Cognitive development, Psychology, College Term Papers.com


		Data Bases
		• Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism?

		Links
		• Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com

		Free Essays
		• Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers

Search Lots of Essays

Back to Subjects - Psychology

Cognitive development

Cognitive development Piaget believed that children actively construct their understanding of the world in radically different ways from adults. He further believed that children's minds develop through a series of stages in which they form increasingly complex schemas that organize their past experiences and provide a framework for understanding future experiences. In the sensorimotor stage, 0-2 years, children experience their world through their senses and actions. During this stage, object permanence (and stranger anxiety) develop. In the preoperational stage, 2-7 years, children are able to use language but lack logical reasoning. During this stage, symbolic thought, egocentrism, Irreversibility, centration and conservation develops. In the concrete operational stage,7-11 years, children are able to think logically about concrete events and perform mathematical operations. The formal operational stage, 12 through adulthood, is characterized by abstract and systematic reasoning, as well as by the potential for mature moral reasoning. Criticism - Today's researchers see development as more continuous than did Piaget. For example, object permanence, conservation, and the abilities to take another's perspective and perform mental operations unfold gradually and are not utterly absent in one stage and then suddenly present. Researchers also believe that Piaget underestimated young children's competence. They have found rudiments of various cognitive abilities at an earlier age than Piaget supposed. In many ways, however, Piaget's theory continues to receive support. Despite variations in the rate at which children develop, research reveals that human cognition everywhere unfolds in the basic sequence he proposed. Since you are apparently in good psychological health, according to the psychoanalytic perspective you must have experienced a healthy childhood and successfully passed Freud's stages of psychosexual development. Freud would also say that your ego is functioning well in balancing the demands of your id with the restraining demands of your superego and reality. Freud might also say that your honest nature reflects a well-developed superego, while Jung might say it derives from a universal value found in our collective unconscious. Trait theorists would be less concerned with explaining these specific characteristics than with describing them, determining their consistency, and classifying your personality type. Some trait theorists, such as Allport, Eysenck, and Kagan, attribute certain trait differences to biological factors such as autonomic reactivity and heredity. According to the humanistic perspective, your open and honest nature indicates that your basic needs have been met and you are in the process of self-actualization (Maslow). Furthermore, your openness indicates that you have a healthy self-concept and were likely nurtured by genuine, accepting, and empathic caregivers (Rogers). According to the social-cognitive perspective, your personal/ cognitive factors, behavior, and environmental influences interacted in shaping your personality and behaviors. The fact that you are a responsible person indicates that you perceive yourself as controlling, rather than being controlled by, your environment. Freud believed that children pass through a series of psychosexual stages during which the id's pleasure-seeking energies focus on particular erogenous zones. Between birth and 18 months (oral stage), pleasure centers on the mouth. Between 18 and 36 months (anal stage), pleasure focuses on bowel and bladder retention and elimination. Between 3 and 6 years (phallic stage), the pleasure zone shifts to the genitals, and boys develop unconscious sexual desires for their mothers and the fear that their fathers will punish them (Oedipus complex). Children eventually cope with these threatening feelings by repressing them and identifying with their same-sex parent. Between 6 years of age and puberty (latency stage), sexual feelings are repressed and redirected. At puberty, sexual interests mature as youths begin to experience sexual feelings toward others (genital stage). Criticism – Small sample. Imposing his own idea into patients, see only what he wanted to see. Lack of testability, id, ego, superego The humanistic perspective emerged as a reaction against several other perspectives on personality. In contrast to Freud's study of the negative motives of "sick" people, the humanistic psychologists have focused on the strivings of "healthy" people. Unlike the trait theorists, they view people as whole persons, rather than as collections of individual traits. Maslow proposed that people are motivated by a hierarchy of needs and that if basic needs are fulfilled, people will strive to reach their highest potential (self-actualization). Carl Rogers agreed with much of Maslow's thinking, adding that people nurture others' actualizing tendencies by being genuine, accepting, and empathic. For both theorists a central feature of personality is a person's self-concept. Criticism - The ideas of humanistic psychologists have influenced counseling, education, child-rearing, and management. Critics contend, however, that the concepts of humanistic psychology are vague,; subjective, and so focused on the individual that: they promote self-indulgence, selfishness, and an' erosion of moral restraints. Furthermore, the. humanistic psychologists have been accused of being naively optimistic and unrealistic, and failing to appreciate the human capacity for evil. 3. The social-cognitive perspective applies principles of learning, cognition, and social behavior to personality and emphasizes the ways in which our personalities shape and are shaped by external events. Reciprocal determinism refers to the ways in which our personalities are influenced by the interaction of our situations, our thoughts and feelings, and our behaviors. There are many examples of reciprocal determinism. For one, different people choose different environments. For another, our personalities shape how we interpret and react to events. Finally, our personalities help create situations to which we react. 4. To be a genuine personality trait, a characteristic must persist over time and across situations. Critics of this perspective question the consistency of traits. Although people's traits do seem to persist over time, research has revealed much less consistency of specific behaviors from one situation to another. However, although people do not act with perfect consistency, their average behavior over many situations is predictable. Big Five Factor model – emotional stability, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness. Bibliography:

Word Count: 941