Cognitive Development and Defining Abnormality in Psychology

Explore the key concepts of cognitive development and defining abnormality in psychology. Evaluate Piaget's theory of cognitive development and cognitive explanation of schizophrenia. Get study material, solved assignments, essays, and dissertations at Desklib.

Running head: PSYCHOLOGY
PSYCHOLOGY
Name of the Student
Name of the university
Author’s note

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TAQ 1
Part A
Key concept: Cognitive development
concept Explanation
1. Schema According to Jean Piaget, schema can be
referred to as a cognitive framework or
concepts or blocks of concepts, that helps in
the interpretation of a vast amount of
information. Piaget termed schemas to be
‘units” of knowledge that provides a mental
representation of the world (Mandler 2014).
For example, when a little girl sees a cow
for the first time and initially calls it a horse,
but once, she is informed that it is a
different animal; she can modify the
existing schema and create a new schema
for a cow.
2. Accommodation Accommodation is a key process that is
essential to learning. Accommodation

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occurs when new information does not fit in
the existing schema, which means that the
existing schema needed modification or
designing for the accommodation of the new
information (Atkinson 2013). The
accommodation assists a person to adapt to
different customs and cultures. Students
sometimes require modifying their schemas
for accommodating information that they
have studies, when the previous schemas are
no longer of any use to get a desired result.
Part B
Key concept: Defining abnormality
concept Explanation
1. Deviation from social norms The behavior of a person can be considered
to be abnormal if the individual violates the
norms that is accepted to be right in a
particular social group. It is necessary to
consider as of the degree to which the rule is
violated or the violation is abnormal,

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eccentric or rude. One of the limitation of
the study is that the social norms might vary
from culture to culture and the norms might
vary with term.
2. Deviation from ideal mental health There are few criteria required for an ideal
mental health and lack or absence of any of
these characteristics might lead to deviation
from the mental health.
 Resistance to stressful condition
 Self actualization(Sue et al. 2015)
 Strong identity and self esteem
 Autonomy
 Accurate perception of what is real

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References
Atkinson, C., 2013. Making sense of Piaget. Routledge.
Mandler, J.M., 2014. Stories, scripts, and scenes: Aspects of schema theory. Psychology Press.
Sue, D., Sue, D.W., Sue, S. and Sue, D.M., 2015. Understanding abnormal behavior. Cengage
Learning.

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TAQ 2
Task A
Introduction
Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development has contributed to boost up the
understanding on cognition. Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development states that each child
constructs a mental model of the world. Piaget has theorized that children learn by through
experience and a continuous interaction with environment (Brown and Desforges 2013).
However, Piaget’s theory has been questioned and criticized continuously and this paper will
evaluate Piaget’s theory of cognitive development.
Discussion
According to Piaget, children learn by interacting with the environment and they
continuously learn by acquiring new knowledge building on to the existing knowledge or
schema. Piaget had described two main methods of learning among the children- Assimilation
and accommodation. Assimilation can be defined simply as the process of taking in new
information by incorporating in to the existing schema. Accommodation occurs when the schema
starts accommodating new knowledgeAtkinson, C., 2013). Evaluation of these two concepts can
be explained by an example, like babies understands that the sucking reflexes works with the
bottles same as that of the breast. Thus, the previous knowledge of sucking from the breast can
be stated as the schema, based on which she adds bottle to the existing schema. Unlike Freud,
Jean Piaget did not believe that growth and learning were driven by the repressed sexuality.
Rather, from the experiments conducted by Piaget, he came to know that children acquire skills
as they grow as per their cognitive repertoire (Atkinson 2013).

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Again, Piaget had proposed four stages of cognitive development- Sensorimotor stage, pre-
operational stage, concrete operational stage and formal operational stage.
In one of the key studies, Piaget had investigated on the object permanence and its effect
on the infants. In the study, a child was allowed to play with an object and then the toy was
removed from the child underneath a blanket (Brown and Desforges2013). As the child searched
for it, it indicated that the child could understand that the object existed even when out of the
sight, thus indicating towards object permanence. Notably children less than 8 months is not
search for the toy, as they totally forgot the presence of the toy even it still existed. This can be
referred to as Type A not B error, indicating towards simple object permanence (Barrouillet
2015). The weakness of the of the study , is that may be the child under 8 months did not have
the necessary motor skills to look for the toy or may be the child was simply not interested.
Piaget had failed to recognize that the ability of child could arise at any stages. In the
majority of the cases, Piaget had underestimated the capacities of the child as the findings have
shown that cognitive development tends to occur earlier. Piaget might have underestimate the
capacities due to the absence of modern experimental techniques present today (Zimmerman
2013). The type of the experiment methods used by Piaget is again an important issue. Piaget had
given individual each to complete that they had very little knowledge about or had been
unfamiliar with the everyday situations. It should be mentioned that not every child develops in a
stepwise manner, what Piaget had proposed. A child can exhibit signs of more than one stage at a
single stage only. A horizontal decalage, the overlapping of the stages might occur. Furthermore,
Piaget had also overestimated the child’s animism and egocentrism.

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Another important criticism related to the cognitive theory is that Piaget has established
the age norms disconfirmed by the data. He has theorized that children develop operational
thoughts in the pre-operational period, not in one bunch but in various areas of cognition
(Lourenço 2016).
One of the strength of Piaget’s theory is that Piaget did not conduct too many
experiments that did not the support the ideas of Piaget,being a sequential sets of stages that each
of the children would pass through all the set ages. Again, his cross-cultural trials involved
participants from Britain, USA, Africa, China that supported his idea of universality.
Conclusion
The main strengths and the weaknesses of Piaget’s theory has been evaluated throughout
this essay. On a concluding note, it can be said that despite of the various criticism, Piaget’s
theory of cognitive development had greatly influenced the field of psychology. Researches are
still going to address the gaps left in the theory for having a clear understanding of how cognitive
development occurs.

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References
Atkinson, C., 2013. Making sense of Piaget. Routledge.
Barrouillet, P., 2015. Theories of cognitive development: From Piaget to today.
Brown, G. and Desforges, C., 2013. Piaget's theory. Routledge.
Lourenço, O.M., 2016. Developmental stages, Piagetian stages in particular: A critical review.
New Ideas in Psychology, 40, pp.123-137.

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Task B
Evaluation of cognitive explanation of Schizophrenia
Introduction
Cognitive explanation of Schizophrenia states that the faulty thought processing causes
schizophrenia. According to Howes and Murray(2014) the symptoms are generated by the deficit
in processing like attention, biases in faulty thinking or due to the lack of the “Theory of mind”.
This paper would evaluate the cognitive explanation of schizophrenia in the light of other
biological or the sociological explanations of Schizophrenia.
Discussion
As per the cognitive explanation of schizophrenia, schizophrenia is a result of a faulty
attention system. One of the most important cognitive theories of schizophrenia is attention
deficit theory, which states that people suffering from schizophrenia face challenges to maintain
one train of thought, such as sticking to a particular conversation. They often lose focus on some
aspects of the environment or might over attend the things that are irrelevant. Individuals
suffering from schizophrenia can have too much stimuli for the processing as well as having the
emotional problems leading to faulty thinking(Lebowitz and Ahn 2014). Allowing the brain to
let in too much stimuli causes lack of concentration, inability to interpret the information.
According to Hemsley, schizophrenic individuals focus on irrelevant factors of the environment
and hence the schemas are not activated and the internal thoughts are not recognized. On the
contrary, Frith’s model has dictated that those with schizophrenia cannot differentiate between
the internal and the external thoughts, as they cannot self-monitor themselves (Altamura et al.

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2015). Frith had also associated between cognitive process and irregularity between the neural
pathway between the prefrontal cortex and the septo-hippocampal system. Frith’s theory links to
both cognitive and biological links. Hence, only cognitive explanation would not be sufficient to
explain schizophrenia(Altamura et al. 2015).
One of the critics of cognitive explanation is that it can only explain the positive
symptoms experienced by the schizophrenics but cannot offer valid explanations for the positive
symptoms experienced like affective flattening (Lebowitz and Ahn 2014). Hence, surely there
are other factors involved causing schizophrenia, accounting for the presence of the negative
symptoms.
Considering the cognitive explanation, cognitive behavior therapy has been found to be
having a significant impact on reducing both the positive and the negative symptoms of
schizophrenia. Hence, the cognitive assumptions can be effective in improving the symptoms of
schizophrenia. On the contraryHowes and Murray (2014) have put forward evidences
contradicting the cognitive explanations. It is evident from the studies of the patients with
traumatic brain injury, that they a likely to face with cognitive deficits, like issues with attention
or relation between the perception and the memory, but they do not show the symptoms related
to schizophrenia. Hence, it can be said that that cognitive explanation alone would not be valid.
Again, it is also not very clear about whether cognitive dysfunction is a cause or effect of a
disorder. On the other hand , Howes and Murray(2014) have stated that cognitive explanation of
Schizophrenia are much more scientific for example, McGuigan (1966)had found that the vocal
chords of the patient suffering from schizophrenia were tense when they had been experiencing
auditory hallucinations, which suggested that they had been mistaking their inner speech with the
voice of someone else. Many other factors like stressful life events, genetic factors and poverty

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might affect the development of schizophrenia, but have nothing to do with cognitive
deficiency.Moreover, this theory could not introduce the genetic factors playing a clear role in
schizophrenia. According to ROSENTHAL(2013)fetal hypoxia was related to the decreased grey
matter and increased cerebro-spinal fluids in patients with schizophrenia. Many of the prenatal
factors like low folate and the some of the antenatal factors has also been associated with the
elevation of the plasma homocysteine, which can ultimately lead to genetic polymorphism.
Hence, it can be said that any valid explanation of the cause of schizophrenia should incorporate
psychological and the biological factors. The diathesis stress model states that genetic history
will result in the development of schizophrenia in people experiencing stressors like cognitive
dysfunction.
Conclusion
In conclusion it can be said that, although the cognitive explanation is applicable to daily
life as it can explain the symptoms of schizophrenia so well, like the occurrence of auditory
hallucinations and delusional thoughts about the external factor. But , due to its failure to justify
certain aspects the negative symptoms of schizophrenia and schizophrenic like symptoms with
patients with traumatic brain injury. Furthermore, the cognitive explanation also could not
explain the genetic and the other environmental factors.

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References
Altamura, A.C., Caletti, E., Paoli, R.A., Cigliobianco, M., Zugno, E., Grillo, P., Prunas, C.,
Caldiroli, A. and Zago, S., 2015. Correlation between neuropsychological and social cognition
measures and symptom dimensions in schizophrenic patients. Psychiatry research, 230(2),
pp.172-180.
Howes, O.D. and Murray, R.M., 2014. Schizophrenia: an integrated sociodevelopmental-
cognitive model. The Lancet, 383(9929), pp.1677-1687.
Lebowitz, M.S. and Ahn, W.K., 2014. Effects of biological explanations for mental disorders on
clinicians’ empathy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 111(50), pp.17786-
17790.
McGuigan, F.J., 1966. Covert oral behavior and auditory hallucinations. Psychophysiology, 3(1),
pp.73-80.
ROSENTHAL, D., 2013. Genetic research in the schizophrenic syndrome. Perspectives in
Abnormal Behavior: Pergamon General Psychology Series, p.205.
Waters, F., Allen, P., Aleman, A., Fernyhough, C., Woodward, T.S., Badcock, J.C., Barkus, E.,
Johns, L., Varese, F., Menon, M. and Vercammen, A., 2012. Auditory hallucinations in
schizophrenia and nonschizophrenia populations: a review and integrated model of cognitive
mechanisms. Schizophrenia bulletin, 38(4), pp.683-693.