Cognitive Development:
Broad Theories and Approaches
4 Theories of Cognitive Development
1.
2.
3.
4.
Piagetian Theory
Information Processing Theories
Core-Knowledge Theories
Sociocultural Theories
Cognitive vs. Social Development
Cognitive Development ~ development of
perception, attention, language, problem
solving, reasoning, memory, and conceptual
understanding
Social Development ~ development of
emotions, personality, family and peer
relationships, self-understanding,
aggression, and moral understanding.
Piagetian Theory: Child as Scientist
• He offered a constructivist
theory (the active child)--child is
motivated to learn does not need
rewards to do so.
• Saw children as generating
hypotheses, performing
experiments, and drawing
conclusions
3 Processes
• Assimilation = translate new info into a form you
already have/understand
• Accommodation = When this new info doesn’t fit
you need to restructure your “theories”
• Equilibration = balancing assimilation and
accommodation to create stable understanding
Piaget’s stage theory
formal operations
concrete operations
pre-operational
sensori-motor
0-2 yr
2-6 yr
7-10 yr 10-13yr
Sensorimotor Stage (birth - 2 years)
• [No need to know specific substages]
• Begin with simple reflexes and sensory-motor skills
and through assimilation/accommodation learned
(theory is weak on HOW such concepts were acquired)
*Over this stage infants increase their ability to hold
mental representations
• Infants live largely in the present --“out of sight, out of
mind”
Object Permanence
• Piaget claimed that until 8 mths of age infants did not
understand object permanence--that objects continue
to exist even when they are out of view
• (e.g. failed to reach under cloth for toy that was just
hidden) BUT…
Deferred Imitation
• Deferred imitation is the repetition of other
people’s behavior after a delay
• Occurs around 18-24 mths
• Evidence of persisting mental reps.
Preoperational Stage (ages 2 - 7)
• They acquire symbolic representation-the ability to see one thing to stand for
another (e.g. seen in their pretend play and
in their language acquisition).
Scale model studies
Preoperational Stage (ages 2 - 7)
• viewed by Piaget as only being able to focus
on one aspect of an event of problem--even
when multiple aspects are important
Centration: Centering attention on one dimension.
Preoperational Stage (ages 2 - 7)
• Children in this stage are viewed by Piaget
as not being capable of operations (i.e. preoperational)--that is, they can’t perform
reversible mental activities
• E.g. conservation concept
Conservation Concept
Preoperational Stage (ages 2 - 7)
• Egocentrism: According to Piaget, children at this
stage are also limited in their ability to take someone
else’s perspective--they only see it from their own
point of view
The 3 Mountain Task
Concrete Operational Stage (ages 7-12)
• understand conservation.
• begin to reason logically about concrete objects but
have difficulty with abstract concepts and
hypotheticals.
• Difficulty reasoning systematically
(e.g. --the pendulum problem).
Formal Operations Stage (ages 12+)
• begin to think abstractly and hypothetically
– E.g. Fondness for SciFi/Fantasy
– E.g. Comments like “what would you do if you
could be 13 again?” “Do you think there is another
planet out there with another ‘you’ on it?”
• now capable of systematic and scientific
reasoning
• Unlike the other stages Piaget believed that
some adults never reach this stage.
Where Piaget Left Us
Strengths
 A good overview of children’s thinking at different points
 Appealing due to its breadth
 Fascinating observations
Weaknesses/Criticisms
 Stage model depicts children’s thinking as being more
consistent than it is
 children are more cognitively competent than Piaget
recognized
 understates contribution of the social world
 vague about cognitive processes/mechanisms that produce
cognitive growth