problem 4 - Piaget Flashcards
1
Q
What are the 4 stages of cognitive development according to Piaget and the ages at which they occur?
A
- sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)
- pre-operational stage (2-7 years)
- the concrete-operational stage (7-11 years old)
- the formal operational stage (11-12 years)
2
Q
What is the main idea during the sensorimotor stage?
A
- infants are relying on behavioural schemes as a means of exploring and understanding the environment
3
Q
What are the substages of the sensorimotor stage, and what takes place at each one?
A
- reflex activity (0-1 months) - period where the infant’s actions are confined to innate reflexes, assimilating new objects into reflexive schemes and accommodating their reflexes to these novel objects
- primary circular reactions (1-4 months) - first non-reflexive schemes emerge when infants discover by chance various responses they can emit and control (sucking their thumbs, making cooing sounds)
- they are satisfying and hence worth repeating
- they are always centred around the infant’s own body
- secondary circular reactions (4-8 months) - infants discover that they can make interesting things happen to objects beyond their own body (making a rubber duck quack by squeezing it)
- coordination of secondary reactions (8-12 months) - periods were planned responses first appear, infants begin to coordinate two or more actions to achieve simple objectives
- tertiary circular reactions (12-18 months) - infants begin to actively experiment with objects and try to invent new methods of solving problems or reproducing interesting results, they use trial and error and it expresses the child’s curiosity
- symbolic problem solving (18-24 months) - infants begin to internalise their behavioural schemes to construct mental symbols, or images, that they can then use to guide future conduct, no longer use trial and error
4
Q
How does imitation develop in the sensorimotor stage according to Piaget?
A
- 8–12-month year olds are unable to precisely imitate a model
- 12-18 months old are much more precise at voluntary imitation
- 18-24 months: deferred imitation, the ability to reproduce the behaviour of an absent model
- at this age you can create mental symbols and images of the model’s behaviour and then retrieve them later to guide the you to recreate them
5
Q
How does object permanence develop in the sensorimotor stage according to Piaget?
A
- 1–4-month-olds will not search for attractive objects that are hidden from view
- 4-8 months old will retrieve objects that are partially concealed but not those that are fully concealed
- 8-12 months old we see emerging object concept appear, but it is far from complete
- A-not-B error: the tendency of 8- to 12-month olds to search for a hidden object where they previously found it even after they have seen it moved to a new location
- 12-18 months of age, object concept improves, they search for objects where they last saw them
- 18-24 months of age they can understand invisible displacements
6
Q
What is object permanence?
A
- idea that objects continue to exist when they are no longer visible or detectable through the other senses
7
Q
What is the main idea during the pre-operational stage?
A
- this period is marked by the appearance of the symbolic function (ability to use symbols to represent objects and experiences)
- representational insight: the knowledge that an entity can stand for something other than itself
8
Q
What is animism and in what stage is it prevalant?
A
- pre-operational stage
- a mistake of attributing life and lifelike qualities to inanimate objects
- Piaget believed that children at this age can’t think logically
9
Q
What is the biggest deficiency in children’s pre-operational reasoning according to Piaget ?
A
- egocentrism: the tendency to view the world from one’s own perspective and to have difficulty recognising another person’s point of view
- appearance/reality distinction: the ability to keep the true properties or characteristics of an object in mind despite the deceptive appearance the object has assumed; notably lacking among young children during the pre-operational period
10
Q
What is conservation and it which stage is it prevalant?
A
- pre-operational stage
- children do not yet realise that certain properties of objects remain unchanged when the object’s appearance is altered in some superficial way
- Piaget believed children lacked two cognitive operations that make them fail to conserve:
- decentration: the ability to concentrate on more than one aspect of a problem at the same time
- reversibility: the ability to mentally undo or negate an action
11
Q
What is the theory of the mind and in which stage is it prevalent?
A
- pre-operational stage
- children understand others think, but are still egocentric so it’s hard to understand it
- belief-desire reasoning: the process whereby we explain and predict what people do based on what we understand their desires and beliefs to be
12
Q
How can the theory of the mind be studied?
A
- false-belief task: a type of task used in theory of mind studies, in which the child must infer that another person does not possess knowledge that he or she possesses
13
Q
When is symbolic function and intuitive function developed?
A
- symbolic function (2-4 years)
- egocentrism
- animism
- artificialism
- Intuitive thought (4-7 years)
- logical reasoning
- still lack decentration and reversibility
14
Q
What is the general idea of the concrete operational stage?
A
- children are acquiring cognitive operations and thinking more logically about real objects and experiences
15
Q
What are the main changes from the pre-operational stage to the concrete operational stage in terms of egocentrism, animism, causality, perception and reversibility
A
- look at the table in the notes
