Invitation to Psychology

ChapTer 3 Development Over the Life Span 93

Experience and culture influence cognitive development.

Children who work with clay, wood, and other materials,

such as this young potter in India, tend to understand

the concept of conservation sooner than children who

have not had this kind of experience.

Recite & Review

Recite: Use your formal-operations reasoning skills to speak aloud what you have learned about

Piaget’s stages, object permanence, the principle of conservation, the theory of mind, and the

major modifications of Piaget’s theory.

Review: Next, reread this section.

now take this Quick Quiz:

1. Understanding that two rows of six pennies are equal in number, even if one row is flat and the
   other is stacked up, is an example of __.


2. Understanding that a toy exists even after mom puts it in her purse is an example of
   __.


3. A 5-year-old boy who tells his dad that “Sally said she saw a bunny but she was lying” has
   developed a __.
   Answers:

Study and Review at MyPsychLab

theory of mind3. object permanence 2. conservation 1.

4

Cognitive development is influenced by a child’s
culture. Culture—the world of tools, language,
rituals, beliefs, games, and social institutions—
shapes and structures children’s cognitive develop-
ment, fostering some abilities and not others. Thus,
nomadic hunters excel in spatial abilities because
this skill helps them find water holes and success-
ful hunting routes. In contrast, children who live
in settled agricultural communities, such as the
Baoulé of the Ivory Coast, develop rapidly in the
ability to quantify but much more slowly in spatial
reasoning (Tomasello, 2000; Vygotsky, 1962).

Despite these modifications, Piaget left an
enduring legacy: the insight that children are not
passive vessels into which education and experi-
ence are poured. Children actively interpret their
worlds, using their developing abilities to assimi-
late new information and figure things out.

You are about to learn...

• how moral feelings and behavior develop.

• why shouting “Because I say so!” does not get
most children to behave well.

• the importance of a child’s ability to delay
gratification.

Moral Development

Lo 3.9, Lo 3.10

How do children learn to tell right from wrong,
resist the temptation to behave selfishly, and obey
the rules of social conduct? Influenced by Piaget’s

stage theory of cognitive development, some de-

velopmental psychologists once thought the an-

swer lay in children’s emerging ability to reason

about moral issues (Kohlberg, 1964). Children’s

verbal responses to moral dilemmas suggested

that young children obey because they fear being

punished if they disobey, older children come to

realize that it is in their best interest to obey, and

adults are able to understand the rule of law and

the notion of human rights.

It is true that moral-reasoning ability becomes

more sophisticated with age, but unfortunately so

do cheating, lying, and cruelty. As Thomas Lickona

(1983) wryly summarized, “We can reach high

levels of moral reasoning, and still behave like