A-LEVEL PSYCHOLOGY NOTES AND REVISION

BAILLARGEON’S EXPLANATION (SUPPORTS NATURE) Baillargeon was interested in the extent to which infants understand how the physical world works (eg. object permanence and perception). She developed the ‘violation of expectation’ method in order to investigate infants’ understanding of the physical world – she challenged Piaget’s views, by believing that even very young babies have a well-developed understanding of our world, including knowledge of object permanence. Definitions: 1. Knowledge of the physical world: refers to the extent to which we understand how the physical world works. An example of this is object permanence (the understanding that objects continue to exist when they leave the visual field) 2. Violation of expectation research: an approach to investigating infant knowledge of the world. The idea is that if children understand how the physical world operates then they will expect certain things to happen in particular situations. If these do not occur and chil

VYGOTSKY’S THEORY (SUPPORTS NURTURE) Vygotsky developed a socio-cultural approach to cognitive development: according to him, culture plays a critical part in the development of cognition. He viewed children as ‘apprentices’ (Piaget viewed them as ‘lone scientists’). Vygotsky also put a tremendous emphasis on the role of collaborative interactions (learning through interaction with others eg. an adult or more knowledgeable peer), as the child can be provided with verbal instructions on how to complete a task. For example: A parent helping a young child with a jigsaw. Basic strategies could be demonstrated   (eg. finding all the corner pieces first, and then fill in the middle). Then, as the child becomes more competent, they will be able to work more independently. Vygotsky identified a gap between a child’s current level of development (ie. What they can understand and do alone) and their potential level of development (what they could understand wi