piaget stages of intellectual development Flashcards
outline some features of piaget’s theory on stages of intellectual development
The stages are fixed and universal, they are age related. As age increases qualitative understanding and ability increases
At what age is the Sensorimotor stage thought to occur
0-2 years
what is the ability of a baby in the Sensorimotor stage
learning through trial and error, physical sensations + gaining co-ordination. understand object permenance - the belief and object still exists when it is out of sight. + understand other people are separate objects and acquire some basic language.
what does research find about the sensorimotor stage
Object permenance develops around 8 months, before this time children will not reach for an object that has been covered up by a blanket and will switch their attention from it.
(AO3) what is some counterevidence for piagets theory of object permenance, and why does it refute it
Baillargeon critisiced piaget and suggested that babies had a better understanding of the physical world than Piaget suggested. She believed that babies might lack the necessary motor skills to pursue a missing object or may lose interest as they are easily distracted. In her research she used a violation of expectation method. 5-6 month old Babies stared at the unexpected event for an average of 33.7 seconds compared to 25.11 seconds at the expected event. This is inferred that babies stared longer at the unexpected event to make sense of what they were seeing, suggesting they having object permenance.
what stage occurs at 2-7 years
pre-operationalised stage
what are the key abilities of a child in the pre-operationalised stage
conservation - belief that an objects mass/volume stays constant despite it’s appearence changing
egocentrism - only seeing the world from your point of view
class inclusion - belief that an object can belong to more than one category
What research by Piaget supports conservation
liquid conservation - piaget found that when 2 identical containers side by side, contents of water at same height the children spotted they contained same volume. If liquid poured into a taller thinner vessel, young children thought it had more water in.
counter- two rose of eight counters, when pushed together children incorrectly said there were fewer counters.
outline piaget’s research that supports egocentrism
found pre-operational children could not identify pictures of the three mountains task from a dolls perspective after it had been positioned on a location of the scene that was different from their own perspective + chose picture that matched the scene from their own POV
(AO3) outline the research by Donaldson that refutes piaget’s theory of conservation
in one condition replicated the standard counter procedure in which children answered wrongly, in another condition a naughty teddy appeared and knocked the counters closer together, 72% correctly said that there were the same number of counters as before. Means that children aged 4-6 could conserve as long as they were not put of by the way they were questioned
(AO3) why does Donaldson’s research refute piaget
suggests piaget was wrong about children not being able to conserve in the pre-operational stage as their poor performance on these tasks was actually down to poorly constructed questions. + perhaps children could conserve at a younger age because the task was more meaningful and active rather than a sterile lab study.
( AO3) outline research by Hughes that refutes piaget
children were shown a model with 4 walls in a cross layout, a boy doll and policeman doll. Policeman doll was placed at different locations and the children were asked to say whether the policeman could see the doll. Was found that 90% of 3 1/2 - 4 year olds could understand 2 viewpoints at a time. Again piaget underestimated.
(AO3) however both research into egocentrism is only a low level test of cognition, why?
both mountains task and police task just tests visual appreciation of what another can see. The method does test egocentrism but is not very sophisticated in that it does not recognise emotional perspective.
outline piaget’s research into class inclusion.
showed 7-8 year olds pictures of 5 dogs and 2 cats, they were asked if there were more dogs or animals. Children tended to respond there were more dogs, meaning younger children cannot see dogs as members of both the animal class and dog class.
(AO3) what research refutes piaget theory of class inclusion and why
siegler found that children of 5 could successfully complete a similar type of task to that done in piagets origional study of given an accurate explanation of class inclusion, suggests the difficulty of piaget’s tasks meant that the children couldnt show they understood class inclusion, when actually they could show this ability on tasks easier to understand.
