Piaget Stages of Development Flashcards
(22 cards)
Sensori-Motor Stage
birth to 2 yrs
6 stages
acquiring knowledge through relationship between sensation + motor behaviour
Sensori-Motor Stage 1
Reflective schemas
0-1mths
Integrating reflexa
baby strengthens, generalises and differentiates behaviours that began as reflexes
Sensori-Motor Stage 2
Primary Circular Reaction
1-4mths
Repeated behaviour (habits)
Actions on own body e.g., thumb sucking
accidentally engages in action with interesting outcome; repeats = voluntary control of actions
Sensori-Motor Stage 3
Secondly Circular Reaction
4-8mths
object oriented - repeated actions that influence external world e.g., push ball away
Sensori-Motor Stage 4
Co-ordination of Secondary Schemas
8-12 mths
Emergence goal directed behaviour
Combine secondary circular reactions with intentionality
e.g., push obstacle out of way to grab toy
A not B error
Sensori-Motor Stage 5
Tertiary Circular Reactions
12-18mths
Trial + error exploration of cause and effect relationships - how actions affect object or outcome
e.g., Toy in perspex bos, can only get it out at this stage
Sensori-Motor Stage 6
Symbolic/Representational Thought
12-24 mths
Internal Mental Exploration
symbolic representations = mental and physical interactions
symbols to mentally represent actions, people, info, objects etc
allows for deferred imitation + make-believe play
Object Permanence
Child’s ability to know that objects continue to exist even though they can no longer be seen or heard
Test – object in experimenter hand, experimenter closes hand puts it under cloth, leaves object under cloth and takes hand out;
Clinical Applications
Sensori-motor = child not mini adult; need varied interaction with physical environment
Pre-operational - pre school (manipulation of physical objects; short instructions w/ actions), parenting (avoid too much reasoning, understand limits of children’s thinking)
Concrete - teach concepts sequentially; constructivist approach
Pre-Operational Stage
2-6 years
gains = make believe play; symbolic representation; drawing
limits = pre-logical; centration (egocentrism, conservation, hierarchical classification)
Egocentrism
inability to distinguish between someone else’s perspective and you own
Incomplete differentiation of the self and the world
Conservation
Understanding that physical properties of an object/substance do not change when their outward appearance is altered
why? one dimensional thinking (no decentration, perception bound, static thought, lack capacity to mentally undo)
may be confused in test due to language
Hierarchical Classification
Struggle to categorise objects (sets and subsets) as requires more than one dimentional thinking
Seriation - mentally organising stimuli along a quantitative dimension
Emerging Semi-Logical Reasoning
Pre-Operational Stage
animism - mistake non-living things to have attributes of alive beings
realism - attributing tangible qualities to events of the mind
artificialism - belief that all natural phenomena are products of human engineering
magical thinking - individual attributes experiences and perceptions to unnatural phenomena
Concrete Operational Stage
7-11 years
mental operations on objects but only on objects in their experience of the immediate concrete world
characteristics:
- logical reasoning replaces intuitive reasoning in concrete circumstances
- not abstract; can’t solve theoretical problems (can + and - but not algebra)
- classification skills (can divide into sets + subsets)
Formal Operations Stage
12+ years
Logical mental actions (now on thought/symbols as opposed to objects)
Abtract, idealistic + logical thinking
Hypothetical deductive reasoning (generate hypothesis)
Meta-cognition (thinking about thinking)
Reflection and questioning (meaning of life, religion, motives etc)
Adolescent Thinking
Formal Operations Stage
capacity to consider
- abstract ideas
- the future
- several different perspectives
- relationship between issues and social relationship
Meta-cognition
Criticism of Formal Operations
Universality
- 50% of US adults + 40-60% of uni students fail
-inconsistency across domains (verbal, meths, spatial etc)
Individual Differences
- Relevance
- may only use formal reasoning when we are interested/expert (Vygotsky)
- schooling?culture?context?
Adolescent Egocentrism
Elkind 1976
Piaget says we over egocentrism after concrete and formal operations stages but what about adult egocentrics?
- may be cultural but still denies the universality of Piaget’s theory
Post Formal Operations Stage
no distinct age
Adult Cognitive Functioning - able to see info as relative rather than absolute
relativist thinking - knowledge depends one subjective perspective; flexible thinking and meta-cognition
adaption - contradictions and inconsistencies
Strengths of Piaget’s Theory
recognises central role of cognition through development
modes of thinking underlying overt behaviour
learning = active process
child not mini adult (acknowledges features own child thinking)
Limitations of Piaget Theory
Stages - little support for their structure and evidence they are less coherent than posited
Children vary in readiness - can be trained at higher levels
confounding competence and performance (Piaget has confused these 2; mistaking performance as indication of competence) - Competence - The necessary components = knowledge, processing capacity + mental operations; Performance – factors that determine how competence is expressed in a given situation
underestimate infant ability + over-estimate adolescent cog capacities
methods are culturally based (Western)
insufficient attention to social and emotional aspects of dev
