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A Brief Introduction to

Piagets Theory

Prof. Jack Bauer

University of Dayton

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First Things to Know One of 20th centurys most influential

theorists in the sciences & beyond

Piagets interests:

Knowledge (epistemology) Knowledge is a system of mental representations

Devt of knowledge (genetic epistem.)

Not to be confused with David Letterman

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How Knowledge Develops

Knowledge emerges from action

Child actively constructs knowledge

Not absorbs it Cog. abilities develop progressively

What is cognitive development?

Increasing capacity to differentiate &integrate information

Increasing capacity to generate

knowledge

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Overview of Four Stages

Sensorimotor Stage Born with reflexes, not thoughts

Actions & perception get more complex

Traces of memory become more permanent

Preoperational Stage Simple knowledge (what things are)

Fuzzy or sporadic logic

Concrete Operations Stage Logical reasoning for observable world

Formal Operations Stage Logical reasoning for abstract world

Complex possibilities, underlying motives

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Sensorimotor Stage

Start w/ reflex motions (not thoughts!) With experience, those motions come under

control & are combined with different stimuli

Then planned actions in present moment

Gradual acquisition of object knowledge i.e., knowledge/memory that things exist

More familiar things 1st, then less familiar

Object permanence in 2nd

year of life Mental representations formed routinely for all things

Overall: Traces of procedural knowledgebuild into enduring mental representations

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Preoperational Stage

Roughly ages 2-7 (more at: pre-school years)

Child knows what things are but has limited

logic for how they operate e.g., fantasy play w/ toys & story characters

Egocentrism: Limited perspective-taking

Stage ends with conservation

General understanding that things can changeform but still be thesame thing

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Concrete Operations Stage

Roughly ages 7-12 (grade-school years)

Child can reason logically about the

concrete (i.e., observable) world

Interested in how things, people etc. work

Classifies everything into categories, rules, roles

Stage ends when child generally thinks

logically about the abstract world also

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Formal Operations Stage

Roughly ages 12 on up

Can think about complex possibilities &alternatives

Hypothetical/deductive reasoning Can ask if...then... about abstract things, like:

variables

complexities of relationships underlying values and ideologies

self in the distant future

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Discontinuous Stages?

This is how Piagets theory is often characterizedby people who arent specialists in Piaget

Sen-mot

Pre-opCon-op

Form-op

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Not-So-Discontinuous Stages

Sen-mot

Pre-opCon-op

Form-op

This is closer to how Piaget described his ownstageswith substages

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Continuous Stages

Sen-motPre-op

Con-op

Form-op

The line represents purely gradual/continous devt

The ovals represent points along the line where

functioning starts to look different than before

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Stages:

Continuity & Discontinuity

Sen-mot

Pre-opCon-op

Form-op

This is how I tend to think of Piaget: Graduallyincreasing capacities to differentiate and integrate

yield qualitatively advanced capacities to think

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Final Notes on Piaget

Focus onsequence of stages, not age Especially for personality development in adulthood

Devt to next stage is indicated byroutinefunctioning of the next stages abilities, notby the first signs of it

Devt is notabout how much info one has Rather, its about how complexly and

integratively one knows