Piagets theory of child development has raised questions and criticisms, because he suggest that there is a particular stage during a child’s life when he/she is able to do certain things some researchers have challenged his theory and established that certain children can be taught theses things if they are encouraged to. It could be argued that Piaget overlooked the variations in individual children’s thinking as opposed to Piaget focusing on the average or typical child. Piaget also only focused on children’s interactions with their environment however more recent evidence shows that children’s cognitive development can be influenced by their social development with others around them
Piaget outlined several principles for building cognitive structures. During all development stages, the child experiences his or her environment using whatever mental maps he or she has constructed so far however this may not be the case in all circumstances.
The case of a young girl called Genie. Genie was discovered by the authorities at the age of 13 after being kept in virtual isolation for the majority of her life and having suffered abuse from her parents.
According to Piaget, Genie was supposed to have been at the formal operation stage in her development, so in that case she should have been able to do things such as mental arithmetic, be able to manipulate thoughts and have personal thoughts on issues such as morality, honesty and freedom however Genie had been tied down to a potty for most of the time, could only consume baby food and her development was relentlessly damaged and retarded. Genie could not communicate and had no language she also made very little sound due to being beaten for making noise, again according to Piaget, Genie should have been able to communicate because of her age she would have experienced the preoperational stage in where this is learnt.
Genie was treated for a year in hospital until her therapist David Rigler began to look after her for a further 4 years. During her therapists care Genie began to communicate very well she also became attached to the therapist and his family of whom she lived and began to became more sociable with but even with this progress Genie remained to display difficult behavior and due to funding issues Rigler could no longer take care of her and she returned to her biological mother. Unfortunately her mother was unable to cope with Genie so she was placed in foster care where she was yet again treated extremely badly. This then resulted in Genie relapsing.
Piaget’s theory has faced minor criticism but one major criticism facing his theory in connection with the case of Genie is that he failed to take into consideration and account the child’s social environment. Genies social environment was not the one that Piaget talked about; her environment was different to that of the children he had studied. Piaget states that all children experience the stages and they all do so at particular ages, this however is contradicted in the case of Genie because she even at the age of 13 had not yet experienced the preoperational stage. Piaget’s theory however does state that children require stimulation and this is clear to see in the case of Genie because when Dr Rigler began to look after her she began to learn and was slowly being socialized and stimulated.
This particular study illustrates that extreme privation has long-lasting and severe effects on both cognitive development (language) and emotional development (attachment). The study also demonstrates that these effects can be reversed to some extent with high quality care.
An attachment can be described as very close emotional bond to another person. Within child development this occurs between infants and the person/people who are involved with them.
During the first three months of these babies’ lives they are actively sociable with any caregiver but after a few months the infant becomes willing and they begin to respond to people who they are most familiar with.
There are factors which are essential for the development of attachment. One of these factors is known socially as sensitive responsiveness which means responding appropriately to the babies’ specific needs. For example being able to understand and differentiate between a baby’s cry of pain and a cry of hunger.
An example of an attachment study is that of Rene Spitz and Katherine Wolf (1946). This was an observational study where babies were being brought up by their biological mothers in prison. These babies where then separated from their mothers as a result of a prison re-building programme at the ages ranging from between six and eight months old which as we know are the crucial stages in where attachments first occur. The babies were separated for the duration of three months and during this time the babies were cared for by other mothers. Throughout the time these babies spent with their alternative mothers it was noted by Spitz and Wolf that they cried more and became distressed more easily and they also failed to gain weight during this period. They were then re-united with their biological mothers and returned to normal behavior.
Spitz and Wolf concluded that the negative effects that were displayed by the babies were due to separation from their mothers.
Arguably it could be concluded that the babies had also experienced other changes for instance disruption to their familiar patterns of maternal and emotional care. The fact that they were in a different physical environment could have prompted these negative effects. These alternative mothers were not familiar with the babies and were also unfamiliar with the factors that are important for the development attachment.
Due to the alternative mothers being unfamiliar with the babies they would then be unable to demonstrate sensitive responsiveness to the baby’s efforts to communicate and also may have provided low levels of stimulation.
Perception within psychology is basically the mental organization and the interpretation of sensory information so in other words it is the process of taking in and using information.
Perceptual development is perceived as the way in which humans and animals develop their seeing capability.
It is believed that we are born with certain perceptual abilities which are then further developed through maturation. Some believe that we are born with only basic sensorys in which are perceptual abilities are enhanced through experience and interaction with the environment.
It is improbable to define the source of our perceptual abilities but it appears that our perceptual abilities cultivate as a result of interaction between environmental and also innate factors.
If perceptual abilities are in fact innate then they should be evident in neonates and if perceptual abilities are further developed through association with learning and experiencing with the environment then these abilities would then not be present within neonates.
Depth perception is a complex skill and babies require it from an early age so they are able to carry out simple tasks such as reaching out for a toy or deciding whether it is safe to roll
The ability to perceive depth was challenged by Gibson and Walk in 1960. They devised an apparatus called the ‘Visual Cliff’ to distinguish whether babies could detect depth. The apparatus consisted of a glass topped table with a checked pattern fixed directly to the underside of one half of the glass and fixed to the floor beneath the other half of the glass. This created a visual drop bearing in mind it was an illusion because the babies was prevented from falling due to the glass top preventing it.
Gibson and Walk placed babies as young as six months to fourteen months on the table to observe whether they would crawl over the deep side (visual drop). Gibson and Walk noticed that the babies would refrain from crawling over to the deep side even when encouraged to do so. They also conducted the exact same study but instead used one day old chicks, kittens, lambs and even kids in which most of them refrained from walking over to the deep side. Gibson and Walk altered their study by blindfolding one eye and also increasing the size of the checked squares but this failed to encourage the babies to walk over the other side.
Gibson and Walk’s experiment illustrates that young animals seem to have innate abilities due to the fact that they refused to walk over to the deep side showing that they have acquired the abilities to judge depth from neonate stage this however was not the case for the babies used in the experiment as Gibson and Walk could not conclude that depth perception was innate in humans. Gibson and Walk were unable to use babies under the age of six months because they required babies who were independently mobile, meaning they required babies that could crawl which neonates were unable to do. This instantly made it possible that these babies could have learnt depth perception within these first six months of their lives. In other words if they had used one week old babies their experiment would have been much more accurate as they would have been able to distinguish whether this ability was in fact innate
The nature nurture debate is that of which is likely to remain inconclusive by psychologists. The nature aspect of the nature nurture debate declares that our skills are innate which initiates we are born with these skills however the nurture side of the debate states that are skills are socially learnt. This debate is common amongst psychologists and also society and it becomes imperative when we consider things such as mental illnesses or even our intelligence. This topic is also important when considering our personalities and behavior because we question whether these are the results of the nature side or the nurture side,
Our perceptual abilities are considered when we question this debate. The role of nature in the development of perception argues that if our abilities are inherited then they should be present at birth, which can be difficult for psychologists to determine as verbal communication with neonates is impossible so to obtain an accurate theory of this becomes difficult. Gibson’s and Walks visual cliff (1960) concluded that babies have an inborn ability to perceive depth enabling this perceptual ability to have been hereditary.
On the contrary the role of nurture in the development of perception argues that our abilities are learnt socially. Hubel conducted a study in where newly born kittens had one of their eyelids sewn together so they could not open it as they matured. Some kittens had their right eye sewn and some their left. Hubel discovered that the part of the brain that corresponded to the eye that had been sewn up at birth was extremely underdeveloped and the part of the brain corresponding to the eye not sewn was much more developed. This suggests that the part of the brain corresponding to vision develops from stimulation from the environment and is underdeveloped without stimulation. So to conclude the environment can be seen as an influence towards the development of perceptual ability which supports the nurture side of the debate.
This study could be criticized for the fact that Hubel used kittens and it could be argued that the human brain and an animal’s brain are different so this theory cannot be applied to humans.
One of the main ethical issues within psychology is the protection of participants from physical and also psychological harm; this then limit’s a psychologists control over them whilst carrying out these studies
