Issues in Developmental Psychology
Nature and Nurture
 Heredity imposes some limits on what a
person can become.
 Home, education, nutrition, etc. can evoke
positive and negative influences.
• Resilience: the ability to bounce back
• Vulnerabilities

Difficult temperament, genetic disorders
• Protective factors

High intelligence, good coordination, easy-going
personality
Stages or No Stages
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Quantitative changes — height
Qualitative changes — advancements
in logical thinking
Jean Piaget
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Important Concepts:
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Changes in schemes underlie four
stages of cognitive development
Each stage reflects a qualitatively
different way of reasoning and
understanding the world
Stages occur in fixed sequence
Accomplishments of one stage provide
the foundation for the next stage

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Children throughout the world
seem to progress through the
stages in the same order, but
they show individual differences
in the rate they pass through
them
Each child’s rate is influenced by
the level of maturation and
experience
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Transition from one stage to
another is gradual, not abrupt
Children often show aspects of
two stages while going through
transitions
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

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Organization
• Human’s have a basic tendency to
organize knowledge!
• Mental process that uses specific
experiences to make inferences that
are generalized to new experiences
ADAPTATION
• Humans are hard wired to adapt to
their environment.

Schemes
• A cognitive structure or concept
used to identify and interpret
information’
Piaget conceptualized
two processes for adaptation.

Assimilation
• The process by which new objects,
events, or experiences, or information is
incorporated into existing schemes

A child who calls any male stranger
“Daddy”
• We fit new information into existing
schemes.
• We have to “stick” new knowledge into
prior knowledge that we already have.
When we can’t relate to an existing scheme, we have to
form a new one!

Accommodation
• The process by which existing schemes
are modified and new schemes are
created
• Incorporates new objects, events,
experiences, or information
• THIS IS LEARNING!!
EQUILIBRATION
Mental process motivating humans to
keep schemes in balance
When we achieve balance between
assimilation and accommodation
If we apply a particular scheme, and
the scheme works … we are
satisfied.
WHEN WE CAN’T MAKE IT MAKE SENSE
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Scheme does not produce
satisfying result.
DISEQUILIBRIUM
• Brains are hard wired to DISLIKE
• THIS IS COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
• PRIME time for learning
NEW INFO
NEW INFO
Can relate to prior
Can’t relate, doesn’t
facts
fit
Can explain using
Can’t explain,
what we already know
Must modify or adjust
thinking
ASSIMILATION
ACCOMODATION
Assimilation
Accommodation
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years)
• Infants gain an understanding of
the world through their senses and
their motor activities
 Actions and body movements
 Infant’s behavior gradually moves from mostly
reflexive to complex and intelligent
 Infant learns to respond to and manipulate
objects and use them in goal-directed activity
• Object Permanence

Realization that objects continue to exist, even when
they can no longer be perceived
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)
• Symbolic Function

The understanding that one thing
can stand for another
• An object, a word, a drawing
• The use of words to present object
 Orange - both a color and a fruit
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Pretend Play
• Imagining a block is a car
• Imagining a doll is a real baby
Pre-operational child
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Are ego centric – tend to center
on their own viewpoint. Does
not necessarily mean they are
selfish or egotistical.
Developing THEORY OF MIND –
have a difficult time
understanding how someone
else’s mind works.
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Concrete Stage
(7-11 or 12 years)
• Reversibility

Realization that any change
in the shape, position, or
order of matter can be
reversed mentally
• Conservation

Concept that a given
quantity of matter remains
the same despite being
rearranged or changed in
appearance, as long as
nothing is added or taken
away
Concrete Stage

Children and adolescents can
think logically about real things (concrete) things
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Formal Operations
(11 or 12 years and beyond)
• Preadolescents and adolescents can
apply logical thought to abstract,
verbal, and hypothetical situations
and to problems in the past,
present, or future
• The world of adolescents
• Hypothetic-Deductive Thinking
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Ability to base logical reasoning on a
hypothetical premise
Comprehend abstract subjects like
philosophy and politics and become
interested in the world of ideas
Begin to formulate their own theories
and think of what might be
• Conceive of “perfect” solutions to the
world’s and their own problems
• Ability to engage in proportional
reasoning.
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
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Formal Operations (continued)
• Naïve Idealism
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A type of thought in which adolescents
construct ideal solutions for problems
Teens with divorced parents may idealize
the non-custodial parent
• Imaginary Audience
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Adolescents believe that they are or
will be the focus of attention in social
situations and that others will be as
critical or approving as they are of
themselves
Teens spend many hours in front of the
mirror trying to please this audience
• Personal Fable
 An exaggerated sense of personal
uniqueness and indestructibility
•May be the basis for adolescent
risk taking
•Many believe they are somehow
indestructible and protected
from misfortunes that befall
others
LEV VYGOTSKY
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Approach
Vygotsky hypothesized that much of a child’s
cognitive development results from the
internalization of information acquired socially,
primarily through language.
• Children come equipped with basic skills
 Perception
 Ability to pay attention
 Certain memory capacities
Zone of Proximal Development
• Range of cognitive tasks that a child
cannot yet complete but can learn
to do through the guidance of an
older child or adult
ZONE OF PROXIMAL DEVELOPMENT
Level of assisted performance
ZPD
Level of independent performance
Assisted
DYNAMICS OF THE ZONE
ZPD3
Assisted
ZPD2
Assisted
ZPD1
Independent
Independent
Time
Independent
Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Approach
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Scaffolding
• Term actually coined by Jerome
Brunner
• Type of instruction in which an adult (or
more advanced individual,) adjusts the
amount of guidance provided to match an
individual’s present level of ability
• Direct instructions are given
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First for unfamiliar tasks
As competency increases the more
advanced individual gradually
withdraws from direct and active
teaching
The learner continues toward
independent mastery of the task
Parent helps child ride bike by holding
it, lets go as child can balance and ride
by themselves.
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Naturally occurs within the
context of parent-child
interaction
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Helping a child learn how to put shapes
into the right holes
Tools mediate the learning
experience
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Metacognition
Self Regulation
Adolescents and Adults
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Apprentice model
May learn from peers
May learn from other adults (not
necessarily family members)