DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY

Day 2: Piaget & COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

John LOCKE

¨ Proposed that when children are born they are “ ”

key name 16

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“_____________” = blank slate

Jean PIAGET

¨ Constructed a stage theory of Cognitive Development

¨ Observed that children think differently than adults

key name 18

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Piaget & Cognitive Development

SCHEMA A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information

Assimilation Accommodation Make new

information fit into existing schemas

Adjust your schema to fit new

information

SCHEMA

Assimilation Make new information fit into existing schemas

“Heart” =

Accomodation Adjusting your schema to fit new information

ASSIMILATION vs. ACCOMMODATION

Assimilation When a student downloads music by an artist that is already on the iPod, this can be compared to assimilation (adding a new bit of info to an existing schema).

Accommodation When a student downloads music by a new artist, this can be compared to accommodation (creating a new 'folder' is like building a new schema)

SCHEMA

Assimilation Make new information fit into existing schemas

“Dum Dum Activity"

Accommodation Adjusting your schema to fit new information

Look at the list of methods you used to “suck on” your lollipop.

Did you really just suck on it, or did you do other things?

If so, how has your schema of “sucking on” a lollipop changed (if at all). Would this be assimilation or accommodation?

GENDER SCHEMA A concept or framework that organizes and interprets information about what it means to

be a boy or a girl

How do we develop our gender schemas?

Piaget’s 4 Stages of Cognitive Development

Lack object permanence (until about age 8-10 months) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ue8y-JVhjS0)

Sensorimotor Birth – 2 years s t a g e 1

Develop separation anxiety at about 12 months. Stanger anxiety also occurs in this stage.

Preoperational 2 – 6 years

Piaget’s 4 Stages of Cognitive Development

Egocentric (which does not (in Piagetian thought) mean selfishness, but rather the inability to take another's perspective or even to recognize that others have different perspectives and points of view.)

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OinqFgsIbh0)

s t a g e 2

Use of symbols (especially language; difficulty using more than one category) (http://vsx.onstreammedia.com/vsx/pbssaf/search/search?query=69152&query_op=eq&query_field=VIR_ASSET_ID_FIELD)

Representational thought

Role Playing

Animism, or the tendency to attribute psychological properties to inanimate

objects.

Animism

¨  Giving animal qualities to inanimate objects

Piaget’s 4 Stages of Cognitive Development

By age 7, develop law of conservation (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLj0IZFLKvg)

Concrete 6 – 12 years s t a g e 3

Can sort objects into multiple categories (color & size, for example)

Children (age 6-12) gain a fuller understanding of conservation and other mental operations that allow them to think logically, but only about concrete events.

Tests of Conservation

Piaget’s 4 Stages of Cognitive Development

The child (12-adult) gains the capacity for hypothetical-deductive (“What if” scenarios) thought

¤ Can engage in hypothetical thought and in systematic deduction and testing of hypotheses

Formal 12 years - adult s t a g e 4

¨  In one scientific thinking task, the child is shown several flasks of what appear to be the same clear liquid and is told one combination of two of these liquids would produce a clear liquid. The task is to determine which combination would produce the blue liquid

¤  The concrete operational child just starts mixing different clear liquids together haphazardly

¤  The formal operational child develops a systematic plan for deducing what the correct combination must be by determining all of the possible combinations and then systematically testing each one

Formal 12 years - adult

Evaluation of Piaget’s Theory

¨  Recent research has shown that rudiments of many of Piaget’s key concepts (e.g., object permanence) may begin to appear at earlier stages than Piaget proposed

¤  For example, research that involved tracking infants’ eye movements has found that infants as young as 3 months continue to stare at the place where the object disappeared from sight, indicating some degree of object permanence

Evaluation of Piaget’s Theory

1.  Not all people reach formal operational thought

2.  The theory may be biased in favor of Western culture

3.  There is no real theory of what occurs after the onset of adolescence

4.  Despite refinements, recent research has indeed shown that cognitive development seems to proceed in the general sequence of stages that Piaget proposed

PIAGET’S STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT