Piaget's Stages of Development

Question 1

Who does the four stages of cognitive development belong to?

Answer 1

Piaget

Question 2

When did Piaget publish the four stages of development?

Answer 2

1936

Question 3

Piaget’s 1932 book

Answer 3

‘La naissance de l’intelligence chez l’enfant’

Question 4

The English translation of Piaget’s theory, release date and title

Answer 4

‘The Origins of Intelligence in a Child’ 1952

Question 5

How did Piaget become intrigued with children’s cognitive development?

Answer 5

Piaget was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, where his job was to develop French versions of questions on English intelligence tests. He became intrigued with the reasons children gave for their wrong answers to the questions that required logical thinking.

Question 6

Why did Piaget study children?

Answer 6

What Piaget wanted to do was not to measure how well children could count, spell or solve problems as a way of grading their I.Q. What he was more interested in was the way in which fundamental concepts like the very idea of number, time, quantity, causality, justice and so on emerged.

Question 7

Piaget’s Four Stages and years

Answer 7

Sensorimotor stage 18 months: - 24 months
Preoperational 2 years old: - 7 years
Concrete Operational: 7 years to 11 years
Formal Operational: Adolescence to Adulthood

Question 8

What is the Sensorimotor Stage

Answer 8

• The infant learns about the world through their senses and through their actions, moving around and exploring its environment.
• During the sensorimotor stage a range of cognitive abilities develop. These include: object permanence; self-recognition; deferred imitation; and representational play.
• During this stage the infant lives in the present. It does not yet have a mental picture of the world stored in its memory therefore it does not have a sense of object permanence.

Question 9

What is the Preoperational Stage

Answer 9

Toddlers and young children acquire the ability to internally represent the world through language and mental imagery.
During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically. This is the ability to make one thing, such as a word or an object, stand for something other than itself.
A child’s thinking is dominated by how the world looks, not how the world is. It is not yet capable of logical (problem solving) type of thought.
Infants at this stage also demonstrate animism. This is the tendency for the child to think that non-living objects (such as toys) have life and feelings like a person’s.

Question 10

What is the Concrete Operational Stage

Answer 10

Toddlers and young children acquire the ability to internally represent the world through language and mental imagery.
During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically. This is the ability to make one thing, such as a word or an object, stand for something other than itself.
A child’s thinking is dominated by how the world looks, not how the world is. It is not yet capable of logical (problem solving) type of thought.
Infants at this stage also demonstrate animism. This is the tendency for the child to think that non-living objects (such as toys) have life and feelings like a person’s.

Question 11

What is the Formal Operational Stage

Answer 11

Concrete operations are carried out on things whereas formal operations are carried out on ideas. Formal operational thought is entirely freed from physical and perceptual constraints.
During this stage, adolescents can deal with abstract ideas (e.g. no longer needing to think about slicing up cakes or sharing sweets to understand division and fractions).
They can follow the form of an argument without having to think in terms of specific examples.
Adolescents can deal with hypothetical problems with many possible solutions. E.g. if asked ‘What would happen if money were abolished in one hour’s time? they could speculate about many possible consequences.

Question 12

What are Schemas?

Answer 12

Schemas are the basic building blocks of such cognitive models, and enable us to form a mental representation of the world. Schema the basic building block of intelligent behavior – a way of organizing knowledge. Indeed, it is useful to think of schemas as “units” of knowledge, each relating to one aspect of the world, including objects, actions, and abstract (i.e., theoretical) concepts.

Question 13

Example of a Schema

Answer 13

Babies have a sucking reflex, which is triggered by something touching the baby’s lips. A baby will suck a nipple, a comforter (dummy), or a person’s finger. Piaget, therefore, assumed that the baby has a ‘sucking schema.’

Question 14

What did Piaget think of intellectual growth

Answer 14

Jean Piaget viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This happens through assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration.

Question 15

What is assimilation

Answer 15

Piaget defined assimilation as the cognitive process of fitting new information into existing cognitive schemas, perceptions, and understanding. Overall beliefs and understanding of the world do not change as a result of the new information.

Question 16

What is Equilibrium

Answer 16

Piaget believed that all human thought seeks order and is uncomfortable with contradictions and inconsistencies in knowledge structures. In other words, we seek ‘equilibrium’ in our cognitive structures.
Equilibrium occurs when a child’s schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation. However, an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation).

Question 17

What is accommodation

Answer 17

Psychologist Jean Piaget defined accommodation as the cognitive process of revising existing cognitive schemas, perceptions, and understanding so that new information can be incorporated. This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.

Question 18

Support

Answer 18

Piaget’s focus on qualitative development had an important impact on education. While Piaget did not specifically apply his theory in this way, many educational programs are now built upon the belief that children should be taught at the level for which they are developmentally prepared.
The influence of Piaget’s ideas in developmental psychology has been enormous. He changed how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying children.
He was an inspiration to many who came after and took up his ideas. Piaget’s ideas have generated a huge amount of research which has increased our understanding of cognitive development.

Piaget (1936) was one of the first psychologists to make a systematic study of cognitive development. His contributions include a stage theory of child cognitive development, detailed observational studies of cognition in children, and a series of simple but ingenious tests to reveal different cognitive abilities.
His ideas have been of practical use in understanding and communicating with children, particularly in the field of education (re: Discovery Learning).

Question 19

Weaknesses

Answer 19

• A major source of inspiration for the theory was Piaget’s observations of his own three children. In addition to this, the other children in Piaget’s small research sample were all from well-educated professionals of high socioeconomic status. Because of this unrepresentative sample, it is difficult to generalize his findings to a larger population.
• Piaget’s research methodology is also problematic due to the fact that he rarely detailed how his participants were selected. Most of his work includes very little statistical detail about how he arrived at his conclusions.
• Most researchers agree that children possess many of the abilities at an earlier age than Piaget suspected. Theory of mind research has found that 4- and 5-year-old children have a rather sophisticated understanding of their own mental processes as well as those of other people.