The document summarizes Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development. It describes his four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. For each stage, it provides examples of cognitive abilities and limitations. It also discusses criticisms of Piaget's theory and assessment tasks used to measure formal operational thought.

2. Psychology 220
Second Assessment
Date: 21st March, 2013
Time: 1-2pm
Place: FoM: Reading Room and ARLT
Lectures From : 14/2 (Properties of Different Memory
covered: Processes)
To: 14/3 (Psychological Development of
Children)

3. How to write and shade student ID in the
computer sheet given for the exam -
For 2008, 2009, 2010 students – Year and last 4 digits
2008 – 082456
2009 – 094536
2010 – 105567
For 2011 students – Year and last 5 digits
2011 – 1115212

4. What is “cognition”?
 Cognition refers to thinking, including language,
learning, memory, and intelligence.
 Jean Piaget (born 1896) was a pioneer in studying
cognitive development in humans.
 More recent research has both validated and extended
Piaget’s ideas about infant’s cognitive abilities.

5. Cognitive Theory
• Cognitive equilibrium—state of mental balance.
• If threatened, how do we achieve equilibrium
again?
• Assimilation: taking new information in by
incorporating it into previous “schemas”
▫ Schemas: theories about how the physical and
social worlds operate (categories)
• Accommodation: requires an adjustment of
previous schemas upon new information

6. Cognitive Theory (cont.)
 Example: A 10 month old learns that a red ball
bounces. If given a blue ball, he will bounce it too
(assimilation). If given a red tomato (which looks like a
red ball), he may try to bounce it. He needs to
accommodate his schema of round, red things.

8. Cognitive Theory
• Jean Piaget’s 4 Stages
▫ sensorimotor
▫ pre-operational
▫ concrete operational
▫ formal operational
YVES DEBRAINE / BLACK STAR

10. Sensorimotor Intelligence (Birth-2yrs)
 Piaget’s first stage of
cognitive development,
characterized by
learning through
senses and motor
actions.
PHOTODISC

11. Sensorimotor Intelligence (Cont.)
 Infants are busy discovering the relationship between
their actions and the consequences of those actions.
 Reflexes- sucking, grasping, staring, listening birth to 1
month.

12.  Assimilation and coordination of reflexes (1-4
months).
Example: An infant sucks a bottle differently than
the mother’s nipple.
 Awareness of things-responding to people and
objects (4-8 months).
 Example: clapping hands when mother says
“patty cake”

13.  Object Permanence (~8 months): the understanding
that an object continues to exists even if it is not
present.
 Active experimentation (12-18 months).
Example: putting a teddy bear in the toilet and then
flushing it.
 Mental combinations (18-24 months)
 Infants can think before taking action, for example,
wondering before flushing remembering that the
toilet overflowed the last time.

14. Preoperational Thought (2-6 yrs)
• Preoperational thought is characterized by:
▫ Egocentrism
▫ Centration
▫ Focus on appearance
▫ Static reasoning
▫ Irreversibility
▫ Lack of conservation

15. Egocentrism
 Egocentrism is the tendency to think about the
world entirely from their own personal
perspective.
 Example: A child tries to comfort his upset
father by giving him a teddy bear.

16. Centration
 Centration is the tendency to focus on one aspect of a
situation to the exclusion of others.
 Example: A child insists that lions and tigers are not
“cats”!
 Example: Insist that “daddy” is a father, not a brother.
 This is a type of egocentrism.

17. Focus on Appearance
 When looking at something, young children tend
to focus only on what is apparent, ignoring other
relevant attributes.
 Example: A girl with a short haircut “must” be a
boy. Or the “taller” child must be “older.”

18. Static Reasoning
 Young children assume the world is unchanging.
 Example: A boy is surprised to learn that “his”
teacher is also someone’s mother!
 If things DO change, they occur totally and
suddenly (e.g., a child “wakes up” tall).

19. Irreversibility
 Irreversibility is the idea that nothing can be
undone. It is the failure to recognize that reversal
of a process can sometimes restore something to
its original state.
 Example: A child refuses to eat a hamburger
that is “contaminated” by lettuce, even after the
lettuce is removed.

20. (Lack of) Conservation
 Conservation is the idea that the amount of a
substance remains the same, despite changes in its
appearance.
 Piaget found that most preoperational thinkers lack
conservation.
 Example: Break a cookie in half, and a young child
might think there are 2 cookies!

23. Tests of Various Types of Conservation

24. A Critique of Piaget’s Theory
 Many of the tasks designed to test stage theories
requires several skills.
Example 1. Object permanence : the infant might know the
object still exists but is unable to show this knowledge
through searching behavior
Example 2. Conservation: When you ask children about
the “aggregate” or collection rather than the individual
items, they are less likely to be influenced by visual
appearance.

25. Piaget’s Third Stage (6-11yrs)
 Concrete operational thought is the ability to
reason logically about direct experiences and
perceptions.
 Children in this stage become more systematic,
objective, and scientific thinkers–but only about
tangible, visible things.

26. Logical Principles
 Classification: organization into groups
according to common property
 Example: Show 5 roses and 2 tulips. Ask, “Are
there more roses or flowers?”
 Kids in middle childhood know that roses are a
subcategory of “flowers.”

27. Essence and Change
 Identity: certain characteristics of an object
remain the same even if other characteristics
change
 Examples: frozen water is still water; a butterfly
was once a caterpillar; liquid in smaller glass is the
same liquid

28. Essence and Change (cont.)
 Reversibility: reversing the process by which
something was changed brings the original
conditions
 Example: if 5 + 9 = 14, then
14 – 9 must equal 5! Also, imagine pouring water
back in conservation task.

29. Essence and Change (cont.)
 Reciprocity is the principle that things may
change in opposite ways, and thus balance each
other out.
 Example: A child states that the decreased height
in the shorter glass is balanced out by its increased
width.

30. Piaget’s Highest Stage
(12yrs- adulthood)
 Adolescents are in Piaget’s 4th stage, formal
operational thought, characterized by:
 logical thought
 hypothetical thought
 abstract thought
 deductive reasoning

31. Inductive Reasoning
 Specific  General
 It consists of making observations and then
drawing conclusions based on those observations
(“bottom-up” thinking).
 Example: All of the swans I have seen in my life
are white in color, therefore, all swans are white.

32. Deductive Reasoning
 General  specific
 You we start with the conclusion and then see if the
evidence for that conclusion is valid. Generally, if
the evidence is valid, the conclusion it supports is
valid as well (“top-down” thinking).
 Example: All oranges are fruits
All fruits grow on trees
Therefore, all oranges grow on trees

34. Formal Operational Tasks
 The Balance Scale Problem
 Mixing
Chemicals

35. Formal Operational Thought
 Adolescents can think about possibilities and
about the future.
 They often question adult values, practices.
 They love to think and discuss life, and are often
idealists.