Piaget’s Theory

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was one of the 20th

centuries most influential researchers in the
area of developmental psychology.

He was a child prodigy who published his

first article in a refereed journal at the age
of 11.
 Piaget’s Theory

Piaget originally trained in the areas of

biology and philosophy.

He was mainly interested in the biological

influences on “how we come to know.”
 Piaget’s Theory

Piaget believed that what distinguishes

human beings from other animals is our
ability to do “abstract symbolic reasoning.”
 Piaget’s Theory

While working in Binet’s test lab in Paris,

Piaget became interested in how children think.

He noticed that young children's answers were

qualitatively different than older children.

This suggested to him that the younger children

were not less knowledgeable but, instead,
answered the questions differently than their
older peers because they thought differently.
 Piaget’s Theory

This implies that human development is

qualitative (changes in kind) rather than
quantitative (changes in amount).
 Piaget’s Theory

There are two major aspects to his theory:

• the process of coming to know and
• the stages we move through as we gradually
acquire this ability.

Piaget’s training as a biologist influenced both

aspects of his theory.
 Process of Cognitive Development

As a biologist, Piaget was interested in how

an organism adapts to its environment
(Piaget described this ability as intelligence.)

Behavior is controlled through mental

organizations called schemes that the
individual uses to represent the world and
designate action.
 Schema (Schemata)

A set of linked mental representation

of the world, which we use both to
understand and respond to situation.

They are building blocks of

knowledge.
 Process of Cognitive Development

Piaget hypothesized that infants are born with

schemes operating at birth that he called
"reflexes."
In other animals, these reflexes control behavior
throughout life.
However, in human beings as the infant uses
these reflexes to adapt to the environment, these
reflexes are quickly replaced with constructed
schemes.
 Assumption
• Children are active and motivated learner .
Children will seek out information to help
them make sense of their world.
• Children construct knowledge from their
experience. The knowledge children acquire
is organised into a schema.
• Children learn through two process
assimilation and accomodation.
 Process of Cognitive Development

Piaget described two processes used by the

individual in its attempt to adapt:
• assimilation and
• accomodation.
Both of these processes are used thoughout life
as the person increasingly adapts to the
environment in a more complex manner.
 Process of Cognitive Development

Assimilation is a cognitive
process that manages how we
Assimilation
take in new information and
incorporate that new
information into our existing
knowledge.
 Process of Cognitive Development

Example : A 2-year-old child

sees a man who is bald on top
Assimilation of his head and has long frizzy
hair on the sides. To his
father’s horror, the toddler
shouts “Clown, clown”
 Process of Cognitive Development

The process of changing

cognitive structures in order
Accomodation
to accept something new
from the environment.
 Process of Cognitive Development
In the “clown” incident, the boy’s
father explained to his son that the
man was not a clown and that even
Accomodation though his hair was like a clown’s,
he wasn’t wearing a funny costume
and wasn’t doing silly things to
make people laugh.
With this new knowledge, the boy
was able to change his schema of
“clown” and make this idea fit
better to a standard concept of
“clown”.
 Process of Cognitive Development

As schemes become increasingly more

complex (i.e., responsible for more complex
behaviors) they are termed structures.
As one's structures become more complex,
they are organized in a hierarchical manner
(i.e., from general to specific).
Stages of cognitive development
The Sensorimotor Stage
Ages: Birth to 2 Years
•The infant knows the world through their movements
and sensations
•Children learn about the world through basic actions
such as sucking, grasping, looking, and listening
•Infants learn that things continue to exist even though
they cannot be seen. Object permanence.
•They are separate beings from the people and objects
around them
•They realize that their actions can cause things to
happen in the world around them
The Preoperational Stage
Ages: 2 to 7 Years
•Children begin to think symbolically and learn to use
words and pictures to represent objects.
•Children at this stage tend to be egocentric and
struggle to see things from the perspective of others.
•While they are getting better with language and
thinking, they still tend to think about things in very
concrete terms.
The Concrete Operational Stage
Ages: 7 to 11 Years

•During this stage, children begin to thinking logically

about concrete events
•They begin to understand that the amount of liquid in a
short, wide cup is equal to that in a tall, skinny glass, for
example
•Their thinking becomes more logical and organized, but
still very concrete
•Children begin using inductive logic, or reasoning from
specific information to a general principle
The Formal Operational Stage
Ages: 12 and Up
•At this stage, the adolescent or young adult begins
to think abstractly and reason about hypothetical
problems
•Abstract thought emerges
•Teens begin to think more about moral,
philosophical, ethical, social, and political issues that
require theoretical and abstract reasoning
•Begin to use deductive logic, or reasoning from a
general principle to specific information
 Criticism
• Piaget concentrated on the universal stages
of cognitive development and biological
maturation, failed to consider effect of
social setting and culture on cognitive
development.
• Piaget’s methods have been criticised
(observation)
• The concept of schema has been criticised
as this cannot be directly observed as it is an
internal process.
 Implication
• A focus on the process of children’s
thinking, not just its products.
• Recognition of the crucial role of
children’s self-initiated, active
involvement in learning activities.
• A deemphasis on practices aimed at
making children adultlike in their
thinking.
• Acceptance of individual differences in
developmental progress.
The End