Jean Piagets Theory Of Cognitive Development
Instead of approaching development from a psychoanalytic or psychosocial perspective, Piaget focused on childrens cognitive growth. He is most widely known for his stage theory of cognitive development, which outlines how children become able to think logically and scientifically over time. As they progress to a new stage, there is a distinct shift in how they think and reason.
Jean Piaget Piaget is best known for his stage theory of cognitive development.
Environment Of Evolutionary Adaptedness
Evolutionary psychology argues that to properly understand the functions of the brain, one must understand the properties of the environment in which the brain evolved. That environment is often referred to as the “environment of evolutionary adaptedness”.
The idea of an environment of evolutionary adaptedness was first explored as a part of attachment theory by John Bowlby. This is the environment to which a particular evolved mechanism is adapted. More specifically, the environment of evolutionary adaptedness is defined as the set of historically recurring selection pressures that formed a given adaptation, as well as those aspects of the environment that were necessary for the proper development and functioning of the adaptation.
Humans, comprising the genus , appeared between 1.5 and 2.5 million years ago, a time that roughly coincides with the start of the Pleistocene 2.6 million years ago. Because the Pleistocene ended a mere 12,000 years ago, most human adaptations either newly evolved during the Pleistocene, or were maintained by stabilizing selection during the Pleistocene. Evolutionary psychology, therefore, proposes that the majority of human psychological mechanisms are adapted to reproductive problems frequently encountered in Pleistocene environments. In broad terms, these problems include those of growth, development, differentiation, maintenance, mating, parenting, and social relationships.
B Simplicity And Parsimony
A major theoretical attraction of psychological egoism is parsimony. It provides a simple account of human motivation and offers a unified explanation of all our actions. Although actions may vary in content, the ultimate source is self-interest: doing well at ones job is merely to gain the favor of ones boss returning a wallet is merely to avoid the pang of guilt that would follow keeping it saying thank you for a meal is merely to avoid social reprimand for failing to conform to etiquette and so on.
One might dispute whether psychological egoism is any more parsimonious than psychological altruism . More importantly, however, it is no argument for a view that it is simpler than its competitors. Perhaps we might employ Ockhams Razor as a sort of tie-breaker to adjudicate between two theories when they are equal in all other respects, but this involves more than just simplicity . As David Hume puts it, psychological egoism shouldnt be based solely on that love of simplicity which has been the source of much false reasoning in philosophy . The heart of the debate then is whether there are other reasons to prefer one view over the other.
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Improvements Ahead: How Humans And Ai Might Evolve Together In The Next Decade
Other questions to the experts in this canvassing invited their views on the hopeful things that will occur in the next decade and for examples of specific applications that might emerge. What will human-technology co-evolution look like by 2030? Participants in this canvassing expect the rate of change to fall in a range anywhere from incremental to extremely impactful. Generally, they expect AI to continue to be targeted toward efficiencies in workplaces and other activities, and they say it is likely to be embedded in most human endeavors.
The greatest share of participants in this canvassing said automated systems driven by artificial intelligence are already improving many dimensions of their work, play and home lives and they expect this to continue over the next decade. While they worry over the accompanying negatives of human-AI advances, they hope for broad changes for the better as networked, intelligent systems are revolutionizing everything, from the most pressing professional work to hundreds of the little everyday aspects of existence.
This section begins with experts sharing mostly positive expectations for the evolution of humans and AI. It is followed by separate sections that include their thoughts about the potential for AI-human partnerships and quality of life in 2030, as well as the future of jobs, health care and education.
The Future Of Health Care: Great Expectations For Many Lives Saved Extended And Improved Mixed With Worries About Data Abuses And A Divide Between The Haves And Have
Many of these experts have high hopes for continued incremental advances across all aspects of health care and life extension. They predict a rise in access to various tools, including digital agents that can perform rudimentary exams with no need to visit a clinic, a reduction in medical errors and better, faster recognition of risks and solutions. They also worry over the potential for a widening health care divide between those who can afford cutting-edge tools and treatments and those less privileged. They also express concerns about the potential for data abuses such as the denial of insurance or coverage or benefits for select people or procedures.
Charles Zheng, a researcher into machine learning and AI with the National Institute of Mental Health, commented, In the year 2030, I expect AI will be more powerful than they currently are, but not yet at human level for most tasks. A patient checking into a hospital will be directed to the correct desk by a robot. The receptionist will be aided by software that listens to their conversation with the patient and automatically populates the information fields without needing the receptionist to type the information. Another program cross-references the database in the cloud to check for errors. The patients medical images would first be automatically labeled by a computer program before being sent to a radiologist.
The following one-liners from anonymous respondents also tie into the future of health care:
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Examples Of Major Theoretical Perspectives
There have been a number of key theoretical perspectives that have had an influence throughout psychologys history. Even today, many psychologists tend to focus their research through the lens of a certain theoretical perspective.
Theories tend to fall into one of a few different types.
- Grand theories attempt to describe many aspects of the human experience. Examples include Freuds psychoanalytic theory and Eriksons psychosocial theory.
- Mini-theories, on the other hand, focus on describing just a narrow range of behaviors.
- Emergent theories are those that are newer and often involve combining different aspects of various mini-theories. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory is an example of an emergent theory.
Some examples of these theories include:
Why Is Assessment Validation Important
Rigorous validation of educational assessments is critically important for at least two reasons. First, those using an assessment must be able to trust the results. Validation does not give a simple yes/no answer regarding trustworthiness rather, a judgment of trustworthiness or validity depends on the intended application and context and is typically a matter of degree. Validation provides the evidence to make such judgments and a critical appraisal of remaining gaps.
Second, the number of assessment instruments, tools, and activities is essentially infinite, since each new multiple-choice question, scale item, or exam station creates a de facto new instrument. Yet, for a given educator, the relevant tasks and constructs in need of assessment are finite. Each educator thus needs information to sort and sift among the myriad possibilities to identify the assessment solution that best meets his or her immediate needs. Potential solutions include selecting an existing instrument, adapting an existing instrument, combining elements of several instruments, or creating a novel instrument from scratch . Educators need information regarding not only the trustworthiness of scores, but also the logistics and practical issues such as cost, acceptability, and feasibility that arise during test implementation and administration.
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The Ad Hominem Or At The Person Fallacy
- Rejecting someones argument by attacking the person rather than evaluating their argument on its merits.
Dear Editor, The current campaign against combining drinking with driving is terrorising law-abiding people. Many law-abiding people are cutting their alcohol consumption because they are afraid of being caught by random breath testing. But research shows that the average drink-driver in a fatal accident has an average blood alcohol level of more than twice the legal limit. The current campaign against drinking and driving is failing to achieve what should be our top priority getting the heavy and hardened drinkers of the road. Douglas Myers. CEO, Dominion Breweries.
Dear Editor, I read Doug Myers letter yesterday but he is the CEO of a major brewing company! He has a vested interest in keeping alcohol sales up, and the anti-drink-driving campaign threatens to reduce alcohol sales. We shouldnt take any notice of his views about drinking and driving.
Burton Wexler, spokesperson for the American Tobacco Growers Association, has argued that there is no credible scientific evidence that cigarette smoking causes cancer. Given Wexlers obvious bias in the matter, his arguments should be treated with care.
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What Is Positive Psychology And How Did It Come Into Being
The question âwhat is wrong with peopleâ has guided the thinking of many researchers and dominated countless scientific studies during the 20th century. It is hard to deny that this entails an important question.
In our attempts to answer the question, we have gained more understanding of many illnesses and have developed effective treatments for a wide range of problems.
However, as an inevitable consequence of our focus on the negative aspects of wellbeing and health, such as distress and disease, we developed an almost exclusive attention to pathology.
We believe that science has focused disproportionately on pathology and repair, and devoted relatively little attention to factors that âmake life worth living.â
As the 21st century unfolds, however, we are beginning to ask a different question: What is right about people?
This question is at the heart of positive psychology, which is the scientific and applied approach to uncovering peoples strengths and promoting their positive functioning.
During the past 14 years, the number of scientific studies on positive psychology has increased tremendously. In addition, countless interventions have been developed to increase peopleâs wellbeing.
Ai Will Optimize And Augment Peoples Lives
The hopeful experts in this sample generally expect that AI will work to optimize, augment and improve human activities and experiences. They say it will save time and it will save lives via health advances and the reduction of risks and of poverty. They hope it will spur innovation and broaden opportunities, increase the value of human-to-human experiences, augment humans and increase individuals overall satisfaction with life.
Clay Shirky, writer and consultant on the social and economic effects of internet technologies and vice president at New York University, said, All previous forms of labor-saving devices, from the level to the computer, have correlated with increased health and lifespan in the places that have adopted them.
Theodore Gordon, futurist, management consultant and co-founder of the Millennium Project, commented, There will be ups and downs, surely, but the net is, I believe, good. The most encouraging uses of AI will be in early warning of terror activities, incipient diseases and environmental threats and in improvements in decision-making.
Rich Ling, a professor of media technology at Nanyang Technological University, responded, The ability to address complex issues and to better respond to and facilitate the needs of people will be the dominant result of AI.
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On The Founder: Martin Seligman
is a researcher with a broad range of experience in psychology.
If you had never heard of the positive psychology movement until now, you still might have heard his name at some point. Seligmanâs research in the 1960s and 70s laid the foundation for the well-known psychological theory of âlearned helplessness.â
This theory, which has been backed by decades of research, explains how humans and animals can learn to become helpless and feel they have lost control over what happens to them.
Seligman connected this phenomenon with depression, noting that many people suffering from depression feel helpless as well. His work on the subject provided inspiration, ideas, and evidence to back up many treatments for depressive symptoms, as well as strategies for preventing depression.
While this is impressive enough on its own, Seligman knew that he had more to offer the psychology community and the world at largeâin particular, more work on the positive, the uplifting, and the inspiring. After making a name for himself with learned helplessness, he turned his attention to other traits, characteristics, and perspectives that could be learned.
He found what he was looking for in resilience and learned optimism, findings that became the groundwork for his widely administered resilience programs for children and members of the military, among others.
Purpose Of Psychological Perspectives
Why are there so many different perspectives in psychology? It is important to remember that every topic in psychology can be looked at in many ways. For example, let’s consider the subject of aggression.
- A professional who emphasizes a biological perspective would look at how the brain and nervous system impact aggressive behavior.
- A professional who stresses a behavioral perspective would look at how environmental variables reinforce aggressive actions.
- A professional who utilizes a cross-cultural approach might consider how cultural and social influences contribute to aggressive or violent behavior.
Here are seven of the major perspectives in modern psychology.
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Mistake 9 Let The Availability Of The Simulator/assessment Instrument Drive The Assessment
Too often as educators, we allow the availability of an assessment tool to drive the assessment process, such as taking an off-the-shelf MCQ exam for an end-of-clerkship assessment when a performance-based assessment might better align with clerkship objectives. This issue is further complicated with simulation-based assessments, where the availability of a simulator may drive the educational program as opposed to designing the educational program and then choosing the best simulation to fit the educational needs . We should align the construct we are teaching with the simulator and assessment tool that best assess that construct.
D Relating Egoism And Altruism
There are two important aspects to highlight regarding how psychological egoism and altruism relate to one another. First, psychological egoism makes a stronger, universal claim that all of our ultimate desires are egoistic, while psychological altruism merely makes the weaker claim that some of our ultimate desires are altruistic. Thus, the former is a monistic thesis, while the latter is a pluralistic thesis . Consequently, psychological egoism is easier to refute than the opposing view. If one were to successfully demonstrate that someeven just oneof a persons ultimate desires are altruistic, then we can safely reject psychological egoism. For example, if Thomas removes his heel from anothers gouty toe because he has an ultimate desire that the person benefit from it, then psychological egoism is false.
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Decision Point Fallacy Or The Sorites Paradox
- Sometimes the conditions that make the use of a term appropriate vary along a continuum and there is no sharp cut off between circumstances in which the term is correctly applied and those in which it is not.
One grain of wheat doesnt make a heap. Suppose 1 million does. Take one away. Surely we still have a heap: if a million makes a heap, surely 999,999 does too. One grain cant turn a heap into a non-heap. Take another away. Surely we still have a heap: if 999,999 does, surely 999,998 does too. One grain etc. Take another away. Surely we still have a heap . etc etc etc.But if one grain doesnt make a difference, then it seems that we will be forced to conclude that 1 grain does make a heap. But that means we cant talk about heaps of wheat at all: we dont know when we can describe a collection of grains of wheat as a heap and when we cant.
At conception an embryo is not a person. At birth, a baby is a person. There is no non-arbitrary way of determining exactly when the embryo became a person. Therefore, there is no moral difference between the embryo and the baby at birth.
They Can Adapt And Evolve
Theories are dynamic and always changing. As new discoveries are made, theories are modified and adapted to account for new information. While theories are sometimes presented as static and fixed, they tend to evolve over time as new research is explored.
Attachment theory, for example, began with the work of John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth and has expanded and grown to include new descriptions of different attachment styles.
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Appeals To Emotion Eg Pity Affection
- An arguer attempts to evoke feelings of pity or compassion, when such feelings are not logically relevant to the arguers conclusion.
Student to Lecturer: I know I missed most of the lectures and all of my tutorials. But my family will be really upset if I fail this course. Cant you find a few more marks?
Daughter: Can we get a puppy?Father: No.Daughter: If you loved me, wed get a puppy.
Daughter: A puppy would grow up and protect us. Cant we get a puppy?Father: No.Daughter: If you wanted to keep us safe youd get a puppy! You dont care about us!