Cognitive Development:

Broad Theories and Approaches

4 Theories of Cognitive Development

1. Piagetian Theory

2. Information Processing Theories

3. Core-Knowledge Theories

4. 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

pre-operational

sensori-motor

formal operations

concrete operations

10-13yr0-2 yr 2-6 yr 7-10 yr

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. pre-operational)--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.

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 ischildren are more cognitively competent than Piaget

recognizedunderstates contribution of the social world vague about cognitive processes/mechanisms that

produce cognitive growth

Where Piaget Left Us