Theories of Cognitive Development: Piaget and Vygotsky Flashcards
Week 9 (25 cards)
Jean Piaget 1896 - 1980
Background in biology
Interested in how infants progress from reflexive actions to reasoning
Explored the interaction between nature and nurture
Known as a constructivist – believed children actively construct knowledge through experience
Proposed a domain-general theory – development affects all areas of cognition
His theory is stage-based, with distinct, sequential stages of cognitive development
Piagetian Theory: Mechanism of development (basic info from psych 109)
Schema: A child’s knowledge and ways of interacting with the world.
This develops through a process called adaptation, which includes:
Assimilation: Interpreting new experiences in terms of existing schemas.
Accommodation: Modifying existing schemas or creating new ones in response to new experiences.
Equilibration: The dynamic balance between assimilation and accommodation, helping the child build a more accurate and complex understanding of the world.
Sensorimotor substages
Substage 1: Reflexes (Birth - 1 month)
Babies are born with reflexes (like sucking or grasping).
These reflexes become more efficient as babies slightly adjust them.
They can’t combine information from different senses yet (like sight and sound).
Object Understanding:
Babies don’t understand that objects exist outside of themselves.
Sensorimotor substages
Substage 2: Primary Circular reactions (1-4 months)
Babies repeat actions that involve their own body (e.g., sucking thumb).
These actions happen by chance at first but then get repeated.
Primary = focused on the baby’s own body
Circular = repeated over and over
Object Understanding:
If an object disappears, the baby forgets it exists (“out of sight, out of mind”).
Substage 3: Secondary Circular Reactions (4–8 months)
Babies start repeating actions with external objects (e.g., shaking a rattle).
Secondary = involves the outside world
Object Understanding:
Still “out of sight, out of mind,”
But they may search if the object is only partly hidden.
Substage 4: Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions (8–12 months)
Babies start combining actions to solve simple problems
(e.g., push something aside to grab a toy).
Their actions are more organized and purposeful.
Object Understanding:
They understand objects are whole and continue to exist when out of sight.
Will search for fully hidden objects.
May still make mistakes in the A-not-B task (looking in the old hiding spot).
Substage 5: Tertiary Circular Reactions (12–18 months)
Babies experiment by doing things in new ways (e.g., dropping a toy from different heights).
They’re more curious and creative.
Object Understanding:
Can pass the A-not-B task.
Understand that objects exist even when unseen.
But struggle with invisible displacement (e.g., if the object is hidden in one place and moved without them seeing).
Substage 6: Beginning of Thought (18–24 months)
Babies can now think before they act.
They use mental images and symbols (like words) to solve problems.
Example: imagining pulling a blanket to get a toy.
Object Understanding:
Understand invisible movements of objects.
Have a full understanding of object permanence – they know objects continue to exist even when they can’t see or hear them.
Class inclusion
Knowledge can be organized like a hierarchy – from broad categories to more specific ones.
Example:
Class: Animals
Subclasses: Cats, Dogs
Class Inclusion Test:
This checks if a child understands that subclasses are part of a bigger group.
It’s a logical idea: the whole group (animals) is bigger than just one part (like cats).
Which group has more - dogs or cats?
4-7 years old answer correctly (pre-operational stage, stage 2)
Which group has more animals or dogs?
Robust performance by 9 years of age (concrete operational stage, stage 3)
Critiques of Class Inclusion (in Piaget’s theory)
New research shows that things like language can affect how well children do on these tasks.
Piaget may have underestimated children’s abilities.
The questions in these tasks are sometimes confusing or oddly worded.
When the questions are asked more clearly, more children get the right answer.
Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934)
Developed Social Development Theory
Believed children learn through social interaction
Culture and language shape how they think
Called a social constructivist – people build understanding through others
Did not believe in fixed stages of development (unlike Piaget)
Vygotsky: Tools of Thought
Culture shapes how we think and learn
Cultures pass down both:
Physical tools (e.g., spoons, computers)
Mental tools (e.g., language, numbers, memory tricks, music, art, meditation)
Implications of this idea (the “tools” metaphor):
We learn to use tools over time
Learning often happens through observation or guided help from others
Tools are designed for specific tasks and may work well in some situations, but not others
Different cultures use different tools
These tools are passed down across generations
We don’t always use all the tools we have
Every tool has strengths and weaknesses
Vygotsky
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD):
The gap between what a learner can do alone and what they can do with help
Learning is most effective when tasks are challenging but doable (about 80% success)
The ZPD can change with culture and experience
Shows the importance of guided support from others
Intuitive Cosmology:
Hood (1995)- Ball drop, children did search the right location
Is there scientific cvalue asking children things
How children naturally think about the world and universe—like how they imagine where the stars, sun, and earth come from—using their own ideas instead of science.
Younger children have a gravity bias, things usually fall straight down when do drop them. Intuitive physics does not serve them.
Yes
Piaget’s view- used clinical method to investigate children’s thinking
Animism:
Thinking that non-living things (like toys or the sun) have feelings or thoughts.
Egocentrism:
Believing that everyone (even animals or objects) thinks and feels the same way the child does.
Logical Limitations:
Young children (in the preoperational stage) often struggle to understand real physical changes, like how plants grow or how people get sick.
Movement: Spelke, Phillips, & Woodward (1995)
Study with 7-Month-Olds:
Babies watched events involving two cylinders.
Researchers measured how long the babies looked.
Babies looked longer when one cylinder appeared to cause movement without touching the other (action at a distance) — showing surprise.
When cylinders were replaced with people:
Babies’ looking time did not change — they weren’t surprised by action at a distance between people.
Conclusion:
Babies expect different rules for how people and objects move.
They seem to understand that humans can act at a distance, but objects cannot.
Movement:
Massey & Gelman (1988) Study:
3- and 4-year-olds were shown photos and asked if each thing could move up and down a hill by itself.
Photos included:
Mammals (like a sloth)
Non-mammal animals (like a spider)
Statues of animals
Wheeled vehicles (like a bike)
Rigid objects (like an exercise machine)
Findings:
Both age groups knew that non-living things, like statues and machines, can’t move by themselves.
4-year-olds were better at knowing that real animals (even unusual ones like spiders) can move on their own.
Growth Inagaki & Hatano, 1987; Rosengren et al., 1991; Backscheider et al., 1993
Children were asked simple questions like:
Can a baby rabbit stay small forever?
Can a toy car grow into a real car?
If you cut a dog’s hair, will it grow back? What about a table leg?
If a cat has a scratch, will it heal? What about a car with a scratch?
Findings:
Even 3-year-olds understand that living things grow and heal, but non-living things don’t.
They knew animals grow, hair grows back, and scratches on living things heal.
They also knew that cars and tables don’t grow or heal.
Biological Attributes – Gelman & Markman (1986)
3-year-olds were shown two animals that looked different.
One was a dinosaur with cold blood, the other a rhinoceros with warm blood.
Then they were shown a new dinosaur and asked:
Does it have cold blood like the other dinosaur, or warm blood like the rhino?
Findings:
Children chose based on category (both are dinosaurs), not looks.
This shows they used biological knowledge, not just appearance, to make guesses.
Inheritance. pringer (1996) Taylor (1996)
Living things are different from man-made objects (artifacts).
Living things come from other living things (e.g., dogs have puppies).
They inherit traits from their species and parents.
Preschoolers’ Understanding:
Even 4-year-olds know that “like begets like” (e.g., dogs can’t have kittens).
Example question: “Johnny wants his dog to have baby kittens. Can that happen?”
→ 4-year-olds say no.
pringer (1996) – Inheritance Study
Children were told about someone with biological and adoptive parents.
Preschoolers understood that:
Physical traits (like eye color or height) come from biological parents
Personality or preferences (like liking cats more than dogs) often come from adoptive parents or experience
Takeaway:
Even young children can separate inherited traits from learned behaviors.
Taylor (1996) – Inheritance of Gender Traits
4- to 10-year-olds were told stories about:
A boy raised only with girls
A girl raised only with boys
Findings:
Kids under 8 believed in gender stereotypes:
The boy must be good at baseball
The girl must like dolls
Ages 9–10 had a more interactionist view:
The boy might like dolls
The girl might be good at baseball
Takeaway:
Younger kids think gender traits are inborn, but older kids see them as shaped by both nature and experience.
Essentialism
The belief that living things have a deep, unchanging “essence” inside them that makes them what they are — even if their outside appearance changes.
Key Questions from Essentialism:
What is the “essence” of a kiwi fruit?
What exactly gets passed down from parents to children?
Keil (1989) – Discovery Study:
Children were told:
Artifacts: These objects look like keys, but scientists discover they’re made of pennies.
Natural kinds: These animals look like horses, but scientists discover they’re cows inside.
6-year-olds’ responses:
Natural kinds (animals): Kids accepted that they really are cows now → natural kinds change based on what’s “inside.”
Artifacts: Still called them keys → outer function matters more than internal material.
Keil (1989) – Transformation Study:
Children were told:
Artifact: A coffeepot was changed to look like a birdfeeder.
Animal: A raccoon was painted and given a smell to look like a skunk.
6-year-olds’ responses:
Raccoon is still a raccoon (will still have raccoon babies) → natural kinds don’t change easily.
Coffeepot is now a birdfeeder → artifacts can change based on use or appearance.
Takeaway:
Children believe living things have an unchangeable inner nature (essence).
Artifacts depend on how they are used or what they are made for.
Causal Principles with Hume and Kant
Causal Principles with Hume and Kant
Empiricist View (Hume):
David Hume said we learn about cause and effect from observing things happening close together in time and space (contiguity) and things that often happen together (covariation).
But he was skeptical about knowing true “cause,” only noticing patterns from experience.
Rationalist View (Kant):
Immanuel Kant argued that cause and effect is built into our mind—it’s a way our brain organizes experiences to make sense of the world.
We don’t just observe causes; we understand causality through reason, using concepts like mechanism and intervention.
Summary:
Hume: Cause is about what we observe happening together.
Kant: Cause is a mental rule we use to understand what we see.
Correlation and Mechanism
Madole & Cohen
Result: 14-month-olds but not 18-month-olds “surprised” when new
example violates the correlations.
Interpretation:18-month-olds are biased to learn correlations that are
consistent with what they know about mechanisms (e.g., the top part
shouldn’t affect rolling)
Kantian principles as early as 18 months of age
Dynamic Systems Theory
Focuses on how complex systems (like a child’s development) change and grow over time.
The system’s parts are always changing and interacting (dynamic).
Behavior happens because of feedback loops — different parts affect each other, sometimes in complicated ways.
It looks at how different parts of the system work together and coordinate.
Perception (what you sense), action (how you move), and thinking (cognition) are all connected.
For example, how you move affects what you see and hear.
