1. Development 3/4 weeks: long tube develops and is divided into 3:
Forebrain
Midbrain
Hindbrain
5 weeks: forebrain and hindbrain split
Gunderson et al. (2013) Parent Praise to 1-3 year olds predicts children’s motivational frameworks 5 years later
Background: Research has shown that the way parents praise children impacts their ideas used to make decisions (frameworks). Research also shows gender differences in praise received.
Aim: 1) Investigate whether children are affected by different types of parental praise given in a natural setting.
2) Investigate whether parents give girls less process praise and more person praise than boys.
Method: Longitudinal study that looked at parents praise in the home at ages 14 months, 26 months and 38 months. Neither researchers or parents knew that the study was looking at praise (thought it was about language development). 5 years later children answered two questionnaires about what they thought led to a person’s intelligence and what led to a person’s behaviour.
Results: GENDER: 24.4% of praise for boys was process. 10.3% of praise for girls was process.
3% of all parental comments to children are praise. Process praise=18% of all praise. Person praise=16% of all praise.
Conclusion: Process praise  incremental framework (believe effort can change ability and behaviour).
Supports other studies and theories
Parents and people collecting data did not know praise was being studied so helped avoid bias.
Ethical issues as parents were lied too.
Parents may have changed their behaviour because they knew they were being observed.
Cerebellum=involved in responses such as fear
Medulla Oblongata=involved in involuntary responses e.g sneezing
Piaget and Inhelder (1956) Three Mountains Task
Background: A young child experiences egocentrism and as they get older they ‘decentre’. Wants to look at children’s understanding of the world through groups of objects.
Aim: 1) Investigate the extent to which children of different ages were able to take the view of another person.
2) Investigate children’s overall system of putting together a number of different views.
Method: 100 children had to use cardboard shapes to show how the mountain scene looked from different viewpoints (theirs and the doll’s view). They had to pick out a picture that represented different viewpoints. Finally they had to pick a picture and position the doll so they could see that view.
Results: 4-6.5: Always choose pictures and placed cardboard to represent their own view.
7-9: Start to understand that others looking from a different position could see the model differently.
9-10: Children could understand that the doll had a different view if in a different position.
Conclusion: Children up to 7 years old are egocentric. Older children were not egocentric and could co-ordinate different perspectives.
Development
The Development of Morality
“Children's understanding of right and wrong”
Piaget (1932) Kohlberg (1958) Damon (1999)
Used qualitative data so could provide a great deal of details.
Used an experimental method so there was high reliability.
Morals develop through stages
-5-10: child believes that rules cannot be changed. Tend to focus on consequences of an action
-10+ intentions of an action are important. Can change rules to benefit others if everyone agrees.
Morals develop through levels.
Pre-conventional:
1-Child obeys rules in order to avoid punishment
2-What benefit can be gained from moral actions
Conventional:
3-Want to be seen as being good
4-Maintain social order
Post-conventional:
5-Laws are social contracts so can be different between people
6-Moral reasoning is abstract
Morals develop from both biology and experiences
Early Infancy:
Feelings towards others are same as towards themselves
1-2:
Realise others are upset but don’t know what to do.
Early Childhood:
Learn that others have different views to their own so may react differently.
10-12:
Start to realise that other people may live in poverty or be disabled.
Borke (1975) Suggested that the reason younger children could not the task was because it was too hard-not because they were egocentric.
Repacholi & Gopnik (1997) Found when using a more realistic situation (broccoli and crackers), children as young as 18-months were not egocentric.
Lack ecological validity.
Male only sample

2. Piaget Dweck Willingham
We go through 4 fairly long stages of development.
Sensorimotor (0-2)
Use senses and movements to get information about the world.
Live in the present
6 months: develop object permanence
TO HELP:
Provide them with a lot of stimulation
Pre-operational (2-7)
Symbolic Function (2-4):
Start to imitate others
Symbolic Play/Animism
Intuitive Thought (4-7)
Start of reasoning (ask a lot of questions)
Centration/irreversibility
Children must do things rather than watching someone else do it
Concrete Operational (7-12)
Begin to apply rules and strategies to help their thinking
Abilities: Seriation/classification/reversibility/decentration
Ask children to concentrate on more than one aspect of something
Formal Operational (12+)
Controlling own thoughts and can think about more than 1 thing
See that actions can have consequences
Discuss abstract concepts and complex moral situations
Fixed mindset: believing your abilities are fixed and unchangeable
Growth mindset: believing practice and effort can improve your abilities
Person praise Process praise
Fixed mindset Growth mindset
Children can develop a fixed inset about a particular ability they think they do not have and give up, fearing they will not be successful because the ability is not ‘in them’.
With a fixed mindset a person can become depressed and stop trying whereas a growth mindset allows for the idea of effort bringing success.
Teachers can also have fixed or growth mindsets which affect how they respond to a child.
Fixed mindset  see children as lacking a particular ability
Growth mindset  see that children can improve with perseverance.
Knowledge comes before skills:
For example you cannot ride a bike if you do not know how a bike works.
Knowledge frees up space in our working memory so we can use that to build skills.
Practice and effort is important in enabling us to master knowledge and skills.
Practice  doing things automatically (in long-term memory)
When knowledge/skills are in the long-term memory they are less likely to be forgotten.
Supporting Development
Cognitive
Promote activities that are within a child's ability but require effort
Understand that children’s abilities can change from day to day
Consider factors other than developmental level
Physical
Focus on suitable movements and in what order they should be carried out
Practice movements to muscle commands automatic
Use conscious effort e.g make changes to develop skill
Social
Promote decentration
Demonstrate appropriate social behaviour
Help children stop impulsive behaviour
Practical applications
Positive theory as it sees that change is possible
There is evidence to support the theory
Many experiments are in artificial settings to lack ecological validity.
The child is the focus of their own improvement. This ignores the quality of what is being taught and how teaching is done.
Practical applications e.g in education
Evidence to support theory
Did not emphasise important on individual differences e.g genes
Ideas comes from many areas of psychology so hard to test.
Practical applications
This theory is backed up by a lot of research
Ignored the influence of social and cultural factors
Data comes from interviews and observations from children which may result in bias.