PSYCHOLOGY ASSIGNMENT-2

04.04.2022
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In This assignment, you have to Discuss with your parents, siblings, or other
caretakers, and understand if the theory holds true in your case, and if
yes/now- how?. In short, this assignment requires you to prepare a small
personal developmental roadmap using concepts learned in the Human
Development chapter.

ABOUT THE ASSIGNMENT

According to Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, children go through
four stages of mental growth. His thesis is concerned with not only how children
gain information but also with the nature of intelligence. Piaget contended that
children actively participate in the learning process, acting as mini-scientists
conducting experiments, making observations, and learning about their
surroundings. Kids are constantly adding new knowledge, expanding on existing
knowledge, and changing previously held concepts to fit their needs for further
information as they interact with the world around them.

HOW DID PIAGET COME UP WITH HIS THEORY?

Piaget originally became interested in children's intellectual development while

working as an assistant to Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon to standardize their
famed IQ test. Piaget's interest in children's cognitive development stemmed from
his observations of his nephew and daughter. These findings backed with his
notion that children's minds were not simply little duplicates of adult minds.
Instead, intelligence, he argued, is something that
evolves over time. He claimed that older kids don't just think faster than younger
kids. Instead, there are qualitative and quantitative distinctions between early and
older children's thinking. He concluded, based on his observations, that youngsters
are not less bright than adults; they think differently. "So simple only a genius
could have conceived of it," Albert Einstein said of Piaget's finding. Piaget's stage
theory outlines children's cognitive development. Cognitive development includes
changes in cognitive processes and capacities. Early cognitive development,
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according to Piaget, includes action-based strategies that advance to changes in

mental functions later.

The developmental happened in my past, which I can relate to Piaget's theory.

When I asked my parents about my childhood life, they narrated some of the
events in my childhood. I closely observed these stories, which we're told by my
parents, then I understood that the stories my parents told me were somehow
related to Piaget's theory of cognition. Like when the first stage of Piaget's theory
is the sensorimotor stage, in which Infants eventually learn that their activities have
consequences in the outside world.
So, when I was at the age of 0-2 years, I used to
suck my thumb. My mom said I usually don't use to suck my thumb, but once I
started to do that pleasure-seeking element, I started to suck my hand repeatedly,
and in the 4 and 5 months, I purposefully picked some of my toys started to suck
them. So here, according to Piaget, The child grows more aware of his
surroundings and begins to purposefully repeat an activity in an attempt to elicit a
reaction from the environment.
And I also listened to this story of my that at the
age of 4 and 5. I was very close to my grandfather. I always used to spend time
with him. So he used to ware dothi and Indian Kadar shirts. And my mother even
remembered that I used to cry in front of my mother to ware a dothi to me, and I
usually didn't have a dothi. I used to grab a towel and run towards my grandfather
and ask him to ware this towel as dothi, and he also has a very long mustache, so I
used to draw like a mustache above my mouth. I observed this type of behavior in
the second stage of Piaget of the preoperational stage, where children mirror
someone's behavior or movement even when they are not there. People and items
from their own lives are drawn, yet they are simply depictions.

In my home, my father used to keep some bottles of

cold drinks in our refrigerator. But at the age of 5, I loved to drink a lot; when i
noticed that no is observing me, I used to grab a glass and drink all the bottles. My
mother was very worried about me because I am drinking many cold drinks. So,
she used to give me the juice in a glass where the length is size but tin in width. At
that point in time, my perception was that the glass was high in length and the
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quantity of juice must be more so; whenever they drink a cold drink, my mother
used to give me a glass which is long in length one so that I assume that I am
drinking more than others people but later I realized that it is nothing to do with the
size the quantity will be there in the two glasses this what exactly Paige explained
in his third stage concrete operational stage The third stage in Piaget's theory of
cognitive development is the concrete operational stage. This stage lasts around
seven to eleven years and is characterized by developing structured and reasonable
thinking.
And at the age of 14, my parent's teachers and relatives used
to ask a common question about what I wanted to become in the future. I saw
various people who are there in various professions so, sometimes used to say to
people that I wanted to become a teacher and some times a doctor and even
sometimes a polices but once one of our teachers explained to us about a civil
servant and what a civil servant officer can do then I set a goal to become a civil
servant. I used to say to people that I wanted to become a civil servant. This is
what Piaget said in his fourth stage Formal Operational Stage.

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural theory

Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of human learning depicts learning as a social

activity and the origins of human intellect in society or culture. The central concept
of Vygotsky's theoretical framework is that social contact is essential for cognitive
growth.
First Stage
The individual's mental structure is formed first via interaction with others and
subsequently through integration.

Second Stage
The concept that the capacity for cognitive growth is confined to a "zone of
proximal development" is the second feature of Vygotsky's theory (ZPD). This
"zone" of discovery is when the learner is cognitively competent but requires
assistance and social contact to flourish properly

I encountered one of my past experiences related to Vygotsky's theory. When I was

five years old, I used to write the numbers in maths in an improper way in the
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sense instead of 12345678, I used to write as 13452768 then my teacher saw my

problem of miswriting the numbers, so she took some time and taught me how to
write the numbers in a serial order initially My performance is poor, but when the
teacher sits beside me and tells me how to arrange the numbers correctly, I begin to
learn how to do so. And after some time of grasping the knowledge of putting the
numbers in the presence of my teacher, the other hand, she let me do the skill on
my own, allowing me to be more competent.

Conclusion: This assignment is something I've tried out on myself. Through this
assignment, I understood how a child will behave at different stages and by
different theories. this kind of theory will help people understand the growth of a
child at various stages.

.o4-Apirl-2022

RESOURCES:
https://www.verywellmind.com/sensorimotor-stage-of-cognitive-
development-2795462
https://docs.google.com/presentation/u/1/d/
1eb2Xsf15tkicCSmsLZbz8FrIsR41HD_y/edit#slide=id.p21
https://www.verywellmind.com/formal-operational-stage-of-cognitive-
development-2795459

K.ANAND REDDY,
27,
IPM.
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