Ms. Maya, Faculty for Statistics has pointed out the following corrections in the Assigment questions.
MAPC: Correction in Statistics assignment-Q4-Find value of r12.3 and r23.1.
Q5- 2x+3y-8=0 ii) Find x and y and ....
Q9- find U and U'
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Importance of Normal Distribution
The normal distribution as great significance in statistical work because of the following reasons.
- The Normal Distribution has the remarkable place stated in the central limit theorem, most imporant of which is the sample mean and sample variance tends to be normally distributed as the sample size becomes large.
- Even if a variable is not Normal Distributed, it can sometimes be brought to normal form by sample transformation of the variable.
- Many of the sampling ditributions like student t, F, etc also tend to Normal Distribution.
- The sampling distribution and testa of hypothesis are based upon the assumption that samples have been drawn from a Normal population with mean μ and variance 2.
- Normal Distribution find large application in statistical quality control
- As n becomes large, the Normal Distribution serves as a good appreciation for many descrete distributions (Binomial, Poisson)
- In theoretical statistics, many problems can be solved only under the assumption of a Normal Distribution.
- The Normal Distribution has numerous mathematical propertied which make it popular and esay to manipulate.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Deena jerly - Electives
Friends
Can you please tell me which is the better of the two electives, clinical or counselling. The feasibility too has to be considered too, because we have the internship, and the project.
Initially when we filled in the application form we were asked to opt the elective. Now we have the application form for the second year. Is it possible to change the elective.
Patricia Robin
deenajerly@gmail.com
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Fully-functioning person
Carl Rogers was a psychotherapist who, in the early part of the twentieth Century, developed the concept of client-centered psychotherapy. He was a great proponent of the scientific method and was one of the first to incorporate it into psychotherapy. His person-centered approach to psychotherapy entailed an unconditional acceptance between client and counselor. And with all this said I still find it phenomenal yet suspicious that a therapist can listen to an individual without interjections and still assists in improving the individual by making them a person.
Rogers felt that the role of the counselor, instructor or any other individual who was responsible for the developing personal maturity in another, was to help that person become fully-functional. Rogers identified five specific categories which were important in this goal. They are the openness to experience, existential living, organismic trusting, experiential freedom and creativity.
To Rogers to be fully functioning was to live the good life. He defined this goal:
"The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination. It is not...a state of virtue, or contentment, or nirvana or happiness. It is not a condition in which the individual is adjusted, or fulfilled or actualized"(187).
Rogers therefore sees the fully functioning person as a person who is taking the right path in life, a path which is accelerated by favorable psychological conditions. This path is one in which is available to all persons and is inherent and ubiquitous. They can be enhanced, according to Rogers, with client-centered therapy.
But even with all this said, I am torn between stepping aside from my everyday views and willingly accepting the fact that client-centered therapy is the best way to produce an individual that will be psychologically on the right path and living the good life.
Although, Freud's attempts at this goal were in a different fashion, he still achieved remedy in many of his patients through psychoanalytic therapy. Not only did he satisfy most of his patients likewise he passed his methods on to many other psychologists. It is only my mere feeling that those who do not possess the same intuitive and insightful qualities that Carl Rogers did can not fully assist a client with his form of client-centered therapy.
Rogers felt that the role of the counselor, instructor or any other individual who was responsible for the developing personal maturity in another, was to help that person become fully-functional. Rogers identified five specific categories which were important in this goal. They are the openness to experience, existential living, organismic trusting, experiential freedom and creativity.
To Rogers to be fully functioning was to live the good life. He defined this goal:
"The good life is a process, not a state of being. It is a direction, not a destination. It is not...a state of virtue, or contentment, or nirvana or happiness. It is not a condition in which the individual is adjusted, or fulfilled or actualized"(187).
Rogers therefore sees the fully functioning person as a person who is taking the right path in life, a path which is accelerated by favorable psychological conditions. This path is one in which is available to all persons and is inherent and ubiquitous. They can be enhanced, according to Rogers, with client-centered therapy.
But even with all this said, I am torn between stepping aside from my everyday views and willingly accepting the fact that client-centered therapy is the best way to produce an individual that will be psychologically on the right path and living the good life.
Although, Freud's attempts at this goal were in a different fashion, he still achieved remedy in many of his patients through psychoanalytic therapy. Not only did he satisfy most of his patients likewise he passed his methods on to many other psychologists. It is only my mere feeling that those who do not possess the same intuitive and insightful qualities that Carl Rogers did can not fully assist a client with his form of client-centered therapy.
Merits and demerits of case history method
Case Studies
Definition
• An intensive description and analysis of a single individual or (sometimes) group.
Advantages
1. Good source of ideas about behavior
2. Good opportunity for innovation
3. Good method to study rare phenomena
4. Good method to challenge
theoretical assumptions
5. Good alternative or complement to the group focus of psychology
Disadvantages
1. Hard to draw definite cause-effect conclusions
2. Hard to generalize from a single case
3. Possible biases in data collection and interpretation (since single person
gathers and analyzes the information)
Definition
• An intensive description and analysis of a single individual or (sometimes) group.
Advantages
1. Good source of ideas about behavior
2. Good opportunity for innovation
3. Good method to study rare phenomena
4. Good method to challenge
theoretical assumptions
5. Good alternative or complement to the group focus of psychology
Disadvantages
1. Hard to draw definite cause-effect conclusions
2. Hard to generalize from a single case
3. Possible biases in data collection and interpretation (since single person
gathers and analyzes the information)
The Five-Factor Model : Personality
One of the long held goals of psychology has been to establish a model that can conveniently describe human personality, and disorders therein, with the intent to use this model in the remedying of personality disorders and improving general understanding of personality. Currently, a handful of models have risen to prominence, and have thus far stood the test of time. Some models are more generally accepted than others. Support for some models seems to come and go in cycles.
One of the more prominent models in contemporary psychology is what is known as the five-factor model of personality (Digman, 1990). This theory incorporates five different variables into a conceptual model for describing personality. These five different factors are often referred to as the "Big 5" (Ewen, 1998, p. 140). The five-factor theory is among the newest models developed for the description of personality, and this model shows promise to be among the most practical and applicable models available in the field of personality psychology (Digman, 1990). Thorough critical attention is given to the proposal that the five-factor model is in fact a great theory.
Extroversion has long been one of the traits that has appeared in factor-analytic models, and is one of the two traits to appear in both the five-factor model and Eysenck's PEN and E-IN models. Extroversion also is sometimes referred to as social adaptability, though the popularity of this term seems to be waning (Zuckerman, 1991). Extroversion is defined as "a trait characterized by a keen interest in other people and external events, and venturing forth with confidence into the unknown" (Ewen, 1998, p. 289).
Neuroticism is the other trait to play a role in most of the contemporary factor models for personality. In some studies, adjustment is examined as a factor, instead of neuroticism. In this case, higher scores will indicate a positive result, consistent with the other four factors. This is because the term neuroticism has an inherent negative denotation (Bradshaw, 1997). The bases of neuroticism are levels of anxiety and volatility. Within these bounds, neuroticism is "a dimension of personality defined by stability and low anxiety at one end as opposed to instability and high anxiety at the other end" (Pervin, 1989, p. G-7).
Openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are all terms with which most people outside the realm of psychology are familiar. In general, openness refers to how willing people are to make adjustments in notions and activities in accordance with new ideas or situations. Agreeableness measures how compatible people are with other people, or basically how able they are to get along with others. Conscientiousness refers to how much a person considers others when making decisions.
As with the two factors in the big five from Eysenck's E-IN, these three are also placed on sliding scales. These three scales, like neuroticism and extroversion, slide between their limits to give a clear picture of personality. The limits of these scales give a clear idea of their applications and are defined as "trusting and helpful versus suspicious and uncooperative (agreeableness), hard working and reliable versus lazy and careless (conscientiousness), and nonconformist and creative versus conventional and down-to-earth (openness)"
Five criteria were established to test the hypothesis that the five-factor model was a great psychological theory. The first criterion for greatness was that the theory should be compatible with other major psychological theories. On this point, the five-factor model was shown to be not only compatible, but even complementary to other theories, including a theory that would seemingly be at the other end of the spectrum from the five-factor model, Freud's highly subjective theory of psychoanalysis. Second, it was suggested that a great theory should be empirical. Although the five-factor model leaves much to be desired as far as the explanation of the numbers, it was shown that with the sliding scales associated with each of the five variables, the five-factor model was easily quantifiable. The five-factor model does have some real problems when scrutinized for its theoretical qualities. It has been suggested that the five-factor model was not so much a theory, but rather, just an idea or a means of classification. This is certainly a stumbling block for the five-factor model's chances at greatness. Also, whereas the five-factor model passed the test of originality with flying colors, when examined to see if it held true universally (or as close as a psychological theory can get) another flaw appeared. The broad taxonomy that is so elemental to the model makes it difficult to specifically anticipate behavior in many situations.
"From the standpoint of a multifaceted personology, the five-factor model is one important model in personality studies, not the integrative model of personality," says McAdams (1992, p. 355) in the conclusion to his critique of the five-factor model. This model does not meet all the criteria for greatness, and though it seems to have great potential, it is, as McAdams suggests, not the final all-encompassing theory of psychology. This is a high mark to hit, but one to which, when models like the five-factor are accompanied with theories like Freud's psychoanalysis, contemporary psychology is getting closer. As this model does not quite live up to the standards for a great theory in personality (it would be tough to find a theory that does) perhaps a more appropriate name for it would be a great taxonomy in personality.
One of the more prominent models in contemporary psychology is what is known as the five-factor model of personality (Digman, 1990). This theory incorporates five different variables into a conceptual model for describing personality. These five different factors are often referred to as the "Big 5" (Ewen, 1998, p. 140). The five-factor theory is among the newest models developed for the description of personality, and this model shows promise to be among the most practical and applicable models available in the field of personality psychology (Digman, 1990). Thorough critical attention is given to the proposal that the five-factor model is in fact a great theory.
The Five Factors
As it became evident to many psychologists that, mathematically, combinations of five factors were useful in describing personality, there was a need to clearly define what these factors were. Indeed, this process led to some dissent in the ranks. One dissenter from the five-factor theorists was renowned psychologist H. J. Eysenck. Eysenck felt that, due to overlaps in the five factors and their correlates, in fact a three-factor model was more appropriate and accurate. His theory is called the PEN model (which stand for psychoticism, extroversion, neuroticism) (Eysenck, 1991), or sometimes is even shortened to the two factor E-IN model (extroversion-introversion, neuroticism) (Eysenck, 1991). According to Eysenck, "Factor analysis has improved the situation...but the problem of naming factors is of course still with us" (Eysenck, 1991, p. 775). Many psychologists support Eysenck's PEN model. However, of the major "factor-analytic models...the Big Five dominates the landscape of current psychological research" (Ewen, 1998, p. 141). Through extensive debating and experimenting, there is currently a general consensus in the realms of scholarly psychology as to the identity of the five factors, and their basic interpretations and values to analysis of personality. The five factors are extroversion-introversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness (Ewen, 1998).Extroversion has long been one of the traits that has appeared in factor-analytic models, and is one of the two traits to appear in both the five-factor model and Eysenck's PEN and E-IN models. Extroversion also is sometimes referred to as social adaptability, though the popularity of this term seems to be waning (Zuckerman, 1991). Extroversion is defined as "a trait characterized by a keen interest in other people and external events, and venturing forth with confidence into the unknown" (Ewen, 1998, p. 289).
Neuroticism is the other trait to play a role in most of the contemporary factor models for personality. In some studies, adjustment is examined as a factor, instead of neuroticism. In this case, higher scores will indicate a positive result, consistent with the other four factors. This is because the term neuroticism has an inherent negative denotation (Bradshaw, 1997). The bases of neuroticism are levels of anxiety and volatility. Within these bounds, neuroticism is "a dimension of personality defined by stability and low anxiety at one end as opposed to instability and high anxiety at the other end" (Pervin, 1989, p. G-7).
Openness, agreeableness, and conscientiousness are all terms with which most people outside the realm of psychology are familiar. In general, openness refers to how willing people are to make adjustments in notions and activities in accordance with new ideas or situations. Agreeableness measures how compatible people are with other people, or basically how able they are to get along with others. Conscientiousness refers to how much a person considers others when making decisions.
As with the two factors in the big five from Eysenck's E-IN, these three are also placed on sliding scales. These three scales, like neuroticism and extroversion, slide between their limits to give a clear picture of personality. The limits of these scales give a clear idea of their applications and are defined as "trusting and helpful versus suspicious and uncooperative (agreeableness), hard working and reliable versus lazy and careless (conscientiousness), and nonconformist and creative versus conventional and down-to-earth (openness)"
Application
In accordance with the aforesaid flaw in the second criterion for greatness, the five-factor model runs into the most trouble when approached through the standards set forth by the third criterion. This criterion calls for a great theory to be applicable. McAdams (1992) states, "Personality theories do more than specify traits" (p. 336). In essence, what he is getting at is that the five-factor model (although it provides an excellent basis for the description of much of what, in psychology, falls into the realm of personality study) falls short of attaining or ever having a chance to attain the title of the unified psychological theory (McAdams, 1992). As stated, the five-factor model is used effectively in application. Because of this, it can be said that it is applicable, even though this does not address McAdams' claim that the five-factor theory should not really be considered a theory, but more appropriately just a list of five variables that are useful when attempting to identify and classify personality traits. In general, though, most of the applications of the five-factor model as it now exists seem to come in the academic and experimental forum. In reference to the model's usefulness in academics, Digman (1990) says, "At a minimum, research on the five-factor model has given us a useful set of very broad dimensions that characterize individual differences. These dimensions can be measured with high reliability and impressive validity" (p. 436). In summary, Digman states that the five variables that compose the five-factor model "provide a good answer to the question of personality structure"Five criteria were established to test the hypothesis that the five-factor model was a great psychological theory. The first criterion for greatness was that the theory should be compatible with other major psychological theories. On this point, the five-factor model was shown to be not only compatible, but even complementary to other theories, including a theory that would seemingly be at the other end of the spectrum from the five-factor model, Freud's highly subjective theory of psychoanalysis. Second, it was suggested that a great theory should be empirical. Although the five-factor model leaves much to be desired as far as the explanation of the numbers, it was shown that with the sliding scales associated with each of the five variables, the five-factor model was easily quantifiable. The five-factor model does have some real problems when scrutinized for its theoretical qualities. It has been suggested that the five-factor model was not so much a theory, but rather, just an idea or a means of classification. This is certainly a stumbling block for the five-factor model's chances at greatness. Also, whereas the five-factor model passed the test of originality with flying colors, when examined to see if it held true universally (or as close as a psychological theory can get) another flaw appeared. The broad taxonomy that is so elemental to the model makes it difficult to specifically anticipate behavior in many situations.
"From the standpoint of a multifaceted personology, the five-factor model is one important model in personality studies, not the integrative model of personality," says McAdams (1992, p. 355) in the conclusion to his critique of the five-factor model. This model does not meet all the criteria for greatness, and though it seems to have great potential, it is, as McAdams suggests, not the final all-encompassing theory of psychology. This is a high mark to hit, but one to which, when models like the five-factor are accompanied with theories like Freud's psychoanalysis, contemporary psychology is getting closer. As this model does not quite live up to the standards for a great theory in personality (it would be tough to find a theory that does) perhaps a more appropriate name for it would be a great taxonomy in personality.
Approach to personality
PERSONALITY
Four main approaches to personality:
! Humanistic approach
! Psychodynamic approach
! Trait approach
! Behavioural-cognitive approach
Humanistic approach
Rogers
Personality is determined by a person’s self-concept
Actualisation tendency: innate motivation to develop its potential to the fullest possible
Not many people are full-functioning individuals (openness to experience, existential living, orgasmic
trusting, experiential freedom, creativity).
Q-sort test: organise cards (I am smart, I am lazy) according to how you see yourself and according to
how you like to see yourself. Discrepancy indicates the work that needs to be done.
Maslow
Hierarchy of needs (from deficit needs to being needs)
Personal Orientation Inventory: self-report, 2 basic scales (inner directed support, time competence)
Psychodynamic approach
Freud
Personality is made up of id, ego, and superego
Emphases role of unconscious in personality
Internal conflicts evokes defence mechanisms that underlie differences in personalities
Murray’s need theory
Primary needs (biological)
Secondary needs (achievement, power, affiliation, intimacy) drive personality
Projective tests as a window to the unconscious
Interpretation of ambiguous information leads to projection of unconscious impulses
Rorschach: holistic vs detailed responses, time taken to answer, content, typical or unusual responses
Thematic Apperception Test: what led up to, what do you see in the picture, and what happens next
TAT assesses personal needs
House-Tree-Person, free association, dream analysis, word association, sentence completion
Jung
Four dimensions (extraversion-introversion, intuition-sensing, thinking-feeling, judgement-perception)
Myers-Briggs Type Inventory: 4 preference scales
Trait approach
Trait has a genetic basis
Approach tries to describe individuals by a set of characterising attributes
Eysenck’s PEN theory
2 (extraversion-introversion, stability-neuroticism), later 3 (psychoticism-ego control added)
dimensions
Ascending Reticular Activating System (ARAS) in the brain stem relates to extraversion-introversion
Statistical approach to personality, factor analysis of many traits
Cattell’s 16PF
Big Five (OCEAN): 44 questions with Likert scale
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI): screens for personality and psychosocial
disorders
California Personality Inventory (CPI)
Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI)
Sensation Seeking scale (Zuckerman-Kuhlman): I like wild uninhibited parties, I prefer quiet parties
with good conversation
Cognitive-Behavioural approach
Personality is an accumulation of a set of learned tendencies and is the sum total of what we do and not
of what we think or feel
Classical/Pavlovian conditioning, Operant/Instrumental conditioning, Social learning
Bandura
Observational learning: tendency to model what is being seen/heard
Situational factors determine behaviour and thus personality
Perceived locus of control
Attributional style
Social learning
Rotter
Personality: interaction between individual and its environment
Relatively stable set of potentials for responding to situations in a particular way
Individuals behave in order to maximise their reinforcement
Behaviour potential (BP): likelihood of behaving in certain ways
Expectancy: subjective probability that behaviour will lead to a particular outcome
Reinforcement value: subjective value of outcome
BP depends on Expectancy and the Reinforcement value
Locus of control (of reinforcement): belief about whether the outcomes of our actions are contingent on
what we do or on events outside our personal control
Locus of control test: self-questionnaire of opinions, select alternative with which you agree the most
or disagree the least. Different domains (academic, health). Differences with age, status, gender.
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence has been given many definitions, depending on the researcher
Francis Galton
Family-tree study suggested a hereditary link
Self-questionnaire study suggested a nurture component
Measured psychological variables as if they were physical variables (such as height or weight)
Eugenics: improve overall intelligence of the human species
James McKeen Cattell
Conducted many psychophysical experiments to measure intelligence differences
Wissler controversy: different psychophysical measures do not correlate with academic grades and do
not intercorrelate
" psychophysical measures are not valid in intelligence research
Alfred Binet
Main research question: How to identify subnormal children?
Simon-Binet intelligence test
Binet’s assumptions:
Intelligence is a general attribute that manifests itself across various tasks => wide range
Intelligence develops with age -> test development using item-response notions
Mental age is the absolute level of cognitive capacity (2 years rule of thumb)
Galton vs Binet
Galton
- Intelligence is hereditary
- Eugenics
- Focus of supernormal
Binet
- Intelligence develops, but genetic maximum never reached
- Mental orthopedics
- Focus on subnormal
Stanford-Binet
Terman’s revised version of the Simon-Binet test
Two versions (Army Alpha, Army Beta)
Charles Spearman
Binet used a large variety of tests, which all seem to correlate -> positive manifold
Factor analysis on large dataset
Two-factor theory of intelligence
- general ability (g)
- specific ability (s)
Only people with a high g are allowed to have voting rights
David Wechsler
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)
Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scales of Intelligence (WPPSI)
L.L. Thurstone
Person-centered approach
Understanding how people reach their goals
7 primary abilities: verbal comprehension, word fluency, number, space, associative memory,
perceptual speed, reasoning
Raymond Cattell
Crystallised vs Fluid intelligence
Cattell’s Culture Fair test: 4 subtests
Guilford: 180 primary abilities related to operations, contents, and product
Vernon & Caroll: hierarchical model from g to s
Howard Gardner’s theory includes intra- and interpersonal abilities next to musical and movement
Robert Sternberg: analytical, practical, and creative intelligences
Flynn effect: observation that IQ scores increase from generation to generation
Reaction range: range of possible IQ scores one might achieve given various environments
Cognitive neuroscience
In the new field of cognitive neuroscience intelligence research has looked at finding processes and
structures in the brain that are particularly related to intelligence. Findings from neuropsychological
and neuroimaging studies has shown that the prefrontal cortex is particularly involved in performing
intelligence tests. Aging studies showed similar results, but the field is yet to make any progress that
could lead to any relevant and useful conclusions
Intelligence and politics
American immigrants before WWI
1921 immigration restriction to 3% annually
1924 2% of each European group in US
Arthur Jensen (1969): intelligence is largely hereditary, so there is no need for programs that help
subnormal children
Herrnstein & Murray (1995): the Bell curve
Explaining ethnic differences based on g
Warns America of a polarised state
Cognitive elite vs underclass
g exists, is stable, is heritable, can be measured adequately, and differences in g relate to differences in
academic aptitude
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN COGNITION
Besides the traditional research on individual differences in intelligence and personality, there is a
research program on individual differences in cognitive abilities in particular in working memory.
A major methodological approach is the use of structural equation modelling.
A major assumption is that cognitive tasks are not measuring one cognitive ability, but a number
cognitive abilities. By giving several tasks that purport to measure the same cognitive ability, this
ability can be determined through factor analysis. These so-called latent variables can then be used in a
path analysis to address differential contributions of cognitive constructs to complex cognitive tasks.
This type of research requires testing many participants on a large number of tasks.
BIOLOGICAL DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY, INTELLIGENCE, AND COGNITION
There are differences methodologies that suggest a link between biology and psychology
Genetic analysis: certain psychological aspects are genetically determined
Neuropsychological: patients with certain brain damage have specific psychological dysfunction
Neuroimaging: certain brain areas are particularly active in certain psychological tasks
Heritability: estimated proportion of phenotype variance in a group of individuals that is attributable to
genetic variance
Concordance: conditional probability that a feature appearing in one individual also appears in another
individual
Family studies
Children share 50% of their genes with each parent
Correlate the degree of overlap among family members with the degree of psychological (personality,
intelligence, and so on) similarity
=> Environment forms a confound
Twin studies
Monozygotic twins share 100% of their genes, whereas dizygotic twins share 50%
Heritability = two times the difference between the correlation between MZ twins and the correlation
between DZ twins
=> Assumes equal environments
=> Assumes representativeness of sample
Adoption studies
Siblings in the same family should be more similar than siblings in different families
Positive correlation between adopted children with different parents support environmental influence
Positive correlation between adopted children with same parents support genetic influence
=> Representativeness
=> Selective placement
Twin studies have shown that in particular the structure of the frontal cortex has a strong hereditary
component. This is consistent with views that personality, intelligence, and high-level cognition have a
genetic component and are mediated by the frontal cortex. However, as the correlations are not 1.0
there is a non-genetic component. This fits with the concept of reaction range.
Environmental influences could be shared (same house) or non-shared (friends, hobbies) environments.
Reactive genetic-environment interaction (e.g., because you’re tall/black you’re treated in a particular
way)
Active genetic-environment interaction (e.g., sensation seekers seek risky environments)
PSYCHOMETRICS
A good test is: reliable, valid, generalisable, standardised
Reliability (consistency): extent to which a test is repeatable
- Test-retest
- Alternate forms
- Inter-rater
- Internal consistency: extent to which all items measure the same construct
- Inter-item correlation
- Item-total correlation
- Split-half reliability
- Alpha reliability
Validity
- Face (content)
- Construct
- Criterion (concurrent, predictive)
- Convergent: performance on test converges with other tests that measure the same construct
- Discriminant: test measures one construct and not something else
A test is invalid when it is unreliable, invites response sets or has biases
A standardised test has consistent testing conditions, has an objective scoring procedure, and tends to
measure relative performance
Constructing tests follows a number of steps:
- Defining the purpose of the test
- Mapping the purpose on the type of questions
- Creating the items
- Pilot study to select good items
- Item analysis
- Psychometrics (reliability, validity)
- Write a test manual (indicating standardised procedure)
Item response theory
A family of models that predict the probability of observing a particular response to an item
Binet selected items in the Simon-Binet test such that all children up to a certain age perform well on
the item
Four main approaches to personality:
! Humanistic approach
! Psychodynamic approach
! Trait approach
! Behavioural-cognitive approach
Humanistic approach
Rogers
Personality is determined by a person’s self-concept
Actualisation tendency: innate motivation to develop its potential to the fullest possible
Not many people are full-functioning individuals (openness to experience, existential living, orgasmic
trusting, experiential freedom, creativity).
Q-sort test: organise cards (I am smart, I am lazy) according to how you see yourself and according to
how you like to see yourself. Discrepancy indicates the work that needs to be done.
Maslow
Hierarchy of needs (from deficit needs to being needs)
Personal Orientation Inventory: self-report, 2 basic scales (inner directed support, time competence)
Psychodynamic approach
Freud
Personality is made up of id, ego, and superego
Emphases role of unconscious in personality
Internal conflicts evokes defence mechanisms that underlie differences in personalities
Murray’s need theory
Primary needs (biological)
Secondary needs (achievement, power, affiliation, intimacy) drive personality
Projective tests as a window to the unconscious
Interpretation of ambiguous information leads to projection of unconscious impulses
Rorschach: holistic vs detailed responses, time taken to answer, content, typical or unusual responses
Thematic Apperception Test: what led up to, what do you see in the picture, and what happens next
TAT assesses personal needs
House-Tree-Person, free association, dream analysis, word association, sentence completion
Jung
Four dimensions (extraversion-introversion, intuition-sensing, thinking-feeling, judgement-perception)
Myers-Briggs Type Inventory: 4 preference scales
Trait approach
Trait has a genetic basis
Approach tries to describe individuals by a set of characterising attributes
Eysenck’s PEN theory
2 (extraversion-introversion, stability-neuroticism), later 3 (psychoticism-ego control added)
dimensions
Ascending Reticular Activating System (ARAS) in the brain stem relates to extraversion-introversion
Statistical approach to personality, factor analysis of many traits
Cattell’s 16PF
Big Five (OCEAN): 44 questions with Likert scale
Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI): screens for personality and psychosocial
disorders
California Personality Inventory (CPI)
Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI)
Sensation Seeking scale (Zuckerman-Kuhlman): I like wild uninhibited parties, I prefer quiet parties
with good conversation
Cognitive-Behavioural approach
Personality is an accumulation of a set of learned tendencies and is the sum total of what we do and not
of what we think or feel
Classical/Pavlovian conditioning, Operant/Instrumental conditioning, Social learning
Bandura
Observational learning: tendency to model what is being seen/heard
Situational factors determine behaviour and thus personality
Perceived locus of control
Attributional style
Social learning
Rotter
Personality: interaction between individual and its environment
Relatively stable set of potentials for responding to situations in a particular way
Individuals behave in order to maximise their reinforcement
Behaviour potential (BP): likelihood of behaving in certain ways
Expectancy: subjective probability that behaviour will lead to a particular outcome
Reinforcement value: subjective value of outcome
BP depends on Expectancy and the Reinforcement value
Locus of control (of reinforcement): belief about whether the outcomes of our actions are contingent on
what we do or on events outside our personal control
Locus of control test: self-questionnaire of opinions, select alternative with which you agree the most
or disagree the least. Different domains (academic, health). Differences with age, status, gender.
INTELLIGENCE
Intelligence has been given many definitions, depending on the researcher
Francis Galton
Family-tree study suggested a hereditary link
Self-questionnaire study suggested a nurture component
Measured psychological variables as if they were physical variables (such as height or weight)
Eugenics: improve overall intelligence of the human species
James McKeen Cattell
Conducted many psychophysical experiments to measure intelligence differences
Wissler controversy: different psychophysical measures do not correlate with academic grades and do
not intercorrelate
" psychophysical measures are not valid in intelligence research
Alfred Binet
Main research question: How to identify subnormal children?
Simon-Binet intelligence test
Binet’s assumptions:
Intelligence is a general attribute that manifests itself across various tasks => wide range
Intelligence develops with age -> test development using item-response notions
Mental age is the absolute level of cognitive capacity (2 years rule of thumb)
Galton vs Binet
Galton
- Intelligence is hereditary
- Eugenics
- Focus of supernormal
Binet
- Intelligence develops, but genetic maximum never reached
- Mental orthopedics
- Focus on subnormal
Stanford-Binet
Terman’s revised version of the Simon-Binet test
Two versions (Army Alpha, Army Beta)
Charles Spearman
Binet used a large variety of tests, which all seem to correlate -> positive manifold
Factor analysis on large dataset
Two-factor theory of intelligence
- general ability (g)
- specific ability (s)
Only people with a high g are allowed to have voting rights
David Wechsler
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS)
Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC)
Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scales of Intelligence (WPPSI)
L.L. Thurstone
Person-centered approach
Understanding how people reach their goals
7 primary abilities: verbal comprehension, word fluency, number, space, associative memory,
perceptual speed, reasoning
Raymond Cattell
Crystallised vs Fluid intelligence
Cattell’s Culture Fair test: 4 subtests
Guilford: 180 primary abilities related to operations, contents, and product
Vernon & Caroll: hierarchical model from g to s
Howard Gardner’s theory includes intra- and interpersonal abilities next to musical and movement
Robert Sternberg: analytical, practical, and creative intelligences
Flynn effect: observation that IQ scores increase from generation to generation
Reaction range: range of possible IQ scores one might achieve given various environments
Cognitive neuroscience
In the new field of cognitive neuroscience intelligence research has looked at finding processes and
structures in the brain that are particularly related to intelligence. Findings from neuropsychological
and neuroimaging studies has shown that the prefrontal cortex is particularly involved in performing
intelligence tests. Aging studies showed similar results, but the field is yet to make any progress that
could lead to any relevant and useful conclusions
Intelligence and politics
American immigrants before WWI
1921 immigration restriction to 3% annually
1924 2% of each European group in US
Arthur Jensen (1969): intelligence is largely hereditary, so there is no need for programs that help
subnormal children
Herrnstein & Murray (1995): the Bell curve
Explaining ethnic differences based on g
Warns America of a polarised state
Cognitive elite vs underclass
g exists, is stable, is heritable, can be measured adequately, and differences in g relate to differences in
academic aptitude
INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN COGNITION
Besides the traditional research on individual differences in intelligence and personality, there is a
research program on individual differences in cognitive abilities in particular in working memory.
A major methodological approach is the use of structural equation modelling.
A major assumption is that cognitive tasks are not measuring one cognitive ability, but a number
cognitive abilities. By giving several tasks that purport to measure the same cognitive ability, this
ability can be determined through factor analysis. These so-called latent variables can then be used in a
path analysis to address differential contributions of cognitive constructs to complex cognitive tasks.
This type of research requires testing many participants on a large number of tasks.
BIOLOGICAL DETERMINANTS OF PERSONALITY, INTELLIGENCE, AND COGNITION
There are differences methodologies that suggest a link between biology and psychology
Genetic analysis: certain psychological aspects are genetically determined
Neuropsychological: patients with certain brain damage have specific psychological dysfunction
Neuroimaging: certain brain areas are particularly active in certain psychological tasks
Heritability: estimated proportion of phenotype variance in a group of individuals that is attributable to
genetic variance
Concordance: conditional probability that a feature appearing in one individual also appears in another
individual
Family studies
Children share 50% of their genes with each parent
Correlate the degree of overlap among family members with the degree of psychological (personality,
intelligence, and so on) similarity
=> Environment forms a confound
Twin studies
Monozygotic twins share 100% of their genes, whereas dizygotic twins share 50%
Heritability = two times the difference between the correlation between MZ twins and the correlation
between DZ twins
=> Assumes equal environments
=> Assumes representativeness of sample
Adoption studies
Siblings in the same family should be more similar than siblings in different families
Positive correlation between adopted children with different parents support environmental influence
Positive correlation between adopted children with same parents support genetic influence
=> Representativeness
=> Selective placement
Twin studies have shown that in particular the structure of the frontal cortex has a strong hereditary
component. This is consistent with views that personality, intelligence, and high-level cognition have a
genetic component and are mediated by the frontal cortex. However, as the correlations are not 1.0
there is a non-genetic component. This fits with the concept of reaction range.
Environmental influences could be shared (same house) or non-shared (friends, hobbies) environments.
Reactive genetic-environment interaction (e.g., because you’re tall/black you’re treated in a particular
way)
Active genetic-environment interaction (e.g., sensation seekers seek risky environments)
PSYCHOMETRICS
A good test is: reliable, valid, generalisable, standardised
Reliability (consistency): extent to which a test is repeatable
- Test-retest
- Alternate forms
- Inter-rater
- Internal consistency: extent to which all items measure the same construct
- Inter-item correlation
- Item-total correlation
- Split-half reliability
- Alpha reliability
Validity
- Face (content)
- Construct
- Criterion (concurrent, predictive)
- Convergent: performance on test converges with other tests that measure the same construct
- Discriminant: test measures one construct and not something else
A test is invalid when it is unreliable, invites response sets or has biases
A standardised test has consistent testing conditions, has an objective scoring procedure, and tends to
measure relative performance
Constructing tests follows a number of steps:
- Defining the purpose of the test
- Mapping the purpose on the type of questions
- Creating the items
- Pilot study to select good items
- Item analysis
- Psychometrics (reliability, validity)
- Write a test manual (indicating standardised procedure)
Item response theory
A family of models that predict the probability of observing a particular response to an item
Binet selected items in the Simon-Binet test such that all children up to a certain age perform well on
the item
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Correlation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In statistics, multiple correlation is a linear relationship among more than two variables. It is measured by the coefficient of multiple determination, denoted as R2, which is a measure of the fit of a linear regression. A regression's R2 falls somewhere between zero and one (assuming a constant term has been included in the regression); a higher value indicates a stronger relationship among the variables, with a value of one indicating that all data points fall exactly on a line in multidimensional space and a value of zero indicating no relationship at all between the independent variables collectively and the dependent variable.
Unlike the coefficient of determination in a regression involving just two variables, the coefficient of multiple determination is not computationally commutative: a regression of y on x and z will in general have a different R2 than will a regression of z on x and y. For example, suppose that in a particular sample the variable z is uncorrelated with both x and y, while x and y are linearly related to each other. Then a regression of z on y and x will yield an R2 of zero, while a regression of y on x and z will yield a positive R2.
| This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (November 2010) |
In statistics, multiple correlation is a linear relationship among more than two variables. It is measured by the coefficient of multiple determination, denoted as R2, which is a measure of the fit of a linear regression. A regression's R2 falls somewhere between zero and one (assuming a constant term has been included in the regression); a higher value indicates a stronger relationship among the variables, with a value of one indicating that all data points fall exactly on a line in multidimensional space and a value of zero indicating no relationship at all between the independent variables collectively and the dependent variable.
Unlike the coefficient of determination in a regression involving just two variables, the coefficient of multiple determination is not computationally commutative: a regression of y on x and z will in general have a different R2 than will a regression of z on x and y. For example, suppose that in a particular sample the variable z is uncorrelated with both x and y, while x and y are linearly related to each other. Then a regression of z on y and x will yield an R2 of zero, while a regression of y on x and z will yield a positive R2.
[edit] Fundamental equation of multiple regression analysis
The coefficient of multiple determination R2 (a scalar), can be computed using the vector c of cross-correlations between the predictor variables and the criterion variable, its transpose c', and the matrix Rxx of inter-correlations between predictor variables. The "fundamental equation of multiple regression analysis"[1] is-
- R2 = c' Rxx−1 c.
Correlation - Mrs. Salini Viswom
CORRELATION – ITS INTERPRETATION AND IMPORTANCE
INTRODUCTION
.
In the foregoing units we have discussed those statistical measures that we use for a single variable i.e. the distributions relating to one quantitative variable. Now we shall study the problem of describing the degree of simultaneous variation of two variables. The data in which we secure measures of one variable for each individual is called aunivariate distribution. If we have pairs of measures on.two variables of each individual, the joint presentation of the two sets of scores is called a bivatiate distribution. We come across a number of situations involving the study of two or more variables. For example, consider the scores of five students in mathematics and physics as under :
Students
1 2 3 4 5
Scores in Maths (X) 40 !7 29 36 25
Scores in Physics (Y) 38 16 30 32 24
Here each student has values on two variables X and Y i.e. the scores in Mathematics and
Physics respectively; hence the distribution is called bivariate distribution.
Similarly,' the distr~butioninvolving more than two variables are called multivariate distributions. In the present unit we will deal with bivariate distribution;. In a bivariate distribution the pair of scores made by the same set of individuals on two variables are given.
Statistical Techniques of Analysis
THE CONCEPT OF CORRELATION
To illustrate what we mean by a relationship between two variables, let us use the example cited in \6.1 i.e. the scores of 5 students in mathematics and physics. What pattern do youfind in the data ?You may notice that in general those students who score well in mathematics also get high scores in physics. Those who are average in mathematics, get just average scores in physics and those who are poor in mathematics get low scores in physics. In short, in this case there is a tendency for students to score at par on both variables. Performance on the two variables is related; in other words the two variables are related, hence co-vary. If the change in one variable appears to be accompanied by a change in the other variable, the two tariables are said to be co-related and this inter-dependence is called correlation.
CO-EFFICIENT OF CORRELATION
To measure the degree of association or relationship between two variables quantitatively, an index of relationship is used and is termed as co-efficient of correlation.
Co-efficient of correlation is a single number that tells us to what extent the two variables are related and to what extent the variations in one variable changes with the variations in the other.
Symbol ~f co-efficient of correlation
The co-efficient of correlation is always symbolized either by r or p (Rho). The notion 'r' is known as product moment correlation co-efficient or Karl Pearson's Coefficient of Correlation. The symbol 'P' (Rho) is known as Rank Difference Correlation Coefficient or Spearman's Rank Correlation Coefficient.
MAXIMUM RANGE OF VALUES OF CO-EFFICIENT
OF CORRELATION
The measurement of correlation between two variables results in a maximum value that ranges from -1 to + I , through zero. The k 1 values denote perfect coefficient of correlation.
TYPES OF CORRELATION
In a bivariate distribution, the correlation may be :
1. Positive, Negative or Zero; and
2. Linear or Curvilinear (Non-Linear)
16.6.1 Positive, Negative and Zero Correlation
When the increase in one variable (X) is followed by a c~rresponding
increase in the other variable (Y); the correlation is said to be positive correlation. The positive correlations range from 0 to + l ; the upper limit i.e. +1 is the perfect positive co-efficient of correlation. The perfect positive correlation specifies that, for every unit increase in one variable, there is proportional increase in the other. For example "Heat" and "Temperature" have a perfect
positive correlation. If, on th.e other hand, the increase in one variable (X) results in a corresponding decrease in the other variable (Y), the correlation is said to be negative correlation. The negative correlation ranges from 0 to -1; the lower limit giving the perfect negative correlation. The perfect negative correlation indicates that for every unit increase in one variable, there is proportional unit decrease in the other. . Zero correlation means no relationship between the two variables X and Y;i.e. the change inone variable (X) is not associated with the change in the other variable (Y). For example, body weight and intelligence, shoe size and monthly salary; etc. The zero correlation is-the mid-point of the range -1 to +l.
Friday, March 4, 2011
Attribution Theory 1 - Mr. Jayachandran
Attribution 1: Theories
Individual in Society
Attribution Theory
Attribution theory - The conceptual framework within social psychology dealing with lay, or common sense explanations of behaviour.
Through life we gradually construct explanations/theories of why people behave in certain ways
1.) Naïve psychologist (Heider, 1958)
2.) Correspondent inference (Jones & Davis, 1965)
3.) Kelley’s model
Primary questions
1.) What are the main characteristics of attributions?
2.)How are attributions are made?
3.)
Naïve Psychologist(Fritz Heider,1958)
Sets out the foundations of attribution theory “common sense psychology”
Individual as a ‘Naïve Scientist’
Two important contributions
1.) Proposed the idea of internal
& external causes of behaviour 2.) Perceivers ignore part or all situational
factors when explaining behaviour.
(Later theorists who expanded on and developed Heider’s ideas: Kelley,1967; Jones & Davis,1965; Weiner, 1979. )
Correspondent inference (Jones & Davis, 1965)
When judging another’s behaviour we use information to draw a correspondent inference where the behaviour is attributed to a disposition/personality characteristic
Use various characteristics to do this including:
Social desirability
Non-common effects
Important historically, but its impact has been limited
Kelley’s Model (1967,1973)
What information is used to arrive at a causal attribution?
Developed a logical model for judging whether a particular action should be attributed to some characteristic (internal) of the person or the environment (external)
What information is used to arrive at a causal attribution?
1.) Covariation - Perceiver has info from multiple observations, at different times and situations, and can perceive the covariation of an observed effect and its causes
2.) Configuration - Perceiver is faced with a single observation and must take account of the configuration (i.e.the current info available)
Covariation: Multiple observations
Covariation Principle – An effect is attributed to a condition that is present when the effect is present, and absent when the effect is absent. (e.g. donuts disappear/ Homer)
Analysis of Variance Model of Covariation
Analysis of Variance Model of Covariation (McArthur e.g., 1972)
Analysis of Variance Model of Covariation (McArthur e.g., 1972)
Why did the students fall asleep during the lecture?
e.g. The majority of the students fell asleep in Dr. Sheppard’s lecture on theories of attribution. They also fell asleep during her other lectures, but not lectures given by other teaching staff.
High consensus
High consistency
High distinctiveness
Why did the students fall asleep during the lecture?
e.g. The majority of the students fell asleep in Dr. Sheppard’s lecture on theories of attribution. They never fell asleep during her other lectures, or in lectures given by other teaching staff.
High consensus
Low consistency
High distinctiveness
But…
Works well for person and entity
No single clear pattern which can lead to circumstance attributions. These seem to be maximised when consistency is low (Forsterling, 1989; Hewstone & Jaspars, 1987)
This can be seen as a limitation to the model
Main criticisms of covariation principle
1.) Doesn’t work well for circumstance attributions
2.) Covariation does not mean causality
3.) Participants are given “pre-packaged” info which they might not seek or use in everyday situations (model idealised/normative)
4.) Evidence suggests people are poor at assessing covariation between events (Alloy & Tabachnik, 1984)
5.) It may appear that the covariation principle was used, but the processing used may be completely different (e.g. Nisbett & Ross, 1980)
6.) Requires multiple observations over time- which is not always possible to do
Configuration: Single observations
Causal Schemata – Preconceptions or theories built up from experience about how certain kinds of causes interact to produce a specific effect (abstract-content free i.e. general & apply across content areas)
Allows one to interpret information quickly by comparing and integrating it with a schema
E.g. multiple sufficient cause schema – any of several causes can produce the same effect
Configuration: Single observations
Each Schema is associated with a number of principles set out by Kelley
Discounting principle – if different causes can produce the same effect, the role of a given cause in producing the effect is discounted if other plausible causes are present
Configuration: Single observations
Augmentation principle – The role of a given cause is increased (augmented) if an effect occurs in the presence of an inhibitory cause.
Main criticisms of causal schemata (Fiedler, 1982)
1.) The existence and functioning of causal schemata has not been successfully demonstrated – research supporting it is artificial – can’t prove
2.) The idea of schemata is content free and thus too abstract
Can internal and external attributions be distinguished?
Statements implying internal attributions can be rephrased to imply external & vice versa
Students asked to write down why they had chosen their degree subject at uni (Nisbett et al, 1973)
Statements such as “I want to make a lot of money” were coded as internal while statements such as “Chemistry is a high paying field” were external
Criticised internal/external categories for being very broad and too heterogeneous (Lalljee,1981)
Participants have difficulty understanding the distinction (Taylor & Koivumaki, 1976)
Can internal and external attributions be distinguished?
Other categorisations of attributions e.g. multidimensional approach (Weiner, 1986)
Locus – internal or external?
Stability – is the cause a stable or unstable one (over time)
Controllability – to what extent is future task performance under the actor’s control?
Applications of attribution theory
Individual differences & attributional style
Rotter (1966) argues people differ in terms of the amount of control they believe they have over reinforcements & punishments received – measures of locus of control related to range of behaviour e.g. political beliefs, achievement
Internals – high personal control over destiny
Externals – fatalistic, things occur by chance
Attributional style questionnaire (Peterson et al., 1982) – sorts explanations on 3 dimensions: internal/external, stable/unstable, global/specific
Those who view aversive events as caused by internal, stable, global factors = depressive attributional style
Applications of attribution theory
Interpersonal relationships
Most commonly used in relation to marital success e.g. Fincham & O’Leary, 1983
happily married individuals tend to credit partners for positive behaviour by citing internal, stable, global & controllable factors to explain them
Negative behaviour is explained away by ascribing to external, unstable, specific & uncontrollable causes
Distressed couples do the opposite
Women continuous engage in attributional thought about relationships – men only do so when dysfunctional!!
Summary
Theories of attribution claim we aim to attribute behaviour to either internal (person) or external (situation) causes
Kelley proposed models of covariation (data driven) & configuration (theory driven)
In reality these may interact i.e. our expectations (schemata) may influence what data are processed i.e. what observations made
References
Hewstone & Stroebe (2001) Introduction to Social Psychology, Chapter 7.
Fraser & Burchell (2001) Introducing Social Psychology, Chapter 11.
Individual in Society
Attribution Theory
Attribution theory - The conceptual framework within social psychology dealing with lay, or common sense explanations of behaviour.
Through life we gradually construct explanations/theories of why people behave in certain ways
1.) Naïve psychologist (Heider, 1958)
2.) Correspondent inference (Jones & Davis, 1965)
3.) Kelley’s model
Primary questions
1.) What are the main characteristics of attributions?
2.)How are attributions are made?
3.)
Naïve Psychologist(Fritz Heider,1958)
Sets out the foundations of attribution theory “common sense psychology”
Individual as a ‘Naïve Scientist’
Two important contributions
1.) Proposed the idea of internal
& external causes of behaviour 2.) Perceivers ignore part or all situational
factors when explaining behaviour.
(Later theorists who expanded on and developed Heider’s ideas: Kelley,1967; Jones & Davis,1965; Weiner, 1979. )
Correspondent inference (Jones & Davis, 1965)
When judging another’s behaviour we use information to draw a correspondent inference where the behaviour is attributed to a disposition/personality characteristic
Use various characteristics to do this including:
Social desirability
Non-common effects
Important historically, but its impact has been limited
Kelley’s Model (1967,1973)
What information is used to arrive at a causal attribution?
Developed a logical model for judging whether a particular action should be attributed to some characteristic (internal) of the person or the environment (external)
What information is used to arrive at a causal attribution?
1.) Covariation - Perceiver has info from multiple observations, at different times and situations, and can perceive the covariation of an observed effect and its causes
2.) Configuration - Perceiver is faced with a single observation and must take account of the configuration (i.e.the current info available)
Covariation: Multiple observations
Covariation Principle – An effect is attributed to a condition that is present when the effect is present, and absent when the effect is absent. (e.g. donuts disappear/ Homer)
Analysis of Variance Model of Covariation
Analysis of Variance Model of Covariation (McArthur e.g., 1972)
Analysis of Variance Model of Covariation (McArthur e.g., 1972)
Why did the students fall asleep during the lecture?
e.g. The majority of the students fell asleep in Dr. Sheppard’s lecture on theories of attribution. They also fell asleep during her other lectures, but not lectures given by other teaching staff.
High consensus
High consistency
High distinctiveness
Why did the students fall asleep during the lecture?
e.g. The majority of the students fell asleep in Dr. Sheppard’s lecture on theories of attribution. They never fell asleep during her other lectures, or in lectures given by other teaching staff.
High consensus
Low consistency
High distinctiveness
But…
Works well for person and entity
No single clear pattern which can lead to circumstance attributions. These seem to be maximised when consistency is low (Forsterling, 1989; Hewstone & Jaspars, 1987)
This can be seen as a limitation to the model
Main criticisms of covariation principle
1.) Doesn’t work well for circumstance attributions
2.) Covariation does not mean causality
3.) Participants are given “pre-packaged” info which they might not seek or use in everyday situations (model idealised/normative)
4.) Evidence suggests people are poor at assessing covariation between events (Alloy & Tabachnik, 1984)
5.) It may appear that the covariation principle was used, but the processing used may be completely different (e.g. Nisbett & Ross, 1980)
6.) Requires multiple observations over time- which is not always possible to do
Configuration: Single observations
Causal Schemata – Preconceptions or theories built up from experience about how certain kinds of causes interact to produce a specific effect (abstract-content free i.e. general & apply across content areas)
Allows one to interpret information quickly by comparing and integrating it with a schema
E.g. multiple sufficient cause schema – any of several causes can produce the same effect
Configuration: Single observations
Each Schema is associated with a number of principles set out by Kelley
Discounting principle – if different causes can produce the same effect, the role of a given cause in producing the effect is discounted if other plausible causes are present
Configuration: Single observations
Augmentation principle – The role of a given cause is increased (augmented) if an effect occurs in the presence of an inhibitory cause.
Main criticisms of causal schemata (Fiedler, 1982)
1.) The existence and functioning of causal schemata has not been successfully demonstrated – research supporting it is artificial – can’t prove
2.) The idea of schemata is content free and thus too abstract
Can internal and external attributions be distinguished?
Statements implying internal attributions can be rephrased to imply external & vice versa
Students asked to write down why they had chosen their degree subject at uni (Nisbett et al, 1973)
Statements such as “I want to make a lot of money” were coded as internal while statements such as “Chemistry is a high paying field” were external
Criticised internal/external categories for being very broad and too heterogeneous (Lalljee,1981)
Participants have difficulty understanding the distinction (Taylor & Koivumaki, 1976)
Can internal and external attributions be distinguished?
Other categorisations of attributions e.g. multidimensional approach (Weiner, 1986)
Locus – internal or external?
Stability – is the cause a stable or unstable one (over time)
Controllability – to what extent is future task performance under the actor’s control?
Applications of attribution theory
Individual differences & attributional style
Rotter (1966) argues people differ in terms of the amount of control they believe they have over reinforcements & punishments received – measures of locus of control related to range of behaviour e.g. political beliefs, achievement
Internals – high personal control over destiny
Externals – fatalistic, things occur by chance
Attributional style questionnaire (Peterson et al., 1982) – sorts explanations on 3 dimensions: internal/external, stable/unstable, global/specific
Those who view aversive events as caused by internal, stable, global factors = depressive attributional style
Applications of attribution theory
Interpersonal relationships
Most commonly used in relation to marital success e.g. Fincham & O’Leary, 1983
happily married individuals tend to credit partners for positive behaviour by citing internal, stable, global & controllable factors to explain them
Negative behaviour is explained away by ascribing to external, unstable, specific & uncontrollable causes
Distressed couples do the opposite
Women continuous engage in attributional thought about relationships – men only do so when dysfunctional!!
Summary
Theories of attribution claim we aim to attribute behaviour to either internal (person) or external (situation) causes
Kelley proposed models of covariation (data driven) & configuration (theory driven)
In reality these may interact i.e. our expectations (schemata) may influence what data are processed i.e. what observations made
References
Hewstone & Stroebe (2001) Introduction to Social Psychology, Chapter 7.
Fraser & Burchell (2001) Introducing Social Psychology, Chapter 11.
Attribution Theory - MR. Jayachandran
Attribution Theory
People are motivated to understand the causes of behavior. Attribution theory seeks to explain how and why people make these causal attributions.
Why is this baby smiling?
Fritz Heider argued that there are two general types of attributions that people make:
Personal attributions
Situational attributions
Personal attributions
Explanations in terms of personal characteristics. For example:
“The baby must be a happy baby.”
Other examples:
“He scored well on the exam because he is smart.”
“She tripped because she is clumsy.”
Situational attributions
Explanations in terms of situational factors. For example:
“Someone must have just played with the baby .”
Other examples:
“He scored well because it was an easy test.”
“She tripped because a squirrel ran in front of her.”
Why do people make the fundamental attribution error?
The situation is not salient when people make attributions for the behavior of others, but the situation is salient when making attributions for one’s own behavior.
Thus, people are more inclined to take the situation into account when explaining their own behavior.
Self-serving bias
People do not make objective analysis to situational / personal attributions for their own behavior.
They tend to attribute their successes to dispositional factors, and their failures to situational factors.
For example: “I did well on the test because I am smart,” or “I did poor on the test because I didn’t get enough sleep.
Example
An Individual asked to make opinion on Smoking!
If the Individual himself is a smoker?
If the Individual has never smoked??
How do people make attributions?
Kelley argued that people take three factors into account when making a personal vs. situational attribution:
Consistency: Is the baby always smiling?
Distinctiveness: Are there occasions [on which] the baby doesn’t smile?
Consensus: Do all babies smile?
If consistency is high, and distinctiveness / consensus are low, then a personal attribution is more likely:
“The baby is always smiling, never displays other emotions (like crying), and this is not typical of babies in general. Therefore, this baby must have a happy disposition.”
If consistency is high, and distinctiveness / consensus are also high, then a situational attribution is more likely.
“The baby is always smiling when tickled, but displays different emotions in other circumstances. Smiling when tickled is typical of all babies. Therefore, this baby is smiling NOW because it was tickled”
Example
A researcher assigned participants to read out loud either a pro-Castro essay or an anti-Castro essay. A group of listeners rated the extent to which the reader held pro-Castro or anti-Castro beliefs.
Even though the listeners knew that the readers had no choice in which essay to read, the raters judged the pro-Castro readers as being more pro-Castro than the anti-Castro readers.
The listeners failed to take into account the strong situational factor present (that the readers had no choice about which essay to read).
Cognitive dissonance theory
People strive for consistency in their thoughts.
Seems simple, but this idea lead to very counter-intuitive findings.
Festinger and Carlsmith had participants complete a very boring task (turning screws ¼ turn at a time, for a long time). One group was paid $1 to do this, and a separate group was paid $20. Which group should like the task more?
Result:
Participants paid $1 enjoyed the task more than participants paid $20. The $20 group had consistent cognitions (“This is stupid, but I’m being compensated for doing it.”). The $1 group had inconsistent cognitions (“This is stupid, and I have no reason to do it.”).
Participants in the $1 group resolved the dissonance by changing their attitude about the task (“I’m not being adequately compensated for this, but that’s OK. This is actually fun!”).
Self-perception theory
Bem suggested that another way to think about this research is in terms of attribution.
All participants observed their behavior (doing the boring task) and made a causal attribution for their own behavior. Participants in the $20 group observed their own behavior and thought (“I’m doing this task because I’m getting paid.”). Participants in the $1 group observed their own behavior and thought (“I’m doing this task because I must enjoy it.”).
A TASK- How will YOU commend?
INDIVIDUAL: STRONGLY AGAINST USING HIGH FUEL CONSUMING VEHICLE.
Situation-1: The other person (using Fuel Consuming vehicle) is his VERY CLOSEST Friend.
Situation-2: He is leaving for ever to settle in another country.
"By altering actors and observers perspectives through videotape replays, mirrors, or other methods, one can correspondingly alter the actors' and observers' causal assessments."
- Human Inference
Nisbett & Ross 1980
People are motivated to understand the causes of behavior. Attribution theory seeks to explain how and why people make these causal attributions.
Why is this baby smiling?
Fritz Heider argued that there are two general types of attributions that people make:
Personal attributions
Situational attributions
Personal attributions
Explanations in terms of personal characteristics. For example:
“The baby must be a happy baby.”
Other examples:
“He scored well on the exam because he is smart.”
“She tripped because she is clumsy.”
Situational attributions
Explanations in terms of situational factors. For example:
“Someone must have just played with the baby .”
Other examples:
“He scored well because it was an easy test.”
“She tripped because a squirrel ran in front of her.”
Why do people make the fundamental attribution error?
The situation is not salient when people make attributions for the behavior of others, but the situation is salient when making attributions for one’s own behavior.
Thus, people are more inclined to take the situation into account when explaining their own behavior.
Self-serving bias
People do not make objective analysis to situational / personal attributions for their own behavior.
They tend to attribute their successes to dispositional factors, and their failures to situational factors.
For example: “I did well on the test because I am smart,” or “I did poor on the test because I didn’t get enough sleep.
Example
An Individual asked to make opinion on Smoking!
If the Individual himself is a smoker?
If the Individual has never smoked??
How do people make attributions?
Kelley argued that people take three factors into account when making a personal vs. situational attribution:
Consistency: Is the baby always smiling?
Distinctiveness: Are there occasions [on which] the baby doesn’t smile?
Consensus: Do all babies smile?
If consistency is high, and distinctiveness / consensus are low, then a personal attribution is more likely:
“The baby is always smiling, never displays other emotions (like crying), and this is not typical of babies in general. Therefore, this baby must have a happy disposition.”
If consistency is high, and distinctiveness / consensus are also high, then a situational attribution is more likely.
“The baby is always smiling when tickled, but displays different emotions in other circumstances. Smiling when tickled is typical of all babies. Therefore, this baby is smiling NOW because it was tickled”
Example
A researcher assigned participants to read out loud either a pro-Castro essay or an anti-Castro essay. A group of listeners rated the extent to which the reader held pro-Castro or anti-Castro beliefs.
Even though the listeners knew that the readers had no choice in which essay to read, the raters judged the pro-Castro readers as being more pro-Castro than the anti-Castro readers.
The listeners failed to take into account the strong situational factor present (that the readers had no choice about which essay to read).
Cognitive dissonance theory
People strive for consistency in their thoughts.
Seems simple, but this idea lead to very counter-intuitive findings.
Festinger and Carlsmith had participants complete a very boring task (turning screws ¼ turn at a time, for a long time). One group was paid $1 to do this, and a separate group was paid $20. Which group should like the task more?
Result:
Participants paid $1 enjoyed the task more than participants paid $20. The $20 group had consistent cognitions (“This is stupid, but I’m being compensated for doing it.”). The $1 group had inconsistent cognitions (“This is stupid, and I have no reason to do it.”).
Participants in the $1 group resolved the dissonance by changing their attitude about the task (“I’m not being adequately compensated for this, but that’s OK. This is actually fun!”).
Self-perception theory
Bem suggested that another way to think about this research is in terms of attribution.
All participants observed their behavior (doing the boring task) and made a causal attribution for their own behavior. Participants in the $20 group observed their own behavior and thought (“I’m doing this task because I’m getting paid.”). Participants in the $1 group observed their own behavior and thought (“I’m doing this task because I must enjoy it.”).
A TASK- How will YOU commend?
INDIVIDUAL: STRONGLY AGAINST USING HIGH FUEL CONSUMING VEHICLE.
Situation-1: The other person (using Fuel Consuming vehicle) is his VERY CLOSEST Friend.
Situation-2: He is leaving for ever to settle in another country.
"By altering actors and observers perspectives through videotape replays, mirrors, or other methods, one can correspondingly alter the actors' and observers' causal assessments."
- Human Inference
Nisbett & Ross 1980
Early Childhood - Mrs. Prabha Ranganathan, Consultant Psychologist
CHILDHOOD
Childhood begins when the relative dependency of babyhood is over, at approximately the age of two years, and extends to the time when the child becomes sexually mature, at approximately thirteen years for the average girl and fourteen years for the average boy. After children become sexually mature, they are known as adolescents.
During this long period of time-roughly eleven years for girls and twelve years for boys marked changes take place in the child both physically and psychologically.
Because cultural pressures and expectations to learn certain things at one age are different from the pressures and expectations at another age, a child in the early part of childhood is quite different from a child in the latter part of the period.
Childhood should be subdivided into two separate periods early and late childhood.
Early childhood extends from two to six years, and late childhood extends from six to the time the child becomes sexually mature.
Thus early childhood begins at the conclusion of babyhood the age when dependency is practically a thing of the past and is being replaced by growing independence and ends at about the time the child enters first grade in school.
In a culture where the law requires that children must begin their formal education when they reach their sixth birthday, social pressures and social expectations play an important role in determining how children differ before they enter school from those who have already been subjected to school experiences.
If formal entrance into school came a year earlier or a year later, the dividing line between early and late childhood would be at five years in the former case and at seven years in the latter case.
The new pressures and expectations that accompany the child's formal entrance into school result in changes in patterns of behavior, interests, and values.
As a result, children become "different" people from what they were earlier. It is this difference in their psychological makeup rather than the difference in their physical makeup that justifies dividing this long span of years into two subdivisions, early and late childhood.
CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
Names Used by Parents Most parents consider early childhood a problem age or a troublesome age. The reason that behavior problems dominate the early childhood years is that young children are developing distinctive personalities and are demanding an independence. They are obstinate, stubborn, disobedient, negativistic, and antagonistic. They have frequent temper tantrums, they are often bothered by bad dreams at night and irrational fears during the day, and they suffer from jealousies.
Because of these problems, early childhood seems a less appealing age.
Parents often refer to early childhood as the toy age because young children spend much of their waking time playing with toys
Names Used by Educators
Educators refer to the early childhood years as the preschool age to distinguish it from the time when children are considered old enough, both physically and mentally, to cope with the work they will be expected to do when they begin their formal schooling.
Names Used by Psychologists: One of the most commonly applied names is the pre-gang age, the time when children are learning the foundations of social behavior as a preparation for the more highly organized social life they will be required to adjust to when they enter first grade.
Because the major development that occurs during early childhood centers around gaining control over the environment, many psychologists refer to early childhood as the exploratory age, a label which implies that children want to know what their environment is, how it works, how it feels, and how they can be a part of it. This includes people as well as inanimate objects. One common way of exploring in early childhood is by asking questions:- thus this period is often referred to as the questioning age, imitative age , creative age.
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
Growth during early childhood proceeds at a slow rate as compared with the rapid rate of growth in babyhood. Early childhood is a time of relatively even growth, though there are seasonal variations; July to mid-December is the most favorable time for increases in weight, and April to mid-August is most favorable for height increases.
There are individual differences in all aspects of physical development. Children of superior intelligence, for example, tend to be taller in early childhood than those of average or below-average intelligence and to shed their temporary teeth sooner. While sex differences in height and weight are not pronounced, ossification of the bones and shedding of the temporary teeth are more advanced, in girls than in boys. Because children from higher socioeconomic groups tend to be better nourished and receive better prenatal and postnatal care, variations in height, weight, and muscular development are in their favor.
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
Height
The average annual increase in height is three inches. By the age of six, the average child measures 46.6 inches.
Weight
The average annual increase in weight is 3 to 5 pounds. At age six, children should weigh approximately seven times as much as they did at birth. The average girl weighs 48.5 pounds, and the average boy weighs 49 pounds.
Body Proportions
Body proportions change markedly, and the "baby look" disappears. Facial features remain small but the chin becomes more pronounced and the neck elongates. There is a gradual decrease in the stockiness of the trunk, and the body tends to become cone-shaped, with a flattened abdomen, a broader and flatter chest, and shoulders that are broader and squarer. The arms and legs lengthen and may become spindly, and the hands and feet grow bigger.
Body Build
Differences in body build become apparent for the first time in early childhood. Some children have an endomorphic or flabby, fat body build, some have a mesomorphic or sturdy, muscular body build, and some have an ectomorphic or relatively thin body build.
Bones and Muscles
The bones ossify at different rates in different parts of the body, following the laws of developmental direction. The muscles become larger, stronger, and heavier, with the result that children look thinner as early childhood progresses, even though they weigh more.
Fat
Children who tend toward endomorphy have more adipose than muscular tissue; those who tend toward mesomorphy have more muscular than adipose tissue; and those with an ectomorphic build have both small muscles and little adipose tissue.
Teeth
During the first four to six months of early childhood, the last four baby teeth, the back molars erupt. During the last half year of early childhood, the baby teeth begin to be replaced by permanent teeth. The first to come out are the front central incisors the first baby teeth to appear. When early childhood ends, the child generally has one or two permanent teeth in front and some gaps where permanent teeth will eventually erupt.
At the end of sensorimotor stage:
Child achieves object permanence—the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched.
Infant understands a differentiation between self and world. At around 5.5 and 6.5 months of age, an infant can understand simple causal factors .
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage of Development
Preoperational stage stretches from approximately 2 to 7 years of age
Signifies time when stable concepts are formed, mental reasoning emerges
Egocentrism begins strongly & then weakens
Magical beliefs are constructed
Child does not yet think in operational way
Operations being internalized sets of actions that allow child to do mentally what before did physically
Symbolic Function Substage
First substage of preoperational thought, occurring roughly between ages of 2 & 4
During which young child gains ability to represent object mentally that is not present
Egocentrism feature of preoperational thought in which child is not able to distinguish between one’s own perspective & someone else’s perspective
Animism limitation within preoperational thought, whereby child believes that inanimate objects have ‘lifelike’ qualities & capable of action
Intuitive Thought Substage
Second substage of preoperational thought occurring approximately between 4 & 7 years
Children begin to use primitive reasoning & want to know answers to all sorts of questions
Centration focusing of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others- inability to shift quality or function from one set of criteria to another
Conservation evidence of centration in child’s idea of amount remaining same regardless of how container changes
Piaget’s 6 Sub stages of Sensorimotor Development
Schemas are patterns of actions and thoughts that organize knowledge. The basic unit for an organized pattern of sensorimotor functioning.
Actions are behavioral schemas. Their development characterizes infancy, such as that of simple actions and reflexes.
Thoughts are cognitive activities or mental schemas, which develop in childhood, such as classifying objects by size, color, or shape.
Assimilation incorporates new information into existing knowledge.
Accommodation adjusts existing knowledge to fit new information.
Organization is Piaget’s concept of grouping isolated behaviors into a higher-order system.
The child becomes skilled at using tools over time, one at a time until experiences become skills.
Equilibration:
Piaget’s mechanism to explain how children shift from one stage of thought to another.
It is lost when children have cognitive conflicts.
Achieved when assimilation and accommodation are used together to resolve a conflict.
Piaget’s 6 substages of the sensorimotor stage of infant development last from birth to 2 years of age.
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Question-asking behavior follows Piaget's model of cognitive development. It reflects the logic of their thinking processes.
At the preoperational stage, the child's questions concerning physical causality reflect largely undifferentiated cognitive structures in which the child's concerns with motivations and intentions are not separated from the causal explanations.
When the child moves into the concrete operations stage, his questioning behavior reflects a higher level of differentiation: thus the questions separate physical causality from psychological causality.
The question asking behaviors of children at the level of concrete operations are initially concerned with physical causality and then shift to a diverse number of categories.
Language is a system of words, symbols, and gestures that create shared communication that transcends time (future, present, and past).
Language’s five systems of rules:
Phonology: sound system of language, with phoneme being smallest unit of sound with meaning
Morphology: units of meaning in word formation, with morpheme being the smallest unit of meaning
Syntax: how words are combined
Semantics: the meanings of sentences and words
Pragmatics: use of appropriate language in different contexts
On average, a child
Understands about 50 words at age 13 months
Speaks first word at 10–15 months of age
Can speak about 50 words at 18 months of age
Average 2-year-old can speak about 200 words.
Vocabulary spurt begins at approximately 18 months of age.
Two-word utterances occur at about 18–24 months.
Overextension and underextension of words are common.
Telegraphic speech is use of short and precise words.
Some Language Milestones in Infancy
Birth
1 to 2 months
6 months
8 to 12 months
10–15 months
18 months
18 to 24 months
Specific regions of the brain are predisposed to be used for language
Broca’s Area (word production)
Wernicke’s Area (word comprehension)
Damage to either of these areas produces types of aphasia, a loss or impairment of language processing.
Erikson’s psychosocial theory
LINGUSITIC DEVELOPMENT
By the time children are two years old, most of the prespeech forms of communication they found so useful during babyhood have been abandoned. Young children no longer babble, and their crying is greatly curtailed. They may use gestures, but mainly as supplements to speech-to emphasize the meaning of the words Early childhood is normally a time when rapid strides are made in the major tasks of learning to speak-building up a vocabulary, mastering pronunciation, and combining words into sentences.
During early childhood, there is a strong motivation on the part of most children to learn to speak
First, learning to speak is an essential tool in socialization
Second, learning to speak is a tool in achieving independence. Early childhood is popularly known as the chatterbox age.
Improvement in Comprehension
Comprehension is greatly influenced by how attentively children listen to what is said to them.
Pronunciation of Words.
Certain sounds and sound combinations are especially difficult for a young child to learn to pronounce, such as the consonants z, w, d, s, and g and the consonant combinations st, str, dr, and fl
Vocabulary Building
Young children's vocabularies increase rapidly as they learn new words and new meanings for old words. Young children learn a general vocabulary of words, such as "good" and "bad," "give" and "take," as well as many words with specific usage, such as numbers and the names of colors.
Forming Sentences
Three- or four-word sentences are used as early as two years of age and commonly at three. Many' of these sentences are incomplete, consisting mainly of nouns and lacking verbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. After age three, the child forms six- to eight-word sentences containing all parts of speech.
Content of Speech
At first, the speech of young children is egocentric in the sense that they talk mainly about themselves, their interests, their families, and their possessions. Toward the end of early childhood, socialized speech begins and children talk about other people as well as about themselves. But much of this early socialized speech is unsocial in that it is heavily weighted with criticism of others, and it may take the form of tattling or complaining.
Most young children also make unkind, derogatory comments about other people, and about their actions and their possessions. They also engage in name-calling, especially when they are angry. Boasting, primarily about material possessions, is very common at this age.
As the size of the play group becomes larger, children's speech becomes more social and less egocentric. They become less critical, they ask fewer questions, and they give more commands. There is evidence that small social groupings are more favorable for the development of speech in young children than large social groupings.
EMOTIONS
Emotions are especially intense during early childhood.
Although any emotion may be "heightened" in the sense that it occurs more frequently and more intensely than is normal for that particular individual, heightened emotionality in early childhood is characterized by temper tantrums, intense fears, and unreasonable outbursts of jealousy.
Part of the intense emotionality of children at this age may be traced to fatigue due to strenuous and prolonged play, rebellion against taking naps, and the fact that they may eat too little.
Even more important, children whose parents expect them to measure up to unrealistically high standards will experience more emotional tension than children whose parents are more realistic in their expectations.
FACTORS INFLUENCING HOW MUCH YOUNG CHILDREN TALK
Intelligence
Type of Discipline
Ordinal Position
Family Size
Socioeconomic Status
Racial Status
Sex-Role Typing
Bilingualism
COMMON EMOTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
Anger
Fear
Jealousy
Curiosity
Envy
Joy
Grief
Affection
Parenting Styles
Authoritarian: Parent places a high value on obedience and respect for authority
Permissive: Parent imposes minimal controls on their children
Authoritative: Parent enforce standards, but encourages verbal give-and-take with the child
School-The Transition to Elementary School
In elementary school children take up a new role:
Interacting & developing relationships
Adopting new reference groups
Developing new standards by which to judge themselves
School - Teachers
Teachers have a prominent influence in middle and late childhood
Symbolize authority by establishing:
Classroom’s climate
Conditions of interaction among students
Nature of group functioning.
Erik Erikson believes that good teachers should be able to produce a sense of industry, rather than inferiority, in their children
A teacher needs to be aware of needs of each student & create a structure by which academic material is generated while consideration is made for individual learning styles of students
Childhood begins when the relative dependency of babyhood is over, at approximately the age of two years, and extends to the time when the child becomes sexually mature, at approximately thirteen years for the average girl and fourteen years for the average boy. After children become sexually mature, they are known as adolescents.
During this long period of time-roughly eleven years for girls and twelve years for boys marked changes take place in the child both physically and psychologically.
Because cultural pressures and expectations to learn certain things at one age are different from the pressures and expectations at another age, a child in the early part of childhood is quite different from a child in the latter part of the period.
Childhood should be subdivided into two separate periods early and late childhood.
Early childhood extends from two to six years, and late childhood extends from six to the time the child becomes sexually mature.
Thus early childhood begins at the conclusion of babyhood the age when dependency is practically a thing of the past and is being replaced by growing independence and ends at about the time the child enters first grade in school.
In a culture where the law requires that children must begin their formal education when they reach their sixth birthday, social pressures and social expectations play an important role in determining how children differ before they enter school from those who have already been subjected to school experiences.
If formal entrance into school came a year earlier or a year later, the dividing line between early and late childhood would be at five years in the former case and at seven years in the latter case.
The new pressures and expectations that accompany the child's formal entrance into school result in changes in patterns of behavior, interests, and values.
As a result, children become "different" people from what they were earlier. It is this difference in their psychological makeup rather than the difference in their physical makeup that justifies dividing this long span of years into two subdivisions, early and late childhood.
CHARACTERISTICS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
Names Used by Parents Most parents consider early childhood a problem age or a troublesome age. The reason that behavior problems dominate the early childhood years is that young children are developing distinctive personalities and are demanding an independence. They are obstinate, stubborn, disobedient, negativistic, and antagonistic. They have frequent temper tantrums, they are often bothered by bad dreams at night and irrational fears during the day, and they suffer from jealousies.
Because of these problems, early childhood seems a less appealing age.
Parents often refer to early childhood as the toy age because young children spend much of their waking time playing with toys
Names Used by Educators
Educators refer to the early childhood years as the preschool age to distinguish it from the time when children are considered old enough, both physically and mentally, to cope with the work they will be expected to do when they begin their formal schooling.
Names Used by Psychologists: One of the most commonly applied names is the pre-gang age, the time when children are learning the foundations of social behavior as a preparation for the more highly organized social life they will be required to adjust to when they enter first grade.
Because the major development that occurs during early childhood centers around gaining control over the environment, many psychologists refer to early childhood as the exploratory age, a label which implies that children want to know what their environment is, how it works, how it feels, and how they can be a part of it. This includes people as well as inanimate objects. One common way of exploring in early childhood is by asking questions:- thus this period is often referred to as the questioning age, imitative age , creative age.
GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT
Growth during early childhood proceeds at a slow rate as compared with the rapid rate of growth in babyhood. Early childhood is a time of relatively even growth, though there are seasonal variations; July to mid-December is the most favorable time for increases in weight, and April to mid-August is most favorable for height increases.
There are individual differences in all aspects of physical development. Children of superior intelligence, for example, tend to be taller in early childhood than those of average or below-average intelligence and to shed their temporary teeth sooner. While sex differences in height and weight are not pronounced, ossification of the bones and shedding of the temporary teeth are more advanced, in girls than in boys. Because children from higher socioeconomic groups tend to be better nourished and receive better prenatal and postnatal care, variations in height, weight, and muscular development are in their favor.
PHYSICAL DEVELOPMENT
Height
The average annual increase in height is three inches. By the age of six, the average child measures 46.6 inches.
Weight
The average annual increase in weight is 3 to 5 pounds. At age six, children should weigh approximately seven times as much as they did at birth. The average girl weighs 48.5 pounds, and the average boy weighs 49 pounds.
Body Proportions
Body proportions change markedly, and the "baby look" disappears. Facial features remain small but the chin becomes more pronounced and the neck elongates. There is a gradual decrease in the stockiness of the trunk, and the body tends to become cone-shaped, with a flattened abdomen, a broader and flatter chest, and shoulders that are broader and squarer. The arms and legs lengthen and may become spindly, and the hands and feet grow bigger.
Body Build
Differences in body build become apparent for the first time in early childhood. Some children have an endomorphic or flabby, fat body build, some have a mesomorphic or sturdy, muscular body build, and some have an ectomorphic or relatively thin body build.
Bones and Muscles
The bones ossify at different rates in different parts of the body, following the laws of developmental direction. The muscles become larger, stronger, and heavier, with the result that children look thinner as early childhood progresses, even though they weigh more.
Fat
Children who tend toward endomorphy have more adipose than muscular tissue; those who tend toward mesomorphy have more muscular than adipose tissue; and those with an ectomorphic build have both small muscles and little adipose tissue.
Teeth
During the first four to six months of early childhood, the last four baby teeth, the back molars erupt. During the last half year of early childhood, the baby teeth begin to be replaced by permanent teeth. The first to come out are the front central incisors the first baby teeth to appear. When early childhood ends, the child generally has one or two permanent teeth in front and some gaps where permanent teeth will eventually erupt.
At the end of sensorimotor stage:
Child achieves object permanence—the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched.
Infant understands a differentiation between self and world. At around 5.5 and 6.5 months of age, an infant can understand simple causal factors .
Piaget’s Preoperational Stage of Development
Preoperational stage stretches from approximately 2 to 7 years of age
Signifies time when stable concepts are formed, mental reasoning emerges
Egocentrism begins strongly & then weakens
Magical beliefs are constructed
Child does not yet think in operational way
Operations being internalized sets of actions that allow child to do mentally what before did physically
Symbolic Function Substage
First substage of preoperational thought, occurring roughly between ages of 2 & 4
During which young child gains ability to represent object mentally that is not present
Egocentrism feature of preoperational thought in which child is not able to distinguish between one’s own perspective & someone else’s perspective
Animism limitation within preoperational thought, whereby child believes that inanimate objects have ‘lifelike’ qualities & capable of action
Intuitive Thought Substage
Second substage of preoperational thought occurring approximately between 4 & 7 years
Children begin to use primitive reasoning & want to know answers to all sorts of questions
Centration focusing of attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others- inability to shift quality or function from one set of criteria to another
Conservation evidence of centration in child’s idea of amount remaining same regardless of how container changes
Piaget’s 6 Sub stages of Sensorimotor Development
Schemas are patterns of actions and thoughts that organize knowledge. The basic unit for an organized pattern of sensorimotor functioning.
Actions are behavioral schemas. Their development characterizes infancy, such as that of simple actions and reflexes.
Thoughts are cognitive activities or mental schemas, which develop in childhood, such as classifying objects by size, color, or shape.
Assimilation incorporates new information into existing knowledge.
Accommodation adjusts existing knowledge to fit new information.
Organization is Piaget’s concept of grouping isolated behaviors into a higher-order system.
The child becomes skilled at using tools over time, one at a time until experiences become skills.
Equilibration:
Piaget’s mechanism to explain how children shift from one stage of thought to another.
It is lost when children have cognitive conflicts.
Achieved when assimilation and accommodation are used together to resolve a conflict.
Piaget’s 6 substages of the sensorimotor stage of infant development last from birth to 2 years of age.
COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Question-asking behavior follows Piaget's model of cognitive development. It reflects the logic of their thinking processes.
At the preoperational stage, the child's questions concerning physical causality reflect largely undifferentiated cognitive structures in which the child's concerns with motivations and intentions are not separated from the causal explanations.
When the child moves into the concrete operations stage, his questioning behavior reflects a higher level of differentiation: thus the questions separate physical causality from psychological causality.
The question asking behaviors of children at the level of concrete operations are initially concerned with physical causality and then shift to a diverse number of categories.
Language is a system of words, symbols, and gestures that create shared communication that transcends time (future, present, and past).
Language’s five systems of rules:
Phonology: sound system of language, with phoneme being smallest unit of sound with meaning
Morphology: units of meaning in word formation, with morpheme being the smallest unit of meaning
Syntax: how words are combined
Semantics: the meanings of sentences and words
Pragmatics: use of appropriate language in different contexts
On average, a child
Understands about 50 words at age 13 months
Speaks first word at 10–15 months of age
Can speak about 50 words at 18 months of age
Average 2-year-old can speak about 200 words.
Vocabulary spurt begins at approximately 18 months of age.
Two-word utterances occur at about 18–24 months.
Overextension and underextension of words are common.
Telegraphic speech is use of short and precise words.
Some Language Milestones in Infancy
Birth
1 to 2 months
6 months
8 to 12 months
10–15 months
18 months
18 to 24 months
Specific regions of the brain are predisposed to be used for language
Broca’s Area (word production)
Wernicke’s Area (word comprehension)
Damage to either of these areas produces types of aphasia, a loss or impairment of language processing.
Erikson’s psychosocial theory
LINGUSITIC DEVELOPMENT
By the time children are two years old, most of the prespeech forms of communication they found so useful during babyhood have been abandoned. Young children no longer babble, and their crying is greatly curtailed. They may use gestures, but mainly as supplements to speech-to emphasize the meaning of the words Early childhood is normally a time when rapid strides are made in the major tasks of learning to speak-building up a vocabulary, mastering pronunciation, and combining words into sentences.
During early childhood, there is a strong motivation on the part of most children to learn to speak
First, learning to speak is an essential tool in socialization
Second, learning to speak is a tool in achieving independence. Early childhood is popularly known as the chatterbox age.
Improvement in Comprehension
Comprehension is greatly influenced by how attentively children listen to what is said to them.
Pronunciation of Words.
Certain sounds and sound combinations are especially difficult for a young child to learn to pronounce, such as the consonants z, w, d, s, and g and the consonant combinations st, str, dr, and fl
Vocabulary Building
Young children's vocabularies increase rapidly as they learn new words and new meanings for old words. Young children learn a general vocabulary of words, such as "good" and "bad," "give" and "take," as well as many words with specific usage, such as numbers and the names of colors.
Forming Sentences
Three- or four-word sentences are used as early as two years of age and commonly at three. Many' of these sentences are incomplete, consisting mainly of nouns and lacking verbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. After age three, the child forms six- to eight-word sentences containing all parts of speech.
Content of Speech
At first, the speech of young children is egocentric in the sense that they talk mainly about themselves, their interests, their families, and their possessions. Toward the end of early childhood, socialized speech begins and children talk about other people as well as about themselves. But much of this early socialized speech is unsocial in that it is heavily weighted with criticism of others, and it may take the form of tattling or complaining.
Most young children also make unkind, derogatory comments about other people, and about their actions and their possessions. They also engage in name-calling, especially when they are angry. Boasting, primarily about material possessions, is very common at this age.
As the size of the play group becomes larger, children's speech becomes more social and less egocentric. They become less critical, they ask fewer questions, and they give more commands. There is evidence that small social groupings are more favorable for the development of speech in young children than large social groupings.
EMOTIONS
Emotions are especially intense during early childhood.
Although any emotion may be "heightened" in the sense that it occurs more frequently and more intensely than is normal for that particular individual, heightened emotionality in early childhood is characterized by temper tantrums, intense fears, and unreasonable outbursts of jealousy.
Part of the intense emotionality of children at this age may be traced to fatigue due to strenuous and prolonged play, rebellion against taking naps, and the fact that they may eat too little.
Even more important, children whose parents expect them to measure up to unrealistically high standards will experience more emotional tension than children whose parents are more realistic in their expectations.
FACTORS INFLUENCING HOW MUCH YOUNG CHILDREN TALK
Intelligence
Type of Discipline
Ordinal Position
Family Size
Socioeconomic Status
Racial Status
Sex-Role Typing
Bilingualism
COMMON EMOTIONS OF EARLY CHILDHOOD
Anger
Fear
Jealousy
Curiosity
Envy
Joy
Grief
Affection
Parenting Styles
Authoritarian: Parent places a high value on obedience and respect for authority
Permissive: Parent imposes minimal controls on their children
Authoritative: Parent enforce standards, but encourages verbal give-and-take with the child
School-The Transition to Elementary School
In elementary school children take up a new role:
Interacting & developing relationships
Adopting new reference groups
Developing new standards by which to judge themselves
School - Teachers
Teachers have a prominent influence in middle and late childhood
Symbolize authority by establishing:
Classroom’s climate
Conditions of interaction among students
Nature of group functioning.
Erik Erikson believes that good teachers should be able to produce a sense of industry, rather than inferiority, in their children
A teacher needs to be aware of needs of each student & create a structure by which academic material is generated while consideration is made for individual learning styles of students
Intelligence - Mrs. Prabha Ranganathan, Consultant Psychologist
INTELLIGENCE
The word intelligence is derived from the Latin word meaning – to understand -. In simple terms it is COGNITION or MENTAL ABILITY.
Father of Intelligence Testing – Alfred Binet.
DEFINITIONS:
A judgment of commonsense, initiative, the ability to adjust to oneself, to judge well, to understand well and to reason out well. - Binet
It is the aggregate global capacity of an individual to act purposefully, to think rationally and to deal effectively with his environment. – David Wechsler
Intelligence is the ability to think abstractly - Terman
General adaptability to new problems and conditions of life – William Sterm
INTELLIGENCE
Summerised:
Ability to Adjust to any new situation
Ability to Solve new problems &
Ability to Understand new ideas
I.Q. LEVELS
Less than 20 : Profound mental retardation
21-35 : Severe mental retardation
36-50 : Moderate mental retardation
51-70 : Mild mental retardation
71-90 : Slow learner
91-110 : Average Intelligence
111-120 : Superior Intelligence
121-140 : Very Superior Intelligence
140 above : Gifted
TWO FACTOR THEORY – Charles Spearman
To him, intelligence has
A General factor, called (g) and
A Specific factor, called (s)
(g) is the specific factor, everyone has, though vary – it is INNATE, uneducable. It is not general intelligence. (but a general unique mental energy)
(s) can be compared to large number of engines, any, or all can be activated, educated.
MULTIFACTOR THEORY[E.L. Thorndike]
To him, intelligence is nothing but specific [S-R] relations; so it is only general intelligence.
Level: level of difficulty of the problem
Range: Number of tasks at a particular difficulty level
Area: Total number of situations
Speed-Quickness: of answering the best items
Levels are;
Abstract: Ability to understand & Manipulate things
Mechanical: Ability to Manage things
Social: Ability to (Abstract above) human relations in society
L.L. Thurstone [Group Factor theory]
PRIMARY MENTAL ABILITIES [PMA test]
Verbal Comprehension [V]: disarranged sentences > back to proper form
Word Fluency [W]: To name words beginning with given letter > rhyming
Number [N]: Basic mathematics [a/s/m/d]
Space [S]: is the ability to deal with visual relationships in two or three dimensions; to draw design from memorised images
Memory[M]: Efficiency to recall> Association
Perceptual Speed[P]: Find similarities & differences between pictured objects
Reasoning[R]: Find principle to solve problem. [2,5,6,9,10, __ ]
J.P. Guilford [Factor Analysis]
In Guilford's Structure of Intellect (SI) theory, intelligence is viewed as comprising
OPERATIONS, CONTENTS, AND PRODUCTS.
There are 6 kinds of operations (cognition, memory recording, memory retention divergent production, convergent production, evaluation),
6 kinds of products (units, classes, relations, systems, transformations, and implications), and
5 kinds of contents (visual, auditory, symbolic, semantic, behavioral).
Since each of these dimensions is independent, there are theoretically 180 different components
J.P. Guilford [Factor Analysis]
How useful Guilford for TESTS?
Evaluation of semantic units (Judge concept)
Eg.Which of the following objects best satisfies the criteria, hard and round: an iron, a button, a tennis ball or a lightbulb?
Divergent production of semantic units
Eg. list all items they can think of that are round and hard in a given time period.
Divergent production of symbolic units
Eg. a different content category, namely words (e.g., "List all words that end in 'tion').
Generation ideas based on relation
ships. An example test item for this ability would be providing the missing word for the sentence: "The fog is as ____ as sponge" (e.g., heavy, damp, full).
Triarchic Theory - Sternberg
Practical(Contextual) intelligence--the ability to do well in informal and formal educational settings; adapting to and shaping one's environment; street smarts.
Experiential intelligence--the ability to deal with novel situations; the ability to effectively automate ways of dealing with novel situations so they are easily handled in the future; the ability to think in novel ways.
Componential intelligence--the ability to process information effectively. This includes metacognitive, executive, performance, and knowledge-acquisition components that help to steer cognitive processes.
The word intelligence is derived from the Latin word meaning – to understand -. In simple terms it is COGNITION or MENTAL ABILITY.
Father of Intelligence Testing – Alfred Binet.
DEFINITIONS:
A judgment of commonsense, initiative, the ability to adjust to oneself, to judge well, to understand well and to reason out well. - Binet
It is the aggregate global capacity of an individual to act purposefully, to think rationally and to deal effectively with his environment. – David Wechsler
Intelligence is the ability to think abstractly - Terman
General adaptability to new problems and conditions of life – William Sterm
INTELLIGENCE
Summerised:
Ability to Adjust to any new situation
Ability to Solve new problems &
Ability to Understand new ideas
I.Q. LEVELS
Less than 20 : Profound mental retardation
21-35 : Severe mental retardation
36-50 : Moderate mental retardation
51-70 : Mild mental retardation
71-90 : Slow learner
91-110 : Average Intelligence
111-120 : Superior Intelligence
121-140 : Very Superior Intelligence
140 above : Gifted
TWO FACTOR THEORY – Charles Spearman
To him, intelligence has
A General factor, called (g) and
A Specific factor, called (s)
(g) is the specific factor, everyone has, though vary – it is INNATE, uneducable. It is not general intelligence. (but a general unique mental energy)
(s) can be compared to large number of engines, any, or all can be activated, educated.
MULTIFACTOR THEORY[E.L. Thorndike]
To him, intelligence is nothing but specific [S-R] relations; so it is only general intelligence.
Level: level of difficulty of the problem
Range: Number of tasks at a particular difficulty level
Area: Total number of situations
Speed-Quickness: of answering the best items
Levels are;
Abstract: Ability to understand & Manipulate things
Mechanical: Ability to Manage things
Social: Ability to (Abstract above) human relations in society
L.L. Thurstone [Group Factor theory]
PRIMARY MENTAL ABILITIES [PMA test]
Verbal Comprehension [V]: disarranged sentences > back to proper form
Word Fluency [W]: To name words beginning with given letter > rhyming
Number [N]: Basic mathematics [a/s/m/d]
Space [S]: is the ability to deal with visual relationships in two or three dimensions; to draw design from memorised images
Memory[M]: Efficiency to recall> Association
Perceptual Speed[P]: Find similarities & differences between pictured objects
Reasoning[R]: Find principle to solve problem. [2,5,6,9,10, __ ]
J.P. Guilford [Factor Analysis]
In Guilford's Structure of Intellect (SI) theory, intelligence is viewed as comprising
OPERATIONS, CONTENTS, AND PRODUCTS.
There are 6 kinds of operations (cognition, memory recording, memory retention divergent production, convergent production, evaluation),
6 kinds of products (units, classes, relations, systems, transformations, and implications), and
5 kinds of contents (visual, auditory, symbolic, semantic, behavioral).
Since each of these dimensions is independent, there are theoretically 180 different components
J.P. Guilford [Factor Analysis]
How useful Guilford for TESTS?
Evaluation of semantic units (Judge concept)
Eg.Which of the following objects best satisfies the criteria, hard and round: an iron, a button, a tennis ball or a lightbulb?
Divergent production of semantic units
Eg. list all items they can think of that are round and hard in a given time period.
Divergent production of symbolic units
Eg. a different content category, namely words (e.g., "List all words that end in 'tion').
Generation ideas based on relation
ships. An example test item for this ability would be providing the missing word for the sentence: "The fog is as ____ as sponge" (e.g., heavy, damp, full).
Triarchic Theory - Sternberg
Practical(Contextual) intelligence--the ability to do well in informal and formal educational settings; adapting to and shaping one's environment; street smarts.
Experiential intelligence--the ability to deal with novel situations; the ability to effectively automate ways of dealing with novel situations so they are easily handled in the future; the ability to think in novel ways.
Componential intelligence--the ability to process information effectively. This includes metacognitive, executive, performance, and knowledge-acquisition components that help to steer cognitive processes.
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