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1. Developmental Psychology

2. Piaget

Jean Piaget's Theory of

Cognitive Development
By Saul McLeod, updated 2018

Piaget's (1936) theory of cognitive development explains how a child

constructs a mental model of the world. He disagreed with the idea
that intelligence was a fixed trait, and regarded cognitive
development as a process which occurs due to biological maturation
and interaction with the environment.
Piaget was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, where his job
was to develop French versions of questions on English intelligence
tests. He became intrigued with the reasons children gave for their
wrong answers to the questions that required logical thinking. He
believed that these incorrect answers revealed important differences
between the thinking of adults and children.
Piaget (1936) was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of
cognitive development. His contributions include a stage theory of
child cognitive development, detailed observational studies of
cognition in children, and a series of simple but ingenious tests to
reveal different cognitive abilities.
What Piaget wanted to do was not to measure how well children could
count, spell or solve problems as a way of grading their I.Q. What he
was more interested in was the way in which fundamental concepts
like the very idea of number, time, quantity, causality, justice and so
on emerged.
Before Piaget’s work, the common assumption in psychology was that
children are merely less competent thinkers than adults. Piaget
showed that young children think in strikingly different ways
compared to adults.
According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental
structure (genetically inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent
learning and knowledge are based.

Piaget's Theory Differs From

Others In Several Ways:
▪ It is concerned with children, rather than all learners.
▪ It focuses on development, rather than learning per se, so it does
not address learning of information or specific behaviors.
▪ It proposes discrete stages of development, marked by qualitative
differences, rather than a gradual increase in number and complexity
of behaviors, concepts, ideas, etc.
The goal of the theory is to explain the mechanisms and processes by
which the infant, and then the child, develops into an individual who
can reason and think using hypotheses.
To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of
mental processes as a result of biological maturation and
environmental experience.
Children construct an understanding of the world around them, then
experience discrepancies between what they already know and what
they discover in their environment.

There Are Three Basic Components To

Piaget's Cognitive Theory:
1. Schemas

(building blocks of knowledge).

 2. Adaptation processes that enable the transition from one stage
to another (equilibrium, assimilation, and accommodation).

3. Stages of Cognitive Development:

o sensorimotor,
o preoperational,
o concrete operational,
o formal operational.

Schemas
Imagine what it would be like if you did not have a mental model of
your world. It would mean that you would not be able to make so
much use of information from your past experience or to plan future
actions.
Schemas are the basic building blocks of such cognitive models, and
enable us to form a mental representation of the world. Piaget (1952,
p. 7) defined a schema as:
"a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component
actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core
meaning."
In more simple terms Piaget called the schema the basic building
block of intelligent behavior – a way of organizing knowledge. Indeed,
it is useful to think of schemas as “units” of knowledge, each relating
to one aspect of the world, including objects, actions, and abstract
(i.e., theoretical) concepts.
Wadsworth (2004) suggests that schemata (the plural of schema) be
thought of as 'index cards' filed in the brain, each one telling an
individual how to react to incoming stimuli or information.
When Piaget talked about the development of a person's mental
processes, he was referring to increases in the number and
complexity of the schemata that a person had learned.
When a child's existing schemas are capable of explaining what it can
perceive around it, it is said to be in a state of equilibrium, i.e., a state
of cognitive (i.e., mental) balance.
Piaget emphasized the importance of schemas in cognitive
development and described how they were developed or acquired. A
schema can be defined as a set of linked mental representations of the
world, which we use both to understand and to respond to situations.
The assumption is that we store these mental representations and
apply them when needed.
For example, a person might have a schema about buying a meal in a
restaurant. The schema is a stored form of the pattern of behavior
which includes looking at a menu, ordering food, eating it and paying
the bill. This is an example of a type of schema called a 'script.'
Whenever they are in a restaurant, they retrieve this schema from
memory and apply it to the situation.
The schemas Piaget described tend to be simpler than this - especially
those used by infants. He described how - as a child gets older - his or
her schemas become more numerous and elaborate.
Piaget believed that newborn babies have a small number of innate
schemas - even before they have had many opportunities to
experience the world. These neonatal schemas are the cognitive
structures underlying innate reflexes. These reflexes are genetically
programmed into us.
For example, babies have a sucking reflex, which is triggered by
something touching the baby's lips. A baby will suck a nipple, a
comforter (dummy), or a person's finger. Piaget, therefore, assumed
that the baby has a 'sucking schema.'
Similarly, the grasping reflex which is elicited when something
touches the palm of a baby's hand, or the rooting reflex, in which a
baby will turn its head towards something which touches its cheek,
are innate schemas. Shaking a rattle would be the combination of two
schemas, grasping and shaking.

Assimilation and
Accommodation
Jean Piaget (1952; see also Wadsworth, 2004) viewed intellectual
growth as a process of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This
happens through:

 Assimilation
– Which is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or
situation.

 Accommodation
– This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not
work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or
situation.

 Equilibration
– This is the force which moves development along. Piaget
believed that cognitive development did not progress at a steady
rate, but rather in leaps and bounds.

Equilibrium occurs when a child's schemas can deal with most

new information through assimilation. However, an unpleasant
state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be
fitted into existing schemas (assimilation).
Equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as we
do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by
mastering the new challenge (accommodation). Once the new
information is acquired the process of assimilation with the new
schema will continue until the next time we need to make an
adjustment to it.

Example of Assimilation
A 2-year-old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has
long frizzy hair on the sides. To his father’s horror, the toddler shouts
“Clown, clown” (Siegler et al., 2003).
Example of Accommodation
In the “clown” incident, the boy’s father explained to his son that the
man was not a clown and that even though his hair was like a clown’s,
he wasn’t wearing a funny costume and wasn’t doing silly things to
make people laugh.
With this new knowledge, the boy was able to change his schema of
“clown” and make this idea fit better to a standard concept of
“clown”.

Piaget's 4 Stages of Cognitive

Development
Piaget proposed four stages of cognitive development which reflect
the increasing sophistication of children's thought:
1. Sensorimotor stage (birth to age 2)
2. Preoperational stage (from age 2 to age 7)
3. Concrete operational stage (from age 7 to age 11)
4. Formal operational stage (age 11+ - adolescence and adulthood).
Each child goes through the stages in the same order, and child
development is determined by biological maturation and interaction
with the environment.
Although no stage can be missed out, there are individual differences
in the rate at which children progress through stages, and some
individuals may never attain the later stages.
Piaget did not claim that a particular stage was reached at a certain
age - although descriptions of the stages often include an indication of
the age at which the average child would reach each stage.
Sensorimotor Stage (Birth-2 yrs)
The main achievement during this stage is Object Permanence -
knowing that an object still exists, even if it is hidden.
It requires the ability to form a mental representation (i.e., a schema)
of the object.
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)
During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically.
This is the ability to make one thing - a word or an object - stand for
something other than itself.
Thinking is still egocentric, and the infant has difficulty taking the
viewpoint of others.
Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)
Piaget considered the concrete stage a major turning point in the
child's cognitive development because it marks the beginning of
logical or operational thought.
This means the child can work things out internally in their head
(rather than physically try things out in the real world).
Children can conserve number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age
9). Conservation is the understanding that something stays the same
in quantity even though its appearance changes.
Formal Operational Stage (11 years and over)
The formal operational stage begins at approximately age eleven and
lasts into adulthood. During this time, people develop the ability to
think about abstract concepts, and logically test hypotheses.

Educational Implications
Piaget (1952) did not explicitly relate his theory to education,
although later researchers have explained how features of Piaget's
theory can be applied to teaching and learning.
Piaget has been extremely influential in developing educational policy
and teaching practice. For example, a review of primary education by
the UK government in 1966 was based strongly on Piaget’s theory.
The result of this review led to the publication of the Plowden
report (1967).
Discovery learning – the idea that children learn best through doing
and actively exploring - was seen as central to the transformation of
the primary school curriculum.
'The report's recurring themes are individual learning, flexibility in
the curriculum, the centrality of play in children's learning, the use of
the environment, learning by discovery and the importance of the
evaluation of children's progress - teachers should 'not assume that
only what is measurable is valuable.'
Because Piaget's theory is based upon biological maturation and
stages, the notion of 'readiness' is important. Readiness concerns
when certain information or concepts should be taught. According to
Piaget's theory children should not be taught certain concepts until
they have reached the appropriate stage of cognitive development.
According to Piaget (1958), assimilation and accommodation require
an active learner, not a passive one, because problem-solving skills
cannot be taught, they must be discovered.
Within the classroom learning should be student-centered and
accomplished through active discovery learning. The role of the
teacher is to facilitate learning, rather than direct tuition. Therefore,
teachers should encourage the following within the classroom:
o Focus on the process of learning, rather than the end product of
it.
o Using active methods that require rediscovering or
reconstructing "truths."
o Using collaborative, as well as individual activities (so children
can learn from each other).
o Devising situations that present useful problems, and create
disequilibrium in the child.
o Evaluate the level of the child's development so suitable tasks can
be set.

Critical Evaluation
Support
 The influence of Piaget’s ideas in developmental psychology has
been enormous. He changed how people viewed the child’s world
and their methods of studying children.

He was an inspiration to many who came after and took up his

ideas. Piaget's ideas have generated a huge amount of research
which has increased our understanding of cognitive development.

 His ideas have been of practical use in understanding and

communicating with children, particularly in the field of education
(re: Discovery Learning).

Criticisms
 Are the stages real? Vygotsky and Bruner would rather not talk
about stages at all, preferring to see development as a continuous
process. Others have queried the age ranges of the stages. Some
studies have shown that progress to the formal operational
stage is not guaranteed.

For example, Keating (1979) reported that 40-60% of college

students fail at formal operation tasks, and Dasen (1994) states
that only one-third of adults ever reach the formal operational
stage.

 Because Piaget concentrated on the universal stages of cognitive

development and biological maturation, he failed to consider the
effect that the social setting and culture may have on cognitive
development.

Dasen (1994) cites studies he conducted in remote parts of the

central Australian desert with 8-14 year old Aborigines. He gave
them conservation of liquid tasks and spatial awareness tasks. He
found that the ability to conserve came later in the aboriginal
children, between aged 10 and 13 ( as opposed to between 5 and
7, with Piaget’s Swiss sample).
However, he found that spatial awareness abilities developed
earlier amongst the Aboriginal children than the Swiss children.
Such a study demonstrates cognitive development is not purely
dependent on maturation but on cultural factors too – spatial
awareness is crucial for nomadic groups of people.
 Vygotsky, a contemporary of Piaget, argued that social interaction
is crucial for cognitive development. According to Vygotsky the
child's learning always occurs in a social context in co-operation
with someone more skillful (MKO). This social interaction provides
language opportunities and language is the foundation of thought.

 Piaget’s methods (observation and clinical interviews) are more

open to biased interpretation than other methods. Piaget made
careful, detailed naturalistic observations of children, and from
these he wrote diary descriptions charting their development. He
also used clinical interviews and observations of older children
who were able to understand questions and hold conversations.

Because Piaget conducted the observations alone the data

collected are based on his own subjective interpretation of events.
It would have been more reliable if Piaget conducted the
observations with another researcher and compared the results
afterward to check if they are similar (i.e., have inter-rater
reliability).
Although clinical interviews allow the researcher to explore data
in more depth, the interpretation of the interviewer may be
biased. For example, children may not understand the question/s,
they have short attention spans, they cannot express themselves
very well and may be trying to please the experimenter. Such
methods meant that Piaget may have formed inaccurate
conclusions.

 As several studies have shown Piaget underestimated the abilities

of children because his tests were sometimes confusing or difficult
to understand (e.g., Hughes, 1975).

Piaget failed to distinguish between competence (what a child is

capable of doing) and performance (what a child can show when
given a particular task). When tasks were altered, performance
(and therefore competence) was affected. Therefore, Piaget might
have underestimated children’s cognitive abilities.
For example, a child might have object permanence (competence)
but still not be able to search for objects (performance). When
Piaget hid objects from babies he found that it wasn’t till after
nine months that they looked for it. However, Piaget relied on
 manual search methods – whether the child was looking for the
object or not.
Later, research such as Baillargeon and Devos (1991) reported
that infants as young as four months looked longer at a moving
carrot that didn’t do what it expected, suggesting they had some
sense of permanence, otherwise they wouldn’t have had any
expectation of what it should or shouldn’t do.

 The concept of schema is incompatible with the theories of Bruner

(1966) and Vygotsky (1978). Behaviorism would also refute
Piaget’s schema theory because is cannot be directly observed as
it is an internal process. Therefore, they would claim it cannot be
objectively measured.
 Piaget studied his own children and the children of his colleagues
in Geneva in order to deduce general principles about the
intellectual development of all children. Not only was his sample
very small, but it was composed solely of European children from
families of high socio-economic status. Researchers have therefore
questioned the generalisability of his data.
 For Piaget, language is seen as secondary to action, i.e., thought
precedes language. The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978)
argues that the development of language and thought go together
and that the origin of reasoning is more to do with our ability to
communicate with others than with our interaction with the
material world.

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APA Style References

Baillargeon, R., & DeVos, J. (1991). Object permanence in young
infants: Further evidence. Child development, 1227-1246.
Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge,
Mass.: Belkapp Press.
Dasen, P. (1994). Culture and cognitive development from a Piagetian
perspective. In W .J. Lonner & R.S. Malpass (Eds.), Psychology and
culture (pp. 145–149). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.
Hughes , M. (1975). Egocentrism in preschool children. Unpublished
doctoral dissertation. Edinburgh University.
Inhelder, B., & Piaget, J. (1958). The growth of logical thinking from
childhood to adolescence. New York: Basic Books.
Keating, D. (1979). Adolescent thinking. In J. Adelson (Ed.), Handbook
of adolescent psychology (pp. 211-246). New York: Wiley.
Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child. London: Routledge
& Kegan Paul.
Piaget, J. (1936). Origins of intelligence in the child. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Piaget, J. (1945). Play, dreams and imitation in childhood. London:
Heinemann.
Piaget, J. (1957). Construction of reality in the child. London:
Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Piaget, J., & Cook, M. T. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children.
New York, NY: International University Press.
Siegler, R. S., DeLoache, J. S., & Eisenberg, N. (2003). How children
develop. New York: Worth.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher
psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Wadsworth, B. J. (2004). Piaget's theory of cognitive and affective
development: Foundations of constructivism. New York: Longman.
Plowden, B. H. P. (1967). Children and their primary schools: A
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Further Information
Sensorimotor Stage Object PermanencePreoperational

StageConcrete Operational StageFormal Operational

StageConstructivismBBC Radio Broadcast about the Three

Mountains Study Cognitive Development (Book Chapter) Piaget:

Cognitive Development Theory

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How to reference this article:
McLeod, S. A. (2018, June 06). Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive
development. Retrieved from
https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html

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Article Content
Introduction SchemasAssimilation & AccommodationPiaget

Stages of Cognitive DevelopmentEducational ImplicationsCritical

EvaluationReferences

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Stages of Development
Sensorimotor Stage Preoperational StageConcrete Operational

StageFormal Operational Stage

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