piaget’s stages of intellectual development

the sensorimotor stage overview

• The sensorimotor stage spans the ages from birth to around 2 years olds and is marked by the child’s body schema and the physical exploration of their environment

• Young children in this stage learn via a set of physical schemas, e.g. sucking schema, trajectory schema (exploration of how objects move), which are not reflexes

  • They are performed intentionally as the child derives pleasure from them

• A key marker of the sensorimotor stage is when a baby acquires object permanence (understanding that objects still exist even if the child can’t see them anymore), usually around 8 months

the sensorimotor stage - A-not-B task

• Object permanence an be tested using the ‘A-not-B’ task

  • This involves hiding a toy under location A in front of the child several times in a row and asking the child to retrieve the toy

  • The toy is then hidden under location B, and if the child continues to look for the toy under location A, they have not acquired object permanence

• Passing the ‘A-not-B’ task shows that the child understand that the toy still exists even though it cannot be seen, and their initially reinforced movement to retrieve it from location A can be overridden by their new knowledge that the toy is now in location B

the pre-operational stage overview

• The stage spans from 2-7 years old and is characterised by the development of increasingly sophisticated schemas, pretend play, anthropomorphism, an understanding of time and the ability to de-centre (ability to see something from another perspective)

• Key markers of this stage:

  • Egocentrism - lacking the ability to see the world from another’s perspective

  • Conservation - lacking the ability to appreciate that objects or materials remain the same even when their appearance changes

  • Class inclusion - lacking the ability to classify objects into 2 or more categories

the pre-operational stage - conservation

• Piaget tested conservation using experimental methodology as follows:

  • Present equal quantities

    • Show the child 2 equal amounts of material side by side

  • Initial question

    • Ask “Does this one have more, does that one have more, or are they the same”

  • Transform one item

    • While the child watches, alter the appearance of one material

  • Repeat the question

    • Ask the initial question again

  • Evaluate the response

    • If the child say one now has more/less: Fail - they focus on appearance, not logic

    • If the child says they’re still the same: Pass - they understand conservation

  • The conservation task tests a key developmental milestone in children, as to pass it, the child must be able to perform a reverse operation

the pre-operational stage - egocentrism

• Piaget & Inhelder (1956) tested egocentrism via a the 3 Mountains Task:

  1. Present the model

     1. Show the child a 3d model landscape with 3 mountains and features like animals or trees

  2. Introduce the doll

     1. Place a doll on the opposite side of the model, facing the landscape from a different viewpoint than the child

  3. Ask the perspective question

     1. Ask the child: “What does the doll see?”

     2. The child selects a picture from several images showing the model from different angles

  4. Observe the response

     1. Young children (around 4 years old) typically choose the image that matches their own view - showing egocentrism

     2. By age 7-8, children more consistently select the doll’s viewpoint - showing reduced egocentrism and improved perspective-taking

• The 3 Mountains Task tests a key developmental milestone because to pass it, the child must be able to de-centre, which shows more maturity and sophisticated thinking

the pre-operational stage - class inclusion

• Piaget tested class inclusion as follows:

  1. Present the set

     1. Show the child a picture or model of a set of items

  2. Identify subclasses

     1. The set includes two subgroups - e.g. 5 daffodils and 3 poppies

  3. Ask the inclusion question

     1. Ask the child: “Are there more daffodils or more flowers”

  4. Evaluate the response

     1. If the child answers “more daffodils”, they fail the class inclusion task, showing they do not yet understand that ‘flowers’ includes both daffodils and poppies

     2. If the child answers “more flowers”, they pass demonstrating an understanding of hierarchical categorisation

• The class inclusion task tests a key developmental milestone in children, as to pass it, the child must be able to understand that daffodils are a subcategory of the overarching of flowers

the concrete operational & the former operational stages

• The concrete operational stage spans the ages of 7-11 years and is marked by an understanding of:

  • The conservation of volume, mass and number

  • The ability to de-centre

  • The ability to classify and categorise objects more accurately

• Children in this stage can perform mental operations that require logic e.g. maths, up to a certain point, but they may lack a systematic approach to problem solving

• The formal operational stage spans the ages 11+ years and is marked by increasingly systematic and sophisticated mental operations, abstract thought, relativism and the ability to debate and manipulate ideas and principles

research which investigates piaget’s stages of intellectual development - samuel & bryant (1984)

• Found that by asking 4-8 year olds only 1 question in total (after viewing the transformation of volume/mass/number) that the children made fewer mistakes (even the 4 year olds)

• This suggests Piaget’s stages are not as inflexible as he proposed

research which investigates piaget’s stages of intellectual development - piaget & inhelder (1956)

• created the original 3 Mountains study

research which investigates piaget’s stages of intellectual development - hughes (1975)

• Found that fewer children 3-5 years old fail a test of egocentrism if the procedure changes to include 2 policeman dolls that a boy doll has to hide from using 4 interlocking walls

  • This means that the children could understand that if the boy stood at point X, then the policeman could not see him

research which investigates piaget’s stages of intellectual development - mccarrigle (1974)

• Changed the wording of a standard Piagetian class inclusion task by asking pre-operational children if there were ‘more black cows or more sleeping cows?’

• The standard question was ‘more black cows or more cows?’

• The cows were placed lying down so they appeared to be sleeping - this resulted in 48% of the children passing the test as opposed to 25% in the standard Piagetian version

strengths of piaget’s stages of intellectual development

• Piaget’s stage theory has great application to educational settings, as it sets out the benchmarks for educators and health professionals to use to assess progress and flag any developmental delays that a child may be experiencing

• Piaget’s stage theory changed the way that researchers think about children and showed that the way children think is fundamentally different to adults

weaknesses of piaget’s stages of intellectual development

• Children do not develop synchronistically, achieving key milestones at the same time, which means that theory lacks reliability as it is unlikely to show consistency across age groups and cultures

• Piaget’s original research has had to be modified over the years, as the procedures can themselves constitute confounding variables

  • E.g. how many children are able to describe a mountainous landscape with ease if they have grown up in a non-mountainous region

links of piaget’s stages of intellectual development to issues & debates

• Piaget’s theory uses a nomothetic approach, applying universal developmental stages to all children, based on broad patterns of thinking

  • This ignores individual differences in cognitive development, such as personal experiences, language ability and cultural background, which are better explained by idiographic approaches

• Piaget’s tasks (e.g. the 3 Mountains task) rely on Western cultural knowledge, such as familiarity with mountainous landscapes, which may disadvantage children from non-Western or rural backgrounds

  • Studies like Dasen (1994) show that cognitive abilities develop differently across cultures, challenging the universality of Piaget’s stages