Piaget's theory of development Flashcards
What are some key facts about Piaget and his perspective?
Interested in ADAPTATION - viewed cognitive development and knowledge acquisition as kinds of environmental adaptation, allowing individuals to fit better in their surroundings and have more effective interactions
Child’s reasoning mistakes not random but systematic - certain predictable errors at certain developmental points
Preferred clinical interviews
What is Piaget’s scheme principle?
Schemes are knowledge structures used to interpret the world - children have very simple ones, largely based on sensorimotor info e.g. a “throw” scheme in which they learn that some objects will bounce while others will smash
More hierarchical processing develops later on, and schemes are modified through experience
What are the two components of Piaget’s adaptation principle?
ASSIMILATION - adapting incoming info to fit existing knowledge e.g. placing camel in a category with horses
ACCOMMODATION - Adapting KNOWLEDGE to fit incoming info e.g. child referring to camel as a lumpy horse when they notice differences between existing expectation and direct experience, recognise need to reorganise knowledge structure to represent the new info –> form new concept/scheme, ADAPTING their existing scheme
What is Piaget’s principle of equilibration?
There is eventually an assimilation-accommodation balance - assimilation serves well until encounter important change in knowledge, at which point accommodation occurs; eventually this process of scheme use reaches an equilibrium point where both match each other fairly evenly (we know just as much as we don’t)
What is Piaget’s principle of organisation?
Process of linking schemes e.g. linking camel and horse by similarities; sensorimotor schemes coordinate grasp and suck commands to feed self
What 2 main methods did Piaget employ?
Small-scale experiments - present children with problems to solve (generally young children) and infer cognitive abilities from behaviour e.g. object permanence
Clinical interviews - used more with older children with more sophisticated verbal abilities; conversational style pitched at appropriate level of understanding for the individual
What are the main methodological issues Piaget has been criticised for?
Danger of inferring cognitive abilities from actions - can often lead to underestimation of abilities
Interviews require verbal ability, and errors in verbal skills may obscure actual reasoning ability - may appear to fail a test and be incorrectly placed on scale when true understanding may actually be far better than assumed and it may be other skills holding them back e.g. motor skills in object permanence experiments
What is Piaget’s Stage Theory?
Identified 4 stages based on reasoning limitations, considered the bases for progression through development
Children learn increasingly advanced mental operations by building and organising schema, and development of such operations enables development to progress
Emphasis on importance of ACTIVE EXPERIENCE to build own cognitions and understanding (constructivist theory of development)
What are key features of Piaget’s sensorimotor stage?
0-2 years
Children receiving info through physical senses
Reflexes as building blocks for sensorimotor abilities (gradually gain voluntary control over motor system)
Behaviours self-oriented and only in later stages does perspective start to turn more outward into an awareness that they can affect their surroundings
Repetition of actions that are pleasing/interesting/have interesting effects (formation of HABITS)
Begin to understand cause-effect
Mental representation is a major achievement i.e. object permanence
How did Baillargeon and De Vos prove Piaget wrong with respect to developments such as object permanence?
3 and a half month old infants found to look longer at “impossible events”
Habituated to a small carrot moving behind a screen and out again
They habituated more to a tall carrot and showed some expectation to see the carrot move across a screen from which the top segment had been removed –> some degree of object permanence, able to learn through observation not just interaction
Suggested Piaget UNDERESTIMATED ROLE OF PERCEPTION in understanding the world
What defines the pre-operational stage?
2-7 years
Major change is SYMBOLIC THOUGHT - language develops and thoughts become detached from actions, able to think symbolically
What did Piaget suggest as a limitation of pre-operational thought?
Egocentrism - children at this stage are unaware of/unable to take perspectives of others
Piaget and Inhelder - 3 mountains exp in which doll and child sat in different positions and child only chose own view because didn’t understand concept of an alternative viewpoint
How did Hughes criticise Piaget’s view of egocentrism?
3 mountains experiment too irrelevant to child’s own experiences so child not adequately motivated to answer properly
Using a more relevant task e.g. interesting role play, improves motivation and performance
So they can take perspectives of others if asked the right kinds of questions and if task is interesting enough
What is meant by conservation as a limitation of pre-operational thought?
Pre-operational kids cannot CONSERVE i.e. cannot recognise that superficial changes in a quantity don’t actually affect that quantity e.g. spacing coins out
Piaget believed pre-op children can only consider one property at a time due to limited thought capacity - thoughts are dominated by salient perceptual features
How did McGarrigle and Donaldson criticise Piaget’s view of conservation?
Criticised tasks used - children expect adults to carry out actions reasonably and with an intention to change things so EXPECT to see a change of some kind
If they are told instead that a “naughty teddy” muddled up the objects accidentally this circumvents their expectation and they are more likely to give correct responses
