Cognition - Piaget and his Theory of Cognitive Development

Question 1

Who is Piaget?

Answer 1

the first psychologist to propose a comprehensive theory of cognitive development from birth to adulthood.

Question 2

What is cognitive development?

Answer 2

• The development of a child’s
o ability to think,
o the nature of the knowledge they have and
o how they acquire knowledge

Question 3

Give an example of cognitive reasoning

Answer 3

Example of cognitive reasoning:
Estimating a quantity of liquid
• Request – “Pour liquid into glass B so that it contains the same amount as glass A”
• What do you think a 4 year old will do?
• What do you think a 7 year old will do?

Question 4

What did Piaget do?

Answer 4

Piaget worked observing children to make the early developments of intelligence tests

Question 5

What did Piaget become interested in and what did he believe it showed?

Answer 5

• He became interested in the mistakes they made and believed these could provide insight into their cognitive process (their thinking)

Question 6

How did Piaget conduct his research?

Answer 6

• He used questioning and observation - called a ‘clinical interview’ (an open-ended, conversational technique to elicit children’s thinking processes) - to explore more about their thinking

Question 7

What did Piaget propose?

Answer 7

4 stages.

• each stage has sets of mental operations that the child can apply to objects, beliefs, ideas – called schema

Question 8

How is Piaget viewed now?

Answer 8

• Subsequent research has led to modifications
• Some aspects of Piaget’s theory are now questioned
• But VERY valuable contribution made

Question 9

What is the sensori motor stage?

Answer 9

(0 -24 months)
Child changes from
newborn – who focuses almost entirely on immediate sensory and motor experiences
Toddler – who has rudimental capacity for thinking
• Sucking, looking
• Repeating actions from reflexes
• Has understanding of world around them
• Can devise OWN actions (not just reflexes)
• Actions planned to influence the world

Question 10

What did Piaget say only children at about 12-18 months had?

Answer 10

Object Permanance

Could plan actions to reach a toy

Question 11

What is object permanence?

Answer 11

Object permanence is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be observed (seen, heard, touched, smelled or sensed in any way).

Question 12

What does he mean that children at 12-18 months could plan actions to reach a toy?

Answer 12

Devising novel patterns of behaviour in response to a problem
e.g. Toy placed out of reach on cloth, and behind barrier
Child plans how to retrieve it

Question 13

How is Object permanence shown at 2 and 3 months?

Answer 13

• Infants shown an object, screen moved in front, then moved away
• For some the object was still there, some it was gone
• Infants showed surprise when it was not there
  (Bower, 1982)

Question 14

Who argued object permanence could be shown at 2 and 3 months?

Answer 14

Baillargeon. Train track and blocks. So now we have evidence that children have a mental representation of the world earlier than Piaget said.

Question 15

Why is it argued children younger than 12-18 months can plan actions?

Answer 15

Planned actions shown at 9 mths
- Toy placed out of reach on cloth, but behind barrier
- Infants carried out 2 actions to get it
- Move book, pull cloth
- Many on first occasion and not using ‘trial and error’
(Willatts, 1989)
Evidence that children have a mental representation of the world earlier than Piaget said.

Question 16

What is the pre operational stage?

Answer 16

Two main stages
a)	Pre-conceptual (2 – 4 yrs)
b)	Intuitive (4 – 7 yrs)
c)	Important cognitive concepts
d)	1. Egocentric thinking
e)	2. Conservation (ability to understand that visual changes do not change the actual amount) 
Egocentric thinking of a 3 year old
Adult – Have you any brothers or sisters?
John – Yes, a brother.
Adult – What is his name?
John – Sammy.
Adult – Does Sammy have a brother?
John – No.

Question 17

Explain the mountain task

Answer 17

shows egocentric thinking
Explored through 3 mountain task (Piaget and Inhelder, 1956)
A child looks at a mountain landscape from one perspective and then has to say what the mountain would look like to the adult opposites perspective
A young child would say what they can see, an older child is able to put themselves in other people’s shoes

Question 18

How is the mountain task criticised?

Answer 18

• Young children may not be familiar with model mountains and landscapes (Donaldson, 1978) or the task
• Done a different way e.g. Borke (1975)
• used familiar toys,
• gave a practice and
• asked children to respond in a different way (by turning a table to show what the ‘toy’ would see)
– found children as young as 3 or 4 years old had some understanding of a different person having a different view
• Therefore perhaps children are LESS egocentric than Piaget imagined and MORE competent at conservation
• These processes and thinking abilities are developed by children but perhaps earlier than Piaget suggested

Question 19

What is the concrete operational phase?

Answer 19

4. New set of strategies developed by children from 7 years
5. ‘Concrete’ as can only use new strategies in the present or with real objects
6. More flexible thinking IS possible as can they can consider different aspects of the task
7. Most findings broadly confirmed by subsequent research
8. But now context seen as important (e.g. Jahoda, 1983)

Question 20

Give an example of concrete operational phase

Answer 20

Edith is fairer than Susan. Edith is darker than Lily. Who is the darkest?”
Difficult for concrete operational children until given dolls.
They find abstract problems difficult.

Question 21

What is Formal Operational Stage?

Answer 21

• Piaget said children could reason hypothetically at this stage and work systematically
e.g. have 1 minute to find all possible words from A S E T M
• But recent research has shown this development is more gradual and haphazard
• May depend on the nature of task
• Could be limited to certain domains being less developed
• May be later that they can apply formal reasoning to a range of tasks
• More in Information Processing Approach lecture

Question 22

Give an overview of Piaget’s theory

Answer 22

• Very influential
• He set the stage for future research in cognitive processes
• Begun work in 1920 (when psychology emerged)
• Developed ‘clinical interviewing’
• First to point out importance of some important cognitive concepts such as egocentrism, concrete thinking and conservation
• But contemporary psychologists place less emphasis on the ages he noted and consider the stages less defined

Question 23

How has Piaget’s theory implicated education? or how it should

Answer 23

• Child-centred teaching – as children view the world differently from adults and so teacher must work from that view point
• Active learning – children learn better through exploring, manipulating and experiencing concrete objects
• Teacher needs to set up opportunities for learning – child sets the pace, teacher asks questions and provides challenge