Piaget's Cognitive Development

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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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