L5: C.D Piagets Preoperational Stage Flashcards
(31 cards)
What is the Piaget Preoperational Stage?
The Piaget Preoperational Stage occurs from ages 2 to 7 and involves the development of symbolic thought.
What are mental representations in the context of the Preoperational Stage?
Mental representations are the ability to form internal images of objects and events, which develops at the end of the sensorimotor stage.
What challenges do young children face in the Preoperational Stage?
Young children struggle to differentiate thoughts from reality and assume others share their mental representations.
What is conservation in scientific thinking?
Conservation is the understanding that quantity remains the same despite changes in appearance.
How do preschoolers perceive conservation?
Preschoolers (under 6) believe that a longer row of buttons has more, influenced by appearance rather than logic.
What is the shift that occurs around age 6 in children’s thinking?
Around age 6, children shift from intuitive thinking based on appearance to operational thinking based on logic.
What was the De Vries Cat Study (1969)?
The De Vries Cat Study involved showing a cat named Maynard to children with and without a dog mask to assess their reasoning.
What did 3-year-olds believe in the De Vries Cat Study?
3-year-olds believed that the mask transformed the cat into a different identity, indicating a shift from appearance-based to identity-based reasoning.
What is the main concept of Appearance vs. Reality according to Flavell et al?
Young children struggle to hold two conflicting representations of reality.
What is the example used to illustrate the concept of Appearance vs. Reality?
Milk with a pink filter.
For 1-year-olds: Appearance = Pink, Reality = White. For 3-year-olds: Appearance = Pink, Reality = Pink.
What does the example of the plastic brick demonstrate?
3-year-olds see it looks and is plastic; reality dominates.
This shows their difficulty with dual representation.
What is the main idea of Thought vs. Reality according to Wellman & Estes?
Children can distinguish between real and imaginary objects by age 3.
What are the steps in the Thought vs. Reality experiment?
- Show real balloon 2. Balloon hidden in box 3. Imaginary balloon.
What questions were children asked in the Thought vs. Reality experiment?
Can you see it? Can you touch it? Can others see it? Can thinking affect it?
What conclusion can be drawn about children’s understanding of mental entities?
By age 3, many children can differentiate real from imaginary entities.
Piaget underestimated children’s understanding of mental representation.
What is the Three Mountains Task?
A task where a child is shown a model with three mountains and asked what another person on the opposite side can see.
What did 6-year-olds demonstrate in the Three Mountains Task?
They chose their own view, showing egocentric thinking.
What did 10-year-olds demonstrate in the Three Mountains Task?
They correctly chose the perspective of others.
What conclusion did Piaget draw from the Three Mountains Task?
He concluded that young children are egocentric.
What did later research by Flavell et al. (1978) and Hughes & Donaldson (1974) find about egocentric thinking?
18-month-olds can orient pickers for others, and 2-3 year-olds can hide objects from others.
What ability do 3-year-olds demonstrate in realistic tasks?
They succeed in hiding a character from a policeman.
What is the Theory of Mind (ToM)?
Understanding that others have different beliefs, thoughts, and feelings.
