What is the connection between??

Lev Vygotsky
Jean Piaget
Unit 3 - Topics in Psychology
Cognition & Development
Three Main Areas
Development of thinking

Development of moral
understanding

Development of social
cognition
AQA A Exam Board Specification Wording..
Development of thinking
Theories of cognitive development, including Piaget &Vygotsky
Applications of these theories to education.
Development moral understanding
Theories of moral understanding (Kohlberg) and/or prosocial reasoning
(Eisenberg).
Development of social cognition
Development of the childs sense of self, including Theory of mind
(Baron-Cohen)
Development of childrens understanding of others, including
perspective-taking (Selman)
Biological explanations of social cognition, including the role of the
mirror neuron system

1. Development of thinking
Overview
Cognitive development is the study of how our
mental activities develop. Research has raised
many issues including the difference in the way
adults and children think; are the differences due
age or experience? Or are they learned or
innate? You will study three theories that try to
explain this process..
J ean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky
Before Jean PIAGET


Jean PIAGET
Worksheet 1. Development of Thinking
Background

Jean Piaget (1896-1980)
Best known Psychologist (after Freud!)
Trained in Zoology
Worked on Childrens Intelligence Tests

As a result-produced Stage Theory of Cognitive
Development in response to childrens consistent test
errors at key ages
Piaget
video
PIAGET
Structure of the intellect

Schema a psychological structure that represents
everything a child knows about objects or actions-built
up from basic reflexes/experience

Assimilation - Process of fitting new information or
experiences into existing schemas

Equilibration, i.e. equilibrium/disequilibrium - between
new/old experiences, i.e. new schema formation-heart of
adaptation process

Accommodation - process of changing existing
schemas when new information cannot be assimilated
thereby creating new ones

How do you learn
Through schemas ?
New experience

Existing schema challenged?

NO YES

Disequilibrium experienced

Assimilation Accommodation

New schema formed

Equilibrium achieved




Process in action
According to Piaget intellectual growth involves
three fundamental processes: assimilation,
accommodation, and equilibration.

Assimilation-accommodation
Assimilation involves the incorporation of new
events into pre-existing cognitive structures.
Accommodation means existing structures
change to accommodate to the new information.
This dual process, assimilation-accommodation,
enables the child to form schema.


Equilibration (equilibrium-disequilibrium)

Equilibration involves the person striking a
balance between himself and the environment,
between assimilation and accommodation.
When a child experiences a new event,
disequilibrium sets in until he is able to
assimilate and accommodate the new
information and thus attain equilibrium.
There are many types of equilibrium between
assimilation and accommodation that vary with
the levels of development and the problems to
be solved. For Piaget, equilibration is the major
factor in explaining why some children advance
more quickly in the development of logical
intelligence than do others
Activity group poster presentations- prop demos
Stage Props
Group 1- Sensorimotor Stage 0-2 years paper + toy
Group 2- Pre-Operational Stage 2-7 years mountains + cars
- Pre-conceptual 2-4 years pre concepts + animism
- Intuitive Stage 4-7 years egocentrism
Group 3 - Concrete Operational Stage 7-11 years counters + beakers
Group 4- Formal Operational Stage 11 years + beakers

For info ..
PIAGETS COGNITIVE STAGES
OF DEVELOPMENT
Sensorimotor
Stage
(0-2 years)
Pre-Operational
Stage
(2-7 years)
Pre-conceptual (2-4 years)
Intuitive Stages (4-7 years)
Concrete Operational
Stage
(7-11 years)
Formal Operational
Stage
(11+ years)
Sensorimotor Stage (cont.)
Object permanence- realization that
objects exist even if they are out of sight
- Piaget suggests that up to 8 months
infants do not search for objects that are
hidden from view . But then 1year olds do
look
video
Evaluation
However..
Bower (1981) showed that 5 month old
babies would show surprise if an object
hidden behind a screen was not there when
the screen was lifted

This research suggests that its not the age
that is important but the issue of it
happening at all

Bower suggests that Piaget may have
underestimated what infants could do
Pre-Operational Stage
(2-7 years)
Pre-conceptual (2-4 years)
Between the ages of 2 and 4
children begin to develop
basic schemas for example if
daddy has a blue car, every
blue car is Daddys car.
Children also begin to give
objects lifelike qualities, this is
called animism.
When children are between 4
and 7 years old they begin to
base their knowledge on what
they feel is true, but they cant
explain the underlying
principles.

Daddys car!
Intuitive Stage (4-7yrs)
Children base their knowledge of
what they feel or sense is true but
they cannot explain the underlying
principles

Egocentrism - child finds it hard to
understand the perspective of another

Intuitive Stage (4-7yrs)
--- 3 Mountain Task ---

Doll placed in various positions
Child asked to say what the doll could see
Intuitive Stage (cont.)
--- 3 Mountain Task ---
Results

Children said the scene would look the same as their own
viewpoint. This was the case wherever the doll was
positioned.
Evaluation
Intuitive Stage ( 4-7yrs)

Policeman Task (Hughes, 1975)
Child asked to hide a doll from two
policemen.
Then asked if policeman could see the doll
from various positions


Policeman Task (Hughes, 1975)
Results



Unlike Piaget, Hughes found that 90% of
children aged 3-5 could take another persons
perspective -when they understood the task

More realistic task (hiding from someone) than 3
mountains test.
Could DECENTRE

Concrete Operational Stage ( 7-11 yrs)
Intuition replaced by use of logical
rules
Childrens understanding still limited
by using actual concrete world
Difficulty in considering hypothetical or
abstract ideas
Two important features of this stage .
Concrete Operational Stage
(7-11 years)
Transitivity- The ability to recognize logical
relationships among elements in a serial order (for
example, If A is taller than B, and B is taller than C,
then A must be taller than C).
Classificationthe ability to name and identify
sets of objects according to appearance, size or
other characteristic
Decenteringwhere the child takes into accounts
points of view, other than their own. It is crucial for
developing future relationships
Reversibilitythe child understands that numbers
or objects can be changed, then returned to their
original state. For this reason, a child will be able to
rapidly determine that if 4+4 equals t, t4 will equal
4
Conservationunderstanding that quantity, length or
number of items is unrelated to the arrangement or
appearance of the object or items.
Elimination of Egocentrismthe ability to view things
from another's perspective (even if they think
incorrectly). For instance, show a child a comic in which
Jane puts a doll under a box, leaves the room, and then
Melissa moves the doll to a drawer, and Jane comes
back. A child in the concrete operations stage will say
that Jane will still think it's under the box even though the
child knows it is in the drawer.
Children in this stage can, however, only solve problems
that apply to actual (concrete) objects or events, and not
abstract concepts or hypothetical tasks.
1. Classification

Ability to be able to order a set of
items in terms of dimensions like
height, width or both.
e.g. when given dolls of different height,
the child can arrange them in height order
2. Transivity
Ability to recognise logical relationships
within a series

e.g. if Joe is taller than Sue, and Sue is
taller than Bethan, then it follows that
Joe is taller than Bethan
2. Transivity (cont.)
Piaget used Conservation tasks to test
this ability..

Examples of Conservation involving number & volume
video
Transformation
Beakers Counters
Summary
Concrete Operational Stage
Thinking is becoming operational

Decline of egocentric thought

Begin to think logically

Decline in animism

Therefore, they can cope with conservation, and
seriation

Evaluation
Concrete Operational Stage
Demand Characteristics
Rose & Blank (1974) suggested that by asking two
questions- one before and one after- the transformation,
children may think if the question is being asked again,
even though nothing has changed, perhaps there is another
answer

Naughty Teddy (McGarrigle & Donaldson 1974)
Used a naughty teddy glove puppet to accidentally spread
out one row of beads. Childrens ability to conserve was
much improved compared to Piagets methodology.


However


Moore & Frye (1986) proposed that the children
were so absorbed by the naughty teddy that they
did not even notice any transformation. This was
tested by seeing what would happen if a counter
was added or removed. When asked the children
replied that no change had taken place, suggesting
that the teddy was indeed a distraction.

Formal Operational Stage (11+ yrs)
Capable of abstract and systematic thought
demonstrated by
Beaker Problem
(Piaget & Inhelder, 1956)
Participants given four beakers of colourless liquids and
asked to find which combination will produce yellow
liquid. Older children used abstract deductive reasoning
Evaluation

Formal Operational Stage

Dasen (1994) claimed that only a third of
adults ever reach this stage

Piaget assumed everyone reached this level
of abstract reasoning. He worked
extensively with highly intelligent children
(non-representative sample ) so his results
may not be universally true, i.e. Low
external validity

Evaluation
Overall Evaluation
Internal validity
Piaget underestimated childrens abilities

He did not distinguish between competence (what a
child is capable of doing) and performance (how a
child performs on a particular task). His studies
tested performance.

Piaget assumed that a child who failed a task lacked
the underlying cognitive structures needed to
succeed on that task-subsequent research
(mentioned earlier) suggested that a child may have
these competencies earlier than he suggested.

Overall Evaluation
Piagets stages are too prescriptive
Practice improving performance
Piaget stated that if a person is not
biologically ready to move on to the next stage
of development then no amount of practice
will get them there.
However Bryant & Trabasso (1971) trained
children under 7 to cope with logical mental
rules


Overall Evaluation
However

Support

Smith et al (1998) suggested that
Piagets stages were connected to
biologically regulated cognitive changes
that occur during development. They
conducted cross-cultural research and
replicated Piagets findings

Summary
Piaget produced the first comprehensive
theory of cognitive development

Theory extensively developed

Large influence on educational practice

Generated large body of research
Key Points
Innate, stage theory, i.e.
maturation and readiness
learning process involving;
schemas / equilibrium-
disequilibrium accommodation
/ assimilation
Outline stages (key features)
Piagets Stages- CLIPS

Clip 1- Sensorimotor & Object Perm.
Clip 2 - Egocentrism
Clip 3- Conservation
Clip 4- Reasoning

IT Activity-Role play
Psychology video camera & your mobile
phone cameras
Piaget Stages Staged Observation

In groups, you are going to go plan, rehearse
then act out role plays for the key features of
Piagets 4 stages of cognitive development
These will be filmed using the psychology
video cameras
Then return to the classroom and these will
then be uploaded and shown to the class
next lesson..
Activity
Page 147 textbook

1.Description 200 words (worth 8 marks)
2. 8 criticisms with two IDA-each to be about 50
words
4. 600 word answer to;

Discuss Piagets theory of cognitive
development (8+16 marks)



Potential exam question
Discuss Piagets theory of
cognitive development
(8 + 16 marks)
2 ways to write these ..
Essay Plan 1
Definition of cognitive development
Describe Piagets theory
Innate, stage theory, i.e. maturation and readiness with learning
process involving; schemas / equilibrium-disequilibrium
accommodation / assimilation
Outline stages (key features)
Evaluation
Weaknesses- Hughes (1975) policeman task
McGarrigle & Donaldson naughty teddy
Rose & Blank Demand characteristics
Moore & Frye Not naughty teddy
Dasen (1994) not everybody reaches formal stage
Support- Smith et al (1998) suggested that Piagets stages were
connected to biologically regulated cognitive changes
Overall- Piagets stages are too prescriptive
IDA deterministic + nature vs nurture , i.e. biological
approach so it supports nature
Guilty of measuring performance not competence.
Definition of cognitive development and how Piagets theory is this
Describe Piagets theory- Innate, stage theory, i.e. maturation and
readiness with learning process involving; schemas / equilibrium-
disequilibrium accommodation /assimilation

Outline stages (key features) & evaluate as you go..
Stage 1- Describe then evaluate - Bower (object permanence)
Stage 2- Describe then evaluate - Hughes (1975) policeman task
Stage 3- Describe then evaluate - McGarrigle & Donaldson teddy
- Rose & Blank Demand characteristics
- Moore & Frye Not naughty teddy
Stage 4- Describe then evaluate - Dasen (1994) not everybody reaches

Overall evaluation at the end..
- Smith et al (1998) suggested that Piagets stages were connected to
biologically regulated cognitive changes..
- Piagets stages are too prescriptive so unreliable
- Guilty of measuring performance not competence.
- IDA deterministic + nature vs nurture , i.e. biological approach so it
supports nature
Or ..Plan 2
A01
A02
A03
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