EXAM 2025 QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS
Nature versus nurture controversy - ANS experiences (nurture) or genetics (nature)
influences development
Nurture blank slate - ANS tabula rasa
Nature versus nurture differences - ANS nature preprogrammed and nurture experiences
View of most theorists on nature versus nurture - ANS combination, interact from
conception forward
Stage theories (discontinuity theories) - ANS Development through a series of stages
Continuity theories - ANS Steady growth process
Discontinuity (stage) vs Continuity - ANS Stage is qualitative
Child development vs. Life Span Perspective - ANS Freud and Piaget = child development
Erikson = life span
Child Development theory - ANS complete once reach adolescence
1 COPYRIGHT © 2025 SIRJOEL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
,Life Span theory - ANS continues throughout life span
Universality vs. context-specific development - ANS Universality (Piaget) = same order and
same age
Context-specific (Bronfenbrenner) = takes place in various contexts
Context-specific development - ANS Collectivist cultures vs. individualistic cultures changes
development
Cognitive development theory - ANS Based on the notion that cognitive abilities are
developed as individuals mature physiologically and have opportunity to interact with
environment (Piaget)
Equilibration of accommodation and assimilation - ANS Piaget argues that normally we are in
this state, when a new stimulus presents we enter state of disequilibrium
Accommodation - ANS Adjusting prior knowledge gained through former experiences and
interactions
Assimilation - ANS Fitting together the new information with what has been previously
known or understood
Constructivism - ANS Piaget position on learning. Children construct schema, organized
patterns of thought or action, Based on the experiences that they have actively exploring the
environment
Piaget Constructivism - ANS considered a stage theory
Piaget Constructivism Four Stages - ANS 1. Sensorimotor (birth - 2)
2 COPYRIGHT © 2025 SIRJOEL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
, 2. Preoperational (2-7)
3. Concrete Operations (7-11)
4. Formal Operaitons (11-15)
Preoperational stage - ANS egocentrism, rigidity of thought, semi logical reasoning, limited
social cognition
Concrete Operations - ANS Beginning of operational thinking, can perform transformations,
understand reversibility, inversion, reciprocity, and conservation, group into categories, make
inferences, inductive reasoning
Formal Operations - ANS higher ordered critical thinking, adult thinking, ultimate stage of
cognitive development, scientific method, logical, abstract and hypothetical thought, deductive
and inductive reasoning
Kohlberg - ANS extended Piaget model to study of moral reasoning
Information processing approach - ANS newer approach to studying cognitive development,
uses computer as metaphor for human mind
Learning theory (or behaviorist theory) - ANS Developmental change as the product of
learning
Learning - ANS To find as changes in observable behavior
Watson - ANS Found in school psychology called behaviorism or behavioral psychology
Behavioral psychology important figures - ANS Pavlov, Watson, Skinner, Bandura
3 COPYRIGHT © 2025 SIRJOEL ALL RIGHTS RESERVED