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Developmental Psychology Unit 5: Early Childhood

Between about ages 2 and 6, children's thinking becomes symbolic, language explodes, and they begin to understand other minds. This unit covers preoperational thought, theory of mind, language, parenting, play and early gender development.

Covers: Physical growth and executive function, Preoperational thought, Theory of mind and private speech, Language growth, Parenting styles and discipline, Play and peers, Gender development

Study guide

Growth slows after infancy, and children slim down as they gain about 2 to 3 inches and 4 to 5 pounds a year. Gross motor skills such as running, hopping and climbing improve quickly, while fine motor skills such as drawing, using scissors and buttoning clothes develop more slowly because they rely on small muscles and eye-hand coordination. The brain continues to myelinate, and the prefrontal cortex supports growing executive function, the set of skills that includes working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility. Tasks such as the day-night Stroop task (saying 'day' for a moon picture) and delay-of-gratification tests (Walter Mischel's marshmallow studies) show large gains in self-control between ages 3 and 6. Handedness and lateralization also become clearer.

Piaget called this the preoperational stage (about 2 to 7). Children now use symbols, as seen in language and pretend play, but they lack operations, the logical mental actions that can be reversed. Egocentrism is difficulty seeing from another perspective: in the three-mountains task, young children choose their own view when asked what a doll sees. Centration is focusing on one feature while ignoring others, which leads to failing conservation tasks; a child says a tall, thin glass holds more juice than a short, wide one with the same amount. Irreversibility is failing to mentally undo an action, and animism is giving life to objects ('the sun is happy'). Later researchers found that simpler, familiar tasks reveal more competence than Piaget's tests did.

Theory of mind is understanding that people have beliefs, desires and intentions that can differ from reality and from one's own. In false-belief tasks such as the Sally-Anne task, a doll puts a marble in a basket and leaves; another doll moves it to a box. Most 3-year-olds say Sally will look in the box, where the marble really is, while most 4- to 5-year-olds correctly say the basket, where she believes it is. Theory of mind is supported by conversations about mental states, siblings and pretend play, and it is often delayed in autism. Vygotsky added that preschoolers use private speech, talking aloud to themselves, to guide behavior, and that this speech gradually becomes silent inner speech. Piaget instead saw it as egocentric speech.

Language grows rapidly: from a few hundred words at age 2 to around 10,000 by age 6. Children learn words through fast mapping, linking a new word to a meaning after brief exposure. They also apply grammar rules too broadly, called overregularization, saying 'goed' or 'mouses'; this error shows that they have learned a rule rather than simply copying adults. Parenting matters for development. Diana Baumrind described authoritative parents (warm, high demands, explain rules), authoritarian parents (cold, high demands, 'because I said so') and permissive parents (warm, few demands); Maccoby and Martin added uninvolved parents (low warmth, low demands). Authoritative parenting predicts the best outcomes in many studies, while harsh physical punishment predicts more aggression.

Play develops along with social skills. Mildred Parten described a sequence from solitary play, to parallel play (playing side by side with similar toys but not together), to associative play (sharing and talking but without a shared goal) and finally cooperative play (organized roles and shared goals). Gender understanding grows in steps. Kohlberg proposed gender identity (labeling oneself as a boy or girl, by about age 2-3), gender stability (knowing gender stays the same over time) and gender constancy (knowing it does not change with clothing or activities, around 5-7). Social learning theory stresses modeling and reinforcement of gender-typed behavior, while gender schema theory says children build mental categories of what fits their gender and pay attention to information that fits. Erikson's crisis for this period is initiative versus guilt.

Key ideas

• Preoperational children use symbols but cannot yet perform reversible mental operations.
• Egocentrism, centration, irreversibility and animism explain why preschoolers fail conservation and perspective tasks.
• Passing false-belief tasks around age 4 shows a theory of mind.
• Private speech helps preschoolers guide their own behavior, according to Vygotsky.
• Overregularization errors such as 'goed' show that children are applying grammar rules.
• Authoritative parenting, high warmth plus high demands, predicts the best outcomes in many studies.
• Gender understanding moves from identity to stability to constancy, and gender schemas guide attention.

Formulas and rules

Common mistakes

• Calling preoperational egocentrism selfishness rather than an inability to take another's perspective.
• Thinking overregularization shows a child is getting worse at language.
• Confusing authoritative (warm and firm) with authoritarian (cold and strict).
• Mixing up parallel play (side by side) with associative play (interacting without a shared goal).
• Confusing gender identity, which comes first, with gender constancy, which comes last.

Before the test, make sure you can

• Identify preoperational limitations from examples of children's reasoning.
• Explain conservation tasks and why preschoolers fail them.
• Describe the false-belief task and when children typically pass it.
• Compare Piaget's and Vygotsky's views of private speech.
• Recognize fast mapping and overregularization in children's speech.
• Classify parenting styles and state the outcomes linked to each.
• Identify Parten's types of play from a description.
• Compare Kohlberg's cognitive, social learning and gender schema views of gender development.

Words to know

Preoperational stage

Piaget's stage from about 2 to 7, marked by symbolic thought without logical operations.

Egocentrism

Difficulty distinguishing one's own perspective from someone else's.

Centration

Focusing on a single feature of a situation while ignoring others.

Conservation

Understanding that quantity stays the same when appearance changes.

Animism

Attributing life and feelings to objects that are not alive.

Theory of mind

Understanding that people have beliefs, desires and intentions that guide behavior.

False-belief task

A test of whether a child understands that someone can hold a belief that is wrong.

Private speech

Talking aloud to oneself to guide thinking and behavior, which Vygotsky saw as a tool for self-regulation.

Fast mapping

Linking a new word to a meaning after only brief exposure.

Overregularization

Applying a grammar rule to words that are exceptions, such as 'foots' or 'runned'.

Executive function

Higher-level skills of working memory, inhibitory control and flexible thinking.

Authoritative parenting

Warm, responsive parenting with clear rules and explanations.

Authoritarian parenting

Strict, controlling parenting with little warmth or explanation.

Permissive parenting

Warm parenting with few rules or demands.

Parallel play

Playing side by side with similar materials but without interacting.

Cooperative play

Organized play with shared goals and roles.

Gender constancy

Understanding that one's sex stays the same despite changes in clothes, hair or activities.

Gender schema theory

The view that children form mental categories about gender that guide what they notice and remember.

Sample practice questions

30 more questions like these, from level 1 to 5, are in the practice set.