1. Cognitive and Emotional Development
Chapter 3 Section 2

2. I. Cognitive Development
How do children understand the world?
Jean Piaget:
Swiss psychologist.
Wrote 1st article at age 11.
Interested in intellectual development of young children.

3. How does knowing change?
Schema- our mental representation of the world.
Assimilation- we try to fit objects or experiences into our schemas.
Seeing new things and plugging them in to our world.
Accommodation- we change our schema to fit the characteristics of a new event.
Adapting to a new environment.

4. How Knowing Changes: Object Permanence:
Up to 6 months, a child can only understand the here and now (present to them).
At 7-12 months, they can
think about things that
aren’t present.

5. How Knowing Changes: Representational Thought:
Ability to picture something in his or her mind.
Now they are forming memories, and will start imitating what they see.
Around months.

6. How Knowing Changes: Principle of Conservation:
Between 5 and 7 years old.
The principle that a quantity does not change just because its appearance changes.
Children are egocentric- they cannot understand any perspective but their own.

7. Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor stage
Preoperational stage
Concrete operations stage
Formal operations stage
Use chart and info on pgs of your book.
Piaget’s theory
turned this into
a science that
could be measured
and observed.

8. II. Emotional Development
Children become attached to people and things, and begin to care about their own thoughts and feelings
Experiments with animals show emotional development is present in most species.

9. A. Imprinting: Konrad Lorenz
Inherited tendencies or responses that are displayed by newborn animals when they encounter new stimuli in their environment.
Lorenz tried experiments with baby geese:

10. Imprinting:
Lorenz found that there is a critical period for imprinting- a specific time when certain skills are easily learned. (13-16 hours after birth in animals)
What does this say about the speed of cognitive development in infancy?

11. B.) Surrogate Mothers: Harry Harlow
Experiment with baby rhesus monkeys.

12. C.) Human Infants: Mary Ainsworth’s “Strange Situation”
Is there a critical period for infants to form attachments to their mothers?
Infants begin to form attachment to mother at 6 months.
Esp. strong b/w 6 mos. and 3 yrs.

13. The Strange Situation Stranger anxiety vs. separation anxiety.
4 types of attachment:
Secure
Avoidant
Resistant
Disorganized
Responsive, sensitive mothers tend to have securely attached babies.