Piaget's theory of cognitive development in cognitive psychology

1. Piaget’s Theory of
Cognitive Development

2. Theory of Cognitive Development
 Cognitive Development: the development of thinking, problem
solving, and memory. Cognitive development means how children
think, explore and figure things out. It Jean Piaget developed his
theory from detailed observations of infants and children, most
especially his own three children. He made significant contributions
to the understanding of how children think about the world around
them.
 His theory shifted the commonly held view that children’s thinking
was that of “little adults” toward recognition that it was actually
quite different from adult thinking.

3. Epistemological approach
 Epistemology is the study of knowledge acquisition.
 It is the process of acquiring knowledge about the world.
 Piaget called his general theoretical framework “genetic
epistemology” because he was primarily interested in how knowledge
developed in human organisms.
Piaget took epistemology as the starting point arguing that all
knowledge of the child is generated through interaction with the
environment.

4. cognitive equilibrium
A state of balance between individuals’ mental schemata, or
frameworks, and their environment. Such balance occurs when their
expectations, based on prior knowledge, fit with new knowledge.
Piaget suggested that all intellectual activity is undertaken with one
goal in mind: to produce a balanced relationship between one’s thought
processes and the environment.
Such a balanced state of affairs is called Cognitive Equilibrium, and the
process of achieving it is called ‘Equilibration.’

5. Cognitive Equilibrium
 Piaget stressed that children are active and curious explorers who
are constantly challenged by many novel stimuli and events that are
not immediately understood.
 These imbalances (or cognitive disequilibria) between the children’s
modes of thinking and environmental events prompt them to make
mental adjustments that enable them to cope with puzzling new
experiences and thereby restore cognitive equilibrium.

6. Children as Constructivists
 Piaget described the child as a constructivist—an individual who acts
on novel objects and events and thereby gains some understanding of
their essential features.
 If children are to know something, they must construct that
knowledge themselves.
 Children’s constructions of reality (i.e., interpretations of objects and
events) depend on the knowledge they have available to them.
 the more immature the child’s cognitive system, the more limited
his interpretation of an event.

7.  In Piaget’s view, a child is born with certain genetic traits and as
he/she develops interactions with the environment to construct
his/her own intelligence.
 Piaget’s view has been called “constructivism”.

8. Cognitive Schemes/Structure
 Schemes are the means by which children interpret and organize
experience.
 Schemes are unobservable mental systems that underlie intelligence.
 A scheme is a pattern of thought or action and is most simply
viewed as some enduring knowledge base by which children interpret
their world.
 Schemes, in effect, are representations of reality.
 Children know their world through their schemes.
 Cognition develops through the refinement and transformation of
mental schemes.
 For Piaget, cognitive development is the development of schemes.

9.  Schemas are a way of organizing knowledge, a way of learning, each
relating to one of the world’s aspects, like an object, action or
abstract concept. According to Piaget, schemas are what we use to
understand and respond to situations, ‘building blocks’ of knowledge
that we store and apply when needed.

10. Organization and Adaptation
 all schemes, all forms of understanding, are created through the
workings of two inborn intellectual processes: organization and
adaptation. ORGANIZATION: an inborn tendency to combine and
integrate available schemes into coherent systems or bodies of
knowledge.
 is the process by which children combine existing schemes into new
and more complex intellectual schemes. • For example, an infant
who has “gazing,” “reaching,” and “grasping” reflexes soon organizes
these initially unrelated schemes into a more complex structure—
visually directed reaching—that enables him to reach out and
discover the characteristics of many interesting objects in the
environment.
 Piaget believed that children are constantly organizing whatever
schemes they have into more complex and adaptive structures.

12. ADAPTATION
 The goal of organization: to promote adaptation.
 ADAPTATION: the process of adjusting to the demands of the
environment.
 occurs through two complementary activities:
 1. Assimilation 2. Accommodation •
 assimilation and accommodation work together to promote cognitive
growth.
 They do not always occur equally but assimilations of experiences that
do not go well with existing schemes lead to cognitive conflict and
prompt accommodations to those experiences.
 And the end result is adaptation, a state of equilibrium, or balance,
between one’s cognitive structures and the environment.

13. Assimilation and Accommodation
 Assimilation and Accommodation are two basic components of Jean
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. According to Piaget’s
theory, a child’s intellectual growth is a result of adaptation.
Assimilation and accommodation are two complementary processes
of adaptation.
 The process by which new information is taken into the previously
existing schema is known as assimilation.
 Alteration of existing schemas or ideas as a result of new knowledge
is known as accommodation.

14. What is Assimilation
 Assimilation is an adaptation process by which new information is
taken into the previously existing schema. This is how humans
perceive and adapt to new ideas. Here, the learner fits the new idea
into what he already knows. For example, a small child may have a
schema about a type of animals. The child’s only experience with
dogs is their pet dog, and he knows that dogs have four legs. One
day this child sees another dog. He identifies the new animal as a
dog based on his previous knowledge of his dog. Labeling it as a dog
is an example of assimilating the animal into the child’s dog schema.

16. What is Accommodation
 Accommodation is the process by which pre-existing knowledge is
altered in order to fit in the new information. A new schema might
be created in this process. This happens when the existing knowledge
is not accurate. For example, a child knows that a dog has four legs.
When the child sees a horse for the first time, he calls it dog as it
has four legs. He fits in the new animal with the existing knowledge;
this is assimilation. But an adult points out that it is a horse, not a
dog; then the child alters his knowledge that all four-legged animals
are not dogs.

17.  It is important to note that both assimilation and accommodation
are interrelated processes and are vital to the intellectual growth of
a human.

18. Difference Between Assimilation and
Accommodation
Assimilation Accommodation
Assimilation is a process of adaptation by
which new knowledge is taken into the pre-
existing schema.
Accommodation is a process of adaptation by
which the pre-existing schema is altered in
order to fit in the new knowledge.
In Assimilation, the schema is not changed,
it is only modified.
In Accommodation, the schema is altered; a
new schema may be developed
Assimilation is a slow and gradual process.
Knowledge is gathered for a long time.
Accommodation is a sudden change.
Assimilation happens when there are similar
ideas and concepts
Accommodation happens when there are
conflicting ideas.

19. Piaget vs Vygotsky
cognitive development not affected by culture Vygotsky believed that culture affects cognitive
development.
Piaget would argue for the teacher to provide
opportunities which challenge the children’s
existing schemas and for children to be
encouraged to discover for themselves.
Vygotsky would recommend that teacher's assist
the child to progress through the zone of
proximal development by using scaffolding.
Little emphasis on Sociocultural Strong emphasis
Cognitive development follows universal stages Cognitive development is dependent on social
context (no stages)
The child is a 'lone scientist', develops
knowledge through own exploration
Learning through social interactions. Child builds
knowledge by working with others
Thought drives language development Language drives cognitive development
Provide opportunities for children to learn about
the world for themselves (discovery learning)
Assist the child to progress through the ZPD by
using scaffolding

20. Stages of Cognitive Development
 Piaget proposed that cognition developed through distinct stages from
birth through the end of adolescence. A series of developments that occur
in one particular order because each development in the sequence is a
prerequisite for those appearing later (Invariant Developmental
Sequence).
 By “stages” he meant a sequence of thinking patterns with four key
features:
1. The stages always happen in the same order.
2. No stage is ever skipped because each successive stage builds on the
accomplishments of previous stages.
3. Each stage is a significant transformation of the stage before it.
4. Each later stage incorporated the earlier stages into itself

21. Main points
 Additionally, he was the first psychologist to study ‘theory of mind’ in children
(Papalia & Feldman, 2011). Theory of mind is the understanding or basic sense
that each of us has our own consciousness and thoughts.
 Piaget argued that children’s cognitive development occurs in stages (Papalia &
Feldman, 2011).
 Specifically, he posited that as children’s thinking develops from one stage to
the next, their behavior also changes, reflecting these cognitive developments.
 The stages in his theory follow a specific order, and each subsequent stage only
occurs after the one before it.

22. STAGE 1: Sensorimotor Stage (birth to 2
years)
 The sensorimotor stage is the first phase of children’s cognitive development.
During this stage, children primarily learn about their environment through their
senses and motor activities.
 The sensorimotor stage comprises six substages, where children’s behavior
moves from being reflex driven to more abstract.
1. Use of reflexes (0–1 months)
 During this stage, children typically use their reflexes. They cannot consolidate
information from their sensory organs into a single, unified concept.
 infants’ actions are confined to exercising innate reflexes (e.g., sucking on
blankets and toys).

23. 2.Primary circular reactions (1–4 months)
 Children start to consolidate information from different sensory organs. They
start to engage in behavior that satisfies the way their body feels or their needs.
For example, they repeat pleasurable behaviors, and they adapt their behavior to
feed from different objects. They turn to respond to sounds and sights in their
environment.
 The first non-reflexive schemes emerge at 1 to 4 months of age as infants
discover by chance that various responses that they can emit and control (e.g.,
sucking their thumbs, making cooing sounds) are satisfying and, thus, worth
repeating. For example, a child may suck his or her thumb by accident and then
later intentionally repeat the action. These actions are repeated because the
infant finds them pleasurable
 These simple repetitive acts, called primary circular reactions, are always
centered on the infant’s own body.
 They are called “primary” because they are the first motor habits to appear and
“circular” because they are repetitive. +

24. 3.Secondary circular reactions (4–8 months)
 Children’s behaviors become more intentional, and the types of behaviors that they
repeat expand to include those that result in interesting responses external to their
body. For example, they might push buttons on a toy. Children also start to take
more interest in their environment. They repeat behaviors that generate interesting
responses.
 Infants are discovering (again by chance) that they can make interesting things
happen to objects beyond their own bodies (such as making a rubber duck quack
by squeezing it).
 This sudden interest in external objects indicates that they have begun to
differentiate themselves from objects they can control in the surrounding
environment.
 The secondary circular reaction is not a fully intentional response, because the
interesting result it produces was discovered by chance and was not a purposeful
goal the first time the action was performed.

25. 4. Coordination of secondary schemes (8–12
months)
 At this point, children’s behaviors become more goal oriented, and they can
combine different behaviors to achieve goals.
 infants begin to coordinate two or more actions to achieve simple objectives.
 This is the first sign of goal-directed behavior and true problem solving.
 For example, if you were to place an attractive toy under a cushion, a 9 month-old
might lift the cushion with one hand while using the other to grab the toy.
 Here, the act of lifting the cushion is not a pleasurable response in itself, nor is it
executed by chance. Rather, it is part of a larger intentional scheme in which two
initially unrelated responses— lifting and grasping—are coordinated as a means to
an end.
 Development of Imitation 8 to 12 months- • infants are incapable of imitating
novel responses displayed by a model.

26. 5. Tertiary circular reactions (12–18 months)
 Instead of performing the same actions, children try new behaviors and actions to
achieve different results. These behaviors are not spontaneous or by accident, but are
purposeful. Unlike primary and secondary reactions, children can combine more
complicated behaviors and even perform a behavior similarly but not the same to get
the desired result.
 infants begin to actively experiment with objects and try to invent new methods of
solving problems or reproducing interesting results.
 For example, an infant who had originally squeezed a rubber duck to make it quack
may now decide to drop it, step on it, and crush it with a pillow to see whether these
actions will have the same or different effects on the toy.
 These trial-and-error exploratory schemes, called tertiary circular reactions, reflect
an infant’s active curiosity—his strong motivation to learn about the way things work.
 In Piagetian theory, an infant's action that creatively alters former schemes to fit the
requirements of new situations. Children begin a period of trial-and-error
experimentation during the fifth substage. For example, a child may try out different
sounds or actions as a way of getting attention from a caregiver.
 12 to 18 months- Voluntary imitation (model present) becomes much more precise.

27.  Mental combinations/Symbolic Problem Solving (18–24 months)
 Children start to rely on mental abstractions to solve problems, use gestures and
words to communicate, and can pretend. children begin to use mental images to
represent objects and to engage in mental problem solving. They can use mental
combinations to solve simple problems, such as putting down a toy in order to open
a door. And they get good at pretending.
 infants begin to internalize their behavioral schemes to construct mental symbols,
or images, that they can then use to guide future conduct. • Now the infant can
experiment mentally and may show a kind of “insight” in how to solve a problem.
• Inner Experimentation: the ability to solve simple problems on a mental, or
symbolic level without having to rely on trial-and-error experimentation.
 They can engage in deferred imitation, such as throwing a tantrum after seeing
another child throw one an hour ago.

28.  18 to 24 months- • reproduce the behavior of an absent model, this kind of
imitation is called as Deferred Imitation.

29. Development of Object Permanence
 • Object Permanence: refer to the realization that objects continue to exist
when they are no longer visible or detectable through the other senses. •
Because very young infants rely so heavily on their senses and their motor
skills to “understand” an object, they seem to operate as if objects exist only
if they can be immediately sensed or acted upon.
 1- to 4-month-olds will not search for attractive objects that are hidden from
view. For example, If a watch that interests them is covered by a mug, they
soon lose interest, almost as if they believe that the watch no longer exists or
has been transformed into a mug.
 4-to 8-months-olds will retrieve toys that are partially concealed or placed
beneath a semitransparent cover; but fail to search for objects that are
completely concealed. Therefore, Piaget suggested that, from the infant’s
perspective, disappearing objects no longer exist.

30.  8- to 12-month-olds show A-not-B error which is the tendency to search for a
hidden object where they previously found it even after they have seen it
moved to a new location.
 18-24 months object permanence is achieved.

32. 1. Use of reflexes (0–1 months) Exercising innate reflexes (e.g., sucking on blankets and
toys).
2.Primary circular reactions (1–4 months) first non-reflexive schemes e.g., sucking their thumbs, making
cooing sounds)
3.Secondary circular reactions (4–8 months) Infants are discovering (again by chance) that they can
make interesting things happen to objects beyond their
own bodies (such as making a rubber duck quack by
squeezing it).
4. Coordination of secondary schemes (8–12
months)
• infants begin to coordinate two or more actions to
achieve simple objectives.
• First goal oriented behavior
• For example, if you were to place an attractive toy
under a cushion, a 9 month-old might lift the cushion
with one hand while using the other to grab the toy.
5. Tertiary circular reactions (12–18 months) • trial-and-error exploratory schemes, called tertiary
circular reactions, reflect an infant’s active curiosity—
his strong motivation to learn about the way things
work.
• Creative thinking
6.Symbolic Problem Solving (18–24 months) • use mental combinations to solve simple problems, such
as putting down a toy in order to open a door
• deferred imitation

34. STAGE 2: Preoperational Stage 2 to 7
years)
 operations ( a set of logical rules)
 marked by the appearance of the symbolic function.
 Symbolic Function: the ability to make one thing (a word or an object) stand
for, or represent, something else.
 Representational Insight: the knowledge that an entity can stand for
(represent) something other than itself.
 Pretend Play: Toddlers pretend to be people they are not (mommies,
superheroes), and they may play these roles with props such as a shoe box or
a stick that symbolize other objects such as a baby’s crib or a gun. Thus,
children advance upon their cognitions about people, objects, and actions
through pretend play.

35.  Animism: a willingness to attribute life and lifelike qualities (e.g., motives
and intentions) to inanimate objects. For example: the toys need to stay
home because they are tired.
 Egocentrism: Egocentrism in early childhood refers to the tendency of young children
not to be able to take the perspective of others, and instead the child thinks that
everyone sees, thinks, and feels just as they do. An egocentric child is not able to infer
the perspective of other people and instead attributes his own perspective to situations.
For example, ten year-old Keiko’s birthday is coming up, so her mom takes 3 year-old
Kenny to the toy store to choose a present for his sister. He selects an Iron Man action
figure for her, thinking that if he likes the toy, his sister will too.
 The preoperational child lacks the ability of reality distinction.
 Appearance/Reality Distinction: ability to keep the true characteristics of an
object in mind despite the deceptive appearance the object has assumed.

36.  Centration (centered thinking):
focused on only one characteristic of an object to the exclusion of others. Dad
gave a slice of pizza to 10-year-old Keiko and another slice to 3-year-old
Kenny. Kenny’s pizza slice was cut into five pieces, so Kenny told his sister that
he got more pizza than she did. Kenny did not understand that cutting the pizza
into smaller pieces did not increase the overall amount. This was because
Kenny exhibited Centration
 Preoperational children are incapable of conservation.
 Conservation: the recognition that the properties of an object (such as
volume, mass, or number) do not change when its appearance is altered in
some superficial way.

37.  Preschool children fail to conserve because they lack two cognitive
operations:
 Decentration and Reversibility • Decentration: the ability to concentrate on
more than one aspect of a problem at the same time.

38.  Classification Errors: Preoperational children have difficulty understanding
that an object can be classified in more than one way. For example, if shown
three white buttons and four black buttons and asked whether there are more
black buttons or buttons, the child is likely to respond that there are more black
buttons. They do not consider the general class of buttons. Because children
lack these general classes, their reasoning is typically Transductive, that
is, making faulty inferences from one specific example to another. For example,
Piaget’s daughter Lucienne stated she had not had her nap, therefore it was not
afternoon.
 It the tendency of a child to see a connection between unrelated instances,
using neither deductive nor inductive means to do so.

39.  Reversibility: the ability to reverse, or negate, an action by mentally
performing the opposite action (negation).
 For example: an intuitive 5-year-old faced with the conservation-of-liquids
problem is unable to mentally reverse what he has seen to conclude that the
liquid in the short, broad beaker is still the same water and would attain its
former height if it were poured back into its original container.

40. Shortcoming of this stage
 Children have not yet developed logical (or 'operational') thought characteristic
of later stages.
 Thinking is still intuitive (based on subjective judgements about situations)
 Egocentric (centered on the child's own view of the world).

41. STAGE 3: Concrete-Operational Stage (7
to 11 Years)
 Also known as Logico-Mathematical Stage. children are acquiring cognitive
operations and thinking more logically about real objects and experiences.
Cognitive Operation: is an internal mental activity that enables children to
modify and reorganize their images and symbols to reach a logical conclusion.
With these powerful new operations in their cognitive field, grade-school
children progress far beyond the static and centered thinking of the
preoperational stage. For every limitation of the preoperational child, a
corresponding strength can be seen in the concrete operational stage.

42.  Egocentrism: Children may respond egocentrically at times but are now
much more aware of others’ divergent perspectives. Animism: Children are
more aware of the biological bases for life and do not attribute lifelike
qualities to inanimates. Perception-bound thought/centration: Children can
ignore misleading appearances and focus on more than one aspect of a
situation when seeking answers to a problem (decentration). Conservation,
Reversibility: Children can mentally negate changes they have witnessed to
make before/after comparisons and consider how changes have altered the
situation. Conclusions are now based on logic rather than on the way they
appear to be.

43.  Relational Logic • An important hallmark of concrete-operational thinking is a
better understanding of quantitative relations and relational logic. • Mental
Seriation— the ability to mentally arrange items along a quantifiable dimension
such as height or weight. Transitivity • the ability to recognize relations among
elements in a serial order. • e.g., if A > B and B > C, then A > C
 Conservation
 During this stage, children understand the concept of conservation better and, as a
result, are better at solving conservation problems. Conservation refers to the idea
that things can be the same, even if they look different.
 An example would be a cup of water poured into two glasses. One glass is tall and
thin, while the other is short and wide. Recognizing that both glasses contain the
same amount of water shows an understanding of conservation.

44.  preoperationalChildren struggle with conservation because they can only focus
on one dimension at a time; this is known as centering. For example, with the
volume of liquid, they can only consider the shape of the glass, but not the
shape of the glass and the volume of water.
 They also do not yet understand reversibility. Irreversibility refers to a child’s
inability to reverse the steps of an action in their mind, returning an object to its
previous state. For example, pouring the water out of the glass back into the
original cup would demonstrate the volume of the water, but children in the
preoperational stage cannot understand this.

45.  Sequencing of Concrete Operations • Horizontal decalage: uneven cognitive
performance of child; an inability to solve certain problems even though one
can solve similar problems requiring the same mental operations. • occurs
because problems that appear quite similar may actually differ in complexity.
 children in the concrete operational stage can solve conservation problems. This
is because children now have the following cognitive abilities:
• They understand reversibility (i.e., items can be returned to original states).
• They can decenter (i.e., concentrate on multiple dimensions of items, rather than
just one).
• They better understand identity (i.e., an item remains the same even if it looks
different).

46. formal operational stage.
 At the age of 11, children enter the formal operational stage.
 Abstract thought characterizes this stage. Children can think about abstract
concepts and are not limited to a current time, person, or situation.
 They can think about hypothetical situations and various possibilities, like
situations that don’t exist yet, may never exist, or might be unrealistic and
fantastical.
 During this stage, children are capable of hypothetical-deductive reasoning,
which allows them to test hypotheses and draw conclusions from the results.
Unlike younger children who haphazardly approach problems, children in the
formal operational stage can apply their reasoning skills to apply more
complicated problems in a systematic, logical manner.

47.  STAGE 4: Formal-Operational Stage (11 to 12 Years and Beyond) the
individual begins to think more rationally and systematically about abstract
concepts and hypothetical events. Formal Operations: are mental actions
performed on ideas and propositions. formal-operational thinking is rational,
systematic, and abstract. The formal operator can think in an organized way
about thought and can operate on ideas and hypothetical concepts, including
those that contradict reality.

48.  Hypothetico-Deductive Reasoning • the benchmark of formal operations. • Is
the ability to think hypothetically. • Concrete-operational children can arrive
at a correct conclusion if they are provided with the proper concrete “facts”
as evidence but Formaloperational children are not restricted to thinking
about previously acquired facts; what is possible is more important to them
than what is real. • Can apply the relational logic to abstract signifiers such
as the Xs, Ys, and Zs that is used in algebra.

49.  Thinking Like a Scientist • formal-operational children are able to think
inductively. • Going from specific observations to broad generalizations. •
Inductive reasoning is the type of thinking that scientists display, where
hypotheses are generated and then systematically tested in experiments

50.  Personal and Social Implications of Formal Thought • formal operations may
pave the way for thinking about what is possible in one’s life, forming a stable
identity, and achieving a much richer understanding of other people’s
psychological perspectives and the causes of their behavior. • Formal-
operational thinkers are also better equipped to make difficult personal
decisions that involve weighing alternative courses of action and their
probable consequences for themselves and other people. • formal operators,
who can imagine hypothetical alternatives to present realities, may begin to
question everything, from their parents’ authority to the government’s need
for spending billions of dollars on weapons and the exploration of outer space
when so many people are hungry and homeless.

51.  Indeed, the more logical inconsistencies and other flaws that adolescents
detect in the real world, the more confused they become and the more
inclined they are to become frustrated with or even to display rebellious
anger toward the agents (e.g., parents, the government) thought to be
responsible for these imperfect states of affairs. • Piaget (1970a) viewed this
idealistic fascination with the way things “ought to be” as a perfectly normal
outgrowth of the adolescent’s newly acquired abstract reasoning abilities, and
he thus proclaimed formal operations the primary cause of the “generation
gap.” • formal operators may also develop Imaginary Audience: a result of
adolescent egocentrism. Adolescents believe that everyone around them is as
interested in their thoughts and behaviors as they are themselves.

52.  Jean Piaget’s view on Language and Thought • Concepts/thought helps in the
development of language. • For example, a child would have to have a
concept or mental schema for “mother” before being able to learn the word
“mama.” • Piaget also noticed that preschool children seemed to spend a
great deal of time talking to themselves, even when playing with another
child. • Collective Monologue: Each child would be talking about something
totally unrelated to the speech of the other. Children carrying on their own
separate monologues rather than truly conversing with each other. •
Egocentric Speech: child’s utterances that are nonsocial—that is, neither
directed to others nor expressed in ways that listeners might understand. •
this nonsocial speech is very egocentric (from the child’s point of view only,
with no regard for the listener), • as the child became more socially involved
and less egocentric, these nonsocial speech patterns would reduce.

53.  Animism: a willingness to attribute life and lifelike qualities (e.g., motives
and intentions) to inanimate objects. • For example: The 4-year-old who
believed that the wind blew on him to cool him off. Egocentrism: the
tendency to view the world from one’s own perspective while failing to
recognize that others may have different points of view. The preoperational
child lacks the ability of reality distinction. • Appearance/Reality Distinction:
ability to keep the true characteristics of an object in mind despite the
deceptive appearance the object has assumed.

54.  Centration (centered thinking): the tendency of preoperational children to
attend to one aspect of a situation to the exclusion of others. Preoperational
children are incapable of conservation. • Conservation: the recognition that
the properties of an object (such as volume, mass, or number) do not change
when its appearance is altered in some superficial way. Preschool children
fail to conserve because they lack two cognitive operations: Decentration and
Reversibility • Decentration: the ability to concentrate on more than one
aspect of a problem at the same time. • For example: preoperational children
are unable to attend simultaneously to both height and width when trying to
solve the conservation-of-liquidsproblem.

55.  Reversibility: the ability to reverse, or negate, an action by mentally
performing the opposite action (negation). • For example: an intuitive 5-year-
old faced with the conservation-of-liquids problem is unable to mentally
reverse what he has seen to conclude that the liquid in the short, broad
beaker is still the same water and would attain its former height if it were
poured back into its original container.

56. Important Concepts in Piaget’s Work
 Equilibrium
 Piaget’s background as a biologist influenced some of his work, notably the
concept of ‘equilibrium,’ which resembles homeostasis (Waite-Stupiansky,
2017). He posited that children’s cognitive processes are aimed toward
equilibrium. When children learn new information that is at odds with their
current schemas, they are in an undesirable state of disequilibrium.
 To achieve equilibrium, children adapt their mental instructions by:
1. Assimilating new information
2. Accommodating new information by updating their cognitive schemas
 By achieving equilibrium, children learn new information.

57.  Adaptation
 Adaptation describes how children update their current cognitive organizations and
schemas with new information. Adaptation takes place in two ways: assimilation and
accommodation.
 Assimilation
 Assimilation describes how children incorporate new information into existing
schemas. For example, a child refers to dogs as ‘woofs.’ When they see a cat for the
first time, they refer to the cat as a ‘woof’ too.
 Accommodation
 Accommodation describes how children adapt their cognitive structures to match
new information in the world. Continuing with the previous example, the child
realizes that dogs and cats are different. The child updates their cognitive schema of
the world, and now refers to cats as ‘cats’ and dogs as ‘woofs’.