Exam 1: Themes and Theories

The belief that children are born with a propensity to act on impulses without an aim of wrongdoing is the belief that the child is a tabula rasa.

The philosophical theory that environmental experiences shape the individual's development is known as

Brief periods in which specific kinds of experiences have significant positive or negative consequences for development are referred to as

The developmental norms established by Arnold Gesell in the 1930s are only of limited use to professionals who work with children today.

Similar to learning theories,many information-processing theories have been criticized for their failure to consider

The importance of complex developmental transactions becomes especially apparent when

Binet and Simon developed a series of tasks to

The theoretical approach that views humans as having a limited ability to process information,much as computers do,is called

What are the major ideas behind Jean Jacques Rousseau's view of development?

When a new experience causes a cognitive imbalance,the process of ________ corrects this imbalance by modifying the child's schemes through assimilation and accommodation.

The unique characteristics that distinguish a person from other members of a larger group are called developmental markers.

It has been said that Rousseau's ideas on the nature of education were incorporated into the twentieth-century writings of Jean Piaget.Both Rousseau and Piaget believed that

Dr.Marchant views development as a ________ process,where quantitative advances are made gradually.Dr.Bowman,on the other hand,views development as a ________ process,where advances are characterized by abrupt,qualitative shifts in thinking and behavior.

The type of learning in which the pattern and frequency of behaviors that are learned depend on whether the behaviors produce desired or undesired outcomes is called

According to most information-processing theories,changes in the cognitive system are a joint effort between cognitive structures and processes and environmental input.With which key theme in development is this statement most consistent?

According to John Watson,development is the result of ancestral traits.

Vygotsky's developmental theory,which emphasizes the importance of culturally determined tools,symbols,and ways of thinking that the child acquires from more knowledgeable members of the community,is called ________ theory.

Compare the learning theory and cognitive-developmental approaches to understanding child development.How do they differ in the ways they conceptualize the process of development and in the assumptions they make about the forces responsible for development?

All theories of development are ultimately concerned with a single question:

In Piaget's theory of cognitive development,equilibration describes the self-regulating process by which