PSYC 304 UPDATED EXAMS TEST PAPER
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SURE A+
✔✔Active-passive child issue - ✔✔Are children simply at the mercy of their environment
(passive child) or do children actively influence their own development through their
unique individual characteristics (active child)?
Children influence their own development:
- All relationships are a two-way street (child has influence, too)
- Child's unique characteristics may cause him or her to have some experiences but not
others
Passive, evocative, active (niche picking)
✔✔Plato - ✔✔Children born with innate knowledge; human soul exists eternally (exists
in a world of form before life)
✔✔Aristotle - ✔✔Knowledge is rooted in experience
✔✔Locke - ✔✔Infant is a "blank slate", but has natural inclinations which include
personalities, likes, and dislikes; educating children entails instructing their minds and
molding their natural tendencies
, ✔✔Rousseau - ✔✔Children born with innate sense of justice and morality; natural
innocence is corrupted by the evils of society
✔✔Cave allegory (Plato) - ✔✔Representation of Plato's divided line:
Sun = world of being (reason)
Recognizing = world of numbers (intellect)
Connecting shadows and forms = world of objects (belief)
Shadow = world of images (imagination)
✔✔Darwin and child development - ✔✔Understanding the development of individuals
within a species can help understand how a species developed; baby biographies
✔✔G Stanley Hall - ✔✔Influenced by Darwin; maturationist theory; based on the
premise that growing children would recapitulate evolutionary stages of development as
they grew up, and that it was counterproductive to push a child ahead of its
developmental stage
✔✔Biological perspective - ✔✔Development is determined primarily by biological
forces; critical (sensitive) period, imprinting
✔✔"Normative" approach to studying children (Gesell) - ✔✔Psychologists observed
large numbers of children of various ages and determined the typical age, or "norms,"
for which most children achieved various developmental milestones
✔✔Psychosexual stages (Freud) - ✔✔
✔✔Learning Perspective - ✔✔Early learning theories emphasized the important of
experience in development
ex: Pavlov, Skinner, Bandura
✔✔Cognitive-Developmental Perspective - ✔✔Development reflects children's efforts to
understand the world; children are viewed as "little scientists" who develop and revise
theories with experience
ex: Piaget
✔✔Contextual Perspective - ✔✔Development is determined by immediate and more
distant environments, which typically influence each other
ex: Vygotsky, Bronfenbrenner
✔✔Five domains of development - ✔✔Physical, emotional (personality), social,
language, and cognition
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS SURE A+
✔✔Active-passive child issue - ✔✔Are children simply at the mercy of their environment
(passive child) or do children actively influence their own development through their
unique individual characteristics (active child)?
Children influence their own development:
- All relationships are a two-way street (child has influence, too)
- Child's unique characteristics may cause him or her to have some experiences but not
others
Passive, evocative, active (niche picking)
✔✔Plato - ✔✔Children born with innate knowledge; human soul exists eternally (exists
in a world of form before life)
✔✔Aristotle - ✔✔Knowledge is rooted in experience
✔✔Locke - ✔✔Infant is a "blank slate", but has natural inclinations which include
personalities, likes, and dislikes; educating children entails instructing their minds and
molding their natural tendencies
, ✔✔Rousseau - ✔✔Children born with innate sense of justice and morality; natural
innocence is corrupted by the evils of society
✔✔Cave allegory (Plato) - ✔✔Representation of Plato's divided line:
Sun = world of being (reason)
Recognizing = world of numbers (intellect)
Connecting shadows and forms = world of objects (belief)
Shadow = world of images (imagination)
✔✔Darwin and child development - ✔✔Understanding the development of individuals
within a species can help understand how a species developed; baby biographies
✔✔G Stanley Hall - ✔✔Influenced by Darwin; maturationist theory; based on the
premise that growing children would recapitulate evolutionary stages of development as
they grew up, and that it was counterproductive to push a child ahead of its
developmental stage
✔✔Biological perspective - ✔✔Development is determined primarily by biological
forces; critical (sensitive) period, imprinting
✔✔"Normative" approach to studying children (Gesell) - ✔✔Psychologists observed
large numbers of children of various ages and determined the typical age, or "norms,"
for which most children achieved various developmental milestones
✔✔Psychosexual stages (Freud) - ✔✔
✔✔Learning Perspective - ✔✔Early learning theories emphasized the important of
experience in development
ex: Pavlov, Skinner, Bandura
✔✔Cognitive-Developmental Perspective - ✔✔Development reflects children's efforts to
understand the world; children are viewed as "little scientists" who develop and revise
theories with experience
ex: Piaget
✔✔Contextual Perspective - ✔✔Development is determined by immediate and more
distant environments, which typically influence each other
ex: Vygotsky, Bronfenbrenner
✔✔Five domains of development - ✔✔Physical, emotional (personality), social,
language, and cognition
