Piaget's Cognitive Development Theory

Cognition

• Cognition is the mental process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses.
• Piaget's theory of cognitive development proposes that children are like scientists, testing and exploring hypotheses about the world through reflection on their experiences.

Piaget's Cognitive Theory

• Three basic components:
  • Schemas: how knowledge is organized and represented
  • Adaptation processes: enable learning and transition from one stage to another
  • Stages of development
• Adaptation processes involve equilibrium (existing schemas explaining perceived information) and disequilibrium (inconsistency between cognitive structure and new information)
• Assimilation: adding new experience to an existing cognitive structure
• Accommodation: reorganizing thoughts when new information doesn't fit the schema
• Egocentrism: inability to take another person's perspective

Stages of Cognitive Development

• Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years):
  • Explore the world through senses and motor activity
  • Develop cause-and-effect understanding
  • Can't distinguish between self and environment
• Preoperational Stage (2-7 years):
  • Rapidly developing language and communication
  • Imagining the future and reflecting on the past
  • Developing basic numerical abilities
  • Difficulty distinguishing fantasy from reality
• Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years):
  • Abstract reasoning ability and ability to generalize from the concrete
  • Understanding conservation of matter
  • Understanding hierarchic categories
  • Ability in seriation
• Formal Operations (12-15 years):
  • Adult thinking
  • Ability to think about hypothetical situations
  • Forming and testing hypotheses
  • Organizing information
  • Reasoning scientifically

Criticisms of Piaget

• Underestimated the impact of culture
• Methodological flaws in tasks

Lev Vygotsky's Social Constructivist Theory

• Highlights the role of social and cultural interactions in cognitive development
• Importance of language:
  • Represents reality and allows distancing from the present
  • Enables communication with others
• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD):
  • Lower limit: child's actual developmental level
  • Upper limit: level of potential skill with assistance
• Scaffolding: individualized support to gradually improve learner's ability

Self-Concept

• Self: all the characteristics of the person
• Self-concept: perception about oneself
• Development of self-understanding throughout the lifespan
• Children recognize themselves in the mirror at 15-18 months
• Infants have a basic sense of self in the first few months
• Self-awareness indicators:
  • Exhibition of embarrassment and shame
  • Self-assertive behavior
  • Use of language
• Self-concept development:
  • Early childhood: concrete descriptions, physical descriptions, behavior/activities
  • Middle and late childhood: shift to internal traits and abilities, social role descriptions
• Perspective taking: ability to assume another's perspective
• Self-concept components:
  • Self-worth
  • Ideal self
  • Self-efficacy (confidence in ability to exert control over motivation, behavior, and social environment)

Morality

• Understanding of the difference between right and wrong, or good and bad behavior
• Moral dilemma: ambiguous situation requiring a moral decision
• Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development:
  • Describes how sense of right and wrong changes with age
  • Describes how we develop a sense of justice and make moral judgments
• Levels of moral development:
  • Level 1: Pre-conventional Morality
  • Level 2: Conventional Morality
  • Level 3: Post-Conventional Morality
• Stages of moral development:
  • Stage 1: Punishment Obedience Orientation
  • Stage 2: Instrumental Relativist Orientation
  • Stage 3: Good Boy – Nice Girl Orientation
  • Stage 4: Law and Order Orientation
  • Stage 5: Social Contract Orientation
  • Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principle Orientation

Attachment

• First social relationship; strong emotional bond between infant and caregiver
• Infants show attachment through proximity-seeking behaviors
• Bowlby's phases of attachment formation:
  • Phase 1: Indiscriminant Sociability
  • Phase 2: Attachments in the Making
  • Phase 3: Specific, Clear-Cut Attachments
  • Phase 4: Goal-Coordinated Partnerships
• Types of attachment:
  • Type A: didn't care
  • Type B: upset when mother leaves, okay with stranger
  • Type C: scared without mother
  • Type D: random
• Deprivation: break in an infant's attachment
• Separation: when an infant is no longer with its main caregiver
• Separation leads to deprivation