boys and 24 girls. This included a range of cultures e.g. 64% were
white, 17% were African American, 11% were Hispanic, and 8% were multiracial.

Longitudinal study – Children were assessed using a questionnaire at 14 months, 26 months

and 38 months. Five years later their motivation was reviewed. The questionnaire included
a range of questionnaires about their motivation, morality, beliefs and intelligence

Results: Overall parents gave more process praise than person praise. Process praise was
given more to boys than girls.

Process praise = 18%

Person praise = 16%

Boys = 24% process praise

Girls = 10% process praise

A strong correlation between process praise and motivation was strengthened.

Conclusion:

Clear relationship between parents use of process praise and a child’s later use of
incremental motivational framework (ability being changeable)
Did not find that parental use of person praise led to an entity motivational framework
(ability to fixed)

Evaluating Gunderson et al (2013)

Strengths:

Validity: Gunderson  et al conducted their research in naturalistic settings. This increases

the ecoglogical validity of the study.

Validity: The researchers who videotaped and analysed the data did not know what the
study was on. This means the interpretation is less likely to be influenced by bias.

Generalisability: There were a mixture of participants cultures.

Weaknesses:

Ethical issues: The ethics can be criticised. The participants were told that the study was on
child development.

Validity: The parents were observed during the research and so they may have changed
their behaviour towards their child.

Issues and Debates: Morality

Morals: Understanding what is right and wrong. This can differ depending on situations
and culture.

Moral development: Children’s growing understanding about right and wrong

Piaget

Piaget thought that moral development happens in stages.

From 5-10 years old rules are about punishment and right and wrong. = heteronomous.
Other people provide rules which govern our behaviour.

From 10 years onwards its about bad actions could have good consequences = autonomous.
Individuals are responsible for their own behaviour and decide what is right or wrong.

Kohlberg – Heinz’s dilemma

To assess at what moral stage a child is at, Kohlberg used ‘Heinz’s dilemma’. How children
responded to the dilemma indicated their moral stage.

Heinz’s wife was dying from a particular type of cancer. Doctors said a new drug might
save her. The drug had been discovered by a local chemist, and the Heinz tried desperately
to buy some, but the chemist was charging ten times the money it cost to make the drug,
and this was much more than the Heinz could afford.
Heinz could only raise half the money, even after help from family and friends. He
explained to the chemist that his wife was dying and asked if he could have the drug
cheaper or pay the rest of the money later.
The chemist refused, saying that he had discovered the drug and was going to make money
from it. The husband was desperate to save his wife, so later that night he broke into the
chemist’s and stole the drug.

Kohlberg’s stages of moral development

1. Obedience and punishment: The child is good to avoid punishment.

2. Individualism: Children realise that adults may have different viewpoints.
3. Relationships: The child is good to look good for other people.
4. Law and order: The child is good to uphold rules in society and not feel guilt.
5. Social contract: Children realise that sometimes rules might change for the greater good.
6. Universal Principals: Children develop their own set of morals and laws
Evaluating theories of moral development

Weaknesses:

Not useful: Piaget and Kohlberg used made up unrealistic stories which means the they
lack ecological validity as the answers given might not be the real decisions they would
make.

Not useful: Kohlberg used an all male sample so his findings are not generalisable to
women’s morality.

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