Piaget's stages Flashcards
What are the four stages?
Sensory motor (0-18 months)
Pre-operational (18 months-7 years)
Concrete operational (7-12 years)
Formal operational (12+ years)
What is the sensory motor stage?
Child gains understanding of environment by using senses and movement
Development of object permanence around 8 months
What is object permanence and how was it tested?
The ability to appreciate that things still exist when they’re out of sight/touch
Children observed playing with toy, toy then covered with cloth
What is the pre-operational stage?
Child becomes able to represent objects or events by symbols/signs
Child has not yet decentred
Child is egocentric
What is egocentrism and how was it tested?
Child has trouble seeing the world from another perspective
Piaget and Inhelder (1956)- Swiss mountain task- child shown 3d model of mountains, doll introduced, child asked what doll can see
What is class inclusion and how was it tested?
Understanding that classifications have subsets
Children shown 18 brown beads and 2 white, asked are there more brown or wooden beads
What is animism?
Young children have belief that inanimate objects are capable of actions and have lifelike qualities
What is the concrete operational stage?
Child able to use more sophisticated mental operations
Child has decentred, can conserve, understands class inclusion, is no longer egocentric
What were the conservation tests?
Mass- child shown 2 identical balls of plasticine, then one is rolled out and child is asked if they have same amount
Volume- Child shown two identical beakers with same amount of milk, one then poured into a thin, tall beaker, asked if they have same amount
Number- child shown two identical rows of counters, then one is spread apart, asked if they have same amount
What is the formal operational stage?
Mainly governed by formal logic and is most sophisticated stage
Abstract and hypothetical thinking develop
Object permanence AO3
Bower and Wishart (1972) used lab study with 1-4 month old babies, waited for infant to reach for object then turned lights off, infant continued to reach
Therefore, age much earlier than Piaget suggested
Egocentrism AO3
Hughes (1975) used model of two walls, boy and two policemen, child asked to hide boy where neither of policemen can see him
Youngest children (3.5-4 years) got it right 88% of the time
Methodological criticisms?
Small, unrepresentative sample, often of his own children
Informal interactions and each ppt treated slightly differently
Difficult to identify and operationalise DVs as young children are unable to express themselves verbally
Inferred ability from failure
Strengths?
Laid foundations for research into cognitive development
Findings have been replicated cross-culturally
When children trained to use comparative terms correctly, they didn’t perform any better
Hugely influential in education system- Plowden report (1967) made recommendations based on Piaget’s idea of cognitive readiness
