Piaget and Vygotsky theory. Compare and contrast two theories of cognitive development and discuss how they impact on the contemporary early years practice.
Compare and contrast two theories of cognitive development and discuss how they impact on the contemporary early years practice. Part 1 Piaget believed that children learn through their own activity and experience. He claimed that children construct their own knowledge by giving meaning to the people, places and things in their world. He was fond of the expression "construction is superior to instruction" (Merrill 1992). By this he meant that children learn best when they are actually doing the work themselves and creating their own understanding of what's going on. Piaget believed children need every possible opportunity to do things for themselves. For example children might be interested in how things grow; this will increase the child's knowledge base. However if the child has the opportunity to actually plant something, the process of digging, watering, observing and actually experiencing growing things will help the child to construct a knowledge of growing things that he/she cannot achieve just by looking at the pictures. According to Piaget, babies are born with the ability to adapt and learn from the environment. He believed that a child goes through four stages: sensory motor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. Piaget developed his theory of development stages from observing his own three children and many other young children. Sensory
Two attributional biases with evidence
Discuss at least two attributional biases, refer to evidence in your answer (10) Attribution is judging the causes of behaviour, the decision is made that behaviour is caused by internal factors OR external factors. A dispositional attribution is made when we can decide that someone's behaviour is due to their personality or an internal cause. This means that the behaviour is seen as an outward manifestation of an inward quality. A situational attribution is made when we decide that someone's behaviour is the result of the situation or the circumstances which they find themselves in. This means that the cause is external or beyond the control of the person. In social psychology, the actor is the person producing the behaviour and the observer is the watcher of the behaviour. The Fundamental Attribution Error is the general tendency observers have to decide that an actor's behaviour has an internal cause. We have the general belief that a person's behaviour and actions are due to their own personality traits. It is likely that this is because of an expectation that our behaviour and personality match or fit each other. A real life example is "He dropped the jug because he is clumsy" Nisbett et al (1973) wanted to see if people tend to attribute the cause of a person's behaviour as due to an internal cause rather than external cause. Participants were asked to explain
Explanation of cognitive approach
There are many approaches to explaining how personalities are developed. One of these derives from the psychodynamic model put forward by Freud. Freud's (1920) personality theory seeked to explain how personality's develop from individual to individual. The personality according to Freud comprised of 3 areas. The id, ego and the superego. These 3 areas together shape the development of a personality and seeing as they have roots to childhood can affect adult behaviour. The id is the primitive instinctive part of the personality and children are born with it. Children do things to produce pleasure and gratification. The ego is similar to the rational mind we possess. Children learn about the reality principle and the child accommodates to the environment. Finally the Superego is the child's conscience and allows the child to know the difference between right and wrong. The id and superego are in constant conflict with each other. This is because the id's primitive drive for immediate satisfaction is combated by the superego's moral standards. Defence mechanisms are used to reduce the anxiety produced by this conflict and this can include repressing the memory as if it never happened or denying it. It is these repressed memories that can cause underlying/unconscious problems. The id, ego and superego all are prevalent and developed at different stages according to Freud. These
Outline and evaluate research relating to the linguistic relativity hypothesis
Outline and evaluate research relating to the linguistic relativity hypothesis The linguistic relativity hypothesis was put forward by Whorf, and states that language determines, or directly influences, thinking. This theory was further developed by Sapir, and again by Miller & McNeill, giving rise to three different hypotheses: the 'strong' hypothesis is that of Whorf, which suggests that language completely determines the way in which we think about the world. Sapir's 'weak' hypothesis suggests that language only has an influence on thought, therefore giving a more cautious approach. The 'weakest' hypothesis was proposed by Miller & McNeill, suggesting that language differences affect processing on certain tasks where linguistic encoding is particularly important (such as memories and certain schemata). Much support for the linguistic relativity hypothesis has come from the study of differences between the thought processes of speakers of different languages. One type of such study is one which investigates colour words and the ability to discriminate between colours, as this is a factor that varies widely from one language to another. Brown & Lenneberg studied Zuni speakers in New Mexico, whose language had no separate word to describe yellow and orange, and found that they had difficulty in a task that required them to distinguish the two. This appears to support the
Outline and Evaluate 2 Psychological Treatments of OCD
Outline and Evaluate 2 Psychological Treatments of OCD One psychological treatment of OCD is Behavioral Therapy. According to the behavioral explanation of OCD, both obsessions and compulsions have been acquired through conditioning and therefore, in order to recover, patient must unlearn these behaviours. This can happen by Exposure and Response Prevention therapy. ERP therapy aims to provide opportunities for reconditioning and consists of two components. Firstly there is exposure, and in this element, the patient is repeatedly presented with the feared stimulus until anxiety subsides, known as habituation. The exposures move gradually from least to most threatening in manner similar to systematic desensitization. However, If the pace is too slow, patients may lose motivation. The underlying principle of this explanation is that the anxieties persist due to negative reinforcement. ERP aims to break this cycle by forcing the patient to experience the stimulus and learn, through association and relaxation, that it no longer produces anxiety. The second part of the process is Response prevention. The patient is prohibited from engaging in their usual compulsive ritual. This is important in order for the patient to recognize that anxiety can be reduced without the compulsive ritual, this involves the patient being given a list of things that they are not allowed to do. If a
'To what extent does psychological research support Atkinson and Shiffrin's model of memory?'
'Rehearsal is the key to understanding human memory.' 'To what extent does psychological research support Atkinson and Shiffrin's model of memory?' 'Learning is the acquisition of knowledge and memory is the storage of an internal representation of that knowledge.' Blackemore (1988) The multi-store model consists of three main stores - the sensory memory store, the short-term memory (STM) store and the long-term memory (LTM). The sensory memory transfers information to STM. It is made up of five stores, one for each sense. The model sees STM as a crucial part of the memory system as without it information cannot get into or out of the LTM. Information can only be stored into LTM by passing through STM and can only be retrieved from LTM by entering STM. Rehearsal is the repetition of information in order to retain it in the STM. The multi-store model states that the longer information is in the STM and the more it is rehearsed, the more likely it is to be transferred to LTM. There is some evidence to support this view. In one particular experiment, participants were asked to rehearse a list of items out loud. In general, the more frequently an item was rehearsed the more likely it was to be recalled from LTM (Rundus, 1971). However, evidence from everyday situations implies that rehearsal is a lot less important than the multi-store model suggests. Eysenck & Keane (1995)
Is eyewitness testimony reliable?
Psychology Key Issue - Is eyewitness testimony reliable? Eyewitness testimony refers to the statement given by a witness to an event/crime. It is important because in some cases, no forensic evidence can be traced. Also, jury members may lack the ability or confidence to interpret complex forensic evidence. Jury members tend to prefer and rely on eyewitness testimony. Therefore, eye witness testimony is vital source of evidence in a court of law. This is an issue has an inaccurate eyewitness testimony can lead to the conviction of an innocent man. Eyewitness testimony can be unreliable due to interference, social prejudice, false reconstruction of the memory, along with many other factors. Eyewitnesses might have lapses in their memory of the event, and they will try to fill in those 'empty spaces' with they believe/expect to happen. For example, during a bank robbery they might describe the thieves as wearing black clothing, balaclavas with guns. This might not be accurate as the witness might not have been paying attention to the clothing but might have felt obliged to give a detailed description when alter questioned by the police officer. The descriptions might have evolved from social prejudice, from watching scenes on the TV etc. As most crimes include some sort of violence, this can cause eyewitness unreliability. Clifford and Hollin (1981) concluded that violence
The cognitive perspective in psychology is often used to explain behaviour. Discuss the cognitive perspective in psychology. In your answer, refer to at least two topics that you have studied in psychology.
The cognitive perspective in psychology is often used to explain behaviour. Discuss the cognitive perspective in psychology. In your answer, refer to at least two topics that you have studied in psychology The cognitive approach focuses on the cognitive processes between the stimulus and response. It see's humans as information processors, much like computers, as information is received, processed and then used to guide behaviour. In 1973, Mischel distinguished five variables that influence the response to a stimulus. These variables are competencies, encodings, expectancies, values and plans. Together, they influence the attribution process and so affect behaviour. Unlike behaviourists, cognitive psychologists include the internal cognitive processes between stimulus and response and so when compared to the behaviourist approach, cognitive psychologists argue that humans make sense of the stimulus before responding, rather than simply responding in an unthinking way to a stimulus. However, the cognitive approach is often criticised for being too mechanistic and reductionist. This is because it reduces complex human processes and behaviour to those of a computer and ignores the fact that humans are biological organisms and are not machines. One topic that the cognitive approach applies to is anxiety disorders, and more specifically, phobias. Cognitive psychologists
To what extent does research support the view that eyewitness testimony is unreliable?
To what extent does research support the view that eyewitness testimony is unreliable? Schemas are knowledge packages which are built up through experience of the world and which enable us to make sense of familiar situations and aid the interpretation of new information. Cohen(1993) suggested a few different ways that schemas might lead to reconstructive memory, some are that we tend to ignore aspects of a scene that do not fit the currently activated schema and also we can store the central features of an even without having to store the exact details. Bartlett (1932) carried out a study of reconstructive memory. The aim was to investigate the effects of schemas on participants recall. Bartlett found that that the distortions increased over successive recalls and most of these reflected the participant's attempts to make the story more like a story from their own culture. The changes included rationalisations, flattening and sharpening, these changes made the story easier to remember. He concluded that memory was forever being reconstructed because each successive reproduction showed more changes, which contradicted Bartlett's original expectation that the reproductions would eventually become fixed. The research is important, because it provided some of the first evidence that what we remember depends in an important way on out prior knowledge in the form of schemas.
Outline and Evaluate the Multi Store Model of Memory.
Outline and Evaluate the Multi Store Model of Memory. The multi store model of memory was first introduced by Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968) It is a structural model that suggests that memory consists of 3 different stores of memory. Firstly Sensory memory. This lasts for a fraction of a second and we use it to focus on specific stimuli, such as focusing on a specific person's voice in a loud environment. It has 3 main parts, the iconic (visual), echoic (sound) and haptic (feeling/touch). This information moves to your short term memory. The short term memory has little capacity (7 plus or minus 2 items) and a short duration, so if information is not rehearsed, it can be forgotten. The STM is encoded mainly acoustically (sound). When information from the STM is rehearsed it is moved to the Long Term Memory. This had an unlimited capacity and its duration is up to a lifetime. The LTM is semantically encoded (meaning). Interference may occur for words similar in meaning, and sound or spelling, for example for 2 brothers named Jack and Joe others may get the names mixed up because they have similar meaning and both begin with J and so are stored similarly in the LTM. Research evidence for the existence of sensory memory can be found in the studies of psycholigists Baddeley and Sperling. Baddely (1968) investigated the iconic store. He had the hypothesis that the iconic store is
