Simply Psychology

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A strength of the study is that it has altered the way US prisons are run. For example, juveniles accused of federal crimes are no longer housed before trial with adult prisoners (due to the risk of violence against them). This means that when you are faced with new information, you make sense of this information by referring to information you already have (information processed and learned previously) and trying to fit the new information into the information you already have. Examples

To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes as a result of biological maturation and environmental experience. Moscovici investigated the importance of consistency. He had a group of 6 participants and a range of blue/ green slides varying in intensity – they all had to state the colour they saw. An example of internalisation is if someone lived with a vegetarian at university and then decides to also become one too because they agree with their friend’s viewpoint / someone converting religions would also be a good example.The main achievement during this stage is object permanence– knowing that an object still exists, even if it is hidden. It requires the ability to form a mental representation (i.e., a schema) of the object.

It has been found that once the minority begin to persuade people round to their way of thinking, a snowball effect begins to happen. This means that more and more people adopt the minority opinion, until gradually the minority becomes the majority. One of the various characteristics of the authoritarian personality is that the individual is hostile to those who are of inferior status, but obedient of people with high status.You will see, therefore, that there is no easy answer to the question, “is psychology a science?”. But many approaches of psychology do meet the accepted requirements of the scientific method, whilst others appear to be more doubtful in this respect. Alternatives

Moscovici found that consistency is the most important factor in deciding whether the minority are influential or not. This means that the minority must be clear on what they are asking for and not change their minds, or disagree amongst themselves. This creates uncertainty amongst the majority.Piaget’s theory places a strong emphasis on the active role that children play in their own cognitive development. Piaget also believed that a child developed as a result of two different influences: maturation, and interaction with the environment. The child develops mental structures (schemata) which enables him to solve problems in the environment.