AO1 - Piaget's Theory

• Jean Piaget (1952) viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation/ adjustment to the world.
• A schema is a mental representation of something you have seen or experienced which is stored in memory.
• Piaget's theory explains intellectual growth through the concept of cognitive development, which occurs through the processes of assimilation and accommodation.
• As children interact with their environment, they assimilate new information into existing mental structures and accommodate their schemas to incorporate new knowledge, leading to intellectual growth.
• Assimilation is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation.
• Accommodation happens when an existing schema does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.
• Equilibration is the force which moves development along. Piaget believed that cognitive development did not progress at a steady rate, but rather in leaps and bounds.
• Equilibrium occurs when a child's schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation.
• An unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot fit into existing schemas (assimilation).
• Equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as we do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge (accommodation).
• Piaget's (1936) theory of cognitive development explains how a child constructs a mental model of the world.
• Piaget's stages of cognitive development are; sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational.
• The characteristics of the preoperational stage in Piaget's theory are egocentrism, animism, centration, and the inability to understand conservation.
• The sensorimotor stage in Piaget's theory is characterised by the development of object permanence, the use of sensory and motor skills to explore the world, and the absence of symbolic thought.
• The characteristics of the concrete operational stage in Piaget's theory are conservation, reversibility, classification, seriation, and the ability to think logically about concrete objects and events.
• The characteristics of the formal operational stage in Piaget's theory are abstract thinking, hypothetical reasoning, logical thinking, and the ability to think about multiple possibilities and outcomes.
• Piaget's theory is significant in understanding cognitive development because it emphasises the role of active exploration and interaction with the environment in shaping a child's thinking and understanding of the world.
• According to Piaget schemas are the basic building blocks, and enable us to form a mental representation of the world.
• In the sensorimotor stage the main achievement is object permanence; which is knowing that an object still exists, even if it is hidden. This requires the ability to form a mental representation (schema) of the object.
• The sensorimotor stage is approximately from birth to two years old.
• In the preoperational stage young children can think about things symbolically. This is the ability to make one thing; a word or an object - stand for something other than itself. However, thinking is still egocentric, and the infant has difficulty taking the viewpoint of others.
• The preoperational stage is approximately from age two until age seven.
• The concrete operational stage is approximately from age seven to eleven.
• The concrete operational stage marks the beginning of logical or operational thought. This means the child can work things out internally in their head, rather than physically try things out in the real world.
• The concrete operational stage is where children develop conservation skills. Children can conserve number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9).
• Conservation is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance changes.
• The formal operational stage is approximately from age 11 years upwards.
• The main achievement of the formal operational stage in Piaget's theory is the ability to think abstractly and hypothetically.
• The formal operational stage begins at approximately age eleven and lasts into adulthood.
• Piaget developed a theory of cognitive development which is in a series of progressive stages.
• Animism is the belief that inanimate objects (such as toys and teddy bears) have human feelings and intentions.
• Class inclusion refers to the ability to classify objects into two or more categories simultaneously. For example, the ability to recognise that categories such as 'cars' includes smaller sub-categories of white and black cars.
• There is evidence for the existence of individual formation of schemas, and Piaget suggests that individuals develop different schemas whilst experiencing the same thing.
• Egocentrism is the overwhelming focus on the self as the centre of importance. Many young children display this characteristic.
• Egocentrism is a child's tendency to only see the world from their point of view.
• Piaget & Inhelder (1956) used the three mountains task to demonstrate egocentrism.
• Piaget & Inhelder (1956) conducted the three mountain experiment. Each mountain had a different object on top, with a doll placed at the opposite side to the child. They found that most children struggled to say what the doll would be able to see from that perspective.
• Preoperational children found the mountain task most difficult in Piaget & Inhelder (1956).
• Piaget & Inhelder (1964) found that children under the age of 7, struggle with the more advanced skill of class inclusion. When they showed children aged 7-8 years pictures of 2 cats and 5 dogs and asked them was there ‘more dogs or animals’, they responded there were more dogs. This suggests younger children cannot simultaneously see a dog as a member of the 'dog' group and the 'animal' group.