In order to answer this question I will have to look at the process of maturation. The course of development in man is shaped by maturation and learning. The issue between inherent growth aspects Maturation, and the influence of experience, as in learning is one that has to be faced in many areas of psychology. Maturation assumes that timing and patterns of change beyond birth are relatively independent of experience and go on beyond despite wide variations in the environment. There are two main theories of child development, no psychologist would argue that any one argument in isolation could contribute wholly to the development process. What is clear is that the interactions between these two main arguments contribute to who we are. The first main argument that I will look at is the empiricists, who believe that the environment that we are brought up in is the main reason that we develop the way that we do, the main arguments are put forward by J.B. Watson who considered “that the child was born as a Tabula Rasa (a blank slate)” (N.Hayes, 1987 Psychology an Introduction pg2) . Watson was a total empiricist who believed that we are a blank slate that experience would write on. The other main view point put forward was the nativists who believed that we are pre-programmed and develop according to our genetic make-up through our genes and chromosomes. This viewpoint was put forward by Gesell who believed “children developed almost entirely as a result of genetic influence with there environment having little effect” (N.Hayes, 1987 Psychology an Introduction pg2) .
The Term Paper on Four planes of development age 6 to 12 by Dr. Maria Montessori.
Absorbent mind: first plane of development where the child has the capability to absorb large amounts of information with ease, as they are sensitive to specific skills characteristic: distinguishing feature or qualities of something childhood development: Child development refers to the biological, psychological and emotional changes that occur in human beings between birth and the end of ...
Most of the studies that have been carried out about learning have been tested on animals rather than humans and there is many different theories of learning. Learning can be described as “ a change in behaviour brought about as a result of experience” (N. Hayes, 2000, Foundations of Psychology, pg577) .. The first form of learning that is going to be looked at is classical conditioning. Two different investigations were done on this associative learning. American J.B. Watson in 1903 developed a theory called the law of exercise, which stated that “a learned link-an association-between a stimulus and a response could be forged simply by repeating the two together often enough” (N. Hayes, 2000, Foundations of Psychology, pg577).
Then around the same time the Russian psychologist by the name of Ivan Pavlov found that by ringing a bell at meal time he could program the dogs to believe that when the bell would sounded that it was meal time. So then when the dogs heard the bell ringing they started to salivate believing that they were going to get fed even when there was no food present. This is know as classical conditioning “In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus begins to elicit a response after being repeatedly paired with another stimulus that already elicits that response. We learn behaviours and emotions as a result of classical conditioning”(Bukatko, 2001, Child Development A Thematic Approach, pg 10).
operant conditioning is the second approach to the study of habit formation. B. F Skinner introduced this approach. Skinner proposed a distinction between two kinds of behaviour, which he called operant and respondent behaviour. Respondent behaviour is directly under control of the stimulus. The relation of operant behaviour to stimulation is different, the behaviour seems to be spontaneous rather than a response to a certain stimulus as cited in E. Hilgard et al (1967), Introduction to Psychology. By using a Skinner Box, a device which contained simple elements needed for a learning response – Skinner would place a hungry animal into the Skinner box. The box would only contain three things a lever, a food delivery chute and a light. The animal would eventually press the lever and a pellet of food would be delivered this meant that the behaviour was being rewarded and would have the effect of reinforcing that behaviour and it was more likely to happen again. By using some kind of signal such as a light showed that animals could be trained to press a lever when a signal was on not when it was off. This signal formed a discriminatory stimulus as cited in N.Hayes, 1987 Psychology an Introduction pg19. Therefore there are two main types of reinforcement positive and negative. Positive reinforcement is allowing the animal to get something it wants and negative allows the animal to avoid something unpleasant. Behaviour that is negative is extremely resistant to extinction, it does not die out quickly. How quickly it dies out will depend on the reinforcement schedule. These types of behaviour have been positively applied to humans, Skinner believed that operant conditioning could explain everything that human being did including language and thinking.
The Report on Children Learn Through Imitation
Roll a ball in imitation of an adult? Precious tried to roll the ball back to me every time I rolled it to her. She may have pushed or kicked the ball towards my directions more than twice. She also motioned for me to get the ball if it passed by me when she rolled it. Precious was very at tentative to the ball as I rolled it to her each time. She made sure the ball did not pass her. Look directly ...
Therefore there are a number of ways that a child learns these vary in there complexity from simple forms of association which involves the linking of a particular stimulus with a particular response to the building of new information into knowledge that we have been using for some time. The traditional theories of classical and operant conditioning explain child development and how we learn but there are many other approaches such as the social learning approach to child development this theory explains that everything cannot be explained by conditioning processes. There three main ways that socialisation is encouraged in children through the process of imitation for example Bandura et al and punishment and rewards, B.F. Skinner argues strongly that punishment is not effective and there needs to be positive and negative reinforcement and the third one is social expectations. The social learning approach believes that children learn through social perception and role models. Imitation is considered one of the most important of these processes, imitation is described as one shortcut to learning, it involves the copying of a certain act or set of actions and allows the child to learn a range of psychical skills very quickly. One of the main theorists on imitation was Bandura et al. Bandura stated that there was a big difference between what children learned and what shows in their behaviour. Patterson et al also investigated learning through imitation and he said that it wasn’t learning just through imitation but also learning through consequences so therefore in conclusion a child learns a great deal through imitation but direct reaction through adults and consequences may play a more important role.
The Research paper on Elaboration Theory in Learning Psychology
The concept of elaboration theory centers greatly on progressive learning. That is, the steps in learning are built upon each other in a series of increasingly complex steps. In other words, rather than plateau the learning progress, it increases in complexity as time goes on. However, what was learned in the earlier portion of the progression is not discarded. So, the concept of elaboration can ...
Cited Sources
Psychology, An Introduction, N.Hayes, 1987, Longman
Introduction to Psychology, E.R.Hilgard et al, 1971,
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
Introducing Social Psychology, H Tajfel et al, 1978,
Penguin Books
Essential Social Psychology, D.C. Pennington, 1986, Edward Arnold
Social Psychology, A.R. Lindesmith et al, 1968, Holt
Website
www.psych.co.uk
