Cognitive Perspective Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development Four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational. And formal operational As we proceed through the book, you will discover my favorite stage is the preoperational one. Children are so much fun between the ages of two and seven years. Appreciate them as it doesn’t last long enough! Lev Vygotsky Vygotsky got ignored for decades perhaps because he emphasized sociocultural factors which varied from Piaget yet complimented his work. Sometimes it is the timing of your ideas that get them set aside, but we have come back to looking at this perspective. He thought that a child’s interactions with others was the catalyst (do not substitute the word drive in your mind–that is Freud) for development. He thought children learned best from others only slightly older or more advanced. A child will learn to tie his shoes faster from an older brother than his mother. Mothers tend to get rushed and do it themselves while a sibling will show him and guide him through it, but if he does not pay attention or try, he will let him go out with untied shoes and let him fall down! He will quickly learn to pay more attention and develop the skill. Plus, he admires his big brother and does not want to disappoint him (but that is another theory). Check out the terms guided participation and scaffolding. Information processing theory In this theory they liken the functioning of the mind to the computer (of course, the computer model was developed to mimic the mind not vice versa). With this perspective we focus on the changes in memory, attention and language |? Dashboard Calendar To Do Notifications Inbox Tanner Chapter 1 lecture notes.docx Behavioral Perspectives and Social Learning Classical conditioning Pavlov looked at learning as an association between a stimulus that acquire a capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by a by a different stimulus. Notice, I did not say learned. Pavlov talked about associations that would develop with experience. Brilliant man who won a Nobel Prize for decades of study that began with dog drool. As a human note about him, he had no sense of direction and could become easily lost in new environments Operant conditioning Here is where I live and breathe as a human being fascinated by the way we learnt while I do not agree with B. F. Skinner on his philosophical belief in determinism (in his theory this means that we are shaped by others and have no influence on the process whereas I believe we are active participants in the process and more consciously aware of it as we mature). Your book mentions Watson here, but his work was founded on Pavlov’s work. Skinner took learning to a conscious endeavor. We will explore in depth reinforcement (negative and positive) and punishment later in the book. By the way, psychology is not against punishment appropriately done. What we are not in favor of is corporal punishment. I consider punishment of any kind the heavy artillery approach to learning. Often it is employed when we have not bothered to teach someone to do a task and get frustrated when they do not do it or when an accident happens that results in a mess to clean up. Sound familiar? You have not taught a child to put his or her toys away through guided participation (Vygotsky), but expect them to figure out what you mean by clean your room up” Show them and use your words to explain If a glass of milk get spilled, teach them how to clean it up rather than sending them to their room or worse yet, slapping their hands. C Dashboard Calendar To Do Notifications Inbox Tanner Chapter 1 lecture notes.docx Social learning theory We will cover Bandura later in the book. His ideas have merit. We do imitate other when we admire them or desire what the have. We also imitate when we want to please someone like when a child stirs pretend batter in an empty bowl while watching you do it. Evolution-Based Perspectives Evolutionary psychology In this theory we are still driven by process of survival. We think and do what we do because it is adaptive and that is the underlying principle of survival. Ethological perspective This perspective reflects an underlying belief that we are not totally separate from the rest of the animal Kingdom. Comparative psychology is inherent in the work of John B. Watson who adapted Pavlov’s work with dogs to people. More on that interesting man at a later date! I fascinated by Konrad Lorenz’s work on imprinting. While think holding your baby as soon as the baby is born is desirable, the popular belief based on Lorenz’s work that your baby will not bond with you if your do not is a misrepresentation of the research. That’s what happens when the popular press does not really understand the research. Developmental Systems Theories This is a metatheory wherein the different perspectives are brought together in a hopefully coherent, organized, and integrated form. To be honest, psychology is still in its infancy compared to chemistry or any of the hard sciences. Unified theories that are robust are hard to find. There is lots of room for research in this area if you are interested. Conducting Lifespan Research Research Methodology Descriptive research A Dashboard Calendar To Do Notifications inbox Tanner Chapter 1 lecture notes.docx Conducting Lifespan Research Research Methodology Descriptive research A considerable amount of our research is descriptive in nature. The problem is that you cannot say cause and effect in the conclusion of your paper on your study. It is important to establish normative information about all sorts of human behavior. This is the necessary basis of our body of knowledge. You will not get famous unless you stumble onto behavior that does not fit our current body of knowledge. This happens rarely. You do have to set your priorities! Correlational research Correlations research is a bit more complex than basic descriptive research. Much of our research in topics like child abuse are correlational and cannot be done as experiments. A vast body of our applied research is correlational in its nature. You cannot say cause and effect with this research either. Cause and effect is the holy grail of research. Some people cannot imagine not doing experimental work while others do not care about the deficit. My dissertation was correlational (a multiple regression was the statistic used) and most of the people I knew at school were aghast at my choice, but someone has to validity research! It was also very easy to defend. Experimental research Here is where you can say cause and effect in your conclusion. You must have at least one independent variable with a control group and one dependent variable, but most wind up adding more. This powerful and really drives most of our theoretical work. My work was applied research and I am fine with that. We need all three types and I won’t snub anyone for having a different focus 13 Dashboard Calendar To Do Notifications Inbox
