piaget's stages of intellectual development

Question 1

what are the 4 stages?

Answer 1

1. sensorimotor
2. pre-operational
3. concrete operations
4. formal operations

Question 2

outline the sensorimotor stage

Answer 2

• 0-2 yrs
• begin to understand the world through senses, motor actions and trial/error
• key achievement in object permanence (8+ months)

Question 3

what is object permanence?

Answer 3

knowledge that an object continues to exist independent of our seeing, hearing, touching, tasting or smelling

Question 4

outline piaget’s research into object permanence

Answer 4

• piaget showed an object to children and then placed it under a blanket
• he observed whether the children looked for the object
• he found that at around 8 months, children achieve object permanence

Question 5

W sensorimotor: methodological issues

Answer 5

ID: a weakness of Piaget’s research into the sensorimotor stage is that there are methodological issues
Q: this is because his search task confuses competence and performance
EX: for example, even if the children knew the object was under the blanket, they might not have tried to look for it, leading him to underestimate infants’ abilities in regards to object permanence
AN: this means that the study lacks internal validity, which may explain why Piaget thought infants were less capable than they were

Question 6

W sensorimotor: conflicting evidence (Bower)

Answer 6

ID: furthermore, there is conflicting evidence for Piaget’s research into object permanence
Q: this comes from Bower, who researched object permanence using an infra-red camera
EX: for example, he found object permanence at 4 months as he observed that infants reached for a toy even in the dark.
AN: therefore, this is a weakness of piaget’s research as it suggests he underestimates when this develops in infants.

Question 7

outline the pre-operational stage

Answer 7

• 2-7 yrs
• subdivided into pre-conceptual (2-4), and intuitive stage (4-7)
• thinking is intuitive, rather than logical
• thinking involves centration (focus on one aspect of situation)
  thinking is egocentric (dominated by perception)
• difficulty with conservation and class inclusion

Question 8

what is egocentrism + research?

Answer 8

• the child can only see things from their own perspective and can’t understand the perspective of other people
• Piaget and Inhelder’s 3 mountain task let children examine a model of 3 mountains on a table, one with snow, one with a red cross and one with a hut. a doll was placed on top of one of the mountains and children were asked to select pictures of what the doll could see. However, the 4 y/o would consistently select the pictures of what they saw (not the doll), which suggests the children were unable to visualise things from another person’s perspective

Question 9

W pre-operational: contradictory evidence

Answer 9

ID: contradictory evidence for pre-operational research
Q: this means that Piaget’s theory may not be as accurate as first identified
EX: for example, Hughs demonstrated that in a task of
egocentrism, children aged 3.5 could position a doll where a single policeman could not see him 90% of the time, and 4 y/o could make the doll hide from 2 policemen in
90% of cases. this suggests that pre-conventional children are able to conserve, but only when this
has been tested in specific ways and when the child fully understands the task.
AN: therefore, this also gives further evidence to the idea that Piaget and Inhelder’s original experimental method may have been confusing to 2 or 3 year old children, which may have biased the findings, reducing ecological validity

Question 10

outline the concrete operations stage

Answer 10

• age 7-11
• can do conservation and class inclusion tasks
• can do logical operations
• still struggle with abstract interference

Question 11

what is class inclusion? + research

Answer 11

• understanding that things can be sub-sets of other things
• Piaget and Inhelder showed children a picture with 5 dogs and 2 cats and then asked: “Are there more dogs or more animals?”. The children would answer that there are more dogs, because they are unable to comprehend that each dog was a member of the dog class and the animal class.

Question 12

what is conservation? + research

Answer 12

• understanding that changing the appearance of an object does not change its mass, quantity or volume
• Piaget conducted an experiment where 7 y/o were shown two equal beakers of water: A and B. The children could see that A and B contained the same amount of water. But when the water from B was poured into a taller, thinner, beaker (C), the children thought beaker C contained more water.
• child had not reached concrete operations (stage 3)

Question 13

W concrete operations: leading questions

Answer 13

ID: Piaget’s research into conservation and class inclusion included leading questions
Q: this means that demand characteristics are likely due to wrong answers being given
EX: for example, repeated questions and leading questions imply that a certain response is required. younger children felt that the asking of a second question meant that a different answer was required. Samuel and Bryant demonstrated that the tasks used by Piaget actually made it more difficult for the child to give the correct answers
AN: therefore, the study has low internal validity as the tasks are made harder, meaning the IV can’t accurately measure the DV

Question 14

outline the formal operations stage

Answer 14

• age 11+
• can do abstract and hypothetical reasoning
• can reason contrary to experience
• can think scientifically

Question 15

outline research into formal operation stage

Answer 15

• Piaget and Inhelder asked children to compare the motions of pendulums with different length string and different weights, in order to determine the influence of motion on the time it takes for the pendulum to swing back and forth.
• children below 12 were unscientific, unsystematic and drew incorrect conclusions

Question 16

W formal operations: overestimate children’s abilities

Answer 16

ID: however, Piaget has been criticised for overestimating children’s abilities
Q: this means that he may be overly deterministic with his assumption that children pass through each developmental stage according to an age-determined timeline
EX: for example, some children may not reach stage 4 until 15+. Keating. found that 40-60% of university students fail on formal operational tasks
AN: therefore, the theory doesn’t account for the key influence of social and cultural factors in cognitive development, both of which may have a huge effect on development

Question 17

S Piaget: practical applications +ELAB: culture bias

Answer 17

ID: there are important applications of Piaget’s research in education
Q: this means that Piaget has been extremely influential in developing educational policies and teaching practices
EX: for example, ‘discovery learning’ is the process of a teacher setting tasks that are appropriate for pupils and allow motivation. the teacher’s role is not to impart knowledge, but to ask questions or create situations which ask questions, creating disequilibrium and forcing children to make accommodations.
AN: therefore, Piaget’s theory has had great application for educational settings as it sets benchmarks for education to assess progress and flag any developmental delays a child may be experiencing. increasing external validity
ELAB: however, Piaget’s theory can be criticised for culture bias.
Q: it is possible that the 4 stages are not universal.
EX: for example, Piaget came from a middle-class European background, as did the children he studied. Dasen. found that different cultures achieved different operations at different ages. for example, Australian Aborigines’ abilities to conserve came later, between 10-13
AN: therefore, Piaget’s findings lack ecological validity as his theory cannot explain cognitive development in all children, due to unrepresentative samples