Piagetan Terms

Goal-directed behavior

The intentional planned execution of actions to achieve a desired outcome

Deferred imitation

Imitation that occurs in the absence of the model (person) who first demonstrated it.

Secondary circular reactions

Repetitive actions oriented around external objects in a baby’s environment

Animism

Children’s belief that all objects that appear to be capable of self-movement are alive

Centration

A child’s tendency to think of the world in terms of one variable at a time

Lack of Conservation

The inability to understand that quantity does not change with change in appearance

Symbolic thought

Words, images, and gestures being meaning for something else

Pretend play

The recipient being another person or a doll, imagination

Irreversibility

Where a child is unable to mentally reverse a sequence of events (opposite of reversibility)

Conservation

Knowing that the quantity of an item has not necessarily changed, even if its appearance has changed.

Decentration

Thinking that takes multiple variables into account

Reversibility

The ability to mentally undo a physical or mental transformation

Classification

The ability to distinguish between objects and create categories with known information for each object. It develops at ages 7-8.

Seriation

The ability to arrange objects in a logical order, like organizing numbers from least to greatest. It develops around 7 years old.

Transitive inference

Making distinctive relationships between objects

Logical thinking

Schema- develops across four stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational)

Abstract thinking

Solving complex problems and using logical reasoning

Hypothetico-deductive reasoning

The ability to derive conclusion from a hypothetical premises

Problem solving

Connected directly to a childs development

Idealism

A pattern of thought when adolescents use formal operational thinking to mentally construct an ideal world and then compare it to the real world

Propositional thought

The ability to evaluate the logical truth of verbal statements without needing concrete examples or direct experience