Piaget Cognitive Theory 1
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Theorist: Jean Piaget
Biography
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss biologist who revolutionized the concept of how
children come to know. From an early age Piaget was interested in the world around him and
involved in scholarly pursuits. He published several papers during his teen years about birds and
mollusks. His first publication was at the young age of 11 about a rare albino sparrow. This was
the beginning of a long scientific career during which Piaget would write over sixty books and
hundreds of articles. He earned a Ph.D. in natural sciences in 1918 from the University of
Neuchatel, Switzerland, and completed post doctoral studies in psychoanalysis the next year.
Although his career began in began in the field of natural sciences, he also developed his
interests in philosophy, and psychoanalysis. He worked for a time with Theodore Simon, coauthor of the Binet-Simon intelligence scale (Plucker, 2007). Throughout the course of his
career he was a faculty member and researcher at the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute, professor
of education and psychology at the University of Geneva, University of Lusanne, the Sorbonne
of Paris, and many other distinguished institutions. Piaget dedicated his life to investigating the
question of “How does knowledge grow? (Plucker, 2007)." Through mainly descriptive,
qualitative research methods, Piaget developed an inductive process which revealed children’s
logic and flaws in their answers to questions which became a signature mark of Piagetian
research (Valsiner, 2005). In the late 1960s as Piaget’s publications were translated into English,
his work came to the attention of American psychologists. Soon after education professionals
recognized the momentous impact his cognitive development theory would have on
developmental psychology and education (Elkind, 1974). Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive
Piaget Cognitive Theory 2
development unlocked the secrets of the developmental process of human learning often
concealed by the endearing, and sometimes exasperating, illogical reasoning of childhood.
Theory of Cognitive Development
Piaget’s theory puts forward the questions of how infants, children and adolescents
organize their thoughts. In the development of his theory Piaget developed simple tests to
children of different ages though which patterns of logical reasoning errors emerged. He
developed four stages which describe the expected patterns of reasoning and cognitive
perspectives from birth through adolescence. These four stages are sensorimotor, preoperational,
concrete operations, and formal operations (O’Donnell, Reeve & Smith, 2009, Piaget,
1932/1997)). The last stage begins at adolescence and carries on through adulthood. Although
there are many complex aspects in which Piaget describes the mental processes and patterns that
occur during cognitive development, the focus here will be on the cognitive processes which lead
to application of Piaget’s theory for adolescent and adult development. Piaget included four
mental operations His four stages of cognitive development explain the qualitative
developmental changes which occur in children’s perceptions, understandings and how they
operate in their environment (Woolfolk, 2008). These stages are outlined in Figure 1 (O’Donnel,
Reeve, Smith, 2009). Some of the terms and definitions associated with Piaget’s theory are listed
in figure 2 (Woolfolk, 2008).
Piaget believed that cognitive structures arise as a result of a natural reorganization of
what Piaget called logical structures (Piaget 1932/1997). This logical structure reorganization is
influenced by the individual’s experiences with the environment (Elkind, 1974). Piaget gave a
specific name to these logical structures: schemes. The individual’s ability to reorganize schemes
Piaget considered a type of adaptation. Children’s, as well as adult’s, response to change through
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new experiences and cognitive challenges to beliefs are at the heart of Piaget’s theory of
cognitive development. How a person responds to change is explained in the process of
equilibriation (Wolfolk, 2008).
The foundation of Piaget’s cognitive theory rests to upon the process of equilibration. It
is through equilibriation that cognitive conflict, as a result of change or when experience is
contradicted by one’s existing way of thinking, is resolved. Equilibration is a cycle in which an
individual starts with a scheme which is in equilibrium. A scheme can be defined basic cognitive
structure for organizing information. Schemes are generalizable and repeatable mental operations
for behavior or concepts (O’Donnell, Reeve & Smith, 2009). When an individual has a set
scheme one could call it a habit, a plan, routine or belief. A schema could be a simple as how to
grasp chess piece or as complex as a strategy to beat an opponent in chess.
Through out one’s life schemes either stay the same or change. The process of
equilibriation occurs when one chooses to keep their scheme the same, known as assimilation, or
when one chooses to change their scheme, known as accommodation (Piaget, 1932/1997). When
new information is incorporated or integrated into an existing scheme without changing it, Piaget
considered that assimilation. Because the scheme basically stays the same, not much learning
takes place. Learning occurs when accommodation happens. Accommodation occurs when a
scheme is adjusted or adapted to fit the new information or context (Wolfolk, 2008).
Throughout development we utilize untold schemes in the operation of our world. When
one has a stable scheme one is in equilibrium. When that is challenged the result is cognitive
conflict, which Piaget called disequilibrium. To regain balance and return to equilibrium one will
either return to the stable scheme through assimilation, or adapt the scheme through
accommodation. The journey from equilibrium to disequilibrium and back to equilibrium
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(through the action of accommodation or assimilation) is the process of equilibriation
(O’Donnell, Reeve & Smith, 2009). The process of equilibriation is the mechanism by which one
forms new ways of thinking (Elkind, 1974).
Major Publications Authored by Jean Piaget (Plucker, 2007)
Piaget, J. (1950). Introduction à l’Épistémologie Génétique. Paris: Presses Universitaires de
France.
Piaget, J. (1961). La psychologie de l'intelligence. Paris: Armand Colin (1961, 1967,
1991). Online version
Piaget, J. (1967). Logique et Connaissance scientifique, Encyclopédie de la Pléiade.
Inhelder, B. and J. Piaget (1958). The Growth of Logical Thinking from Childhood to
Adolescence. New York: Basic Books.
Inhelder, B. and Piaget, J. (1964). The Early Growth of Logic in the Child: Classification and
Seriation. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Piaget, J. (1928). The Child's Conception of the World. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Piaget, J. (1932). The Moral Judgment of the Child. London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and
Co.
Piaget, J. (1952). The Child's Conception of Number. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Piaget, J. (1953). The Origins of Intelligence in Children. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
Piaget, J. (1955). The Child's Construction of Reality. London: Routledge and Kegan
Paul.Piaget, J. (1971). Biology and Knowledge. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Piaget, J. (1995). Sociological Studies. London: Routledge.
Piaget, J. (2001). Studies in Reflecting Abstraction. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
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Report Prepared by: Cindi H. Fries, Oklahoma State University, Fall 2008
References
Elkind, D. (1974). Children and Adolescents: Interpretive essays on Jean Piaget. New York,
Oxford University Press.
O’Donnell, A., Reeve, J., & Smith, J. (2009). Educational psychology: Reflection for action (2nd
ed). Hoboken, Wiley & Sons.
Piaget, J. (1997). The moral judgement of the child. (translated by M. Gabian). New York: Free
Press Paperbacks. (originally published in 1932).
Plucker, J. A. (2007). Jean Piaget Swiss Biologist and Child Psychologist. Retrieved September
12, 2008 from http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/piaget.shtml
Valsiner, J. (2005). Participating in Piaget. Society, 42 (2), 57-61.Retrieved from EBSCO Host
September 11, 2008.
Woolfolk, A. (2008). Educational psychology (10th ed). Boston, Pearson
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Figure 1 Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development
Approximate
Age and
Grade Level
Stage
Primary Schemas
Major Developments
Sensorimotor
During infancy, behavior is
sensory (touching) and motor
(grasping). Infants do not think
conceptually but instead use their
sensory and motor capacities to
gain a basic understanding of
their environment and construct
sensorimotor coordinations.
Infants create behavioral
schemas. Through object
permanence, infants learn
that objects continue to exist
when they are out of sight.
0–2 years
Infancy
2–7 years
Preschool,
early
elementary
school
Preoperational Children use symbolism
Language develops rapidly.
(language, images) to represent Children become
various aspects of their
imaginative in play.
environment. Thought is
prelogical, perception bound, and
egocentric.
7–11 years
Late
elementary
school
Concrete
operations
Children acquire mental
operations and apply them to
solve concrete problems in front
of them.
No longer misled by physical
appearances, children use
their mental operations to
reason.
Adolescents think about thinking.
They use mental operations to
consider unseen hypotheses and
solve abstract problems.
Adolescents become
capable of systematic,
deductive, and inferential
reasoning, which allows
them to consider many
possible solutions to a
problem and choose the
most appropriate one.
11 years and
older
Middle school Formal
and high
operations
school
(O’Donnell, Reeve & Smith, 2009)
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Figure 2 Terms associated with Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Basic Foundation Terms:
Schemes:
Mental systems or categories of perception and experience
Operations:
Actions a person carries out by thinking them through instead of literally
performing the actions.
Assimilation:
Fitting new information into existing schemes
Accommodation: Altering existing schemes or creating new ones in response to new
information
Equilibration:
Stage
Sensorimotor
Preoperational
Search for mental balance between cognitive schemes and information
from the environment.
Age Range
0-2
2-7
Terms of Major Stage Achievements
____
Object Permanence: The understanding that objects have a
separate, permanent existence.
Semiotic Function: The ability to use symbols – language,
pictures, signs or gestures – to represent
actions or objects mentally
Operations are limited by:
Egocentrism:
Assuming that others experience the world
the way you do
Concrete Operations7-11
Decentration:
Focusing on more than one aspect at a time
Reversibility:
To think through a series of steps, then
mentally reverse the steps and return to the
starting point.
Arranging objects in sequential order
according to one aspect, such as size,
weight, volume or value.
Seriation:
Conservation:
Formal Operations 11+
(Woolfolk, 2008)
Principle that some characteristics of an
object remain the same despite changes in
appearance.
Hypothetico-deductive reasoning: Problem solving strategy in
which identifies all factors that might affect
a problem and then deduces and
systematically evaluates specific solutions.