Piaget and Inhelder Three Mountains

Task (1956)
Background of the Study:
 According to Piaget, children in the pre-operational stage are egocentric, and are
unable to see things from a different viewpoint.
 The idea of different viewpoints develops over time, which can help take children to
the concrete operational stage, where they decenter.

Aims:
 The extent to which children of different ages can view things from a different
viewpoint.
 Children’s overall system of putting together a number of different views of what
they see.

Procedure:
Age (years) 4 – 6.5 6.5 – 8 8 – 9.5 9.5 – 12
Number of children 21 30 33 16

Four main pieces of equipment:

 There were three mountains, the smallest being a green one with a house on top,
the next one being a brown one with a red cross on top and the highest was a gray
one with snow on top. This model was 1 meter squared in size and was made of
pieces of paper pasted together.
 There were ten pictures taken of the model from different viewpoints.
 There were three cardboard cards in the color of the mountains that the children
could use to describe what they saw.
 There was a wooden doll, with no facial features.
Ways of questioning the child:
 The child would use the cards to depict what they could see, and they would also use
the cards to depict what the doll (that was placed randomly by the researcher) could
see.
 The child would select one of the 10 pictures that depicted their viewpoint, and also
had to select one picture for the doll (which was again placed randomly).
 The child would choose a picture and then had to position the doll so it could see
that picture.

Results:
Pre-operational stage:
 As expected, children from 4-6.5/7 years of age were egocentric, and unable to
describe any other viewpoint apart from their own.
 The older children were starting to become aware of different viewpoints, but they
were still unable to describe them.
Concrete operational stage
 From 7-9 years children start understanding that different positions around the table
result in people viewing the model differently.
 Children aged 9-10 children are able to understand that people viewing something
from a different perspective than that of theirs have a differed viewpoint.

Conclusion:
 Children up to the age of 7 were egocentric and were unable to view things from
others’ viewpoints.
 Older children weren’t egocentric, and they viewed the mountains in relation to one
another (e.g., the gray mountain blocks the view of the green mountain).
 Children in the pre-operational stage were egocentric, and children in the concrete
operational stage weren’t.

Evaluation:
Strengths:
 They gathered qualitative data and penciled it in extreme depth, giving specific detail
about individual children, and discussing the errors, and what they meant (e.g., a
child at the end of the pre-operational stage not being egocentric).
 They used experimental methods, which meant they had to put in careful control
variables, like using the same model and questions for each child. This meant that
they could compare between two different children whilst worrying less about
different scenarios.
Weaknesses:
 Other studies didn’t receive the same results (e.g., Willingham and Helen Borke)
 Helen Borke adapted the three mountains task by making it rotatable, and made the
child describe what a puppet would see. 79% of 3-year-olds answered correctly, and
93% of four-year-olds answered correctly. Hence, she suggested the three
mountains task was too difficult to understand for the children.