Piaget’s stages

• What is the first stage?

  Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)
• What is the mental operation acquired in the sensorimotor stage?

  Object permanence
• What is object permanence?


  The understanding that objects continue to exist even when they are not visible
• What are the issues with object permanence?

  • Methodological limitations - Bower and Wishart (1972) say how the object disappears influences the babies response
  • Object permanence develops earlier than thought - Balliargeon (1987) found babies as young as 3 months display object permanence
• What is stage two?

  Pre operational stage (2-7 years)
• What are the mental operations acquired in the pre operational stage?

  Class inclusion

  Decentering

  Conservation
• What is class inclusion?


  Knowing things can be in more than one category
• What is Piaget’s research into class inclusion?


  A child is presented with brown and white wooden beads and is asked “are there more brown beads or beads?” They will say more brown beads as they understand the colour in an immediate way as opposed to the category of beads
• What is Donaldson’s research into class inclusion?


  The issue of Piaget’s study is the nature of the task.

  • Used 3 black and 1 white sleeping cows
  • Asked children if there are more black or sleeping cows
  • 48% answered correctly
• What are some issues with class inclusion?

  • Develops earlier than thought
  • Artefact of methodology - results represent difficulty of task, not the ability of the participants
• What is decentering?


  Being able to see things physically from someone else’s perspective
• What is Piaget’s research about decentering?


  A child must draw what they can see from the perspective of a doll. Children in the pre operational stage showed egocentrism, and couldn’t do that
• What does Hughes say about Piaget’s research into decentering?


  Children can cope with a decentering task if it is easier, so it has artefact of methodology
• What is conservation?


  The ability to know something is still the same even if it has changed shape
• What is McGarrigle and Donaldson’s research into conservation?


  If an adult spread a line of sweets out, the children thought there was more sweets than before

  If ‘naughty teddy’ messed up the experiment in the same way, the children could conserve from a much younger age

  So changing the way a conservation task is presented allows children to conserve better
• What is the third stage?

  Concrete operational stage (7-11)
• What do children develop in the concrete operational stage?

  Seriation

  Solve problems using real objects
• What is seriation?


  Arranging objects or events in a certain order
• What is the fourth stage?

  Formal operational stage (11+)
• What is the mental operation acquired in the fourth stage?

  Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
• What is hypothetico-deductive reasoning?


  Generating hypothesis and testing them logically without trial and error
• What is Piaget’s research into hypothetico-deductive reasoning?

  Children had to find out what factors affected the a pendulum swings. Children in concrete operational stage used trial and error, but in the formal operational the children would systematically vary each factor
• What did Piaget say about the formal operational stage?


  Everyone will reach this stage (universality)
• How does Dasen go against universality?


  Only 1/3 of adults reach the formal operational stage
• How is Piaget’s research ethnocentric?


  Matsumoto and Hills (1994) - the formal operations stage is based on western notions of scientific thinking. This kind of thinking may be irrelevant in other cultures
• How is Piaget’s methodology criticised?


  Rose and Blank (1974) - asking the child the same question twice may confuse them
• How is Piaget’s sampling criticsed?


  He used his own children and his friends children in his research. These children may have been more intelligent than the average

  So his generalisation to all children may have been a mistake
• How do the stages differ between cultures?

  Dasen - aboriginal children go through the same stages but later on in life