#15164 - Developmental Psychology Piaget - Psychology

John Piaget Started publishing articles on theology etc. by the age of 15 Interested in child development when he started working with Binet Children of similar ages were making similar mistakes Some kind of maturation was necessary for our cognitive development Development is determined by the interaction between the environment and the developing brain Children are little scientists actively seeking to understand their world Theory Intelligence involves adapting to your environment Need to have a system or mental structure in which we can understand the world and new information as it comes in Looks at 4 distinct stages of cognitive development Transition from one stage to another is in terms of maturation to compensate for the skill that was deficient in the stage beforehand Maturation: The child's level of physical development Schemes Organised patterns of behaviour Mental Operation: Learning to reach for the mobile 1. Assimilation The taking in or absorbing some event or experience to some scheme 2. Accommodation Set up a different scheme. Know what a cat is, sees dog and sees similarities between the two at first and accommodates one into the other. Then eventually will learn the difference. "Oh that's a dog." Adding little lines onto a map. 3. Equilibration Starting with a whole new map. Stages of Development from Piaget's Point of View 1. The sensori-motor stage 0-2 years Sucking/ touching reflexes Only located in the present All that they have. Don't yet have the ability to think about things pass this. Learning to be able to coordinate different reflexes and responses Object Permancence Out of sight, out of existence. Children have no understanding that objects exist where they can't see them Can't represent objects in their mind unless they are in front of them 2. Pre-operational stage 2-7 years Children start to learn that objects can exist even when they don't see them They are able to represent things to themselves symbolically Children are egocentric and unable to get a perspective. Other people don't seem to have different wishes and desires to their own. The Three Mountains Task Think that you can see the same view or perspective as them Conservation Tasks Conservation of Number: Shown two rows of counters. If one appears longer than the other but still has the same actual number of counters (more spread out) then they will say it has more. Why do they fail these tasks? Centring Centre on their own perspective rather than the view of others Rigidity of thought Taller in height. Then it must be full of more liquid. Focusing on stages instead of transformations. If they saw that the glass was being poured into the other one, they would cop that it's the same. But they just see the beginning and the end. 3. Concrete Operation Stage 7-12 years Can perform mental operations Derive relationships If B is greater than A. Then A is less than B. Thinking is still bound by concrete things such as the world of objects. Struggling with the abstract. Can't accept something that it is outside the rules of their world. 4. Formal Operational Stage 12 onwards Able to reason at an abstract level Demonstrate a more systematic and logical approach to their problem solving Hypothetico- deductive way Criticisms of the theory Importance of the education and environment on the child's cognitive development; he believed. Underestimates the ability of children at different ages Tasks were leading to negative errors- design of the task Language that was used with the children If a question was asked twice, the children think something has changed so look for a change Memory requirements Materials/ the number of objects presented was more of the problem Underestimated Sensorimotor Baillargeon 1987 Gaze time of infants Look for longer at something unexpected or intriguing Bower and Wishart Children playing with the toy. Lights went out. Children still looked for the toy. So they knew it existed even when they couldn't see it Underestimated pre operational competence If A is less than B and then B is less than, what's the relationship between A and C Memory could be an issue (Trabasso) control for memory This is pre operational transitivity Donaldson's explanation Misleading aspect of what the experimenter was saying no longer Evaluating Piaget's theory Contributions Founded cognitive development Stated children construct their knowledge First attempt to explain development Reasonably accurate overview of how children of different ages think.