JOHN ANGELO T.

TANGONAN
GRADE-11 HUMSS-3

Piaget’s and Freud’s Child development theories – A-Level Psychology

In the mid twentieth century the interest in child development grew, more in-depth research took
place and a large number of theories arose .Two theorists that had great impact on child
development in this era were Jean Piaget and Sigmund Freud. Jean Piaget’s research is centered
around life stages of cognitive developmental theory, also how children adapt to their environment
with the use of schemas, accommodation and assimilation. Like Piaget, Freud also developed a
process, which involved stages of development called psychosexual theory. Psychosexual theory
centered on the sexual drive and consists of 5 stages of development in children. Freud also divided
the mind into three personality parts the id, ego and super ego; these become integrated into the 5
stages of psychosexual development. (Berk, 2009)
Jean Piaget was born in 1896 in Neuchatel, Switzerland. Piaget was an intelligent child who took an
interest in biology and the natural world at a young age. After Graduating Piaget went on to teach at
Grange- Aux-Belles Street School for Boys, Where he worked along side the creator of the Binet
Intelligence Test, Alfred Binet. Piaget discovered while marking the Binet Intelligence Test, young
children were making wrong answers on certain questions that older children and adults did not.
This lead to Piaget’s research into young child development. (Vialle & Verenikina, 2000)
Through Piaget’s research into early childhood development, he focused on how children process and
change as they mature and adapt to the environment around them. He came up with the idea that
every child has a schema which is a structure in the mind used to store knowledge and ideas of the
world. As children develop and learn new information the schema grows, it does this through the
process of accommodation and assimilation. Assimilation is when new information is added to the
already existing schema. Accommodation is altering the schema, as the new information learnt does
not fit into the pre existing schema. (Nevid, 2011).
A key concept that Piaget developed was Cognitive developmental theory, which focused on the
process in which children develop in 4 different stages. New ways of learning and understanding
occur as children explore their world. Piaget ‘s ideas are based that Children’s development is
discontinuous, that children grow and develop at certain points in their lives. Children’s
understanding is different from adults. For example, Piaget believed that when an object is hidden
from view of a baby the object does no longer exist to the baby. ( Berk, 2009). Four different stages
that Piaget constructed that children developed in are: Sensorimotor stage, occurs between birth and
2 years,Children in this stage think and process information with their senses. Playing games or
encouraging children to touch and smell is a good way to help develop these skills. Preoperational
stage, 2-7 years children’s patterns start to evolve into using symbols to represent the sensorimotor
skills. Next is the Concrete stage 7-11 years children begin to become logical thinkers but still require
examples to grasp the concept of ideas, thinking is not at adult level yet. Last stage of Piaget’s
Cognitive development is the Formal Operational stage, which occurs from the age of 11 years, and
above, Children start to become “adult like” and are able to solve problems and can easily conserve
and think logically in their mind. (SparkNotes Editors, 2005). An easy way of understanding these
stages is with the idea of how children see and understand playing a game of monopoly. ”At the
sensorimotor stage (0-2) the child puts houses, hotels, and dice in mouth. Preoperational stage (2-7
years) child plays monopoly, but makes up own rules and cannot understand instructions. Concrete
operational stage (7-11 years) child understands basic instructions and will play by the rules but is
not capable of hypothetical transactions. Example: special pacts with other players. Last stage
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formal operations stage (1 years and up) the child no longer plays the game mechanically, complex
and hypothetical transactions unique to each game are now possible”. ( Dennis & Mitterer, 2008,
Piaget’s theories had a big impact on child development and on the future development of children.
His ideas were largely shaped around researching his own three children as they grew. However his
research is not very relevant in learning today in New Zealand or anywhere else in the world. There
has been a lot of criticism on Piaget’s theories. The way Piaget constructed his research has been a
big criticism. He only researched a small number of children, who were all of high social economic
status and were educated. Also three of the children researched were his own. This lead to criticism
that the research was not valid enough, as he did not research children in other environments and
it’s hard to generalize his findings to a larger population. Piaget may have under estimated
children’s abilities. Researches have found that children hold skills at earlier ages than Piaget
suggested. Piagets idea of children developing in stages as they mature also has had criticism as
research shows that environmental factors and how the child is brought up can play a major role in
the development process. (Sutherland, 1992)

Sigmund Freud was born 1856 in Moravian town of Freiburg, and was the oldest of 8 children. Freud
was a bright child who had planned to study law, instead attending the medical faculty at University
of Vienna. He went on to study and find a cure for troubled adults, where the patient talked through
their problems of childhood. The goal of this was to realise emotions that had been trapped in the
unconscious mind of the adult. Freud believed that sexual life and early childhood development was a
factor in troubled adults in adulthood. This research leads to Freud’s psychosexual theory. (
Thurschwell, 2000).

Freud composed the concept that there are three parts that make up personality in the brain. These
three parts of personality are Id, Ego and super ego. The Id is the largest portion of the mind and is
the only part of personality that is present from birth. ( Berk, 2009). The function of the Id is to
satisfy the basic wants and needs. Example, eating, sleeping, drinking. This component is essential
in infants to ensure their needs and wants are met. A baby will continuously cry until the demands of
the Id are met. However the wants and demands of the Id are not realistic or needed, this is where
the Ego takes force. The Ego develops in early infancy and its job is to control and satisfy the Ids
impulses so they are realistic in the real world. Between the ages of 3-6 years, the Superego develops.
The superego holds what’s right and wrong in, morals and rules that have been learnt from parents
and society. To have a good personality structure one most have a good balance between the Id, ego
and superego. Id, ego and superego become integrated into Freud’s theory of psychosexual theory.
(Louw, 2002).
Freud constructed his theory called “Psychosexual theory, which emphasizes that how parents
manage their child’s sexual and aggressive drives in the first few years is crucial for healthy
personality development.” ( Berk, 2009, pg. 16). Psychosexual theory consisted of 5 stages of
development. Oral, anal, phallic, latency and genital. Oral stage occurs between birth- 1 year in this
stage the focus is on the mouth and sucking activities. If the oral needs for sucking are not meet in
this stage it could lead to later problems in life, such as thumb sucking, smoking and over eating.
Anal stage 1-3 years, toilet training takes place between parent and child. This stage is where
children first have an encounter with rules. If to many or to few demands in this stage are made it
could lead to orderliness, messiness and disorders in later life. Phallic stage 3- 6 years, focus moves
to the genital area. Children start to have desires for the opposite sex parent and move away from
the same sex parent. Children then have to learn to suppress these feelings and adopt the same sex
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parent’s characteristics. If these feelings are not suppressed it could lead to confusion of sexual
identity. The superego kicks in, in the phallic stage. Latiency 6-11 years, Children’s sexual instincts
aren’t so strong and lean to playing and interacting with same sex. Superego has developed more,
morals and social rules are learnt from parents and society. Last stage of development is the Genital
stage, which occurs in adolescence, puberty starts to occur and sexual impulses appear again. If a
child has developed properly through previous stages it will lead to, marriage, sex and birth. (Louw,
2002).

Freud’s psychosexual theory was one of the first theories to research into the relationship between
parent and child in early years. Eventually more researchers researched into Freud’s theory,
discovering that all Freud’s research was not accurate. Freud’s work has been criticized for, not
taking other cultures into consideration, not studying children directly and over use of sexual feelings
in development. Like Piagets theory it is hard to use their ideas in learning and development today in
New Zealand, as there is a lot of criticism around their work. Research into child development has
expanded over the years and information is more accurate and useful. ( Newman & Newman, 2007).

Freud and Piaget influenced future theorists into more in-depth research in child development. Both
Freud and Piaget used the idea of children’s development being discontinuous and in stages. Piaget
focused on sexual drive in young children, Piaget focused on children develop as they adapt to their
environment. Both theorists have had criticism surrounded their work which makes it hard to relate
their theory’s to learning and development in New Zealand today. (Berk, 2009).