Piaget's Stages of Psychosocial Development Flashcards
What are the 4 stages of development?
Sensorimotor stage
Pre-operational stage
Concrete operational stage
Formal operational stage
What is the sensorimotor stage
(0-2 years)
-Learning is based on the senses (sensori) and doing things (motor)
-Cannot think by manipulating mental representations
-Key achievement is object permanence
Pre-conceptual thinking
Substage of the pre-operational stage (2-4)
Cant classify objects in an ordered way
Objects regarded as being the same (all 4 legged animals are dogs)
Assign living attributes to inanimate objects
Intuitive thinking
Substage of the pre-operational stage (4-6)
Start to use mental operations, but cant explain the underlying principles
Still cant reason logically
What is the pre-operational stage
2-7 years of age
Language develops
Begin to think symbolically
Children in this stage are egocentric
Children can’t comprehend conservation
What is egocentrism
An assumption that other people share the same view, an inability to perceive other perspectives
What is conservation
The ability to understand that things remain the same even if appearance changes. Applies to aspects such as: volume, area, etc.
What is the concrete operational stage
7-11 years of age
Beginning of logical thoughts (mature enough to use operations)
Can only apply logic to physical objects
What is the formal operational stage
12+ years
Capable of systematic abstract thinking
Can deal with hypothetical problems
Three Mountains Task (Egocentricity)
Explores egocentric thinking in children. 3 dimensonal model of mountains, doll placed in different viewing positions. Child is asked to indicate what the child sees. Results suggest child thinks the doll sees the same as they do
Conservation of Number Test
Child presented with 2 rows of counters. Child agrees there were the same number in each row. When the display was changed (top row more spread out), child thinks there are more counters.
