Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development: From Magical Thinking to Logical Thinking
The section on Erikson:s theory concluded with a comment on the ability to reflect and think. Jean Piaget (1896—1980), often recognized as the foremost child psychologist of the twentieth century, made the growth of the child’s ability to think his particular domain of investigation.
Piaget, working primarily at Geneva University in Switzerland, began his investigations into the workings of the child's mind because of an interest in epistemology. Epistemology, a branch of philosophy, is the study of knowing.
Piaget wanted to discover how we come to know what we know. Or. more accurately, he wanted to discover how we come to think we know what we think we know.
The method that Piaget used to study the child's mind is called the phenomenological method. The phenomenological method is characterized by asking a child a series of carefully worded questions that direct the child's attention to particular details of the child’s immediate world. The child's responses reveal the way in which the he or she thinks about the world. Piaget's investigations suggest that there are four stages of cognitive development, the development of the way in which the child thinks. Informally, cognitive development may be thought of as the “growth of the mind.”
According to Piaget, there are four stages of cognitive development: (1) the sensorimotor stage. (2) the preoperational stage. (3) the concrete operations stage, and (4) the formal operations stage.
The sensorimotor stage is associated with infancy (birth to two years old).
During this stage the infant has consciousness, but not self-consciousness. He or she is, of course, aware of the environment. There are reflexes. A stimulus induces a patterned, predictable motor response. This provides a due to the term siHsorifnoior and why Piaget chose it. The infant senses the world and, without reflection or analysis, acts in response to his or her impressions.
In the older infant there is even a certain amount of intentional behavior. But the infant does not know that he or she exists in the same way that an older child or an adult knows that he or she exists. There is no way to establish these assertions beyond doubt, because a verbal interview with an infant is impossible. However, an infant acts as if self-consdousness is absent. For example, one-year-old J ames is shown his reflection in a mirror. He is curious, of course, and reaches out to touch the reflection. But he does not seem to know that he is seeing himself.
There appears to be no sense of recognition. A postage stamp is lightly stuck to his forehead. He touches it in the mirror, but doesn’t peel it off of his forehead.
Tested again, when he is a little over two years old, James immediately recognizes that the stamp is on his own forehead, and, using the mirror, peels it off. He has developed self-consdousness, a characteristic not of infancy, but of the next stage.
The preoperational stage is assodated with toddlerhood and the preschool age (two to seven years old). The termpnopiraiioHflis used to suggest that during this stage the child has not yet grasped the concept of cause and effect. Instead, the child tends to think in magical terms. Magical thinking is characterized by an absence of the recognition of the importance of the laws of nature. Four-year-old Daniel sees no problem when a magidan instructs a carpet to fly.
Two additional characteristics of the preoperational stage are anthropomorphic thinking and egocentrism. Anthropomorphic thinking is characterized by a tendency to explain natural events in terms of human behavior. Consequently, leaves turn various colors in the fall because Jack Frost paints them. The huffing and puffing of an invisible giant is the cause of a windy day.
Egocentrism is a tendency to perceive oneself as existing at the center of the universe. Everything revolves around the self. Consequently, five-year-old Danielle, when riding in a car at night with her parents, asks, “Why is the Moon following us?” Two days later Danielle falls and scrapes her knee. She believes that her mother can feel the pain. Six-year-old Edward thinks that people in a foreign country on the other side of the world are upside down. He reasons that if the world is round, and we’re right side up, then they have to be upside down. If an adult tells Edward that the people are right side up, he will be confused.
The concrete operations stage is assodated with middle childhood (seven to twelve years old). The child at this stage can think in terms of cause and effect.
However, most of the thinking is “concrete,” meaning that cognitive processes at this stage deal well with what can be seen or otherwise experienced, not with abstractions. For example, eight-year-old Jack can easily understand that 3 + 7 =
10 because, if necessary, this can be demonstrated with physical objects such as pennies or chips. On the other hand. Jack can’t grasp that x + 8 = 11 in problem 1. and that x + S = 24 in problem 2. If Jack is told that x is a variable, and that it can have more than one numerical value in different problems, he will have a hard time appreciating this fact. In brief. J ack can understand arithmetic, but he can’t understand algebra.
During the stage of concrete operations, children are usually interested in how clocks work, how measurements are made., and why this causes that to happen.
They often like to assemble things. A game such as Monopoly, with its play money, property deeds, and tokens, is attractive.
The formal operations stage is associated with adolescence and adulthood. (Adolescence begins at twelve or thirteen years old). The formal operations stage is characterized by the ability to think in abstract terms. The adolescent and adult can understand algebra. Subjects such as philosophy, with its various viewpoints on life, become accessible. Not only thinking, but thinking about thinking is possible. This is called metathought. It is what we are doing in this section of the book.
Formal operational thought makes it possible to use both inductive and deductive logic. The adult can reflect, analyze, and rethink
ideas and viewpoints. This kind of thought opens up avenues of mental flexibility not available to children.
Piaget’s theory presents a blueprint for cognitive development that captures the spectrum of thinking from its primitive beginning to its most sophisticated level.