Piaget's theory of cognitive development

overview of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

Piaget suggests that the development of cognition depends on a process of active discovery.

this is the child performing actions on the world and developing schemas as a result of these actions.

what is a schema

packages of mental information formed from experience

what are the two types of learning according to Piaget

accommodation

assimilation

what is accommodation

• altering or adding a new schema

• this occurs when we are exposed to new information which radically changes our existing knowledge and so to deal with this information, we accommodate it by forming a new schema

• example: when a child goes to a zoo and mistakes a tiger for a cat. this is because they have not yet been exposed to tigers and so use the most similar schema (cats) in an effort to understand the new scenario. as the child observes the tiger and notices the differences between a tiger and a car, it will form a new tiger schema.

what is assimilation

• assimilation occurs when we are exposed to new information which does not change our existing knowledge, and so we assimilate it into an existing schema

• example- a child seeing a tabby cat, when it has only seen black, white and ginger cats previously. the new appearance of a cat does not change the child’s existing knowledge of what a cat it. therefore, the new understanding of the physical difference between a tabby cat and other types is assimilated into the child’s existing cat schema.

where does Piaget say the motivation to learn comes from

it comes from the unpleasant emotions associated with disequilibrium. He suggested that when we encounter an unfamiliar situation and assimilation is not enough to understand it, we are in a state of disequilibrium. this means that we explore our environment to understanding of the scene and develop our schemas are complete in a process called equilibration.

once we can fully understand the new scenario, we have achieved equilibrium.

what are the 4 main cognitive abilities Piaget suggested that all children aquire through the stages of intelectual development

• object permanence

• class inclusion

• egocentrism

• conservation.

what is object perminence

understanding that an object out of sight still exists

what is conservation

understanding that changing the appearance of something does not affect mass, number or volume

what is egocentrism

an inability to see a situation from another point of view

what is class inclusion

understanding that some objects can be part of other groups or obejcts

what are the 4 stages of intellectual development and what are their ages

1. sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)

2. pre-operational stage (2-7 years)

3. concrete operational stage (7-11 years)

4. formal operational stage (11+ years)

what stage is 0-2 years

sensorimotor:

• the child focuses on physical sensations and develops basic use of language.

• object permanence develops at around 8 months.

what stage is 2-7 years

what stage is 7-11 years

concrete operational

what stage is 11 + years

what is evidence to support the existence of the sensorimotor stage

Piaget carried out research using his own children and found that if they were shown a toy of interest that was then hidden from their view, up to the age of 8 months they did not look for the toy, assuming it no longer existed. However, from the age of 8 months, they would continue to search for the toy.

what is evidence against the existence of the sensorimotor stage

Bower and Wishart showed objects to children between the ages of 1-4 months. lights were then switched off and children were observed via infrared camera searching for the items.

what is evidence supporting egocentrism in the pre-operational stage

egocentrism was measured using the three mountains task. Pre-operational children were exposed to 3 mountains, topped with different objects - snow, a cross or a house. A doll was faced opposite to the child, who had to match images of the mountains to what they thought the doll could see. The majority of children recounted their own viewpoint, hence displaying egocentrism i.e. an inability to see the world from another’s viewpoint.

what is evidence supporting conservation in the pre-operational stage

Conservation was measured in the liquid conservation task, after showing pre operational children two identical beakers with the same volume of liquid and then pouring liquid into a thinner, taller beaker, most of the children reported that there was more liquid in the taller beaker.

what is evidence against egocentrism in the pre-operational stage

• hugh’s policeman doll study

— Conflicting Empirical Evidence = For example, Martin Hughes (1975) demonstrated that in a task of egocentrism, children aged 3 and a half years old could position a doll where a single police man could not see him 90% of the time, and 4 year olds could make the doll hide from two police men in 90% of cases. This suggests that pre-conventional children are able to conserve, but only when this has been tested in specific ways and when the child fully understands the task.

what is evidence against conservation in the pre-operational stage

McGarrigle and Donaldson challenged Jean Piaget’s conservation theory with their “naughty teddy” study. Children aged 4–6 were shown two equal rows of counters and then one row was accidentally spread out by a teddy bear. Unlike Piaget’s original task, where the adult deliberately changed the counters, many more children correctly said the number of counters stayed the same. This suggests children may understand conservation earlier than Piaget claimed, and that his findings may have been affected by the artificial nature of his tasks and children trying to please the adult experimenter.