Module 3: Piaget & Cognitive Development

Question 1

Piaget’s View on Children’s Nature

Answer 1

Children are mentally active from moment of birth
Mental and physical activity contribute greatly to development
Constructivist
-generating hypotheses
-performing experiments
-drawing conclusions from observations

Question 2

Constructivist

Answer 2

Depicts children as constructing knowledge for themselves in response to their experiences

Question 3

Piaget’s Core Ideas

Answer 3

Children are active learners from birth (little scientists)
Children often learn without being taught
Kids are intrinsically motivated to learn

Question 4

Assimilation

Answer 4

Process by which people incorporate incoming information into concepts they already understand
E.g. calling a man bald on top but with hair on sides a clown

Question 5

Accomodation

Answer 5

Process by which people improve their current understanding in response to new experiences
E.g. understanding that clowns have to have costume and be doing funny things (not just bald on top)

Question 6

Equilibration

Answer 6

Process by which people balance assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding

Question 7

Equilibrium

Answer 7

Satisfaction with understanding of particular phenomenon
Do not see discrepancies between observations and understanding

Question 8

Disequilibrium

Answer 8

New information leads to perception of understanding as inadequate
Recognize shortcomings in understanding of phenomenon
Cannot generate superior alternative
Develop a more advanced equilibrium within a broader range of observations can be understood

Question 9

Central Properties of Stage Theory

Answer 9

Qualitative change: Children of different ages think in qualitatively different ways
Broad applicability: Thinking characteristic of a stage applies across diverse topics/contexts
Brief transitions: transitional period with fluctuation between two stages of thinking
Invariant sequence: everyone progresses through stages in same order

Question 10

Piaget’s Four Stages

Answer 10

Sensorimotor: birth - 2
Preoperational: 2 - 7
Concrete operational: 7 - 12
Formal operational: 12+

Question 11

Weaknesses of Piaget’s Theory

Answer 11

Infants and young children are more cognitively competent than Piaget recognized (e.g. can’t regulate reaching but have object permanence - tests were too difficult)
Understates the contribution of the social world to cognitive development (e.g. development as a result of contributions of others, not just child alone)
Stage model depicts children’s thinking as being more consistent than it is (e.g. thinking is variable - conservation of number spoons at 6, conservation of solid not until 8)

Question 12

Sensorimotor (birth to 2)

Answer 12

Intelligence expressed through sensory and motor abilities
Live in the here and now
Covers a dramatic amount of changes in cognitive and physical development
Intelligence bound to immediate perceptions and actions
Reflexes (e.g. sucking) serve as components of more complex behaviours
Middle of first year: become increasingly interested in world around them (repeat actions which lead to pleasurable/interesting results)
Late first year: search for objects of interest out of sight (object permanence)
A Not B Error (make this mistake at 8 months, not at 12)
1 year: Actively and avidly explore the potential use of objects (e.g. dropping/hitting things)
Last half year 1: Enduring mental representations & Deferred imitation

Question 13

Preoperational (2 - 7)

Answer 13

Development of symbolic representations
Remember experiences for longer periods
Form more sophisticated concepts
Can’t consider multiple dimensions at once
Egocentrism
Centration
Conservation concepts slowly acquired in this stage

Question 14

Concrete Operational (7 - 12)

Answer 14

Can reason logically about concrete objects and events (not systematic, abstract, hypothetical)
Can consider multidimensional problems
Design biased experiments (e.g. don’t test all the options in pendulum task)

Question 15

Formal Operational (12+)

Answer 15

Think deeply about concrete events and abstractions/hypotheticals
Perform systematic experiments and draw appropriate conclusions (even if conclusions differ from prior beliefs)
Can see multiple perspectives
Not universal - not everyone reaches this stage

Question 16

Symbolic Representations

Answer 16

Using one thing to stand for another
Common in 3-5 (e.g. use stick for a gun or card for a phone)
Simple pretend play
Simple shapes to represent more complex objects when drawing
Objects physically resemble the objects they represent

Question 17

Egocentrism

Answer 17

Perceiving the world solely from one’s own point of view
Important limitation of preoperational thinking
Can only answer questions based on what they see RIGHT NOW
E.g. preschoolers difficulty in taking others’ spatial perspectives
Often talk past each other and focus only on what they are saying
Progress sign is quarrelling with others (listening to what others say)

Question 18

Centration

Answer 18

Cocus on a single, perceptually striking feature of an object or event to the exclusion of other relevant features
E.g. if presented scale will focus on number of weights and not location of the weights
Includes conservation concepts

Question 19

Conservation Concept

Answer 19

Changing the appearance or arrangement of objects does not necessarily change other key properties (e.g, quantity of material)
Liquid, solid, number (tend to be acquired at different times)
Shown two of the same object, transfer or change something about one, is it still the same amount?

Question 20

A Not B Error

Answer 20

Once found hidden objects in location A, they reach there again even if they have observed object being hidden in location B (8-12 months)
8 months old look in location A
12 months look in location B
Perseverative error: child continues to look (persevere) with the same hiding spot

Question 21

Object Permanence

Answer 21

Just because something is not longer in your field of view, you understand it still exists (e.g. Peek a Boo)
Searching reflects development of mental representations of objects that endure even when objects are not present

Question 22

Deferred Imitation

Answer 22

Repetition of other people’s behaviour minutes, hours, or days after it occurred

Question 23

Notable Trends - Sensorimotor

Answer 23

At first, activities center on own bodies, later their actions include the world around them
Early goals are concrete, later goals are more abstract
Infants become increasingly able to form mental representations