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Jean Piaget

Piaget’s Theory: Important Concepts

Constructivism

Knowledge is constructed through experience with the world

The child is an active participant in his/her own development (not passive learners).

Schemas (AKA schemes)

Knowledge structures that guide the child how to act on the world

Piaget’s Theory: Important Concepts

• Adaptation processes (Changing Schemas)

– Assimilation – Accommodation

• Equilibrium

– No change. New knowledge state matches current information/schema

• Disequilibrium

– Must change AND reorganize schemas! New knowledge doesn’t match current organization.

Piaget’s Theory: Important Concepts

Quantitative vs. Qualitative Development

Piaget: Development occurs in stages

Piaget’s Stages • Sensorimotor Stage

– Ages 0-2

• Preoperational Stage – Ages 2-7

• Concrete Operational Stage – Ages 7-11

• Formal Operational Stage – Ages 11+

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What can infants in the Sensorimotor Period do?

• Reflexes, perceptual abilities, and basic learning mechanisms (assimilation, accommodation,

equilibration)

• Form fundamental concepts (time, space, &

causality)

• Knowledge is limited to immediate perceptions and actions

How do these abilities develop during the sensorimotor stage?

1. Simple Reflexes

2. Habits and Primary Circular Reactions

3. Secondary Circular Reactions

4. Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions

5. Tertiary Circular Reactions

How does the Sensorimotor Stage end?

6. Substage 6: Internalization of Schemas – 18 to 24 months

– Mental Representation • Deferred Imitation

– Can use symbols (e.g., words), but cannot think symbolically

• Can pretend to use a telephone

• Cannot pretend a banana is a telephone

Preoperational Stage (ages 2-7)

• Symbolic Thought

–Can use a symbol, an object, or a word to stand for something else

–Words as symbols

• Can talk about the past and future, not just the immediate situation

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Preoperational Stage (2-7)

• Cognitive limitations

– No Mental Operations

– Egocentrism

– Centrism

– Not logical

– No conservation of quantity

CONSERVATION TASK (number)

Piaget’s Conservation Tasks

• Conservation of Liquid

• Conservation of Number

• Conservation of Mass

Concrete Operational Stage (7-11/12 years)

• Mental operations begin

–Simple logic

–Pass conservation tasks

–But only on physical objects

• Pass conservation tasks

• Simple logic

–Measure, add, subtract

–Decentration

• Focus on multiple aspects of problem at once

– Height and width

–Reversibility

• Mentally undoing an action

Mental operations

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• Operations on actual (“concrete”) objects and events

–Cannot think abstractly

• Example: justice, freedom

–Cannot think hypothetically

Concrete operations only Concrete Operations Stage (Ages 7-11)

• Can pass classification problems:

– Are there more gray marbles, or are there more marbles?

• Can pass seriation tasks

– Arranging items in order

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Formal Operations Stage (11+)

Mental Representations

+

Manipulation of Symbols

+

Logic & Concrete Operations (Reversible) +

Hypothetical and Abstract thinking

Formal Operations Stage (11+)

• Hypothetical/Abstract Thinking

– Can form abstract rules

• Adding 1 to an even number = odd

– Solve problems systematically

• Can plan ahead!

– Appreciate “vague” concepts, like love, fairness, and values.

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Piaget’s Pendulum Problem Dialoguing with Piaget:

What he might have missed

• Underestimated children’s abilities

– Children can pass modified tasks at earlier ages.

• Stage-like progression too rigid

– Conservation & Classification emerge separately

– Training on a task can advance children to the next ‘stage’

• Stages are not cross-culturally universal.

Research since Piaget: Object Permanence Example

• Background: –What is object permanence?

–What is habituation?

–What is the “violation of expectation” task?

–How did Baillargeon demonstrate that infants have object permanence?

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Do infants know more than Piaget thought?

• “Violation of Expectation” Tasks

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• Physical Properties of Objects

– Baillargeon’s rotating drawbridge study (1987)

Habituation

event

Test

events

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Habituation

event

Test

events

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Do infants know more than Piaget thought?

• Physical Properties of Objects/Number – Wynn’s mathematical addition study (1992)

• Uses Violation of Expectation Paradigm

Habituation Event

Do infants know more than Piaget thought?

Test Events

Possible Event Impossible Event

Physical Properties of Objects Wynn’s mathematical addition study (1992)

Uses Violation of Expectation Paradigm Does this mean that babies can do math?

Do infants know more than Piaget thought? Postformal Thought

Giesela Labouvie-Vief

• Relativistic thinking

• Postformal thought

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How Information Is Used: Schaie’s Stages