Piaget's Cognitive Development
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- Created by: Meg Fraser
- Created on: 05-01-17 10:56
What is Piaget's background?
- Based on observations of his own children
- Used clinical interviews once children could talk
- Discussed how the children thought about the problems given to them
- People working for him had to have training of up to one year before they could interview children
- Wanted to learn how they were thinking and not about them giving the right answer
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What are the main assumptions of Piaget's theory?
- Children have an active role in their own development
- They construct knowledge through their own experience
- Children are 'little scientists' - trial and error learning through experiments
- Have cognitive adaptations - brain can adapt information that is stored
- Innate motivation to learn without rewards
- Built into their nature to respond to nurture
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How do children construct knowledge?
- Schemas - internal mental representations
- Children have schema for certain actions that are a pleasurable or non-pleasurable experience
- Assimulation - when a new experience fits into existing schema
- Accommodation - when a new experience doesn't fit into existing schema, the schema must be adjusted for new understanding
- Drive to maintain a stable equilibrium through a process of constant disequilibrium
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What is Piaget's theory of stages?
- There are approximate ages for each stage
- Order of the stages never changes
- Transition between the stages is discontinuous
- The same sequence occurs across all cultures
- Once a new way of thinking is acquired, it is used across all contexts
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What are the four stages in Piaget's cognitive dev
- Sensori-motor
- Pre-operational
- Concrete operational
- Formal operational
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What happens in the first stage of cognitive devel
Sensi-motor from 0-2 years
- 0-1 Reflex/spontaneous actions e.g. sucking
- 1-4 Primary circular reactions - focus on self
- 4-10 Secondary circular reactions - focus on objects
- 10-12 Coordinating circular reactions e.g. grasping object and putting it into their mouth
- 12-18 Tertiary circular reactions - more mobility as trial and error learning begins
- 18-24 Internal representations e.g. object permanence
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What happens in the second stage of cognitive deve
Pre-operational lasts from 2-7 years
- Rapid increase in language and symbolic thought
Cognitive ability limited by:
- Egocentrism - unable to take the perspective of others
- Conservation - understanding that an object can change shape but its qualities don't change
- Centration - focus on one particular (more obvious) aspect of something
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What is new evidence about the sensori-motor stage
- Possible underestimation of mental abilities
- Object permanence can occur at 3 months (Bower, 1982)
- Planned actions by 9 months (Willats, 1989)
- Deferred imitation by 6 weeks (Meltzoff and Moore, 1994)
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What were problems with the studies on the pre-ope
- Piaget claimed there was a lack of logical thought processes
- Questions were complex and unfamiliar (McGarrigle, 1974)
- Situational expectations of adult behaviour (Donaldson, 1978)
- Limited working memory capacity to hold the information (Bryant and Trabasso, 1971)
- In all the adapted studies, correct responses increased
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What happens in the third stage of cognitive devel
- Concrete operational lasts from 7-11 years
Conservation tasks use methods of:
- Compensation - larger area does not equate to large quantity
- Reversibility - ability to reverse actions to see original state
- De-centration - can consider more than one aspect of a problem
- Still not able to perform abstract reasoning
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What happens in the fourth stage of cognitive deve
- Formal operational lasts from 11-15 years
- Use systematic problem solving
- Considers all aspects of problems
- Can imagine and discuss things never encountered before
- Aware of societal values/issues
- Often only sporadic use of formal methods
- Culturally specific
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What are characteristics of formal operational tho
- Abstract - think more abstractly than children and can solve abstract problems e.g. algebra
- Idealistic - think about what is possible and ideal characteristics for themselves, others and the world
- Logical - think more like scientists in devising plans to solve problems and testing solutions (hypothetical-deductive reasoning)
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