PIAGET’S

PSYCHOLOGICAL
DEVELOPMENT

PREPARED BY: MICAELA SINGSON

 PIAGET (1896 - 1980)
JEAN WILLIAM FRITZ PIAGET
• Swiss Psychologist, worked for
several decades on understanding
children’s cognitive development
• Most widely known theory of cognitive
development.
• Was intrigued by kids’ thoughts & behavior, &
worked to understand their cognitive
development
 PIAGET: BACKGROUND
Young Piaget was incredibly precocious
Published first paper at 10
Wrote on mollusks, based on these writings
was asked to be curator of mollusks at a
museum in Geneva (he declined in order to
finish secondary school)
Earned his doctorate in natural sciences at 21
Began to study psychology, applying
intelligence tests to school children
 CONSTRUCTIVISM
• Assumption that learning is an active
process of construction rather than a
passive assimilation of information or
rote memorization.
• Credited for founding constructivism
• Has had a large influence on American
schools
…PIAGET AND CONSTRUCTIVISM
Best known for idea that individuals
construct their understanding, that
learning is a constructive process
Active learning as opposed to simply
absorbing info from a teacher, book, etc.
The child is seen as a ‘little scientist’
constructing understandings of the world
largely alone
….PIAGET & CONSTRUCTIVISM

believed all learning is constructed, whether

it is something we are taught or
something we learn on our own.
Whether or not we are taught in a
“constructivist” manner, Piaget believed
we are constructing knowledge in all our
learning.
BASIC COGNITIVE CONCEPTS

1. Schema- to refer to the cognitive structures by

which individuals intellectually adapt to an
organize their environment.
 BASIC COGNITIVE CONCEPTS

2. Assimilation – process of fitting a new

experience into an existing or previously created
cognitive structure or schema.
BASIC COGNITIVE CONCEPTS
3. Accommodation- process of creating a new
schema.
BASIC COGNITIVE CONCEPTS
4. Equilibration- Piaget believe that people have the
natural need to understand how the world works and
to find order, structure and predictability in their life.
Cognitive Disequilibrium
-experience does not match our scheme.
- this means there is a discrepancy between what is
perceived and what is understood.
PIAGET’S FOUR STAGES

Believed that all children develop according to four

stages based on how they see the world.
 He thought the age may vary some, but that we all go
through the stages in the same order.

1. Sensori-motor (birth –2 years)

2. Preoperational (~2-7)
3. Concrete operational (~8-11)
4. Formal operations (~12-15)
SENSORIMOTOR STAGE
Birth to about 2 years, rapid change is seen
throughout
The child will:
Explore the world through senses & motor activity
Early on, baby can’t tell difference between
themselves & the environment
If they can’t see something then it doesn’t exist
Begin to understand cause & effect
Can later follow something with their eyes
PREOPERATIONAL STAGE

About 2 to about 7
 Better speech communication
 Can imagine the future & reflect on the past
 Develop basic numerical abilities
 Still pretty egocentric, but learning to be able to delay
gratification
 Can’t understand conservation of matter
 Has difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality (ex:
cartoon characters are real people).
THE STAGE IS HIGHLIGHTED BY THE
FOLLOWING:
1. Symbolic Function- the ability to represent objects and event. A
symbol is a thing that represents something else.
THE STAGE IS HIGHLIGHTED BY THE
FOLLOWING:
2. Egocentrism – the tendency of the child to only see his point of
view and to assume that everyone also has his same point of
view.
THE STAGE IS HIGHLIGHTED BY THE
FOLLOWING:
3. Centration – refers to the tendency of the child to only focus on
one aspect of a thing or event and exclude other aspects.
THE STAGE IS HIGHLIGHTED BY THE
FOLLOWING:
4. Irreversibility
THE STAGE IS HIGHLIGHTED BY THE
FOLLOWING:
5. Animism – the tendency of children to attribute human like traits
or characteristics to inanimate objects.
THE STAGE IS HIGHLIGHTED BY THE
FOLLOWING:
6. Transductive Reasoning – refers to the pre-operational child’s type of reasoning
that is neither inductive nor deductive.
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE
• From about 8 to about 11
• Characterized by the ability of the child to think logically
but only in terms of concrete objects.

The Concrete operational stage is marked by the following:

1. Decentering – the ability of child to perceive the
different features of objects and situations.
2. Reversibility – During the stage of concrete operations.
The child can now follow that certain operations can be
done in reverse.
THE CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE IS MARKED BY
THE FOLLOWING:

3. Conservation – the ability to know that certain property of objects

like number, mass, volume, or area do not change even if there is
a change in appearance.
THE CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE IS MARKED BY
THE FOLLOWING:

4. Seriation - ability to order or arrange things in a series

based on one dimension such as weight, volume or
size.
FORMAL OPERATIONS
From about 12 to about 15
Be able to think about hypothetical
situations
Form & test hypotheses
Organize information
Reason scientifically
THIS STAGE IS CHARACTERIZED BY THE
FOLLOWING:
1. Hypothetical Reasoning – the ability to come up with
different hypothesis about a problem and to gather
and weigh data in order to make a final decision or
judgment.
2. Analogical Reasoning – ability to perceive the
relationship in one instance and then use that
relationship to narrow down the possible answers in
another similar situation or problem.
3. Deductive Reasoning – ability to think logically by
applying a general rule to a particular instance or
situation.
THANK YOU !!!!!