Psychology PSYA3
- Created by: oliver
- Created on: 06-04-14 14:06
Piaget
Identified stages of development, independant of environment; first is sensorimotor; 0-2; lacks internal representations and schemas; egocentric; lacks object permanence
Bower and Wishart: After lights were turned off, children between 1 and 4 months continued to look for the object. Baillargeon: children in the sensorimotor stage were puzzled over a carrot disappearing impossibly then reappearing
Preoperational; 2-7; unable to perform operations; unable to see from other peoples perspective; unable to conserve
Piaget: three mountains task showed that children in this stage were unable to see from a dolls perspective
Hughes: in a relatable situation, 90% of 3-5 year olds could complete the policeman/naughtyboy task
Concrete operational stage; 7-11; can perform an operation; can only be done if its physical; able to conserve; starting from other peoples perspective
Piaget: children able to complete volume task
Prince-Williams: children in pottery factories could conserve at 6
Cultural relativism/determinism some cultures may place more importance on abstract thinking
Formal operational; can think in abstract; logical problem solving
Bradmetz: 62 15 year olds, only one had reached this level
Vygotsky's theory
Ability is due to social interaction; speech develops, going from preintellectual (0-3) to egocentric (3-7) to inner speech (7+); speech is used as a problem solving tool
Vygotsky: inner speech increased when obstacles wer eintroduced to a task
Berk: Found children talked to themselves more when working by themselves or when a teacher was unable to help
Cultural bias: Berk and Garvin: those in low income familes developed inner speech at a slower rate than middle class children (due to amount of social interaction)
Vygotsky identified two main mental functions; elementary and higher; elementary found at birth and include sensation and attention; higher involves problem solving, language and thinking; society required to make the transition
Grendler: Children in papa new guinea used body parts to count, limiting higher mental functions Flynn: IQ increasing on average and claimed to be due to society becoming more advanced
ZPD; difference between what a child can do on its own and what it can do with help; must be given scaffolding via a MKO; can only reach its full potential this way
Freund: providing a MKO before a task was set increased the success rate of the task when the child was on their own
McNaughton: a child was able to reach a higher jigsaw puzzle level when the mother was present to act as a MKO ZPD's real world application in teaching
Application of vygotsky
- Idea of the ZPD; task set at the right level; involves identifying the childs ZPD; not too difficult not too simple
Wood: Adjusting level of assistance at a task ot maintain the child in the ZPD improved success of the task
McNaughton: Completion of a puzzle was highest when the child had been put in their ZPD
- Helping using MKOs; anyone with enough knowledge to assist; peer tutoring
Tudge; found the best peer tutors are those who are ahead of their tutees yet worked in the ZPD, effectiveness droppe when not enough scaffolding was provided
Barnier: the performance of 6 to 7 year olds on spatial tasks was sugnificantly improved when tutored by 7 to 8 year olds
However it suggests a child can be nurtured into any problem
More appropriate for collectivist cultures
Application of Piaget
-Readiness: Right age to allow them to complete the task; should be at appropriate level; programmes should be altered to suit childrens ages
Danner and Day: found that coaching 10 year olds had no effect
Bryant: Preoperational children could be trained to perform certian logical tasks
- task is repeated until the child is ready; teachers role is to allow the child to develop through discovery learning
Meadows: found that tuition sped up development and decreased time to complete a task, goes against dicovery learning
Child: criticised applying Piaget's theory to education, claimed that discovery learning is slow and a teacher should not sit back and wait. Teachers should encourage children to progress through the stages
Hugely limiting to some children
Kohlbergs theory of moral understanding
-Kohlberg believed in the existence of six stages; preconventional: stage one = punishment and obedience, stage two= if their needs are satisfied
Kohlberg: cross cultural study of UK, Taiwan, Mexico, the US, and Yucatan. Kohlberg found very similar stages up to stage 5
Snarey: in 44 countries found stages 1-4 at similar ages but very few progressed to stage 5
Those in stage 5 were from western cultures, Isawa found that Japan and US differ in moral types, suggesting the theory is biased to the collectivist cultures.
Conventional stage: stage 3= goodboy/badboy stage 4= law understanding
Colby: Conducted a study on USA male ppts and found by 10 they were in stage 2 and by 22 were in stage 3 or 4
The final level is the post conventional level: stage 5= can determine which laws carry more moral backing than others, stage 6= personal ethics have been set up but can take into account other peoples perspective
Colby: found the two stages are impossible to distinguish using the dilemmas and interviews. Kohlberg: found no evidence to suggest stage 6 exists in normal participants, he even suggested himself that stage 6 may not even exist
Theory shows gender bias: Gilligan refused the suggestion made by kohlberg that females have lower moral reasoning. She found males and females differ in the type of reasoning so using male standards is not valid for females.
Childs sense of self
-Self recognition; earliest indicator; it is said that all humans are able to recognise themselves after the age of 2; rouge test; claimed the sense of self and other is linked
Lewis and Brooks-gunn: 75% of children aged 21 to 24 months old could recognise themselves (rouge test) Bischof-Kohler: sense of self developed by 20 months
Bischof-Kohler used the mirror test alongside levels of empathy for the researcher and found that the two correlated, therefore as sense of self develops so does empathy for others
- understanding emotions; by age 3-6 children can understand the feelings of others as they are aware of themselves and therefore of others; relies on being self aware, able to pretend and be able to seperate real from fantasy.
Harris: used ellie the elephant and the monkey, found that by 6 children can decentre Piaget: 2-6 unable to see from the perspective of others
-ToM: ability to attribute mental states, knowledge, beliefs, wishes, desires and feelings to oneself and others; baron-cohen referred to mind reading as we read others mental states without knowing; the theory of mind predicts that autistic children will lack a theory of mind; it develops subsequently developing an understanding of oneself
Baron-Cohen: Autistic children unable to pass a false belief task (sally ann) , showing they may lack a ToM Application: Helps understanding of the disorder and aids treatment (helping them pretend play)
Perner: Children before the age of 3 could not pass a false belief task (smarties), proving ToM is not innate
Childs understanding of others
Understanding others views we can better empathise with them; Baron-Cohen highlighted two types: perceptual (understanding that other people see differently) and conceptual (understand how they feel); Flavell made a similar point but referred to them as stage 1 and stage 2
Flavell: painted a sponge to look like a rock, 3 year old would say it looks like a rock and therefore is a rock, 5 year olds would say it looks like a rock but really its a sponge
Gopnik: asked what will your friend think it is, younger would say their friend would think its a sponge but 5+ would say they'd think it's a rock
Selman's stages of p.t; used Holly dilemma; egocentric, social informational ( different views due to different information), self reflective (stepping in another persons shoes), third party (can imagine how the self and other look), societal (understand the 3rd party view can be influence by other values
Edelstein: longtitudinal study of 7,9,12 and 15 year olds, responses to the Holly dilemma reflected stages outlined by Selman
Clark: Were able to identify the stages and at what age each one occured
Real world application: therapy for children with emotional and behvioural difficulties, called pair therapy and helps perspective taking and negotiation skills Suggests perspective taking is determined. Manly found mistreatment can alter p.t level
biological explanation of social cognition
being socially adept was an advantage; the ability to understand others would increase our rate of survival especially if it involved copynig others; the MNS allows us to to produce very similar brain activity when watching someone perform an action as if we were doing it ourselves
Gallese: fMRI showed brian activity the same when observing and when doing a grasping action Rizzoletti: watching vs doing a hand gesture produced the same brain activity in ppts
Reductionist: Gopnik- takes complex altruistic behaviour and reduces them down to a collection of neurones firing
If autistic children lack a theory of mind and MNS then it proves that the MNS is an advantageous mechanism for humans to understand others; a lack of MNS impairs social cognition
Depretto: found that autistic children showed less activity in the MNS as they watched or copied the expressions of others, more severe the autism the less brain activity shown Lacoboni: autistic children asked to imitate facial expressions and found no brain activity in brain regions associated with the MN. worse the autism the less brain activity
Nature vs nurture: Hebb developed the theory of cell assembly (those that fire together wire together) MNS not 100% nature
The MNS may allow true empathy of others and feel their pain
Phillips: found that brain areas similar if feeling disgust or watching someone disguste. Follow up: pattern of firing similar to recieving and watching loved ones have same electrodes attached to them
Formation of relationships
Reward/need satisfaction: operant- positive reinforcement for being with that person (negative reinforcement- gets rid of negative issues)
Griffit: participants rated experimenter higher if they had rated their performance better
Cate: relationship satisfaction rated higher when rewards were higher
Classical: partner associated with pleasant circumstances
Griffit: onlookers rated higher if experimenters positively evaluated their performance
Veitch: participants more attracted to another student if a good news bulletin was played before
Deterministic
Similarity theory: 2 stages: sorting those who are similar and avoiding dissimilar, then those remaining have a higher chance
Lehr: stangers described as similar were more attractive to people
Speakman: found partners often choose partners with similar body fat
Evolutionary approach: most physcially attractive
Theories of maintenance
Social exchange theory: profit or loss; aim to minimize costs and maximise rewards; development depends on how mutually beneficial the relationship feels
Mills: other types: score-keepers and those with genuine concern about the other Murstein: only insecure and suspicious people tend to score-keep
Comparisons levels used to assess rewards: Comparison level (expectations) Comparison level for alternatives (other relationships)
Rusbult: those in profitable relationships judged others as less attractive
Agnew: found rewards minus costs is a much better predictor of commitment to a relationship
CLA can explain why women stay in abusive relationships: the alternative is no financial support
Equity theory: achieve fairness; unfair leads to distress; what people put in they expect back
Dainton: those in inequity relationships showed lower satisfaction
Strafford: those in equal relationship more satisfied than those over-benefitted
Moghaddam: short term relationships only
Only relevant to individualistic cultures
Breakdown of relationships
Ducks model of dissolution: Breakdown, intrapsychic, dyadic, social, grave dressing
Tashiro: found everyone grave dresses before they put their relationship to distress
Akert: those who instigated the break up sufferers in different ways to the other partner
Application: theory suggests communicaiton helps therefore counselling can help
Duck also outlined reasons for dissolution: including lack of maintenance
Rohfling: found 70% of student HAD been in a long distance relationship
Stone: found it wasnt just the distance, it was the effort to maintain the relationship
Lee's stages: dissatisfaction, exposure, negotiation, resolution, termination
Lee: found evidence for these stages and found stronger, more intimate relationships
Akert: however he found some people may not have a role in the stages, for example some may not experience dissatisfaction (cannot apply to both)
Culturally specific: some cultures require all of the family to aggree to a break up
sexual selection and human reproductive behaviour
2 types of sexual selection: Intra and inter; Men and women differ: women: ability to protect, ability to provide, handicap shows strong genes. Men: reproductive ability, many sexual partners. sexual selection vs natural selection
Singh: women prefer WHR ideal is 0.85 (broad)
Buss: women wanted tall strong and healthy
Singh: ideal WHR is 0.7, wide child bearing hips
Buss: also found men preferred wider hips
Clark: 75% of males agreed to have sex with a total stranger
Schmitt: 16000 people, found men reported wanting to have sex with more people than women
Kenrick: Teenage males prefer women 5 years older than themselves theory cannot explain this
Deterministic: Richard Dawkins claims we can override biology with free will
sex differences in parental investment
Males and females do not invest equally; Females: limited offspring, higher costs, post and prenatal. Males: unlimited number, fear of cuckoldry, females fear in shift of emotions
Buss: US males had a higher physical response to sexual indidelity whereas women reacted to emotional infidelity
Harris: men respond to any sexual stimulus
Daly: Children are 60% more likely to be killed by a step parent
Anderson: Found fathers werent bothered whether resources went to biological or non biological offspring
Lacks historical validity: theory formulated in 1972, society has changed and investments are becoming more similar
The Influence of childhood on relationships
Atatchment theory: nature of attachment persists onto adulthood; provides a template; continuity hyp; insecure: problems with intimacy, invest little, pessimistic, sex without feelings; secure: trusting, optimistic, high self esteem, comfortable sharing feelings
Hazan: securely more optimistic about the relationship
Belsky: secure men more positive and supporting with problem solving with partner
Hazan: insecure more willing to engage in one night stand and preferred minimal emotions with it
Brennan: insecure more willing to have sex with no feelings for that person
Continuity hypothesis is deterministic: Zimmerman: found events such as divorce can alter future
interaction with peers can influence: shift from parents to friends to relationships, all a template
Hartup: Popular children had positive outcomes which could influence quality of relationships
Connely: Intimacy with friends laid foundations for the degree of intimacy in adult relationships
Gender differences: girl behaviour is different to boy behaviour in friendship groups
Influence of culture on romantic relationships
Western: more mobility, degree of choice; non-western: arranged marriages, less mobility, less interaction with strangers.
Epstein: arranged marriages work well and divorce rates are lower
Xiaohe: women with more choice and 'in love' were happier with their marriage
Individualistic: Interest of individual for love; collectivist: interest of the whole family
Levine: More people in individualistic cultures said they wouldnt marry someone even if they had the right qualities (49% indians said yes vs 7% of english)
Sprecher: Japanese just as romantic as americans and both expressed a reluctance to marry without love
Culture norms also influences relationships in terms of behaviour and attitudes
Moore: Anglo-australians and chinese-australian students differed in specific differences in attitudes
Ma: American students share feelings earlier than east asian students
Shows historical bias: Xiaohe found been in a shift away from arranged marriages, from 70% (1970) to 10% (1990)
Social psychological theories of aggression
Social learning theory: observing; rewarded will be repeated, model rewarded will be repeated; Bandura: attention retention motivation production; increasing likelihood: through media, good model, in their skill zone, low self esteem
Bandura: watching model being aggressive resulted in aggressive behaviour, especially if rewarded
Bandure: reported low crime areas are so because they do not copy aggressive behaviour
Bandura: Cartoon characters resulted in just as much violence as real models in children
Williams: introducing TV increased aggression in a remote community
Deterministic
Deindividuation: Lost of sense of individual identity, loosening of inhibition; increase: anonymity and no chance of getting caught
Mann: 48% of suicides involved people in crowds encouraging it
Malmuth: 1/3 american male students would **** if their was no chance of getting caught
Watson diguised warriors more likely to be more aggressive
Application: use of mirrors in football stadiua and close circuit TV cameras
Institutional aggression
Importation model: Previous behaviour and traits brought into prison; behaviour same outside including experiences
Mills: those with higher alcoholic dependance had higher levels of aggression inside
Kane: inmates with lower education and unemployment more likely to be aggressive
Deprivation model: liberty, autonomy, goods and services, heterosexual relationships, security; deprivation leads to stress; anger a way of regaining control
Johnston: overcrowding leads to increased aggression due to competition for resources
Megargee: aggressive incidents correlated negatively with the amount of living space
Jiang: found the deprivation model more persuasive explanation than importation model
McCorkle: found no good in explaining rates of prison violence and was more due to staff and management e.g. poor staff turnover
Application: some prisons allow interactions with those of the opposite sex
Neural and hormonal mechanisms in aggression
Serotonin: Neurotransmitter prevents stimulation of the amygdala; high levels = less aggression; been linked to impulsive behaviour as it makes amygdala more susceptible to external stimulation
Deville: Drugs increasing serotonin reduced aggression levels
Linnoila: relationship betwwen low levels and highly explosive violent behaviours
Works in line with the evolutionary theory: Higely found monkeys that survived had higher levels of serotonin, wereas those with low levels were dead or missing (it increased sociability)
Testosterone: sex hormone; causes increased aggression from adult onwards; influences areas associated with behavioural reactions; thought to influence other hormones; males more aggressive
Connor: rats after puberty could be made to show more aggression by increasing t levels
Klinesmith: when assembling a gun, testosterone levels increased and led to aggressive behaviour
Real life application: governments debating whether gun ownership increases aggression
Genetic factors in aggression
MAOA gene: gene regulates production of Monoamine oxidase A; regulates serotonin; low levels of MAOA = more aggression
Brunner: Dutch family had mutant MAOA gene and subsequently had retardation and impulsive aggression
Cases: Mice made to have mutant MAOA gene had behaviour alterations such as aggression
Real world application: suggests ability to genetically engineer
XYY 47 syndrome: linked with aggression
William court-brown: 315 violent patients, 9 had xyy, xyy is 1 in 1000 suggesting a link
Mulinsky: xyy on average are taller but no evidence of increased aggression nor higher than average testosterone
Nature/nurture: uses only nature, cannot explain a sudden act of aggression
Evolutionary explanations of aggression
Jealousy: fear of the loss of a mate; male male competition (access to women) or female female competition (trying to be more attractive)
Buss: found females will criticise other females to reduce rival attractiveness, trigger for aggression to one another
Andersson: Competition for females becomes very intense in many species, often leading to violent rituals between the two
Women fear emotional infidelity; threat that they will not recieve resources; show aggression when this is threatened
Buss: Higher stress levels when shown emotional infidelity, may be a trigger for aggression
Harris: Women more distressed by thoughts of emotional infidelity
Males fear sexual infidelity (cuckoldry); waste of resources; men have evolved strategies to deter females from infidelity
Wilson: found women who reported men using these tactics were often victims of abuse
Dobash: Most cases of domestic abuse against women were jealous and fear of infidelity
Real world: strategies taught to women as it may be an indicator of abuse and violence
Deterministic: not everyone is violent
Group display (ritualised acts of aggression) in h
War dances: Rituals before battle to intimidate enemies and to motivate troops
Sua peter: Sira Tua performed by samoan rugby players was adapted to be more aggressive
Haka: Noticably aggressive and performed before each NZ rugby game, originated from a war dance
Territorial behaviour: mark out and defend territories; it is a valuable resource; often leading to battles for territories
Morris: found Oxford united fans congregated in home supporter areas, resulting in brawls
Shwartz: home advantage is due to territorial dominance
Xenophobia: Chants and signals to players; evolved to display intolerance to people not from their group, helping ancestors to be automatically suspicious of strangers
Foldesi: found that racist conduct lead to increased aggression shown by extremist fans
Real world application: reduce aggression by reducing racism, 'say no to racism' supported by many footballers
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