Piaget's Stages of Development Quiz

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

• Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to ~2 years old)
  • Focuses on exploring and developing schemas based on senses and motor activities.
  • Develops object permanence: understanding that objects (and people) continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched directly.

Preoperational Stage

• (~2 to ~7 years old)
  • Characterized by significant language development and symbolic thinking.
  • Lacks operations (reversible mental processes).
    • Example: Child may understand they have a brother, but struggle to grasp that their brother also has a brother (them).
  • Uses intuitive thinking (less rational) – example: animism.
  • Exhibits egocentric thinking – limited ability to distinguish between their own perspective and another's.

Concrete Operational Stage

• (~7 to ~11 years old)
  • Less egocentric thinking, more logical.
  • Develops the ability to perform concrete operations.
    • Example: Can understand the concept of conservation (understanding that certain physical attributes remain unchanged even if visually different), reversibility (understanding that operations can be reversed).

Formal Operational Stage

• (~11 & up)
  • Able to think abstractly and hypothetically.
  • Uses hypothesis and logical processes for prediction and argument.
  • Exhibits adolescent egocentrism:
    • Personal fable: "it won't happen to me" & "this is only happening to me."
    • Imaginary audience: belief in being the center of others' thoughts and actions, which contributes to higher levels of self-consciousness.

Criticisms of Piaget's Cognitive Theory

• Underestimated abilities:
  • Some studies suggest young infants may exhibit object permanence earlier than Piaget believed.
  • Some children demonstrate nonegocentric behaviors.
    • Example: Newborns crying when they hear another child cry, preschoolers adapting speech when talking to younger children vs adults, empathy developing during the preoperational stage.
• Underestimated genetic influences:
  • Neuroscience research has revealed complexities in brain development that Piaget may not have fully accounted for.
  • Some findings support his theory, while others conflict with it.
• Underestimated sociocultural influences:
  • Vygotsky argued that sociocultural influences are more influential than Piaget suggested.
  • Example: Testing in the Formal Operational Stage varies greatly when using cultural examples.

Schemata

• Are patterns that organize our interactions with the environment.
  • Developed and modified as we gain new experiences and information.
• Categorized into:
  • Person schemas: focused on specific individuals (appearance, behaviors personality, preferences).
  • Social schemas: general knowledge about how people behave in certain social situations (greetings, social slights).
  • Self-schemas: knowledge about oneself.
  • Event schemas: focused on patterns of behavior for certain events (dates, concerts, parties, games, funerals).
• Assimilation: using existing schemas in new situations.
  • Example: Using a study routine for English and applying it to science.
• Accommodation: modifying existing schemas to fit new information.
  • Example: Learning that alligators and crocodiles are different species and separating schemas for each.