Developemental Psycology
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- Date Submitted: 03/07/2011 06:02 PM
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There are three main theories of development that I shall discuss in this assignment, ‘Cognitive’, the main theorist being, ‘Piaget’, the, ‘Psychosocial Theory’, of “Erickson” and, The ‘Psychosexual’, of, ‘Freud’.
Cognitive Psychology draws the comparison between the human mind and a computer, suggesting that we like the computer process the information we acquire from around us and then react accordingly. Hearnshaw, (1987), claims that Cognitive Psychology is both one of the oldest and also one of the newest parts of Psychology, cited in T. Malim, (1994). Information is collected through our senses; vision, touch, smell etc and then processed through our brain. Cognitive Psychologists largely seek explanations of Cognitive development, memory, attention, artificial intelligence, perception and social cognition. The methods used are usually Laboratory experiments under controlled circumstances such as memory tests, and Case studies.
Piaget carried out case studies on his own children to study the stages of cognitive development. Piaget concluded that the child was an organism which adapts to the environment, he also studied with the opinion that all children went through the same set stages of development and that there were no individual differences.
Piagets Stages of Development: -
The Sensorimotor stage, (0-2): - Early in the sensorimotor stage the child is entirely egocentric, everything is an extension to the self, they can’t distinguish themselves from their environment. The child has no concept of past or future all it is aware of is the here and now. The child relies entirely on its senses: sight, hearing, touch. It is believed by Cognitive Psychologists that, a baby will rely on in-built behaviors for sucking, crawling and watching. A child does not understand that an object does not cease to exist when it is out of sight. Another point made by Piaget is that not only does the child look for an object, which is hidden,...
Cognitive Psychology draws the comparison between the human mind and a computer, suggesting that we like the computer process the information we acquire from around us and then react accordingly. Hearnshaw, (1987), claims that Cognitive Psychology is both one of the oldest and also one of the newest parts of Psychology, cited in T. Malim, (1994). Information is collected through our senses; vision, touch, smell etc and then processed through our brain. Cognitive Psychologists largely seek explanations of Cognitive development, memory, attention, artificial intelligence, perception and social cognition. The methods used are usually Laboratory experiments under controlled circumstances such as memory tests, and Case studies.
Piaget carried out case studies on his own children to study the stages of cognitive development. Piaget concluded that the child was an organism which adapts to the environment, he also studied with the opinion that all children went through the same set stages of development and that there were no individual differences.
Piagets Stages of Development: -
The Sensorimotor stage, (0-2): - Early in the sensorimotor stage the child is entirely egocentric, everything is an extension to the self, they can’t distinguish themselves from their environment. The child has no concept of past or future all it is aware of is the here and now. The child relies entirely on its senses: sight, hearing, touch. It is believed by Cognitive Psychologists that, a baby will rely on in-built behaviors for sucking, crawling and watching. A child does not understand that an object does not cease to exist when it is out of sight. Another point made by Piaget is that not only does the child look for an object, which is hidden,...