development

• what is developed in the sensori-motor stage? (piaget)


  •object permanence - toy exists even if they can’t see it

  •0-2 years old
• what happens in the pre operational stage? (piaget)


  •2-7 years old

  •animism - inanimate objects have feelings

  •egocentrism - think everyone sees the world like them

  •reversibility - unable to think about things in reverse order
• what happens in the concrete operational stage? (piaget)

  •7-11 years old

  •conservation - realise the volume, mass and length didnt change

  •decentration - focus on more than one aspect of the situation

  •seriation - put things in rank order

  •linguistic humour - ability to use language to create jokes
• what happens in the formal operational stage? (piaget)


  •11+ years old

  •hypothetical thinking
• what are the criticisms of piagets theory?

  •underestimating the age that children can achieve different parts of the stages

  •research shows only around half of adults reach the formal operational stage

  •doesn’t explain how these stages actually occur and what changes in the child’s thinking

  •too complicated for children to understand

  •reductionist
• Conservation is the understanding that even if the appearance of an object or liquid changes, its physical properties remain the same
• Conservation is one of the skills that children acquire as part of their cognitive development
• Examples of conservation include flattening plasticine into a disc without changing its mass and pouring water into a different shaped glass without changing its volume
• The ability to conserve develops during the concrete operational stage
• Conservation of number is the first to be acquired, followed by mass and finally volume
• Piaget created tasks to test conservation
• Piaget's study tested the conservation of number
• Aim: To demonstrate that children in the concrete operational stage are more likely to conserve than children in the pre-operational stage
• Hypothesis: Children in the concrete operational stage will be able to conserve, whereas children in the pre-operational stage will not
• Method: Natural experiment with the independent variable being the age of the children and the dependent variable being the ability to conserve number
• Design: Cross-sectional study testing different children of different ages with an independent measures design
• Materials used in the study: Counters
• Procedure: Children were shown two rows of counters, asked if they had the same number, one row was transformed, and they were asked the same question again
• Results of Piaget's study on conservation of number
• Three to four year olds in the pre-operational stage typically stated there were more counters in the longer row after transformation
• Children near the end of the pre-operational stage were able to state the number of counters remained the same but couldn't justify their answer
• Children in the concrete operational stage recognized that both rows had the same number of counters and could explain their judgment
• Conclusions of Piaget's study
• Children in the concrete operational stage were more likely to conserve number than children in the pre-operational stage
• Children in the concrete operational stage were more likely to justify their answer
• Criticisms of Piaget's study on conservation of number
• Methodological problems: Asking the same question twice might have confused younger children, leading to demand characteristics
• Artificiality of the study: Moving counters in front of children might have influenced their responses
• Cultural bias: The study was conducted only on Swiss school children, which may not represent all children in different countries