The Growth of Knowledge: Crash Course Psychology #18

CrashCourse
9 Jun 201409:50
EducationalLearning
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TLDRThe script provides an overview of developmental psychology - the study of how humans grow and change over our whole lifespan. It focuses on Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget's influential theory of cognitive development, which proposes that we progress through four key stages as we mature: the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages. The theory explains how our reasoning and perceptions evolve as children before reaching adult capability. The script also touches on criticism of Piaget's ideas, alternatives like Lev Vygotsky's scaffolding concept, and the impact of nurture and culture on developmental trajectories.

Takeaways
  • 😀 Piaget proposed a 4-stage theory of cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational
  • 😯 Assimilation and accommodation help us adapt to new experiences and reach cognitive equilibrium
  • 🧠 Schema, object permanence and theory of mind develop as kids mature cognitively
  • 😠 Egocentrism causes kids to struggle seeing others' perspectives
  • 👶 Sensory experiences shape early development in the sensorimotor stage
  • 🤔 Abstract reasoning develops in the formal operational stage
  • 💡 Vygotsky emphasized social interaction and language in cognitive growth
  • 📈 Developmental changes follow sequences but happen at varying paces
  • 😊 Parenting style impacts kids' personality and behavior later on
  • 🧮 Conservation, reversibility and decentration indicate shifts in logical thinking
Q & A

  • What is the study of our physical, cognitive, social and emotional changes throughout life called?

    -The study of our physical, cognitive, social and emotional changes throughout life - from prenatal to preteen to post-retirement - is called developmental psychology.

  • What did Jean Piaget's early research on children reveal?

    -Jean Piaget's early research revealed that children of certain ages consistently made particular mistakes on questions that older kids and adults did not make. This led him to theorize that humans go through specific stages of cognitive development.

  • What are the two processes Piaget proposed we use to adapt to new experiences?

    -The two processes Piaget proposed we use to adapt to new experiences are assimilation, where we interpret new experiences using our existing knowledge structures, and accommodation, where we adjust our existing knowledge structures to fit new experiences.

  • What are the four stages of cognitive development in Piaget's theory?

    -The four stages of cognitive development in Piaget's theory are: 1) Sensorimotor stage (birth - 2 years) 2) Preoperational stage (2-7 years) 3) Concrete operational stage (7-12 years) 4) Formal operational stage (12+ years)

  • What is egocentrism in Piaget's preoperational stage?

    -Egocentrism in Piaget's preoperational stage (ages 2-7 years) refers to the tendency of young children to see the world purely from their own perspective. They struggle to understand or imagine other viewpoints.

  • How did Vygotsky's theory differ from Piaget's?

    -Unlike Piaget who focused on a child's interactions with the physical world, Vygotsky emphasized parental instruction and social interaction. He also believed less in fixed stages and more in the idea of scaffolding provided by caregivers.

  • What concepts do children struggle with in the preoperational stage?

    -In the preoperational stage, children struggle with concepts like conservation (understanding quantities remain the same despite appearance changes), reversibility (mentally reversing a process) and centration (fixating on one aspect of an object or situation).

  • When do children develop theory of mind capabilities?

    -Children begin developing theory of mind, or the ability to understand others' perspectives, during the second half of the preoperational stage, around age 4-5 years old.

  • What happens cognitively in the sensorimotor stage?

    -In the sensorimotor stage (birth-2 years), babies experience the world through senses and actions, developing object permanence and gaining ability to represent things mentally.

  • What kind of thinking develops in the formal operational stage?

    -In the formal operational stage (ages 12+ years), more abstract thinking and hypothetical problem solving develops.

Outlines
00:00
😊 Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

This paragraph provides an overview of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development. It discusses how Piaget studied how knowledge and understanding grows over time. He proposed that we create mental frameworks called schemas to interpret information and are always trying to achieve equilibrium between our thoughts and environments. Piaget theorized four stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.

05:01
😲 Egocentrism and Animism in Childhood

This paragraph discuses the preoperational stage, usually ages 2-7 years old. Kids at this age are very egocentric and struggle to understand others' perspectives. They also exhibit animism by believing inanimate objects have feelings. Early on kids lack conservation and reversibility but later develop theory of mind to understand others' thoughts and feelings.

Mindmap
Keywords
💡developmental psychology
Developmental psychology is the study of how humans grow and change over their entire lifespan, from conception to old age. It examines the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional changes we go through. This video explores theories and research in developmental psychology, especially related to cognitive development in children.
💡cognitive development
Cognitive development refers to how our minds develop the ability to think, reason, understand concepts, acquire knowledge, and more. The video focuses on cognitive development theories, like Piaget's stage theory, and concepts like schemas and equilibrium.
💡Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget was an influential developmental psychologist known for his theory of cognitive development. His four stage model describes how cognition evolves from sensorimotor intelligence in infants to advanced abstract reasoning in adults.
💡schema
A schema is a mental framework or concept that helps us organize and interpret information. According to Piaget, we are constantly creating, adjusting and expanding our schemas as we develop cognitively and gain new knowledge.
💡assimilation
Assimilation is the process of interpreting new experiences and information by fitting them into our existing schemas or understanding. For example, a child may call the first deer he sees a "horsey" based on his schema for horses.
💡accommodation
Accommodation refers to adjusting our existing schemas to fit new experiences, rather than the other way around. So the child will expand his "horses" schema into a broader "animals" schema that includes deer.
💡object permanence
Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight. According to Piaget, acquiring this concept is a major milestone in babies around 8 months old, marking the development from his sensorimotor stage to the preoperational stage.
💡egocentrism
Egocentrism refers to young children's inability to understand other people's perspectives. Preschool kids can struggle to adopt someone else's point of view. Piaget saw egocentric thinking as a characteristic of his preoperational stage of cognitive development spanning ages 2-7.
💡conservation
Conservation refers to the principle that certain properties stay the same even if other properties change. Young children have trouble with conservation tasks - understanding that two equal amounts remain equal even if containers change shape or size.
💡Vygotsky scaffolding
Lev Vygotsky proposed that kids' development is advanced through social interaction, especially with skilled adults who provide scaffolding for more sophisticated thinking. Unlike Piaget's fixed stages, Vygotsky saw cognitive growth as a more fluid, interactive process between children and caregivers.
Highlights

Humans go through specific stages of cognitive development and intellectual progression.

As we grow and struggle to make sense of our experiences, we create schemas, or mental frameworks that help interpret information.

We're constantly striving for cognitive equilibrium, or harmony, between our thought processes and our environments.

We adapt to new experiences through two processes - assimilation and accommodation.

Piaget devised a four-stage theory of cognitive development that described how we learn in different phases of our lives.

The sensorimotor stage begins at birth and continues to about age two, when babies experience the world through senses and actions.

The preoperational stage is characterized by egocentrism, which drives most of what a child thinks and says.

Kids believe their favorite toys have feelings, opinions and possibly the intent to kiss or kill you when you're asleep.

Kids struggle with concepts like conservation and reversibility.

Kids start forming their theory of mind, understanding others' feelings, thoughts and behavior predictions.

The concrete operational stage sees kids starting to think logically about concrete events they've experienced.

The formal operational stage carries us through life with more abstract thinking and hypothetical reasoning.

Researchers have detected Piaget's phases at earlier ages than he recorded.

Vygotsky emphasized parental instruction and social environments in early development.

Piaget developed theoretical depth in the concept that kids think very differently than adults.

Transcripts

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