Dev. Part 2 Piaget Theory of Cognitive Development
Genetic Epistemology: A Constructivist Theory
Piaget’s Concept of Genetic Epistemology
Genetic Epistemology refers to the study of the origins and development of knowledge
Piaget argued biological processes influence how knowledge is acquired
What is Constructivism?
The idea that knowledge is actively constructed by the learner
According to Piaget learning occurs through building upon prior knowledge
Foundational skills act as a base and new knowledge is added on top of those skills as a child’s cognitive abilities develop
Piaget didn’t believe that knowledge is innate rather it’s acquired through experience and interactions with environment
Our minds have innate structures that allow us to learn, knowledge is constructed through our experiences
Developmental Change According to Piaget
Stage Theory
Development occurs in distinct stages, each representing a new level of cognitive understanding
Piaget saw cognitive development as discontinuous (children move through stages in distinct stages rather than gradually)
The stages are invariant, meaning children go through them in the same order, you cannot skip stages and they occur in the same sequence
Piaget believed his theory applied universally meaning all children regardless of culture
Piaget Principles
Piaget suggested that the brain seeks to organize knowledge, the mind works like a filing system, categorizing and grouping information into mental structures called schemas
Adaption
Refers to the process by which children adjust their cognitive structures to fit their environment
Assimilation
The process of incorporating new experiences into existing cognitive structures (schemes)
Example: A newborn who has a sucking reflex may use it to suck on a pacifier or a bottle, incorporating these new objects into the existing reflex scheme
Accommodation
The process of modifying existing schemas to incorporate new experiences or information
Example: If the baby encounters something new, like a different-shaped nipple or a new type of food, they may adjust their sucking behaviour to accommodate these new experiences
Development of Schemas
Assimilation vs. Accommodation:
Assimilation involves fitting new information into existing schemes (more conservative, trying to maintain what’s already known).
Accommodation involves changing the structure of the scheme to accommodate new information (more progressive, adjusting to new realities)
Why Accommodation Happens
Children crave equilibrium (a state of balance between their existing knowledge and new experiences)
When they encounter disequilibrium (something unexpected) they accommodate their mental structures to restore balance, it helps them make sense of new experiences
The Child as an Active Participants
Piaget viewed children as active participants in their development
The process of development
As children grow their cognitive structures become more complex, making it more difficult to adapt, through constant active experimentation children gradually move through the stages of development
Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development
Sensorimotor stage (birth - 2)
Infants learn about the world through their senses and actions
Major achievement is object permanence (understanding that objects continue to exists even when they cannot be seen)
Preoperational stage (2 - 7)
Children begin using symbols, language and imagination, but their thinking is still intuitive and egocentric (unable to take others’ perspectives)
Concrete operational stage ((7 - 11)
Children develop logical thinking but only about concrete objects and events
They gain skills like conservation (understanding quantity doesn’t change with appearance)
**Concrete Operational Stage (7 - 11 years)** During the concrete operational stage, children develop the ability to think logically about concrete objects and events. Here are the key operations: 1. **Conservation**: - Understanding that certain properties, such as quantity, length, volume, and number, remain the same even when their appearance changes. - Example: A child recognizes that liquid poured into a differently shaped container has the same amount as before. 2. **Seriation**: - The ability to arrange objects in order based on a specific characteristic, such as size or length. - Example: A child can line up different sticks from shortest to longest. 3. **Transitivity**: - Understanding relationships between different objects. - Example: If A is taller than B, and B is taller than C, then A is taller than C. 4. **Classification**: - The ability to group objects based on shared characteristics. - Example: A child can organize a collection of buttons by size or color. In this stage, children can perform mental operations and manipulate information, but their thinking remains tied to concrete experiences rather than abstract concepts
Formal operational stag (11 and older)
Adolescents develop abstract thinking, problem solving skills
Piaget’s Substages
Piaget also outlined substages within each main stage, marking more fine changes in cognitive abilities
Piaget’s Sensorimotor Period (0 - 2 years)
This period marks early stages of cognitive development where cognitive structure are primarily reflexes (eye movements, grasping)
Foundational Cognitive Structures
At birth infants have basic reflexes as their cognitive structures
Object Permanence: An understanding objects continue to exist event when they cannot be seen, hear or touched
Intentionality: Infants develop the ability to act in goal orientated ways (a child might grasp a toy or follow an object) showing purposeful behaviour
Substages of Sensorimotor Period
ex
Substage 2 (1 - 4 months)
Primary circular reactions: Infants begin repeating actions that involve their own body, such as thumb sucking, discovering that it is soothing
Object concept: Infants are not yet actively searching for objects that disappear, but may look where objects were last seen
Substage 3 (4 - 8 months)
Secondary Circular Reactions: Repetitive actions focused on external objects, such as grabbing toys
Intentions: Infants begin intentionally interacting with objects.
Object Concept: Infants start to imagine an object when it is partially hidden, and can reach for partially covered objects
Substage 4 (8 - 12 months)
Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions: Infants can coordinate multiple actions together, such as reaching for an object while looking at it.
A-not-B Error: When an object is hidden in location A and then moved to location B, infants will continue to search at location A, showing that they have not yet fully mastered object permanence
Substage 5 (12 - 18 months)
Tertiary Circular Reactions: Infants begin experimenting with different actions to see what results they get, showing more flexible behaviour
Example: baby dropping a toy from different heights to see what happens each time. At first, they might just drop it once, but over time, they start experimenting by dropping it in different ways or from different places to observe the different results, such as the toy bouncing or making a noise
Object Concept: Infants can now succeed at the A-not-B task and understand object displacement, even when the object is moved to an unseen location
Substage 6 (18 - 24 months)
Symbolic Thought: Infants can mentally represent objects and events, allowing them to think about them without needing to physically interact with them.
Mental Combinations: They can combine actions mentally, like Piaget’s daughter using her doll carriage and thinking about how to navigate it around an obstacle
Piaget’s Preoperational Period (2 - 7 years)
Children begin to develop the ability to use symbolic thought (e.g., language, imagination) but still lack logical operations
Symbolic Thought
Children use symbols to represent objects and events. For example, they use words or pictures to represent real-world objects
Conservation Tasks:
Conservation of liquid: Children do not understand that the amount of liquid remains the same even if poured into a differently shaped container. They focus on appearance rather than logical processes.
Reasons for failure:
Lack of Reversibility: Children cannot mentally reverse the process.
Lack of Compensation: They cannot understand that changes in one dimension (height of the liquid) are compensated by changes in another dimension (width of the container).
Lack of Identity: Children don’t understand that the amount of liquid is the same, regardless of the container's shape
Egocentrism:
Children in this stage are egocentric, meaning they cannot see things from another person’s perspective. This is evident in tasks like the Three Mountains Task, where children cannot understand what another person sees from a different vantage point
Intuitive and Perception-Based Thinking:
Children rely on their intuitive perceptions rather than logical reasoning. They are not yet capable of systematic problem-solving and are focused on appearances, not transformations or underlying principles.
Piaget’s Concrete Operations Period (7 - 12 years)
Children begin to use logical thinking and can understand operations such as conservation tasks
Mastery of Conservation:
Children can now understand conservation of quantity, length, volume, and number, meaning they recognize that these properties don’t change even when their appearance does
Relational Logic:
Seriation: The ability to arrange objects in a series based on a certain property (e.g., length, size)
Transitivity: The ability to understand relationships between objects. For example, if A > B and B > C, then A > C
Piaget’s Formal Operations Period (11+ years)
In the formal operations stage, children develop the ability to think abstractly and reason logically about hypothetical situations
Hypothetico-Deductive Reasoning:
This is the ability to generate hypotheses and systematically test them. Children can reason about abstract concepts, not just concrete objects
Inductive Reasoning:
The Pendulum Problem: In this task, children are asked to determine what influences the rate of a pendulum’s swing. Concrete operational children test only a few variables, whereas formal operational children systematically test all possible variables
Challenges and Critiques of Piaget’s Theory
Sensorimotor Period:
Research (e.g., Baillargen and Spelke’s carrot study) has shown that infants may have object permanence earlier than Piaget suggested. Infants can even recognize hidden objects earlier, suggesting that Piaget underestimated their abilities.
Gaze Study: Infants understand object permanence but struggle to act on it, possibly due to motor development limitations, not cognitive limitations
Preoperational Period:
Horizontal Decalage: Children can solve conservation tasks of number earlier than they can solve those of volume. This challenges Piaget’s idea of uniformity in the progression of skills
Piaget’s Strengths and Weaknesses
Strengths
Piaget's theory emphasizes the active role of children in constructing knowledge, and his attention to errors in thinking has provided valuable insights into cognitive development.
Weaknesses
Competence vs. Performance: Piaget often mistook a child’s inability to perform a task for an inability to understand the underlying concept. For example, infants may understand object permanence but fail to perform the task due to motor limitations.
Continuity of Development: Piaget’s stages imply a discontinuous process, but many aspects of development are more continuous than he proposed