What were the key features of Piaget’s research method?

First, he presented children with novel problems whose solution required reasoning. In a classic problem, Piaget poured water from a wide container into a tall, narrow container and asked children whether, during this process, the total amount of water remained the same. To solve it correctly, children had to apply a general principle about physical objects. The second feature is that Piaget did not merely record the correctness of children’s answers. To learn more about their thinking, he also asked them why they chose the answer they did.

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What cognitive tools enable us to solve logical reasoning problems we’ve never encountered before?

We have schemas that enable us to engage in operations. Schemas are mental structures that make organized, meaningful action possible. A schema for grasping, for example, enables an infant to grab hold of a variety of toys. Operations are actions that modify an object or set of objects. The modification could be physical (e.g., ordering a set of objects from smallest to largest) or conceptual (e.g., placing a series of words in alphabetical order). Operations are reversible; that is, the logical system used in the operation can go in two directions (e.g., one can order objects from largest to smallest or place them in reverse alphabetical order).

How does our existing knowledge enable us to adapt to the environment? Through what process do we update that knowledge?

We use schemas to adapt to the environment. We understand external events by incorporating their features into existing schemas. A child with a schema for chickens may look at a picture of a Thanksgiving turkey and say, “Cluck, cluck, chicken,” for example. To update his or her chicken schema, the child would engage in a process called accommodation, whereby feedback from the environment (“No, this is not a chicken”) would cause him or her to modify the schema, perhaps by dividing it into two: a chicken schema and a turkey schema. Through experience, then, schemas grow in number and become sharper in focus.

What makes Piaget’s approach a nature and nurture one?

The child learns by experience, as a traditional “nurture” perspective would suggest. But the child does so using mental powers that have a biological origin, as a “nature” perspective would explain.

Which comes first: learning or development?

Many learning theorists believe learning drives development. Environmental experiences modify children’s responses and provide them with information; these changes constitute learning; and through this learning, children develop. To Piaget, development drives learning. Children spontaneously modify and elaborate their schemas as they interact with the world. The development of these knowledge structures, in turn, enables children to learn from parents and teachers.

What characterizes each of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development?

In the sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years), children interact with the world through their sensory and motor systems only. They develop object permanence. In the preoperational stage of development (ages 2 to 7), children can use mental symbols to think about the world, but they cannot engage in operations. In particular, they do not have the capacity to make logical reversals, a mental limitation demonstrated by the phenomenon of conservation, the recognition that an object maintains some of its essential physical properties even when it is transformed.

In the concrete operational stage of development (ages 7 to 11), children are capable of performing reversible logical operations (e.g., if shown a group of 6 cats and 2 dogs and asked whether there are more animals than dogs, the child can solve the problem). This stage is limited in that children can execute operations only on things that actually exist in the child’s experience. In the formal operational stage (ages 11 to adulthood), children can execute mental operations on actual objects as well as hypothetical ones that do not exist. They think about hypothetical objects by applying abstract rules, such as those found in algebra.

In what domains of thinking are children actually smarter than Piaget had predicted?

First, Piaget found that, in infancy, children lack object permanence, but research using the looking-time method described in Research Toolkit indicates that this is inaccurate. Second, research indicates that contrary to Piaget’s beliefs, 3-year-olds can distinguish between inanimate objects and animate living things. Finally, children also display more knowledge than Piaget expected when thinking about the human mind. Even at a very young age, children know that the people they encounter have minds, and that the plants and toys they encounter do not. They also possess a theory of mind, an understanding that other people have feelings and thoughts.

Are children born knowing things?

Children develop complex beliefs at such an early age that it’s hard to see how experience alone could account for their mental abilities. Harvard psychologist Susan Carey proposes that children possess innate input analyzers, that is, biologically inherited mental mechanisms designed to detect and process specific types of information, including information about objects, living things, and people’s minds.

How do children’s social interactions influence their development?

Vygotsky explains that by interacting with adults and older peers, children acquire the cognitive tools of their culture: language, counting systems, reading and writing; arithmetic and algebraic symbols, diagrams and flowcharts; musical notation. Once children have practice using these cultural tools, they internalize them. What first was a social activity becomes a feature of the child’s inner mental life.

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To aid development, is it a good idea to challenge children with problems that are above their current abilities?

Vygotsky believed that by challenging learners with problems that were a small degree above their current abilities, in a space called the zone of proximal development, teachers could speed their learning and psychological development. Research supports this belief.

Does being raised in a more enriched environment increase brain size?

Yes. In one study, the brains of mice raised in an enriched environment differed markedly from those raised in a low-enrichment environment. Their cerebral cortexes were thicker, their individual brain cells formed more connections with other cells, their brain cells were covered by more myelin, and their blood vessels in the brain were more fully developed.

Does the brain’s development actually map onto Piaget’s stages of cognitive development?

Yes. Brain research indicates that, in concert with development of motor movement, the sensorimotor cortex matures first, with rapid development occurring in the first months of life. In concert with development of language processing, the parietal and temporal cortices develop later, with major biological development occurring between ages 8 months and 2 years. In concert with the development of the ability to sustain attention and control emotional impulses, the prefrontal cortex does not reach substantial maturity until well into the teenage years, and it continues to develop through a person’s 20s.

How does the brain’s connectivity change across the life span?

In childhood, most of the brain’s connections are “local”; that is, they interconnect neurons within one region of the brain. Later in life, connections become “global”; different regions of the brain become more strongly interconnected. For example, in one study, researchers found that the interconnections between the brain regions associated with the central executive system and the attentional network became stronger. This increase in connectivity enables people to gain greater control over their thoughts, emotions, and behavior.

What is temperament, and why do psychologists study it?

Temperament is a child’s biologically based emotional and behavioral tendencies. Psychologists study temperament due to their intrinsic interest in understanding individual differences in childhood, because temperament qualities endure into later years of life and are important for understanding adolescent and adult development, and because temperament predicts socially significant behaviors.

Is temperament the same in all contexts?

Research reveals that a child’s temperament is evident in some social contexts but not others. Children with inhibited temperament, for example, appear shy specifically in contexts that contain novel stimuli.

Why do goslings follow Mother Goose?

They are imprinting—that is, they are fixing their attention upon, and following, the first moving object they encounter, who is typically their mother. Imprinting bonds them permanently.

Food or physical comfort: Why do babies bond with caregivers?

Harlow’s research indicated that macaque babies preferred “terrycloth mothers” over “wire mothers,” even when the terrycloth mothers provided no nourishment, suggesting that the need for physical comfort was what drives caregiver–offspring bonding. Other research shows that human and animal babies that lack comforting attachment relationships in childhood tend to develop abnormal behavior patterns in adulthood.

According to attachment theory, how do early life experiences exert lifelong effects?

Parent–child interactions shape children’s beliefs about what the child can expect from others, and these beliefs are applied to new relationships later in life. Attachments thus create a foundation on which beliefs about future relationships are built.

How can putting children in a “strange situation” help us to understand attachment styles?

The strange situation paradigm is a structured sequence of events in which mother and child interact, and researchers observe their interactions. The child’s responses when separated from and then reunited with the mother indicate the child’s attachment style. Secure infants are those who are easily comforted by the parent when she returns. Avoidant children look away and move away from the mother. Anxious-ambivalent children exhibit a desire to be picked up by the mother, yet also demand to be put down.

Do negative childhood experiences scar us for life?

Not typically. Research indicates that many people are resilient, that is, they have the capacity to retain or recover psychological functioning after negative experiences. For instance, in a study of more than 600 adolescents who had experienced childhood abuse or neglect, almost half were developing quite well. Stable living conditions contributed to these positive outcomes—that is, their social environments enabled them to bounce back from early-life difficulties.

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What is a systems view of families? According to a systems view, what parenting style is best for social development?

A systems view of families is a theoretical viewpoint arguing that all members of the family influence one another. A systems view recognizes that there is no one style of parenting that is best for everyone; the effects of a parenting style on children depend on other factors in the family, such as the temperament of the child.

How do features of the family environment affect motor development?

The rate at which children develop motor skills is influenced by several aspects of the family environment, including socioeconomic status, whether parents choose to use diapers, and whether parents prop children up in a crib or let them lie down. On tests of motor skill, children born into wealthier families are more likely to outperform children from poor households because they tend to have more space to run around and more interactive toys, which may speed motor development. Research indicates that diapers interfere with walking, especially cloth ones. In some Caribbean and African cultures, children learn quickly how to sit without support because parents frequently prop up their infants rather than let them lie in cribs.

How do siblings influence development— both directly and indirectly?

In direct sibling effects, one-on-one interactions between siblings shape behavior and emotional life. For example, one sibling can teach another how to cope with bullies. In indirect effects, a sibling influences the parents who, in turn, interact with and affect another sibling. For instance, older siblings interact with parents, who then become more skilled at parenting younger siblings. Two other indirect effects include birth order and pecking order.

How do interactions with peers shape personality development?

Peer interactions have two types of effects: assimilation and within-group differentiation. Hanging out with peers causes us to become more similar to them—to assimilate. Simultaneously, group members identify and label differences within the group to highlight individuals’ uniqueness.

Can preschool help to combat the negative effects of poverty on personality development?

People who live in poverty have fewer opportunities to experience stimuli, such as music and the arts, that aid in the development of personal motivation and skills. The Perry Preschool Study demonstrated that providing children with an enriched high-quality educational program featuring longer hours of preschool education per day and home visits from teachers had long-term effects. Children with enriched education were more likely to graduate from high school, less likely to ever be arrested, and earned more money as adults.

How do children acquire a sense of self? How do these self-representations change over time?

A major source of the child’s self-concept, or self-representations, is others. Input from adults and other children teaches children about their skills, distinctive personality characteristics, and level of popularity. As children develop, self-representations grow more abstract. They become more complex and connected (e.g., the child is popular because she can keep a secret) and refer not only to concrete actions and preferences, but also to generalized personal traits.

How does self-esteem change across childhood?

Self-esteem tends to be high around ages 9 to 10 Levels of self-esteem then drop in early adolescence (around ages 12 to 13), with the drop being sharper for girls than boys.

Why doesn’t everybody have the same level of self-esteem?

For starters, not everybody inherits the same temperament. People who inherit a tendency to experience negative emotions are more likely to develop low self-esteem. Not everybody experiences the same parenting, either. Children whose parents displayed interest in and affection toward them tend to experience higher self-esteem.

What skill do we need in order to exert self-control?

Self-control, the ability to act in a manner consistent with long-term goals and values, largely depends on cognitive control, the ability to suppress undesired or inappropriate emotions and impulsive behaviors. We do this by concentrating attention on a task at hand, and avoiding distractions. Luckily, this ability increases with age.

Does the ability to delay gratification in childhood predict anything important?

Yes. Walter Mischel’s research shows that self-control abilities are highly stable over time and that they predict important life outcomes, such as SAT scores.

How do biology and social environment interact to influence behavior during puberty?

According to the biopsychosocial model, the effects of biological changes on behavior depend on the social environment. For example, Magnusson’s research indicated that girls who reached puberty earlier than others tended to engage in more antisocial behaviors (e.g., drinking and cheating in school) because they were hanging out with older peers who also engaged in those behaviors.

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What are four ways in which adolescents cope with the challenge of establishing a personal identity?

Marcia outlines four approaches to coping, or identity statuses: personally choosing and being committed to a status (identity achievement); having a status thrust upon you by others (foreclosure); feeling directionless (identity diffusion), and struggling with questions of identity without firmly committing to a life path (moratorium).

A study you read about in Cultural Opportunities indicated that among African Americans, Asian Americans, and Latino students, individual differences in ethnic identity mapped onto three of Marcia’s statuses: diffusion, moratorium, and achieved.

Are 18-year-olds really full-fledged adults?

Sort of. People are getting married at a later age than they used to, prompting psychologists to identify a novel developmental period they call emerging adulthood, which refers to a period of life in the very late teen years and early 20s when people are technically adults but do not yet have the obligations and responsibilities of family life. When people this age are asked whether they feel like adults, most say, “Yes and no.” This stage of life is a time of exploration.

Is a midlife crisis inevitable?

No. Research shows that this stereotype about midlife is wrong. Midlifers do “take stock” of their lives, but doing so rarely triggers a crisis. When it does, the crisis often centers on problems that could occur at any age.

What are some common themes of individuals’ life stories?

Two key themes are generativity, or a concern with contributing to the welfare of the next generation, and redemption, in which people describe how they have overcome suffering or crisis.

Do most people experience declines in well-being in older adulthood?

In general, no. Older adults’ level of well-being commonly is as high as that of younger persons.

How do selection, optimization, and compensation contribute to successful psychological adjustment in older adulthood?

These three strategies, which are identified in the selection, optimization, and compensation (SOC) model of Baltes and his colleagues, help older adults experience high levels of personal achievement on a limited set of daily activities, and maintain a strong sense of well-being. Selection is the process of setting personal goals for a given period of your life. Optimization is the process of devising plans to achieve goals that are set. Compensation is the identification of alternative strategies to achieve goals, if at first you don’t succeed.

How does knowing you’re at the end of your life affect how you want to spend your time?

Research supports socioemotional selectivity theory’s prediction that when people recognize that there is little time left in their life, they are more motivated to pursue activities that are emotionally meaningful to them, such as spending time with family and longtime friends.

Does getting older cause people to dwell on the negative?

Just the opposite! Older adults display the positivity effect, which is the tendency to pay more attention to positive than to negative information. Older adults tend to have greater memory for emotionally positive information, suggesting that they attend more closely to such information when it is presented.

How do we develop our morality?

Kohlberg suggested that morality develops in distinct levels and stages. He identified three levels of moral thinking, each with two stages. At the preconventional level, children’s thinking is organized around ideas about rewards and punishments. “Good” behavior consists of actions that avoid punishment (Stage 1) and, later, that bring them personal rewards (Stage 2). At the conventional level, children evaluate actions in terms of social conventions and norms. They assess whether behavior is consistent with being a “good girl” or “good boy” (Stage 1) and then think about their duty to uphold social rules (Stage 2). At the postconventional level, individuals can transcend the rules of authority figures and base moral reasoning on abstract principles. People recognize that if laws from authorities violate individual rights, the laws should be changed (Stage 1) and evaluate actions according to universal ethical principles such as justice and respect for the dignity of the individual (Stage 2).

How does women’s moral reasoning differ from men’s?

Gilligan found that women progress through moral stages that differ from those identified by Kohlberg in research with men. The highest stage for women, Gilligan found, involved reasoning according to a principle of nonviolence. Rather than adhering to abstract principles of justice, women followed the concrete human principle of not harming others. Research conducted after Gilligan formulated her approach, however, indicates that gender differences in moral reasoning are smaller than she expected.

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