Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive
Development In Children Research Paper
Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist, who is most well known for his Four Stages of Cognitive Development (1936). He was greatly influenced by Carl Jung and Eugen Bleuler, who studied analytical and mental illnesses, respectively. He studied at Sorbonne in Paris in 1919, while he was there he became interested in children and their thought processes, wanting to understand why they made mistakes. These interests led him to his biggest discovery and the theory that made him famous in the 20th Century and today.
Jean Piaget’s interest in the schoolchildren while in Paris lead him to discover a common pattern among the children, it had seemed to him that they went through stages. He had three children of his own that he closely observed also, and his hypothesis seemed consistent in all children he came across. Which is what made him come up with his Four Stages of Cognitive Development from childhood to adulthood. He was also the first to declare that children form mental concepts called schemas as they experience new events and situations, which help them assimilate and accommodate new ideas. The Four Stages of Cognitive Development are the Sensorimeter stage, Preoperational stage, Concrete Operations, and Formal Operations.
The Sensorimeter Stage includes children from birth to around age two years old. It says that infants use their senses to learn about the world around them. This explains why young children touch, grab, eat, and smell everything; it is how they learn about everything they experience. By the end of this stage, an infant will have an understanding of object permanence and symbol thought. Object Permanence is the knowledge that even if a curtain is pulled, whatever item was behind the curtain is still there, one just can’t see it. Symbol Thought is the ability to understand an object being represented by symbols, such as letters representing sounds. They will have no understanding of abstract thinking and therefore will not know to be careful of anything that poses a threat to them. This explains why very young children touch hot stoves and aren’t afraid of heights, because they simply do not understand the danger that we can see.
The Preoperational Stage includes children from about two years old to around seven years old. During these years a child will develop language and concepts. They have a well developed understanding of symbolic thinking, so playing pretend, make believe, and imaginary friends are very common. Additionally, they will be able to see the alphabet and words as symbols for communicating and drawing basic shapes to represent objects such as some circles and rectangles to symbolize a car.These children are capable of understanding simple mental concepts, and tend to believe everything that they see, which explains fear from horror movies and TV shows. Animism and Egocentrism are two tell-tale signs of this stage. Animism is the belief that anything that moves is alive. For example, leaves that blow in the wind or robotic toys that can move and talk would lead a child in this stage to believe that that item was alive. Egocentrism, at this age, is the inability to see the world from any point of view other than their own, so they cannot understand why their mother doesn’t want to go to the park when she has a headache, because they feel fine.
Concrete Operational includes ages seven to twelve years old. Theses children can think logically and understand analogies. They only have a clear understanding of concrete events such as a car crash. They cannot fully understand abstract ideas such as the tooth fairy or Easter bunny, which is why children in this age group usually stop believing in those types of things or are skeptical, at the least. These children will learn conservation and have a more logical way of thinking and reasoning. Conservation is the understanding of constancy. For example, if you have two cups with the same amount of water in them and then you pour one cup into another, different shaped container, someone with the understanding of conservation would know that even with a different sized container, the amount of water did not change. A child younger than this, who does not have an understanding of conservation, would most likely say that the amount of water has changed. Logical thinking would include processes such as inductive reasoning, or predicting probable outcomes, and the ability to make generalizations correctly.
Formal Operations include twelve year olds up to adulthood. This is the final stage in Piaget’s theory; this age group is the highest developed and can use abstract reasoning about hypothetical events or situations, and understand complex mathematical problems. Objects and ideas are easily understood, so if asked, they will be able to define what justice is, even though it is a concept rather than a physical item. They can use abstract analogies and reason against fact. For example, if someone in this stage were asked ‘what would happen if clouds were black’ they would be able to think about it and reason, knowing that it was all hypothetical.
Some of Piaget’s most important experiments included his tests for conservation. The first, as mentioned previously, taking two glasses of the same shape with the same amount of water in them and pouring one into a different shaped container. Someone with an understanding of conservation would know that they still contain the same amount of water, while someone without that understanding, most likely in the preoperational stage, would think the amount of water has changed. Another test for conservation he did was to get a row of six squares lined up perfectly on top of a row of 6 circles, then he would ask which there was more of, as expected, all participants agreed there was the same amount of each. He then got a row of six squares and had them offset to a row of six circles, which then made some participants answers change. Those whose answers had changed, were the same ones who had said the amount of water had changed, and they had not yet reached the Concrete Operational stage.
Piaget’s theory was a huge impact on education systems, even though that was never his intention. It helped educators realize that children are still developing and they simply aren’t ready for certain things. Some children are too young to understand certain concepts, no matter how smart, what teacher, or any other background that could usually be an advantage or disadvantage. He also started an obsession by educators, parents, caretakers, and others who spend a lot of time with children, over the development of kids in general. His work inspired a lot of scientists to research the cognitive development of children. Many people took the estimations of ages for the stages in Piaget’s theory as definite markers, which was not his intentions. He knew that the ages would vary slightly, but many other scientists believed that he meant it as a definite time of progression.
Although the basis of Piaget’s theory is still widely accepted today, he has many criticisms. The first and most common criticism is that in all his work and findings, he never included the fact that some people never reach the final stage of Formal Operations. For example, Kohlberg and Gilligan explored this area of development also, and they came to the conclusion that around thirty percent of people never reach the stage of formal operations, which Piaget never seemed to consider. He also mainly used his own three children for many of his experiments. This is an unrepresentative, small sample group, with no consideration into the prior knowledge of the children or their individuality and background. It was later determined by Vygotsky that the stages in relation to a child’s development are heavily dependent on whether or not they received formal western schooling. This could also create some bias, because they are his own children and he may think or want them to be more intelligent or advanced than they actually are. Another criticism that scientists have is that many of them tried to replicate Piaget’s experiments, but his lack of scientific vocabulary and detail has made it increasingly difficult. No one really knows what he did or how he did it because he did not precisely describe what went on in his experiments. Piaget has also been accused of underestimating children’s abilities. In many cases, educators, parents, and anyone who spends an extended time with children, have reported children to be in a more advanced stage than their age would suggest based on Piaget’s theory.
Piaget’s conservation test can be easily recreated at home, so I tried it out on my little cousins, one is six years old and the other is nine years old. I started off by putting them in separate rooms before I even set up the experiment, to make sure they would have no way of communicating about it until it was over. I tested the older one first, my guess was that he would fall into the concrete operational stage, just based off of his age. As I had predicted, he knew that there was the same amount of water in both glasses even though one was tall and thin and the other was short and wide. Next, I tested my younger cousin, my hypothesis was that he would fall into the preconventional stage, based off of his age. He ended up realizing that there was the same amount of water in both glasses, but he was definitely more unsure of himself than his brother had been. My other cousin who is 12, also wanted to participate in this so I let her, knowing that she was pretty much guaranteed to succeed. I had been correct too, she knew without hesitation that the amount of water had not changed, only the container had. In doing this experiment I was able to witness firsthand two successes of Piaget’s theory and a failure. It could be that his criticisms are correct and he underestimated the intelligence of children. It could also be that my cousin seems to be one of the smarter children, so far and has been going to school and preschool and learning his whole life.
Another test that I was able to perform and experience myself was a test for object permanence. I do a lot of babysitting and was able to experiment by playing peek-a-boo and steal the nose with the kids that I was watching. The first kids I tried these games on were a three and a half year old and her younger brother who is almost a year old. We played peek-a-boo first, and the daughter, the three year old, did not like it. She complained the whole time and told me repeatedly how boring it was. This tells me that she understood object permanence and to her I was just putting my hand over my face. Her brother, who can’t really talk yet, was worried at first but later on was laughing, giggling, and overall seemed to enjoy it. That made me think he probably does not understand object permanence yet. The next game I played was steal the nose. It went very similarly to peek-a-boo, except the daughter seemed to have a little more fun. She panicked at first, but quickly ran to a mirror and saw that her nose was there, and after that point she didn’t have to check the mirror again because she knew that her nose was there. Her brother, on the other hand, did not think to check the mirror and panicked when I ‘stole his nose’. No matter how many times we went through this process, he freaked out until I gave him his nose back.