Introduction to Lifespan

Psychology
Chapter 3
 Piaget's theory of cognitive
development
• OVERVIEW
Processes of Development
Schemes
Assimilation
Accommodation
Organization
Equilibrium
Equilibration
Stages of development
Sensorimotor stage &substages
Preoperational stage
Concrete operational stage
Formal operational stage
Piaget and education
Evaluating Piaget's theory
 Processes of Development
• Schemes- mental representations that organize
knowledge
• Behavioral schemes (physical activities)- infancy
• Mental schemes (cognitive activities) childhood
• baby's schemes are structured by simple actions
performed on objects- sucking, looking,
grasping.
• Older children- strategies and plans for solving
problem
• Assimilation- children use existing
schemes to deal with new information or
experiences.
• Car- all moving vehicles, sucking all
objects
• Accommodation- adjust their schemes to
take new information and experiences.
• Eg: motorcycle are not cars, sucking only
specific objects
• Organization- grouping of isolated
behaviors and thoughts into a higher order
system
• After learning how to use hammer,
organizes this knowledge to learn other
tools
• Disequilibrium- inconsistencies and
counter examples to his or her existing
schemes
• movement between states of cognitive
equilibrium and disequilibrium as
assimilation and accommodation work to
produce cognitive change.
• equilibration- children shift from one stage
of thought to the next
• As a result, individuals go through four
stages of development
• Sensorimotor
• Preoperational stage
• Operational stage
• Concrete operational stage
 Sensorimotor stage
• birth to about 2 years
• Understanding of world= sensory
experiences+physical, motoric actions
• 6 substages
 simple reflex
• first month after birth
• sensation and actions are coordinated
through reflexive behavior- rooting and
sucking
• Absence of usual stimulus for reflex- infant
produce behavior
• New born suck nipple when placed in
mouth then when placed nearby
 first habits and primary circular
reaction
• 1-4 months
• Habit is a scheme based on a reflex that has become
completely separated from its eliciting stimulus. sucking
habit even when no bottle is present.
• Circular reaction- repetitive action
• Primary circular reactions- scheme based on the attempt
to reproduce an event that initially occurred by chance.
Eg. infant accidentally sucks his fingers when placed
near his mouth. searches for fingers to suck. own body-
center of attention.
• habits and circular reactions are serotyped.
 secondary circular reactions
• 4-8 months
• object oriented
• action repeated because of their
consequences. Eg: shaking a rattle.
 Coordination of secondary circular
reactions
• 8-12 months
• coordinate vision, touch, hand and eye
• outwardly directed
• combine and recombine previously
learned schemes
• look at object, grasp it, manipulate stick to
reach toy
 tertiary circular reactions, novelty
and curiosity
• 12-18 months
• infant purposely explores new possibilities
with objects, continually doing new things
to them and exploring the results.
• marks the starting point for curiosity and
interest in novelty
 internalization of schemes
• 18-24 months
• symbol- internalized sensory image or
word that represent an event
• think about concrete events without
directly acting them out or perceiving them
• match box- open, close
• Object permanence- understanding that
objects continue to exist even when they
cannot be seen, heard or touched
Evaluation of Piaget's sensorimotor
stage
• A not B error- an important feature in
progression to substage 4- coordination of
secondary circular reaction.
• toy hidden in B while child is watching-
searches at A
• Failure in memory
• Linked to attention
 Perceptual development and
expectations
• infants expect objects to be solid and
continuous
• 4 months- expect objects not to obey
gravitational constraints
• 3-4 month- substantial (other objects
cannot move through them) and
permanent ( objects continue to exist
when they are hidden)
 Nature-nurture issue
• Core knowledge approach- infants are
born with domain-specific innate
knowledge systems
• infant have spent time to know about world
 Conclusions
• Piaget was not specific about how infants
learn about their world
• Young infants are more competent
 Preoperational stage
• 2-7 years
• child begin to represent world in words, images
and drawings.
• form stable concepts and begin to reason
• egocentrism and magical beliefs
• does not yet perform operations- reversible
mental actions that allow children to do mentally
what they previously could do only physically.
• 2 substages- symbolic function substage,
intuitive thought
 Symbolic function substage
• 2-4 years
• ability to mentally represent an object that
is not present.
• use scribble design to represent people,
clouds, cars.
• Egocentrism- inability to distinguish one's
own perspective and someone else's
perspective
• Animism- belief that inanimate object have
lifelike qualities and are capable of action.
 Intuitive thought substage
• 4-7 years
• primitive reasoning and want to know the
answers to all sorts of questions
• intuitive- sure about their knowledge and
understanding but unaware of how they
know what they know. they know without
rational knowledge.
 centration and limits
• centration- centering of attention on one
characteristic to the exclusion of all others.
• lack of conservation- awareness that
altering an object's or a substance's
appearance does not change its basic
properties.
• amount of c;la= ball clay= stick shape
• fail to conserve number, matter and length
 Concrete operational stage
• 7-11 years
• can perform concrete operations, reason
logically to specific / concrete examples
• Coordinates information about both dimensions-
Person can be father, grandfather, uncle,
husband
• Seriation- ability to order stimuli along a
quantitative dimensions
• Transivity- ability to logically combine relations to
reach certain conclusions (ABC decreasing
order, A is taller than C)
 Formal operational stage
• 11-15 years
• beyond concrete and think in abstract and
more logical ways
 Abstract, idealistic and logical
thinking
• operational thinker needs to see concrete
elements.
• formal operational thinker- mental representation
• increased tendency to think about thought itself
• Begin to speculate about ideal characteristics
• hypothetical-deductive reasoning
• Assimilation dominated - accommodation
• 1/3
 Adolescent egocentrism
• heightens self consciousness in belief that
others are interested in them as they are
themselves and in their sense of p[personal
uniqueness and invincibility
• Imaginary audience- one is the center of
everyone's attention and sensing that one is on
stage.
• personal fable-sense of uniqueness (none can
understand them) and invincibility
• uniqueness- depression
• invincibility- risky behaviors
• Danger invulnerability- indestructibility,
take physical risks (juvenile delinquency,
substance abuse)
• Psychological invulnerability- related to
personal or psychological distress (less
depressed, high self esteem, better IPR)
 Applying and evaluating piaget's
theory
• take a constructivist approach- active, seek
solution themselves
• Facilitate rather than direct learning- lean by
doing
• Consider child's knowledge and level of thinking-
examine children's mistakes in thinking, respond
in student's level.
• promote the student's intellectual health-learning
occur naturally
• turn the classroom into a setting of exploration
and discovery
 evaluating Piaget's theory
• piaget's contributions
• Criticism of piaget's theory
• Estimates of children's competency
• Stages
• Effects of training
• Culture and education
• An alternative view- needs revision, emphasis to
how children use attention, memory and
strategies to process information
 Vygotsky's theory of cognitive
development
• Social creatures
• depends on society and minds shaped by
cultural context
 Zone of proximal development
• range of tasks that are too difficult for the child to master
alone but that can be learned with guidance and
assistance from adults or more skilled children.
• Lower limit of ZPD- level of skill reached by the child
working independently
• Upper limit of ZPD- level of additional responsibility the
child can accept with assistance of an able instructor
• Buds or flowers
• Fruits- accomplish independently
• ZPD- enhanced by factors such as better emotion
regulation, secure attachment, absence of maternal
depression and child compliance.
 Scaffolding
• Changing the level of support
• learning new task- direct instruction
• competence increases- less guidance
• Dialogue- important tool
• unsystematic, disorganized, spontaneous
concepts- dialogue- systematic, logical
and rational
 language and thought
• speech - social communication, solving
problems
• private speech- language to plan, guide
and monitor their behavior (self regulation)
• Piaget- private speech - egocentric and
immature
• Vygotsky- tool of thought
• language and thought develop
independently and merge
• communicate externally for long time
• 3-7 years external to internal speech
• self talk becomes second nature
• internalized their egocentric speech in the
form of inner speech which become
thoughts
• private speech- socially competent,
socially communicative, attentive,
improved performance
 Teaching strategies
• use the child's ZPD in teaching- begin near the Zone's
upper limit, just enough assistance. hesitates offer
encouragement
• more skilled peers as teachers
• monitor and encourage children's use of private speech
• place instruction in a meaningful context
• transform classroom with vygotskian ideas- tools of the
mind program- dramatic play, field visit, play plan
• Scaffolding writing- drawing line to stand for each word,
repeats the message, pointing to each line as they say
the word
 evaluating Vygotsky's theory
• social constructivist approach- social
contexts of learning and the construction
of knowledge through social interaction
• PIAGET • VYGOTSKY
• individual • collaboration, social interaction
• formal operational thought and sociocultural activity
• construct knowledge by • differs depending on which
transforming, organizing and skills are considered to be
reorganizing previous important in a particular culture
knowledge • construct knowledge through
• children need support to social interaction
explore their world and • need many opportunities to
discover knowledge learn with teacher and more-
• facilitators and guides rather skilled peers
than directors or molders • facilitators and guides rather
than directors or molders
 Criticism
• not specific about age-related changes
• not adequately describing how changes in
socio-emotional capabilities contribute to
cognitive development
• overemphasized the role of language in
thinking
• emphasis on collaboration and guidance
has pitfalls
Cognitive changes in adulthood
• Piaget's view
• Formal operational stage- 11-15 abstract,
idealistic and logical
• adults and adolescents use the same type
of reasoning
realistic and pragmatic thinking
• world of work, idealism decreases
• Schaie acquiring knowledge to applying
knowledge
reflective and relativistic thinking
• Perry - world in terms of polarities
• absolutist, dualistic thinking - reflective,
relativistic thinking
• reflective thinking-0 cognitive change in
young adults
 Cognition and emotion
• emotional maturity affects cognitive
development
• negative emotions affect thinking leading
to distorted and self serving conclusions
• high in empathy, flexibility and autonomy-
engage in complex, integrated cognitive-
emotional thinking
• middle adulthood- ability to think
cognitively and emotionally balanced,
advanced manner increases
 post formal stage
• reflective, relativistic, contextual-answer to
problem require reflective thinking, varies
from one situation to another, increases
and become smore internal, less
contextual in middle age.
• provisional- truth as on going and never
ending process
• realistic- cannot always be abstract
• recognised as being influenced by emotion
Cognitive stages in middle and late
adulthood
• quantitate changes
• Fluid intelligence- person's ability to reason abstractly,
decreased in middle na and late adulthood.
• Crystallized intelligence- accumulated information and
verbal skills, increases
• Cognitive mechanics- biological foundations and brain
development, declines (Processing speed, attention,
some aspect of memory)
• Cognitive pragmatics- experience and culture, increases
(reading and writing skills, language comprehension,
professional skills and wisdom)
• Fluid mechanics and crystallized pragmatics