Piaget's Development Theory Flashcards
How our thinking skills change as we grow older
Cognitive Development
In Piaget’s theory, children go through the same stages in the same fixed order for every child
Invariant
Children go through the same stages everywhere, no matter different cultures and/or experiences
Universal
Children learn by developing mental models of the world and how to react to it
Schemas
When new information is fit into an existing schema
Assimilation
When new information does not fit into an existing schema causing the schema to be changed or a new one to be made
Accommodation
Sensori-motor Stage
0-2 歳
・infant used its senses and movement to explore the world
・infant develops a 「body schema」 - - > recognises it exists
・infants attains 『object permanence』 - - > it learns that objects it can’t see are still there
Pre-operational Stage
2-7 歳
・『animism』- - > thinking inanimate objects have feelings, eg teddy’s hurt etc
・『egocentrism』- - > thinking others can see, think and feel in the same way they do/ everyone experiences the world in the same way Ｉ do - - > shown in the 「Three Mountains 」task
・『symbolic thinking』- - > words represent objects, a box represents a car etc
Concrete operational Stage
7-11 歳
・child is able to 『de-centre』- - > see things from another’s point of view and think about more than one factor at the same time
・child develops 『conservation』- - > knows that quantity stays the same when the appearance changes : length, number etc
・the child develops 『reversibility』- - > can think/act out a problem in reverse to solve it
・the child also achieves 『seriation』(arranging things in order) and 『linguistic humour』(word jokes/puns)
【this is a joke】
Formal operational Stage
11+ 歳
・problems are solved using 『abstract thinking』- - > in your head without needing paper or objects to solve them
・problems are solved in 「systematic」, scientific ways - - > testing one variable at a time
・「hypothetical」thinking - - > considering things you have no experience of eg, you have been hit by a truck and have been isekaied into a generic jrpg world where everyone to some extent can use magic and you can too apparently
Criticism １
・the stages are not as fixed or as rigid as Piaget said - - > some studies have shown that some children achieve object permanence or de-centre at a younger age
๑ thinking doesn’t develop in the same way for children everywhere eg, aboriginal children attain concrete operational thinking earlier - - > thought to be useful for survival
๑ nearly half of the adults in somestudues fail to show abstract thinking - - > since they haven’t reached the formal operational stage, the theory isn’t 「universal」
๑ Piaget only focused on logical thinking - - > he ignored other kinds of thinking eg, creative thinking
๑ Piaget only describes the kinds of thinking a child can and can’t do - - > he doesn’t explain how the changes in think occur
Criticism ２
・Piaget’s theory can be called 「reductionist」- - > he doesn’t take into account that teaching can affect cognitive development
Seriation
Being able to arrange things in order by eg, height, width etc
Abstract thinking
Solving problems in your head without needing pen and paper
Hypothetical thinking
Being able to consider things you have never experienced eg, 魔法力
Systematic
Testing one variable at a time
De-centre
Being able to see something from a different point of view
Conservation
Knowing that the quantity of something is still the same even if its appearance changes
Reversibility
Being able to think or act out a problem in reverse to solve it
Linguistic humour
Take a guess at what this is
Animism
Thinking inanimate objects have feeling in the same way we do
Egocentrism
My perspective is the only perspective
Symbolic thinking
Words representing objects or maybe a box representing a car
Body schema
私がいるのは知ってる
Recognising your own existence
Object permanence
Even if I can’t see something, it’s still there
Cognitive development
How our thinking changes as we get older
Invariant
Children go through the same cognitive stages in the same fixed order - - > they don’t vary
Universal
Children go through the same stages, no matter where they are in the world/ different cultures and experiences
Schemas
Mental models that we use to identify things and so we know how to react to them. It’s how we learn
Assimilation
When new information is fitted into an already existing schema
Accommodation
When new information doesn’t fit into an existing schema, you 『accommodate』for it by changing an existing schema or making a new one
Piaget (1952) - Conservative of number
Background / hypothesis
・Piaget created many tasks to find out when children had acquired different forms of conservation
๑ Hypothesis : children in the concrete operational stage will be able to conserve and children in the Pre-operational stage will not
Piaget (1952) - Conservation of number
Design
・natural experiment - - > the independent variable (age) varied naturally
・independent measures design - - > each child in each age group was only tested once
・cross-sectional study - - > he tested children of different ages
Piaget (1952) - Conservation of number
Sample
・a small of Swiss children from Geneva (the actual size of the sample wasn’t reported)
・it included Piaget’s own children
Piaget (1952) - Conservation of number
Materials / apparatus
・counters
Piaget (1952) - Conservation of number
Procedure
・each child was shown two rows of counters, equally spaced
・the child was asked if there were the same number of counters in each row
・then one of the rows was spread out and the same question was asked again
Piaget (1952) - Conservation of number
Results
・3-4 year olds (in the pre-operational stage) mostly said that the spread out row had more
counters
・a few 5-6 year olds (at the end of the pre-operational stage) said that they both still had the same number, but they were unable to explain their thinking
・most concrete operational children successfully stated that both rows still had the same number, and they were able to explain why they thought this
Piaget (1952) - Conservation of number
Conclusion
・the results supported Piaget’s hypothesis that conservation of number is acquired at the start of the concrete operational stage
Piaget (1952) - Conservation of number
Criticisms
・the sample was culturally biased - - > he only tested Swiss school children. Children from
other countries might have been affected by different education and upbringing, so the
findings can’t be generalised to all cultures
・as a lab experiment it had low ecological validity - - >it was an artificial situation which
might not make sense: why did the adults change one row? When a later experiment got
a ‘naughty teddy’ to re-arrange a row of sweets, 60% of pre-operational children passed
the conservation test
・Piaget asked the same question twice, before and after re-arranging the counters. This
made children think there must be a different answer, so their response might have been
due to demand characteristics rather than being unable to conserve. When the question
was only asked once after re-arranging the row, many more children got the right answer
Third stage
Concrete operational
Second stage
Pre-operational
Fourth stage
Formal operational stage
