Development: How did you develop?

Early Brain Development

When the foetus is 3 or 4 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 forming every second. The brain doubles in size in the 1st year
and reaches 80% of its size by three.
 Development: How did you develop?
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 Irreversibility. 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’s 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
 Development: How did you develop?
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 ‘decenter’.

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
 Development: How did you develop?
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.
Generalizability: 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.
 Development: How did you develop?
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.
 Development: How did you develop?
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 behavior 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 can lead to a child developing an entity motivational framework.
Entity motivational framework: Behavior and ability is fixed and based on a child’s nature.
Process praise can lead to a child developing an incremental motivational framework.
Incremental motivational framework: Behavior 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
ecological validity of the study.
Validity: The researchers who videotaped and analyzed the data did not know what the study was on.
This means the interpretation is less likely to be influenced by bias.
Generalizability: There were a mixture of participant’s cultures.

Weaknesses:
Ethical issues: The ethics can be criticized. 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
behavior towards their child.
 Development: How did you develop?
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 behavior.
From 10 years onwards its about bad actions could have good consequences = autonomous. Individuals
are responsible for their own behavior 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 realize 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 realize 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 generalizable to women’s
morality.
 Memory: How does your memory work?
Input: Sensory information in the environment
Encoding: Turning sensory information in to a form that can be stored
Acoustic Encoding: Storing sounds in memory
Visual Encoding: Storing visual information
Semantic Encoding: Storing meaningful information
Output: Recalling information e.g. behavioral response

Theories of Memory - Multi Store Model of Memory (MSM)

Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin developed the multi-store model of memory in 1968.

They looked at the findings from memory experiments conducted by other researchers and were able to
identify 3 different stores in our memory system: The sensory register, Short term memory and Long term
memory.
Sensory register/memory
If you think about all of the sensory information around you in your environment (everything you see, touch,
taste, hear, smell) you can understand that we register a lot of information briefly. We do not pay attention to
all of the information around us.
For example, if you’re at a party you register noise around you such as people talking and the music
playing. However, you don’t pay attention to all of it, just the person talking to you.

Short term memory

Information that we pay attention to gets transferred to our short term memory (STM). Here it can be stored
for between 18-30 seconds (this is known as the duration of STM). The capacity of the STM is 7+/-2.
If we have too much information in the short term store the older information is pushed out (displaced). If
we rehearse the information we are able to store it for longer. If the information is rehearsed for long enough
then it gets transferred into our LTM.

Long term memory

Your long term memory can hold information for up to a lifetime (duration) and has a limitless capacity. Long
term memories are believed to be mainly semantic memories- those with meanings.
Information can be retrieved from the LTM so we are able to recall things from the past. However if memories
aren’t accessed then we can lose them, which is called decay.
Key words
Attention: Taking notice of an event or information.
Rehearsal: Repeating information to increase the duration of a memory
Retrieval: Recalling a memory
Decay: Forgetting information in the long term memory as it has broken down
Displacement: Forgetting information in the short term memory due to incoming information

Capacity and Duration

Capacity: The amount of information stored
Duration: The length of time information is stored

Evaluation of the MSM

Strengths:

Has Support: Case studies of patients with brain damage shows distinct separate STM and LTM
stores

Is Useful: It gives a good structure of the short term memory which means researchers can expand
and improve on.

Has Support: Case studies have shown that we have no STM but a LTM such as clive wearing)

Weaknesses:

No Freewill: Not all information is rehearsed and transferred into LTM, it can decay and displace.
 Memory: How does your memory work?
Reconstructive Memory (Bartlett, 1932)

Reconstruction means that our memories are not exact copies… but are influenced by our prior
knowledge and our expectations known as schemas.
Schemas: A packet of knowledge about an event, person or place that influences how we perceive and
remember.
How are schemas formed?
1.Personal experience
2.Stereotypes
3.Culture

How do schemas influence memory?

Omissions: We leave out unfamiliar, unpleasant or irrelevant details
Transformations: Details are changed to make them more rational (make sense)
Familiarization: We change unfamiliar details to align with our own schema
Rationalization: We add details to our recall to give a reason for something that may not have
originally fitted with a schema

Evaluating Reconstructive memory

Strengths
Real world application: The theory has helped the police understand that eye witness testimony
is unreliable. This has meant that the police can change the way that they interview witnesses to
ensure they are consistent.
Useful: Bartlett conducted his research using folk stories and images, often asking participants to
remember them hours, days or even years later. His methods can be viewed as a test of memory in
the real world because remembering stories is a realistic use of memory.

Weaknesses
Not useful: Bartlett developed his theory by reading through and interpreting the pictures and
stories produced by participants. He analysed each story and picture himself and gave his own
interpretation of the material the participants recalled. This means the data could be subjective
which is seen as unscientific.
Not useful: Bartlett was not particularly scientific in his procedures. He was interested in each
participant’s unique memories, rather than the use of standardised procedures and controls. This may
weaken the research that was used to form the theory.

Amnesia
Amnesia is a special type of forgetting affecting the LTM.
Amnesia is characterised by forgetting or memory loss, particularly after a brain injury.
There are two types: Retrograde amnesia and Anterograde amnesia
Retrograde amnesia is being unable to recall information from before a brain injury. For example, someone who
can not remember that they got married 10 years ago after experiencing a head injury last year.
Anterograde amnesia is being unable to recall information from after a brain injury. For example, someone who
is unable to remember that they passed their driving test last week after experiencing a head injury 2 years
ago.
Study 1: Peterson and Peterson (1959)
By rehearsing, we can store information in out STM
Aim: To test the duration of the STM
Procedure:
Experiment 1
24 students
Repeat out loud trigram (three constonants) e.g. LTG, NPF, BZL.
Count backwards in 3s from 400
When signalled by a red light the student had to recall the trigram.
Each student read aloud 8 times with time delays
The procedure was repeated 48 times using different trigrams.

Experiment 2
Same tasks but participants were given time to repeat the trigram before counting.

Findings:
Experiment 1
The longer each student counted backwards, the less able they were to accurately recall the trigram.
80% correctly recalled trigrams after 3 second. Less than 10% accurate recall after 18 seconds
Experiment 2
The extra time increased the frequency to recall. However, they show a decline over time.
Conclusion: Information fades rapidly from the STM with accurate recall of the trigrams decreasing
rapidly over the duration of 18 seconds. Therefore, short-term memory has limited duration
(about 18 seconds).

Evaluation of Peterson and Peterson (1959)

Strengths

Reliability: The study used fixed timings when they counted backwards. The research can be said to
have good control and makes sure the participants experience the same process.
Real world application: The study helps us in real life as it suggests you should revise in small chunks
to improve the duration of memories.
Validity: They used nonsense trigrams for participants to remember because real words could have
personal meaning for some participants which makes them more memorable. This means they have
controlled important extraneous variables.

Weaknesses

Validity: The research was a laboratory experiment and in an unnatural environment. The participants
would not be familiar to this high amount of control so the procedure lacks ecological validity.
Validity: The research used nonsense trigrams which is not how we would typically use our memory in
everyday situations. The means the procedure lacks mundane realism.
Generalizability: The participants were all students which means their memory doesn’t truly reflect
the wider population as they might be able to remember more as their brains are still developing and
learning.
Validity: The researchers only recorded the number of trigrams that were recalled, and therefore
were not able to interpret the results in different ways.
 Memory: How does your memory work?
Study 2: Bartlett’s War of The Ghosts (1932)

Bartlett used folk stories to test his theories out. The story used to test reconstruction and schema
theory was known as the ‘War of Ghosts’
Aim: To test if personal schemas influence the retelling of a story
Procedure: Participants read the story of the WOG twice.

 They then had to recall the story using serial reproduction and repeated reproduction.

Serial Reproduction: A technique where participants retell storied to each other to form a chain.
Repeated Reproduction: Where participants retell a story over and over again

 Serial reproduction: retell it 15-30 mins later.

 Repeated reproduction: write out the story 15 mins later, recall it after minutes, days, hours,
months and years.

Findings: Barlett using qualitative analysis.

For both types of recall, PPT were found making changes and connections (rationalisation). E.g ‘black
came out his mouth’ to ‘he foamed out the mouth.’
And omissions. ‘canoe’ to ‘boat’ and ‘hunting’ to ‘fishing.’
Conclusions: Participants did not recall accurately but were influenced by schemas and altered
details to fit their schema.

Evaluation of War of The Ghosts

Strengths

Validity: Remembering a story is an everyday test of memory. This means the procedure is more
naturalistic giving the study ecological validity.
Reliability: The study was replicated and the same results were found using various studies.
Validity: Results were gathered using qualitative analysis. This means the real nature of
reconstructive memory can be understood through its meaning.

Weaknesses

Validity: The story was not familiar, illogical and contained strange words which could be a reason
why participants were unable to remember it. Therefore, participants could have changed their
answers because the task was difficult but not because they couldn’t remember. therefore this was
not an accurate test of memory.
Validity: Results were gathered using qualitative analysis which is considered unscientific because
Bartlett interpreted the recalled stories and may have been biased towards his theory.
Reliability: Participants read the story at their own pace and recalled their version after different
timed intervals. This means Bartlett’s study lacks controls and was unscientific therefore people who
took longer to read the story may have performed better as they had longer to remember it.