Unit 1

Learning through stimulus with a response

Attachment is cultivated through the subsequently mentioned means:
Food naturally gives pleasure and is an unconditioned stimulus leading to an unconditioned pleasure response.
The caregiver (neutral stimulus) gives the infant food, and the infant learns to associate the caregiver with the food- so the caregiver becomes a conditioned stimulus.
The conditioned response is the pleasure of being fed, with is now ‘paired’ with the caregiver.

Involves learning through rewards/punishments
By crying, infants produce a response from the caregiver of caring and comforting them, so learns that by crying, the caregiver will care for them.
From the caregiver’s perspective, comforting the infant leads to the crying stopping, so this behaviour will be repeated by the caregiver (this is negative reinforcement- continuing a behaviour to avoid a negative outcome).

Learning through observation
children observe their parents affectionate behaviour and then imitate this. Parents would also deliberately instruct their children about how to behave in relationships and reward appropriate attachment behaviours such as giving kisses and hugs

Aims:​
To find out whether a social learning theory–based treatment encouraged change in parent–child relationships. ​
Procedure:​
Participants were 174 four- to six-year-olds from a high-need urban area and were chosen because of their behaviour problems.​
88 were given a reading intervention and 86 were put in a non-intervention condition. ​
Observations of parent–child interactions were conducted in their own homes. The observations focused on three tasks: ​
(a) free play​
(b) challenge task​
(c) tidy up. ​
Parenting behaviour was noted and coded using standard count measures of positive and negative parenting, and for attachment theory using measures of sensitive responding and mutuality.​
The responsiveness of the children with regard to their attachment style was also noted. ​

Findings: ​
The two sets of parents were compared. Those in the intervention group showed increases in the number of positive behavioural counts and sensitive responding.
There was no reliable change in children's attachment styles associated with the intervention. ​
Conclusions:​
The findings show that standard social learning theory–based parenting interventions can change broader aspects of parent–child relationship quality.​

Strength
High Internal Validity:
For each intervention group, a group leader with professional child developmental psychology qualifications is provided to guide the parents, to explain any misunderstandings and to make sure the parents know how to correctly use the new techniques, therefore the results are not effected by extraneous variables such as misuse of parenting techniques, ensuring the internal validity of the results.
informed presumptive consent was given by the parents and the study was approved by the local research ethics committee
Weakness:
Low generalisability
The research used a large sample of 672 children, however the children are all in kindergarten or year 1, this is not a representative sample of the society, as the results cannot be generalised to children who are younger (babies) or older (elementary schoolers), therefore it has low generalisability.

Children attach to their caregivers to ensure survival.
In our ancestral environment, closeness to an adult was essential for protection from predation.
Attachment behaviors such as crying, grasping, and smiling evolved to promote proximity.
Initially, babies are indiscriminate in whom they attach to, but around the age of six to nine months they begin to prefer one person in particular.

Pre-attachment phase (Birth - 6 weeks)
Baby's innate signals attract caregiver
Caregivers remain close by when the baby responds positively
The infants encourage the adults to remain close to them in order to feel comforted
The babies recognise the mother's smell, voice and face.
They are not attached yet, they do not fear strangers.

Attachment In Making Phase (6 weeks - 8 months)
Infant responds differently to familiar caregivers
Begin to develop a sense of trust wherein they expect that the caregiver will respond when signaled
No protest when separated from caregiver

Clear-Cut Attachment Phase (8 months - 18 months)
Evident Attachment
Separation Anxierty when Attached caregiver leaves
Separation Anxiety increases between 6-15 months
Child will show distress when the mother leaves, but if the caregiver is supporitve and sensitive, this anxiety is short lived.


Formation of Reciprocal Relationship (18 Months - 2 Years Old)
Separation Anxiety decreases as Toddler is able to understand why the Caregiver is not always present
use mental representations of their caregivers for comfort.

Adaptive (Give adaptive advantage to ensure increased evolutionary fitness)
Contain Social Releasers which unlock the innate tendency of adults to care for them (e.g Crying, Cooing and Baby face itself)
Contain Contact Comfort to establish a safe base (a place of safety, represented by an attachment figure (e.g., a parent), that an infant uses as a base from which to explore a novel environment)
Are Monotropic. Monotropy is the special, intense attachment with one caregiver.
Form an Internal Working Model: This is a special model for relationships that will be the basis for all future adult relationships based on the relationship an infant has with their caregiver.

Strengths:
+ monotropy and hierarchy
Schaffer and Emerson (1964) found that infants form many attachments, but the mother-child attachment was qualitatively different from others.This was done on 60 Glaswegian babies. The babies displayed strong separation anxiety in such a manner that they could be arranged in a hierarchal order.
+Caregiver sensitivity
Schaffer and Emerson observed that infants who were strongly attached had mothers who would quickly respond to them and gave them more interaction whereas infants who has made a weak attachment had mothers who had failed to interact with them.
+Internal Working Model
Hazan and Shaver (1987) tested whether earl yattachments formed a template for later romantic relationships using the 'Love Quiz' Questionnaire. They classified 620 responses of child-parent relationships and found a correlation between attachment with parents and their attitudes towards love.
Weakness:
-Animal Research
Bowlby based much of his theoretical work on research using animals such as Harlow's rhesus monkeys.
No Genetic Evidence
Despite many rapid advancements in the field of genetics, we have not found any gene, or genes, that control attachment, which can suggest that attachment isn't innate.

Bowlby’s (1953) Maternal Deprivation Hypothesis proposed that a “warm, intimate & continuous relationship with a mother (figure)” is necessary for healthy psychological/ emotional development.
An inability to form attachments in the future (see the Internal Working Model)
Affectionless psychopathy (inability to feel remorse)
Delinquency (behavioural problems in adolescence)
Problems with Cognitive Development
Bowlby believed that maternal deprivation did not cause long term damage if substitute maternal care was provided

Strengths:
Bowlby's 44 thieves study supports this hypothesis. Children who were separated from their mothers were classified "Affectionless Psychopaths"
Goldfarb (1955) studied war orphans and found that orphans who were not adopted and remained in orphanages had very low IQs
Weakness:
Case studies of privated children are retrospective, meaning that it is difficult to accurately ascertain what actually happened to these children during their development. Any information about their history tends to come from accounts of family and friends or speculation as to how they were treated, which can be unreliable
May be considered unethical as working mothers may feel guilty for depriving their child of maternal attention

To find out if their was a link between maternal deprivation and affectionless psychopathy
They used a sample of 44 teenage delinquents(accused of stealing). They were interviewed for signs of affectionless psychopathy.
Their families were also interviewed to establish if there was prolonged early separation from their mothers.
A control group of 44 non-criminal teenagers, with emotional problems were all assessed to see how often maternal deprivation occurred to the children who were not thieves.
Prolonged separation/deprivation caused affectionless psychopathy.

Strengths:
A strength of the research is that, as it was a case study, rich qualitative data was gained. This increases the external validity of the research as it is high in
ecological validity.
A clear correlation is shown between maternal deprivation and affectionless psychopathy, which can help support the maternal deprivation hypothesis
Weaknesses:
Lewis (1955) partially replicated the 44 thieves study and found no link between maternal deprivation and juvenile deliquency
Retrospective recall might be inaccurate, decreasing validity.

Ainsworth identified three types of attachment:
Insecure-Avoidant (Type A)
Secure (Type B)
Insecure-Resistant (Type C)

Insecure-Avoidant Characteristics:
No separation anxiety
Open to interacting with strangers
Able to explore independently and does not utilise mother as safe base
Do not seek mother


Secure Attachment Characteristics:
Very distressed when mother leaves the room
Avoids strangers and resists stranger comfort
Happy to see mother return and uses her as a safe base
Explores with mother in presence as safe base.

Insecure-Resistant Characteristics:
Intense separation anxiety
Intense stranger fear
Pushes away mother angrily
Refuses to explore.

Ainsworth argued that the behaviour of the caregiver towards the infant dicatates the attachment type.
Securely attached infants have mothers who are sensitive to their needs
insecure-avoidant infants have mothers who ignore them when they need comfort or are distressed
insecure-resistant infants have mothers who behave ambivalently or inconsistently towards them and put their own needs first.

Procedure for the strange situation:
1) Mother and child are introduced to the room.
2) Mother and child are left alone and the child can investigate the room and toys.
3) A stranger enters the room and talks to the mother before approaching the infant with a toy.
4) Mother leaves the room, and the infant is left alone with the stranger.
5) Mother returns to the room.
6) Mother and stranger both leave the room, and the infant is left alone.
7) The stranger returns and tries to play with the infant.
8) The mother returns to the room and the stranger leaves.

The following behaviours were recorded:
separation behaviour - the behaviour of the child when separated from the mother
stranger response - how the child responded to the presence/comfort of the stranger
reunion behaviour - how the child behaved when the mother returned
exploring - the extent to which the child felt safe to explore the room.

20% of Children were Type A
70% were Type B
10% were Type C

Strengths:
Extremely standardised procedure which increases reliability. It is also considered a gold standard which increases its validity
Kroonenberg Meta-Analysis shows that the results Ainsworth gathered in her original study have remained consistent across. This increases reliability
Weaknesses:
A problem of the study is that it lacks population validity. The original study used American infants from middle-class families. Lacks generalisbility as it only accounts for western cultures.
The strange situation has also been criticized on ethical grounds. Because the child is put under stress (separation and stranger anxiety), the study has broken the ethical guideline protection of participants. Violates BPS guidelines. It also violates UNCRC
Only looks at attachment between infant and mother and not between Infant and father, grandma, etc. Decreases Validity.

Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 years)
Infants use their senses and movements to ascertain ifnormation about the world. They use their 5 senses - touch, taste, hearing, smell and sight. (e.g sucking objects)
By 6 months they develop object permanence
Around 4 months old, children repeat actions such as dropping something even though they initially did it by chance
Pre-operational stage (2-7 years)
Composed of two stages
Symbolic function stage (2-4 years old)
Children start imitating others and can use objects as symbols.
Symbolic play involves using one object to represent different objects e.g Using a rectangular box to represent a car
They also use words as symbols for objects
They engage in Animism and are egocentric
Intuitive Thought Stage (4-7 years old)
This is the start of reasoning, children begin to ask questions.
They exhibit Centration and cannot decentre their view when approaching a complex situation.
They exhibit Irreversibility (not understanding that an action can be reversed to return to the original state.)

Concrete operational stage (7-12 years)
Begin to apply rules and strategies to help their thinking and use concrete objects to aid their understanding.
They have difficulty with abstract ideas such as morality
They gain the ability to seriate (sorting objects by size or other criterion)
Classification of objects according to size or appearance
Reversibility
Conservation (think Piaget water conservation task)
Decentration (able to take on multiple views)

Formal Operational Stage (12+ Years)
Able to tackle abstract concepts such as morality
Think about many things such as height or age
Understand the passage of time
Able to understand how their actions have consequences

Strengths:
Practical application in Education. Piaget's theories have been used extensively in educatory settings which increases its applicatory validity.
experimental evidence put forth by Piaget and Inhelder (1956) Three Mountains Task which adds experimental validit
Weaknesses:
Piaget's data for his theory came from interviews which can be subjective and reduce validity.
Lacks generalisability as most of his sample consisted of Swiss children

Adaptation: Using assimilation and accommodation to make sense of the world
Assimilation incorporating new experiences into existing schemas
Accommodation: When a schema has to be changed to deal with a new experience
Equilibrium: When a child's schemas can explain all that they experience; a state of mental balance
Schema: A packet of knowledge containing info about a person place or event - can influence how we remember things

Sensorimotor Period
Childrens use action schemas to "assimilate" information about the world
During this stage the child's language serves two functions: "egocentrism" or "socialisation"
Children talk for themselves or for the pleasure of associating with anyone who happens to be there

Pre-operational Period
The development of their mental schemas lets them quickly "accommodate" new words and situations
From using single words (for example, “milk”), they begin to construct simple sentences (for example, “mommy go out”).
Piaget's theory describes children’s language as “symbolic,” allowing them to venture beyond the “here and now” and to talk about such things as the past, the future, people, feelings and events.
During this time, children’s language often shows instances of of what Piaget termed “animism” and “egocentrism.”
Children's language can be egocentric, about themselves and also animism is brought in.

Operational Period
According to Piaget, children’s language development at this stage reveals the movement of their thinking from immature to mature and from illogical to logical.
Children's language also reflects their ability to “de-centre,” or view things from a perspective other than their own
It is at this point that children's language starts to become "socialized," showing characteristics such as questions, answers, criticisms and commands.

The zone of proximal development (ZPD) refers to the difference between what a learner can do without help and what he or she can achieve with guidance and encouragement from a skilled partner.
It represents the tasks that are beyond the learner’s current abilities but are attainable with the help and guidance of the More Knowledgeable Other (MKO).
The ZPD is essentially the range of tasks that a person can’t complete independently but can accomplish with support.
The more knowledgeable other, often referred to as the MKO, is the person who provides the scaffolding or assistance.
Scaffolding:
Scaffolding consists of the activities provided by the educator, or more competent peer, to support the student as he or she is led through the zone of proximal development.
Support is tapered off (i.e. withdrawn) as it becomes unnecessary. The student will then be able to complete the task again independently.
e.g Breaking a task into smaller steps - your students have to write an essay on Morality. A brainstorming session is commenced and the students write down all they know. Then you provide them with sentence structures ,etc.

Strengths:
Wood and Middleton (1975) observed how mothers interacted with their children to build a model.
The results of the study showed that no single strategy was best for helping the child to progress. Mothers whose assistance was most effective were those who varied their strategy according to how the child was doing.
The study illustrates scaffolding and Vygotsky’s concept of the ZPD. Scaffolding (i.e., assistance) is most effective when the support is matched to the needs of the learner. So it has experimental validity
This theory has practical application which can help increase its applicatory function in education.
Weaknesses:
Does not account for individual differences such as IQ, decreases generalisability.
It implies that children's developments can be artificially accelerated, which conflicts with Piaget's stages of cognitive development, which he maintained happened in a specific order and in a specific range

tage 1: Pre-Talking Stage/Cooing (0-6 months)
Cooing is the vowel-like sound responding to human sounds.
Between 0-6 months, babies produce vowel like sounds such as "oh", "uh", and "ah".
They are unable to produce consonant sounds.

Stage 2: Babbling Stage (6-8 months)
Babbling is the sounds which infants produce as consonant-vowel combinations.
The sounds produced are, for example: "ma-ma-ma"

Stage 3: Holophrastic Stage (One-word stage) (9-18 months)
Holophrastic stage involves the child's first single word.
Child has identified which words and combinations of syllables are most effective for communicating
They convey a full sentence worth of information in one word.
E.g "Dada?" which would translate to "Where is dad?"

tage 4: Two-Word Stage (18-24 months)
Children are able to use two words in the right grammatical order.
The two words uttered in this stage have definite semantic relation with each other
For example, a child might see a dog jump over the fence and simply say ‘dog jump’ to imply "A dog jumped over the fence".
Child is able to produce consonant sounds like: j,p,b,d,t,m and n

Telegraphic Stage (24-30 months)
Children mostly ignore function words(the, can, and, but) in favour of using the most important content words (dog, computer, run) and usually start using negatives (no, not, can't, etc.). They also tend to ask more questions about their surroundings.
For example, a child might say ‘no want veggies’ instead of ‘I don't want vegetables with my food.
These words appear to be sentence like. They have, to some extent, hierarchal constitutent structures.

Later Multiword Stage (30+months)
At this stage, the fastest increase in vocabulary.
Children begin to use function words and vocabulary becomes more varied
Their sentence structures are complex and varied
Understand everything directed at them

Skinner’s theory of language development, also known as behaviorist theory, suggests that language is acquired through operant conditioning. According to Skinner, children learn language by imitating and being reinforced for correct responses.
He argued that language is a result of external stimuli and reinforcement, emphasizing the role of the environment in shaping linguistic behavior.
Operant conditioning is the basis for learning language according to Skinner

Positive Reinforcement: Receiving something pleasant for a behaviour, so we repeat it
Negative Reinforcement: The avoidance of something unpleasant, so we do it again
In Skinner's theory, children alter their use of language in response to this reinforcement.
E.g: Children says "mama, dinner." and then receive positive reinforcement by receiving the food they asked for.
E.g (2): A child incorrectly uses language which is then corrected by the caregiver, which would then be negative reinforcement.
The theory suggests that when receiving positive reinforcement, the child realises which use of language gets them the reward, and will continue to use language in that way in the future.
In the case of negative reinforcement, the child alters their use of language to match a correction given by the caregiver or may independently try something different.

Strengths:
During school life, a child's use of language will become more accurate, and more complex. This can be attributed to their teachers correcting them (negative reinforcement), this supplements the validity of the theory.
PECS (Picture Exchange Communication System) base their teaching protocol on B.F Skinner's books pertaining to reinforcement and prompting. This means that Skinner's theory has practical application in teaching autistic children language. (Source: https://pecsusa.com/pecs/)
Weaknesses
-Skinner does not provide an adequate explanation of the need for language attainment. He explains the process but fails to elaborate on the purpose of a language. It lacks pragmatism, Skinner's theory is not fully valid. It does not accurately reflect the reality of language learning,
-Skinner's theory is reductionist as it only presumes that language is gathered via external stimuli. This decreases its validity. Chomsky's Nativist theory sheds light on this.

-Chomsky believed that children have an inborn faculty for language acquisition
According to this theory, the process is biologically determined - the human species has evolved a brain whose neural circuits contain linguistic information at birth.
-Chomsky proposed that there are a set of grammatical rules and structures that are common to all languages. He dubbed this Universal Grammar
-Chomsky introduced the concept of the Language Acquisition Device (LAD), which he believed is a hypothetical mental mechanism or cognitive structure that enables humans to acquire language naturally and rapidly. The LAD is thought to be present in the brain from birth.
-Chomsky suggested that there is a critical period for language acquisition, which is a specific window of time during which language development occurs most easily and effectively. If a child does not acquire language during this critical period, it becomes increasingly difficult to learn a language later in life.

Poverty of the Stimulus:
-Chomsky argued that the linguistic input children receive from their environment is often incomplete and inconsistent.
-Despite this, children are able to acquire language with remarkable speed and accuracy.
He used the "poverty of the stimulus" argument to suggest that there must be an innate cognitive mechanism (the LAD) that helps children fill in the gaps and extract the underlying rules of language.
Transformational Grammar:
-Chomsky introduced the idea of transformational grammar, a theoretical framework that explains how sentences can be transformed from one form to another while preserving their meaning. This concept is central to his theory of language acquisition.
e.g: Deep structure: The man who is tall is walking.
Surface structure 1: The tall man is walking.
Surface structure 2: The man who walks is tall.
-Chomsky believed that children are born with certain innate language structures, including the basic rules of grammar. He argued that these structures are part of the LAD and serve as a foundation for language development.
Virtuous Errors:
Virtuous errors are the language mistakes that children make during language acquisition. These errors are not random but show that children are trying to apply the rules of language that they have learned.
Virtuous errors are considered to favor the innateness of language acquisition because they show that children are able to make inferences about the rules of language, even when they have limited exposure to language.
e.g A child might say " I goed to the store" instead of "I went to the store." This error shows that the child has understood the rule that the past tense of regular verbs is formed by adding "-ed."

Strengths:
Areas such as the Broca's area and Wernicke's area which have been neurologically linked to language show that parts of our brain control language. This means that our brain contains parts which are predisposed to language, favouring nativism. Increasing validity.
Creole languages are likely the result of language acquisition device (LAD) at work. Children of escaped slaves were able to turn a pidgin into a full language, known as a creole, by applying their innate knowledge of language. Increasing validity.
Weaknesses:
No experimental evidence was done, this was all theoretical. This decreases validity. (LAD WAS NEVER FOUND EITHER )
Bard and Sachs (1977) published a study on Jim, the hearing son of deaf parents. He watched a lot of television and listened to the radio, receiving frequent language input.
However, his progress was limited until a speech therapist was enlisted to work with him. Simply being exposed to language without interaction wasn't enough. This decreases validity.

Vygotsky believed that language develops from social interactions, for communication
purposes.
Language plays two critical roles:
Medium by which adults transmit information to children
Becomes a very powerful tool of intellectual adaptation
-Vygotsky split up speech into three categories:
Stage 1: External Speech (Social Speech) (0-3 years)
In this stage a child uses speech to control the behavior ofothers. A child uses speech to express simple thoughts and emotions such as crying, laughter and shouting.
An example of speech in this stage is "I want milk."
-Stage 2: Egocentric Speech (3-7 years)
In this stage, children often talk to themselves, regardless of someone listening to them. They think out loud in an attempt to guide their own behavior. -They may speak about what they are doing as they do it. They reason that language must be spoken if it is to direct their behavior.
Ex. A child in school who counts out loud one block at a time saying each number as he/she goes along to get five.
-Stage 3: Internal Speech (7+ Years):
Final stage of speech development
Involves inner, soundless speech, typically found in older children and adults.
This type of speech involves using speech to silently control their behaviour, and uses external speech for communication
In this stage oneable to engage in all forms of higher menta lfunctions i.e counting in one's head

Strengths:
-Bard and Sachs (1977)'s study on Jim showed that despite being given language input, he ain't learn jack. This implies that interaction must also be given in order to cultivate language development
Feral children case studies such as Genie shows how a lack of interaction in early life negatively affects language learning. Genie was kept locked in a room and deprived of contact for her first 13 years of life, i.e her critical period.
-When Genie was discovered, she was unable to communicate due to a lack of basic language skills. Genie's lack of language skills and failure to acquire fluent language can therefore support the idea that interaction with a caregiver is vital in language acquisition.
Weaknesses:
-It has been noted that children from cultures where Child-Directed Speech isn't used as frequently (e.g., Papua New Guinea) still develop fluent language and pass through the same stages when acquiring language. This suggests that Child-Directed Speech isn't essential in language acquisition.
-The data collected from studies supporting the Interactionist theory are actually over-representative of middle-class, white, western families. This decreases generalisability as it doesn't account for different cultures.

Strengths:
Erikson's Psychsocial stages have reconceptualized how the later periods of life are viewed. Middle and late adulthood are no longer viewed as irrelevant, because of Erikson, they are now considered active and significant times of personal growth, increasing validity.
Erikson outlines a more realistic perspective of personality development, filling a major gap in Freud’s emphasis on childhood. (McAdams, 2001).
Weaknesses:
The theory does not have a universal mechanism for crisis resolution. It does not detail what experiences must people have to resolve their conflicts. Decreases Validity.
Erikson based his theory of psychosocial development primarily on observations of middle-class White children and families in the United States and Europe. Decreases Generalisability

Vygotsky introduced two major principles
1) Cognitive development is limited upto a certain extent, at any given age of the individual
2) An individual's full cognitive development requires social interaction. These principles are encapsulated in Social Interaction, MKO and ZPD.
-Key concept #1 Social interaction plays a central role in cognitive development:
Humans are born with the innate desire to find meaning in their lives.
This curiosity leads children to ask questions and explore the world around them. In order to find meaning, we must be actively involved in the process of discovery.
Children learn and develop through social interaction. Their first teachers are their parents, who teach them basic skills such as language and walking. They also learn through playdates with other children, and through school and interactions with teachers and classmates.

Key concept #2 Social learning precedes development.
Vygotsky claims that a child will not be able to develop unless he undergoes or experiences social learning first
Social level (interpsychological): This is where social learning takes place. Children learn through interactions with others, such as parents, teachers, and peers.
Individual level (intrapsychological): This is where cognitive development takes place. Children apply the social learnings they have acquired to their own thinking and problem-solving.

Vygotsky claimed that Higher Mental Functions (HMF) are achieved through social learning. Examples Include:
Language: Children learn to communicate through social interactions with others.
Memory: Social learning helps children to develop their memory skills, such as making associations and using memory aids.
Voluntary attention: Social learning helps children to develop their ability to focus and concentrate on specific tasks.
Perception: Social interactions help children to develop their perceptual skills, such as understanding the meaning and significance of sensory stimuli.

Key concept #3 Language accelerates cognitive development.
Language development progresses through three stages: social or external speech, egocentric speech, and inner speech.
Inner speech emerges as children grow older, enabling them to think, analyze, and form opinions internally.
Language involves both expression and comprehension, impacting how people perceive and process information.
Language can shape perception, as seen in how different cultures categorize and name colors.
Familiar language motivates learning and understanding, accelerating cognitive development.

Key concept #4 Self-initiated discovery and collaborative dialogue aid in a child’s cognitive development.
Social interaction: Vygotsky argues that learning is enhanced through social interactions in cultural settings.
Cooperative dialogue: Children acquire knowledge and skills through collaborative dialogue with parents, teachers, and peers.
Culture shapes cognition: Cultural influences and social interactions mold a child's cognitive development.
Teachers and tutors guide older children through verbal instructions and behavior modeling.

MKO
The MKO is an individual or entity with superior knowledge, skills, or expertise in a specific area.
The MKO plays a crucial role in facilitating effective and productive learning.
They guide learners, helping them progress within their Zone of Proximal Development.
ZPD
ZPD: The learning gap between what a child can do independently and what they need help with.
MKO provides guidance and instruction in the ZPD, accelerating cognitive development.
Social interaction with an MKO, like a teacher or mentor, facilitates learning in the ZPD.

Strengths:
it does not try to fit all children into a particular developmental pattern. Rather, it looks at individuals. Increases generalisability
Practical application - Vygotsky's theory of social development has been shown to work - Scaffolding has been shown to be an effective method of teaching (Freund, 1990)

Weaknesses
Lacks Empirical Evidence. Reduces validity.
Ignores Biological Factors which may influence cognitive development. Reduces validity

-Mindfulness enhancing social, emotional and cognitive development.
-Mindfulness involves paying attention to your current thoughts and feelings without judging them
-A plethora of techniques are employed to facilitate Mindfulness
-Breathing exercises are a source of mindfulness and can help you restore a state of equilibrium in your body in a metaphorical sense and can help you reflect upon yourself
Research Evidence for Mindfulness
Schonert-Reichl et al (2015) conducted a randomised control trial with 9-11 year children that took part in either a 12 week MindUp Programme or a 12 week social responsibility programme.
Those who did the MindUp programme had significant increase in optimism, empathy, emotional control, etc.
Harnet and Dawe (2012) meta analysis on 24 mindfulness studies concluded that mindfulness based interventions are an important addition to the repertorie of existing therapeutic techniques

Generic Strengths and Weaknesses
Mindfulness addresses anxiety and depression without the risk of side effects from drug therapy
Easy and cheap to carry out

Aim: Cross cultural analysis looking at differences between attachments between and within cultures in different countries
Procedure: Meta-analysis was used wherein suitable studies were sought after from a large database from which they could analyse strange situation procedures in terms of attachment types. The following Criteria was used to select the most appropriate studies for meta analysis:-Only studies of infants-mother attachment using the strange situation procedure and giving ABC classifications were included.
Special samples such as Down’s Syndrome children were not included or studies where ether samples size was less than N=35.
Studies with overlapping samples were not included – some samples were w=used in more than one study.
Studies had to involve children under the age of two.
On those parameters, 32 samples from 8 countries involving 1,990 strange situations were selected.
The attachment types Ainsworth focused on were used for this meta analysis. Ainsworth (1978)'s data was used as a baseline sample distribution

Results:
21% were Type A
65% were Type B
14% were Type C
In most studies attachment was most frequently found to be Type B, which is a secure attachment
In general, there are fewer Type C attachments than expected and more Type A attachments than expected in the western countries.
In Israel and Japan there are more Type C and fewer Type A attachments.
Combining all US studies, the attachment distribution didn't align with Ainsworth's suggestions, leaving no accepted baseline after the meta-analysis.

Conclusion
The overall conclusion was that attachment Type B was modal in all countries.
Overall there are more Type A attachments in Western European countries
and more Type C attachments in Israel and Japan
US being in the middle regarding Type A and Type C attachment distribution
Media may influence the global predominance of Type B attachment, as it often promotes Western child-rearing perspectives. This influence can impact child-rearing practices worldwide.

Strengths:
Generalisability - large sample so can generalise attachment types to other cultures as it was based on these. Many samples were chosen across many different cultures.
Ethics - no ethical issues as used a meta-analysis of 8 different countries this means they used secondary data so they did not engage with the participants.

Weakness:
Strange Situation was made by an American researcher based on American children observations and so is ethnocentric and assumes behaviour has the same meaning in all cultures. It can mislabel an attachment in a non-western country. Decreases Generalisability
Majority of data came from individualistic cultures such as 18 Strange Situations to represent the US compared to China's 1 Strange Situation. This decreases Validity.
File-Drawer effect - chosen studies are ones that are published. Biased studies chosen which decreases validity

Aim: To investigate whether most Italian infants and adults are classified as secure and test whether the number of unresolved attachments in Italy may decrease due to mental resolution by way of catholicism
-Procedure:;
Meta Analysis
A systematic search of references to SSP and AAI (Adult Attachment Interview) studies (from 1990 to 2009) was conducted.
Pertinent studies were selected through PsycINFO, using the keywords ‘‘attachment,’’ ‘‘Italian,’’ and ‘‘Strange Situation Procedure’’ (SSP).
Unpublished papers, such as doctoral dissertations and conference papers were also included to eliminate any bias in the procedure. (File drawer effect eliminated)
Only studies with Italian samples for both normative and clinical/at-risk groups were considered.
For infant-mother attachment studies, only those using the Strange Situation Procedure with A, B, and C (or A, B, C, D) classifications were included.
For adult attachment, only studies using the original AAI coding system or AICA, with Ds, F, and E (or Ds, F, E, U) classifications were considered.
Studies with two subsamples were included for both normative and clinical/at-risk groups.
Overlapping samples were excluded to ensure each participant was only included once.
Non-peer-reviewed studies were considered if at least one author was a reliable AAI or SSP coder or if interrater reliability was high.

-Sample : This selection procedure resulted in 17 studies (23 samples; 627 participants) using the SSP and 50 studies (72 samples; 2,258 participants) using the AAI, all with Italian samples.
For the analyses on the Italian SSP studies, the baseline data was taken from 21 USA samples which were used as the norm against which data was measured.
Tested intra-cultural differences among Italian samples based on gender (male vs. female), age (adolescents vs. adults), and population type (nonclinical vs. clinical/at-risk), and created a sample distribution by type.
-Conclusions:
Majority of non-clinical Italian infants were classified as securely attached (53%)
Majority of non-clinical Italian adults were classified as securely attached (60%)
The low percentage of unresolved classifications may be a consequence of the high diffusion of Catholic values among the Italian population
Both nonclinical and clinical Italian infants’ distribution showed avoidant attachments are more common in Italy than the American sample

Strengths:
Avoid the file drawer effect by considering unpublished studies. Increases generalisability.
Only used studies that used the gold standard of SSP. AAI inter-rater reliability was over 75% (good agreement). This increases validity.
Weaknesses:
Cassiba et al is a 2013 study using data from 1992. This decreases the time validity.
Ethnocentric data used from USA might not generalise properly to Italian attachments.

-Aim: To investigate the relation of mother–infant attachment to attachment, cognitive and behavioural development in young children
-Procedure:
This study used a longitudinal study design.
The current study adopted Ainsworth's “strange situation procedure (SSP)” to evaluate mother–infant attachment in 12- to 18-month-old infants.
Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of Children's Hospital of Fudan University. Informed Consent was obtained from all mothers.

-Initial sample: 160 infant-mother dyads. 82 boys and 78 girls
-Recruitment source: Child health care networks in Shanghai.
-Predominant socio-economic status: Middle-income families.

-Attachment assessment using SSP completed during the first visit.
Follow-up of infants at around 3 years old.

-Follow-up conducted at the research study unit.
-Cost reimbursements, including transportation fees, provided by Ding et al.
A total of 118 young children completed the follow-up (63 boys and 55 girls).
Forty-two infants were not included in the follow-up due to reasons such as relocation or transportation challenges stemming from family arrangements or events.

-Follow up was legit the gold standard of SSP. They looked at 8 different behaviours.
-Video and audio recordings employed for assessment.
-Video data coded to determine infants' attachment types.
-Coding performed by two authors with a high inter-rater/inter-coder reliability of 95% for categories A, B, C, and D.

-Utilization of the Child Attachment Q-set (AQS) to assess attachment types in the 118 young children.
-The AQS consists of 90 cards, which represent a child's attachment security and associated behavioral characteristics.
-Mothers conducted the evaluation, following instructions provided by Ding et al.
AQS scores were employed to categorize the children into two groups: those with secure attachment and those with insecure attachment.
To ensure consistency and control, ten mothers were randomly chosen to re-evaluate their children using the AQS.

-The BSID-II was used to evaludate the MDI (Mental Development Index) and Psychomotor development index (PDI) of the children
-This was administered by 2 professional evaluators, who were unaware of the attachment type of the children to avoid bias
-10 children were also randomly selected to be evaluated simultaneously by 2 professional evaluators using the BSID-II to test for inter-reliability
-Ding et al Utilized CBCL for assessing behavioral problems in 2 to 3year-olds, which includes 99 items.
Mothers completed the CBCL.
To ensure consistency and control, 10 randomly selected mothers re-evaluated their children using the CBCL.

Results:
Of the 118 followed-up young children;
FIrst Visit:
-76 children were classified as having secure type of attachment (64.4%).
-42 children were classified as having insecure type of attachment (35.6%).
Follow-Up Visit:
-70 still demonstrated secure type of attachment giving a consistency rate of 89.7%.
-34 still demonstrated insecure type of attachment giving a consistency rate of 85.0%.
MDI was 102.9 (type B) - 97.5 (Type A,C) - Student's t-test proved this difference significant
PDI was 98.8 (Type B) - 13.4 (Type A, C) - Student's t-Test provided this difference insignificant
CBCL showed us that insecurely attached infants scored highly in social withdrawal, aggressive bheaviour and problems in early childhood compared to securely attached infants.

Conclusions
Attachment
Securely attached infants maintained securely attached relationship with their mothers in early childhood.
Insecurely attached infants maintained insecure attachment with their mothers
Cognitive
Securely attached infants were more likely to have a better cognitive development than insecurely attached infants

Behavioural Problems
Secure infant attachments linked to fewer single-behavior problems in early childhood, particularly social withdrawal and aggression.
Avoidant attachments didn't significantly differ from secure attachments in early childhood behavior problems, possibly due to a small sample of avoidant types or mothers' potential insensitivity.
Insecure infant attachments, especially disorganized types, associated with multiple simultaneous behavioral problems in early childhood.

Strengths:
Ethical asf. Informed consent obtained from mummy and Hospital.
Higher inter rater reliability increases validity
Weaknesses
42 Mother-infant dyads dropped out which decreases the generalisability of the study.
Self-reported AQS, CBCL tests can skew the data because the mothers may perceive themselves to be e.g more attentive and caring to their children. This decreases validity

-Involves watching participants' behavior without direct manipulation of the independent variable.
-Utilizes structured and naturalistic methods.
-Naturalistic observation occurs in participants' own environment, enhancing ecological validity.
-May have reliability challenges and difficulty replicating settings.
-Ethical considerations include gaining consent, especially in observations involving children.
-Structured observations are staged and controlled by the researcher, suitable when naturalistic observation is not practical.
-Structured observations use coding systems for replicable results.
-Ethical concerns ensure children are not unduly stressed during structured observations.
-Observations can yield both quantitative (e.g., frequencies) and qualitative (e.g., quotes) data in child psychology, allowing for a comprehensive understanding of behavior.

Self-report methods in child psychology include questionnaires and interviews.
- Social desirability bias can affect the accuracy and validity of responses in questionnaires, as respondents may try to present themselves more positively.
Questionnaires are commonly used with parents and teachers but may not be suitable for young children.
Questionnaires can assess views of children and adolescents in cases like the CASE (Child and Adolescent Survey of Experiences).
Interviews in child psychology involve face-to-face questioning, allowing for more in-depth data gathering.
Interviewers require training, and special care must be taken when interviewing children, considering their attention span and adapting language to age.
Interview recordings are often transcribed for analysis.
- The Interviewer effect, such as the physical appearance or gender of the interviewer, may influence a child's responses.
- Demand characteristics, subtle cues given by the interviewer, can affect participants' responses and profoundly impact results in interviews.

Ethnographic fieldwork is a research method used in developmental psychology to gain a deep understanding of individuals and their social and cultural contexts.
-Etic approach: looks at behaviour from outside of a given culture and attempts to describe those behaviors that are universal.
- Emic approach: functions from within certain cultures and identifies behaviours that are specific to that culture.

Aim:
Punch in Bolivia study on Youth Transitions was to investigate the experiences and challenges faced by Bolivian youth during their transition from adolescence to adulthood.

Procedure:
Employed ethnographic fieldwork methods.
Punch immersed herself in the Bolivian community, living among youth.
Actively participated in daily lives, conducting interviews and observing behaviors.
Collected artifacts and analyzed documents to understand participants' experiences and contextual factors influencing their transition.
Ethnographic approach used for in-depth understanding.
Punch uses an EMIC approach.

Results:
Emphasized the vital role of family and community support in youth transitions.
Strong social networks and cultural practices positively influenced development.
Identified challenges, including limited education and employment opportunities.
These challenges hindered the transition into adulthood.
Highlighted the significance of cultural values and traditions in shaping identity formation.

Conclusion:
Ethnographic fieldwork offers valuable insights into youth transitions across diverse cultures.
The Punch in Bolivia study emphasized the role of social and cultural factors in development.
Immersion in the community allowed researchers to capture nuanced experiences and complexities.

Strengths:
Gathers rich qualitative data that can help elaborate on the feature being studied
Can be used to reduce imposed etic
Weaknesses
Hard to replicate, lacks reliability
Presence of Punch in the village can cause demand characteristics

Cross-cultural research is a systematic study investigating cultural differences in behaviour and phenomenon between two or more cultures.
There are clear distinctions between Western and Eastern societies. Individualism vs Collectivism.
The two cultures may have contrasting opinions of what dysfunctional behaviour is. Therefore, Cross-cultural research can be carried out to identify differences between individualistic and collectivist societies.
For example, Ainsworth used the Strange Situation procedure across different cultures and found that the attachment types were largely the same, suggesting that attachment genetically programmed

Strengths:
Cross cultural research helps reduce the bias in contemporary psychology as it factors in different cultures and their differences. This increases generalisability
of research for the good of society
Has relevant application for the benefit of society - Cross-cultural research assesses cultural influence on behavior and mental illnesses, tests tool suitability across countries, and identifies potential assessment method revisions. It can be used to adjust e.g certain diagnostic tools for a specific culture
Weaknesses:
Imposed etic can reduce validity as it reflects the biases of the psychologist's own cultural views
Can be expensive and time consuming

Nature is what we think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance and other biological factors.
Nurture is generally taken as the influence of external factors after conception, e.g., the product of exposure, life experiences, and learning on an individual.
In cross-cultural studies, the subject of nature and nurture pops up in an attempt to explain a variance in behaviour.
Ainsworth's gold standard SSP has been replicated across various countries, from Japan to Germany. It is important to consider whether this is a result of nature or nurture.
Given how Cassiba et al's (2013) study shows that most children are securely attached through a meta analysis - we can substantiate the argument that attachment may be genetic as they were largely the same across culture despite cultural upbringing being different.
However, Takahashi (1990)'s replication of the SSP saw that 0% of the infants were insecure-avoidant - this is likely due to Japanese values making it so that not interacting with other people is extremely impolite and disrespectful.
A meta-analysis is where researchers combine the findings from multiple studies to draw one overall conclusion
The studies used in a meta-analyses have to be selected carefully so that the aim and procedure of each study is as similar as possible

Strengths:
Ethics - no ethical issues as a meta-analysis means they did not engage with the participants.
Can cultivate a large sample size to increase generalisability
Weakness
File-drawer effect reducing validity
Research designs can vary and may not be truly comparable

UNCRC
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
Rights of a child according to the United Nations
54 articles that cover all aspects of a child's life
All rights are linked and no right is more important than another
Suitable Examples of Articles you can use:
Article 9: Child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will
Effect on participation in research: Studying effects of deprivation from caregiver parent is very difficult because of this
Article 32: The right of a child must be protected from economic exploitation
Effect on participation in research: Monetary incentives cannot be used to coerce parents into participating in research

A clinical interview involves a face-to-face interaction between an interviewer and interviewee to gather specific information about a person’s behavioural, social, and emotional functioning.

Why would a clinical interview be used for a child?
Providing initial assessments of the child’s problems
Making a psychiatric diagnoses
Evaluating the effectiveness of school-based interventions and other mental health treatments
Screening for risk for suicide, risk for violence, or more general risk for emotional, behavioural, or learning problems

Clinical interviews generate data via both observation and direct questioning

Parents and teachers are also interviewed to get a full all-rounded explanation of the child's potential symptoms and disorders

Semi-structured observations are used for more casual question sittings e.g activities, hobbies, etc.
Structured observations are used when a diagnosis and symptoms are to be collected

Strengths:
Given how the clinician is using different sources of data and trying to in essence triangulate them, it makes the information more likely to be valid
Standardised, structured interviews are replicable when diagnosing or ascertaining the symptoms of the child, which can increase reliability as this can be replicated.
Weaknesses:
Semi-structured interviews with parents can make replication of the interview very difficult. Lacks reliavbility
Social desirability bias can reduce validity

In observations, researchers may suffer from subjective interpretation and the participants may exhibit demand characteristics which can lead to unnatural behaviour.
Stringent controls such as coding and categorising are utilised to reduce this effect.
Inter-observer reliability with a correlation coefficient of 0.75 is standard practice of good agreement between observers.

Meta-Analyses use secondary data and don't collect primary data.
Factoring in variations in the experimental set-up can only be done to a certain extent.
These procedural differences yield different results and different research outcomes.
File-drawer effect can also affect the validity of the research.
This is usually countered by using unpublished research papers
All of this combines to create the problem of ensuring Psychological research and implementation of research is done in a sound, practical manner with the least degree of bias possible.

Reliability
Reliability is dubbed the consistency of results
Reliability is also known as reproducibility or repeatability
Reliability can be measured in many different ways e.g Inter-rater, Intra-rater reliability.
Reliability is essential for reducing subjective interpretation and ensuring consistent results in observations.
Using methods such as a large sample size, documenting the procedure accurately, using structured experiments and interviews all increase reliability

Validity
Validity is the measure of whether your experiment measures what it intends to
Important in ensuring that the basic foundation of the research is accurate in what it intends to measure and can find a relationship between the IV and DV (if any)
Can be controlled by using control groups, operationalising variables.
Problems with validity include: Inaccurate findings and conclusions which can lead to misguided decisions based on flawed research
A scientist is bound by oath to ensure their research is carried out with scientific integrity

Credibility
Credibility is defined as the trustworthiness of the source from which research comes from
Research must not be falsified - a scientific oath that must be upheld by researchers
Authors must submit to peer-review to increase their credibility
Violation of scientific integrity laws can lead to an arrest
Meta-analyses should investigate the credibility of the author before using their research
It is important to use credible research as these results may be used to facilitate developmental psychology.
Generalisability
Generalisability is the ability to use results from specified research on any individual(s) so as to be indicative their behaviours
Research suffers from generalisability in the field of developmental psychology such as the SSP, which is ethnocentric towards middle class white parents.
Research methods such as stratified sampling can help increase generalisability

Objectivity is defined as the state of being factually true and is independent of feelings and experiences
Subjectivity is defined as something that is able to be affected by personal feelings, prejudices or interpretations
Research must aim to be completely objective
Research is made objective by empirical methods
Lab Experiments are objective in the sense that they can control conditions and highly operationalise variables.
Interview research and open-ended questionnaire based research suffers from subjectivity as the researcher has to interpret the research
Controls such as coding is used to coutneract these

Longitudinal Research: The same participants are tested multiple times over the course of weeks, months or years.
Cross-Sectional Research: Different participants (of different age groups) are tested all at the same time

Purpose:
To examine how people (usually children) develop over time
Utility in Developmental Psychology:
Example: To examine how children's use of language develops over time

Strengths:
-Avoid Participant Variables: This means that any variables specific to the participant are nullified because the same participants are being used. In essence, this is a strength of repeated measures design
-Helps establish causality more clearly: Because the participants are being observed over longer periods of time, cause and effect between the IV and DV can be more clearly established. This increases validity.
Weaknesses:
-Participants can drop out over time due to certain factors such as personal life or moving out. This can lead to a biased sample which decreases generalisability.
-Very time consuming and expensive to carry out.

Strengths:
-Avoids participants dropping out because data is collected at one point and not spread out over multiple days/months/etc. Leads to a more generalisable sample
-Less time consuming as once data is gathered, no need for follow ups

Weaknesses
-Participant variables can become conflicting. Reduces validity - Independent measures design weakness
-Causal links are very difficult to establish because you are not observing the participants over an extended period of time. Decreases validity