Piaget's stages of intellectual development Flashcards
What did Piaget suggest about age?
Cognitive ability is age dependent.
What are the 4 stages that Piaget identified?
- Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 yrs).
- Pre-Operational Stage (2-7 yrs).
- Concrete Operations Stage (7-11 yrs).
- Formal Operations Stage (11 yrs+)
What is a lack object permanence?
If they can’t see an object, it doesn’t exist for them anymore.
What is Egocentrism?
Think that everyone sees the same as they do. Can’t see other people’s POV’s.
What is Class-inclusion?
The ability to see that something can be part of two classes simultaneously.
What is Conservation?
Although an object may look different overtime, it is still the same.
Outline the Sensorimotor stage.
-0-2 years old
-Primarily characterised by a lack of object permanence.
(0-8 months=a lack of OP.
8 months+ = have OP)
-Have very limited cognitive ability in this stage.
Evaluate the Sensorimotor stage.
+Supporting evidence from Piaget.
Children up to 5 months didn’t look for object but by 8 months they did because they had object permanence.
However, this has researcher bias.
-Contradictory evidence from Bower and Wishart.
Found that children under 1 month showed surprise that the toy disappeared when behind the screen. Suggesting they have object permanence.
Outline the Pre-Operational Stage.
-2-7 years
-Infants schema becomes more complex and they have the ability to learn and use language.
-Characterised by: egocentrism, lack of class inclusion and lack of conservation.
Outline the Concrete operational stage.
-7-11 years.
-Children no longer show egocentrism and can carry out complex cognition operations that involve conservation and reversibility.
-They can now class include.
-Still lack ability with abstract/reasoning problem solving. (They can only do what they see).
Outline the Formal operations stage.
-11 years+
-Children are thought to have mastered the ability to carry out logical reasoning tasks without the need for examples.
-Can conserve
-Can class include
-Have object permanence.
Give an advantage of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development.
+Great real life applications.
Lots of teaching methods have been developed and educational practices have developed.
Give disadvantages of Piaget’s stages of cognitive development.
-Piaget seems to ignore any other factors and does not account for individual differences in cognitive development.
-Piaget’s methodology can be heavily criticised.
He used a small sample and this could result in biassed results.
It was not a representative sample so can’t be generalised to the wider population.
The supporting evidence is from Piaget himself so has researcher bias.
