Piaget intellectual development

• Piaget- intellectual dev. Object permanence

  • Sensorimotor stage (0-2)
  • Focus on physical sensations and co-ordination, learn through trial/error
  • 8 months children develop object permanence (objects still exist even out of sight)
  • Studied babies up to 1 year looking at objects as they were removed from sight
  • Before 8 months, babies switched their attention away
  • After 8 months, children would continue to look for it suggesting they understood it still existed
• Pre-operational stage (2-7yrs)- CONSERVATION EXP

  Mass:

  • Placed 2 identical rows of counters side by side
  • Even young children reasoned each row had same number
  • One row pushed closer together
  • Pre-op children struggled to conserve, said there were fewer counters
  • Same case with water vessels, one tall and skinny, one wide
• Pre-op (2-7yrs)- 3 MOUNTAINS STUDY Piaget and Inhelder

  • Studied egocentrism (seeing world from own view)
  • Children shown 3 mountain model
  • Each mountain had different feature (e.g. house, snow, cross)
  • Doll placed at side of the model, facing different POV to child
  • Child asked to choose picture matching doll's POV
  • Pre-op children tended to chose the image matching their POV
• Pre-operational (2-7 yrs)- Class Inclusion Piaget and Inhelder

  • Studies the idea that objects fall into categories
  • Pre-op children can classify pugs, terriers etc. as dogs
  • Children under 7 cannot grasp subsets of categories
  • Showed 7-8 year olds pictures of 5 dogs 2 cats
  • Asked 'are there more dogs or animals?'
  • Most responded there were more dogs
  • Therefore, young children cannot see a dog as a member of the dog class and animal class
• Formal operations (11+)- Formal reasoning Piaget

  • Children can focus on the form of an argument instead of content
  • Tested through syllogisms
  • E.g. All yellow cats have two heads, I have a yellow cat called Charlie, how many heads does he have? (Smith et al)
  • Piaget found younger children are distracted by content as cats do not have 2 heads
  • If children can reason formally they can appreciate abstract ideas
• Piaget replication- McGarrigle and Donaldson (conservation study, Naughty teddy)

  • 4-6 year olds
  • Found most children answered incorrectly when experimenter moved counters
  • Control condition, naughty teddy accidentally knocks counters closer together
  • 72% correctly said counters were the same
  • Suggests 4-6 could conserve if questioned appropriately
  • Piaget overestimated the age for conservation (7)
• Class inclusion challenge- Siegler and Svetina

  • 100 5 year olds from Slovenia
  • Each took 3 session, 10 class inclusion tasks in each
  • After each session, children given an explanation of the task
  • 2 conditions, different feedback
  • 1- There must be more animals than dogs as there were 9 animals, but 6 dogs
  • 2- there must be more animals than dogs as fogs are a subset of animals
  • Scores improved for the latter group, suggesting they had a real understanding of class inclusion
  • Suggests piaget overestimated age, children can conserve under 7
• Egocentrism challenge- Hughes (police and doll study)

  • Tested ability of children to see a situation from 2 people's POVs
  • Model of 2 intersecting walls, 3 dolls (a boy and 2 officers)
  • Once familiarised, 3 and 1/2 yrs could successfully position the doll to hide from the policemen's view 90% of the time
  • 4 yrs 90% of the time successful with 2 officers
  • Piaget underestimated children's ability to decentre their perspective (can be younger than 7)