Jean Piaget Essay, Research Paper

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Abstraction

This paper revolves around developmental psychologist Jean Piaget and his work. While rocking from the personal to the professional sides of the Swiss psychologist, the research touches on cardinal influences that inspired immature Piaget to go such a driven and good well-thought-of psychologist. However, the most extended portion of this paper is the account of his cognitive development theory and how it evolved. The three chief pieces to Piaget? s mystifier of cognitive development that are discussed are strategies, assimilation and adjustment, and the phases of cognitive growing. In add-on to the stuff on the adult male and his theory, there is the most of import constituent of the paper, the ways Piaget and his work molded the hereafter.

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Introduction

Now known as one of the trailblazers of developmental psychological science, Jean Piaget ab initio worked in a broad scope of Fieldss. Early on in his calling Piaget studied the human biological procedures. These procedures intrigued Piaget so much that he began to analyze the kingdom of human cognition. From this survey he was determined to bring out the secrets of cognitive growing in worlds.

Jean Piaget? s research on the growing of the human head finally lead to the formation of the cognitive development theory which consists of three chief constituents: strategies, assimilation and adjustment, and the phase theoretical account. The theory is best known for Piaget? s building of the discontinuous phase theoretical account which was based on his survey of kids and how the procedures and merchandises of their heads develop over clip. Harmonizing to this phase theoretical account, there are four degrees of cognitive growing: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.

While a significant sum of psychologists soon choose to adhere to the concepts of the information processing attack, Piaget? s land interrupting cognitive development position is still a valuable plus to the subdivision of developmental psychological science. Whether or non Piaget exposed any replies to the enigmas of human cognition is debatable, but one belief that few difference is that Jean Piaget did so put a strong foundation for future developmental psychologists.

Table of Contentss

Abstract 2

Introduction 3

Historical Background 4

Theoretical Construct 7

Impact on Society 12

Reference List 13

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Historical Background

In 1896 the summer in Switzerland was merely an ordinary, uneventful three months. However, during this ordinary and uneventful span of clip, a kid was born who would go an extraordinary developmental psychologist and carry through the hereafter with land interrupting events in the field of cognitive psychological science. He was the boy of an intelligent adult male and a austere, smart spiritual adult female, and godchild of well-thought-of epistemologist Samuel Cornut. With such scholarly milieus, there is small surprise that Jean Piaget developed into such an intelligent person.

At age eleven, immature Piaget wrote a paper on albino sparrows and got it published. This publication provided him with the chance to run into a adult male who would turn out to be really influential, Paul Godet, the conservator at the local museum. Young Piaget besides benefited extremely from his esteemed high school in Neuchatel, along with the aforesaid godfather Samuel Cornut who introduced him to one of the two Fieldss he would turn to love, epistemology, and most of all Jean Piaget? s parents who non merely instilled an academe place environment but besides provided a solid spiritual background.

Another large minute came in the signifier of a book. Piaget names Henri Bergson? s L? Evolution Creatrice as the most influential piece of composing he has of all time read in his grownup life. He had this to state about it, ? reading Bergson was for me a disclosure. . . close to ecstasy, ? ( Cohen, 1983 ) .

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From this book Piaget developed a desire for biological science to travel along with his bing involvement in doctrine, epistemology to be exact.

Piaget stated in his first two books that he had aspirations of building a construction that addressed the basic inquiries of epistemology. However, harmonizing to Cohen ( 1983 ) , Piaget? s strong initial involvement in doctrine declined slightly when he discovered that the philosophers did non truly cognize any factual replies to inquiries that have plagued humanity. Piaget now became every bit interested in biological science and epistemology. This double involvement attracted him to psychology, yet he still was unsure of what way he should take in his calling.

It was non until Piaget traveled to Paris to hear his favourite author of the clip, Bergson, that he began to acquire an thought of what he wanted to make. There Piaget met James M. Baldwin who would actuate him and learn him, ? the importance of imitation and of reversible operations, ? ( Cohen, 1983 ) . Both of these qualities would play a cardinal function in the formation of Piaget? s development theory. However, Piaget? s major turning point came when the colleague of the late Alfred Binet, Dr. Simon, requested that he standardise an intelligence trial. Piaget flourished in the function of replying complex philosophical inquiries. Yet, Piaget did non travel along with the traditional epistemologists who merely laid back and tried to raise up replies. Piaget opted for the more biological-type of experiments with epistemology subjects.

This method of biological experimentation with epistemology gave

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Piaget the motive to get down proving kids and to make what he felt he was destined to make, find how the head grows. His consequence was the cognitive development theory.

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Theoretical Concepts

The cognitive development theory is Jean Piaget? s effort to explicate how the human head develops. A common description of Piaget? s position of the head is that it is, ? an active biological system that ( uses ) environmental information to suit with or set to its ain existing mental constructions, ? ( Zimbardo & A ; Weber, 1994 ) . Now, to depict how this biological system develops, Piaget breaks the development procedure down into three chief constituents: strategies, assimilation and adjustment, and the phase theoretical account of cognitive growing. Schemes, ? are the constructions or organisations of actions as they are transferred by repeat in similar or correspondent fortunes, ? ( Piaget & A ; Inhelder, 1969 ) . In simple footings, strategies guide ideas based on anterior experiences, therefore, functioning as the edifice blocks of cognitive growing. Except, with simple strategies, which are the first strategies to develop in a kid? s life, the kid has really small, if any, past experiences to steer his or her ideas. Therefore, early ideas depend about wholly on the new born kid? s physiological reactions to senses. These basic strategies subsequently combine with each other in order to develop more

complex strategies that are more capable of steering the kid than physiological reactions.

However, the complexness of the strategies depend upon how good and how much an single either assimilates or accommodates information that is new to the head. If strategies are considered edifice blocks, so

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the assimilation and adjustment procedures can best be described as the building crews. These two procedures assistance in cognitive growing by set uping the new information with strategies that are already present in the person? s head. The more new information the kid assimilates or accommodates, the less his or her strategies will hold to trust on physical objects to make cognitive operations. Of class, harmonizing to Piaget? s phase theoretical account, this trust on physical objects will non

lessening until the latter phases of the kid? s cognitive growing.

While both the assimilation and adjustment procedures are responsible for set uping a perfect cognitive tantrum between the strategy and the information, each completes the procedure in different manners, therefore the demand for two different footings. Assimilation reconfigures the new informations to suit with bing strategies, and the adjustment procedure restructures a kid? s strategies to? suit? the new environmental information. As Piaget provinces, ? Accommodation [ is ] the accommodation of the strategy to the peculiar situation. ? He goes on to give an illustration of the two procedures:

? An baby who? s merely discovered he can hold on what he sees ( will so absorb ) everything he sees. . . to the strategies of grasping, that is, it becomes an object to hold on every bit good as an object to look at or an object to suck on. But if it? s a big object for which he needs both custodies. . . he will ( suit ) the strategy

of grasping, ? ( Bringuier, 1980 ) .

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The chief constituent of Jean Piaget? s development theory has been addressed slightly, but a factor of this importance requires much more attending. The cardinal constituent is the phase theoretical account of cognitive growing. Piaget makes it clear that these phases are non determined by age but cognitive development in this really brief account of the theoretical account, ? The phases are an order of sequence. ( The development ) International Relations and Security Network? T [ harmonizing to ] the mean age, ? ( Bringuier, 1980 ) . He goes on to depict the theoretical account as a, ? consecutive order, ? ( Bringuier, 1980 ) of cognitive growing. The phase theoretical account is made of four phases and as one may deduce from the statements from Piaget, these phases are discontinuous.

The first phase the kid goes through is the sensorimotor. During this phase there is, ? the being of an intelligence before linguistic communication, ? ( Piaget & A ; Inhelder, 1969 ) . While age does non find the phase of growing, the mean age of kids in this phase is birth to two old ages old. Zimbardo and Weber ( 1994 ) explicate Piaget? s decision on this phase as one where, ? the kid is tied to the immediate environment and motor-action strategies, missing the cognitive ability to stand for objects symbolically. ? The chief undertaking during the sensorimotor phase is for the kid to command and organize his or her organic structure. While in the 2nd twelvemonth, most kids begin, ? to organize mental representations of absent objects, ? ( Zimbardo & A ; Weber, 1994 ) . Finally, at the terminal of the sensorimotor phase the kid moves instead easy, can place household members, has developed an apprehensible linguistic communication degree, yet the kid is still, ? unlogical, egoistic,

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and unaware of his ego, ? ( Cohen, 1983 ) .

The following phase is the pre-operational which has an approximative scope of age from two to seven old ages old. During this clip, unluckily, the kid still can non transport out logical operations. However, to make this phase the kid must increase the velocity of his or her uses, and go involved with more complex undertakings. The kid besides creates mental symbols for physical objects during this stage. Most significantly, though, are the three characteristics that preoccupy the head during this phase as described by Zimbardo and Weber ( 1994 ) : egoism & # 8211 ; concentrate revolves around themselves and no 1 else ; animistic thought & # 8211 ; believing inanimate objects have life and that they think ; and there is centration & # 8211 ; in which the kid is frequently excessively focused on one feature of the perceptual experience, therefore, the kid is prevented from understanding the full perceptual experience. Jean Piaget besides notes that by the terminal of this phase the kid develops, ? linguistic communication, symbolic drama, and mental images. . [ which ] . . permit the representation of idea, but it is a preoperational idea, ? ( Bringuier, 1980 ) .

The approximative age for the 3rd stage of cognitive development is seven to eleven old ages of age. The kid can non believe in abstracts during the concrete operational phase, but can keep mental operations which allows them to work out jobs that are concrete such as add-on and minus. During this phase, the kid has a general cognition of the demands and guidelines for a complex undertaking but the kid can non

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finish the undertaking because he or she can non visualise any possibilities. This is because all possibilities are represented by abstractions and the kid can merely stand for objects in the concrete signifier. However, the kid does get down to concentrate on the full perceptual experience, easy interrupting off from the centration characteristic that is prevailing during the preoperational phase. Besides, the egoism that was so obvious during the preoperational phase is normally left buttocks at that phase. One last betterment in the kid? s cognitive development is that the kid now understands the thought of affair preservation.

The last phase of cognitive growing harmonizing to Jean Piaget is the formal operational which normally consists of persons on the norm of 11 old ages old. The kid? s cognitive formal operations, ? no longer associate straight to objects, ? ( Bringuier, 1980 ) . The kid can now believe in abstracts and he or she realizes that their world is non the lone 1 that exists. The kid besides has, ? all the mental constructions needed to travel from being naif minds to experts, ? ( Zimbardo & A ; Weber, 1994 ) . Piaget

described this phase best when he said that, ? The great freshness of this phase is that. . . the ( stripling ) becomes capable of concluding right, ? ( Cohen, 1983 ) .

Overall, the strategies, the assimilation and adjustment procedures, and the phase theoretical account all are concepts that non merely back up Piaget? s

superb theory, but they themselves are advanced theoretical constituents.

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Impact on Society

Jean Piaget was the prima experimental epistemologist, thanks in some portion to Simon and Binet? s work, but he set the criterion that would non be accepted by the ethnocentric Americans until they were despairing during the Cold War and decided to open their eyes and accept his findings. Once they did this, they implemented Piaget? s theory into many American school systems which would hold had a much more good result had the powers that be implemented the great adult male? s work more carefully. Yet, Piaget and his theory have survived and he is labeled as, ? The dominant force in determining the cognitive-field and perceptual-field theories. . . ? ( Adelani, etc. 1990 ) . His theory was strong because he placed rational development over the kid? s emotional, societal, and moral development because he viewed the mind as holding influence over these other developing entities. In decision, Piaget summarizes the cognitive development theory best in this

statement:

? My secret aspiration is that the hypotheses one could oppose to my ain will eventually be seen non to belie them but to ensue from a normal procedure of distinction, ? ( Bringuier, 1980 ) .

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Reference List

Adelani, L. , Behle, J. , Leftwich, B. , and White, C. ( 1990 ) . Mathematical Readiness: What is it? How do you mensurate it? How is it used? Saint Louis, Missouri: Harris Stowe State College.

Bringuier, J. C. ( 1980 ) . Conversations with Jean Piaget. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Cohen, D. ( 1983 ) . Piaget: Review and Reassessment. New York City: St. Martin? s Press.

Piaget, J. ( 1951 ) . The Child? s Concept of the World. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Piaget, J. and Inhelder, B. ( 1969 ) . The Psychology of the Child. New York City: Basic Books.

World Wide Web. piaget.org

Zimbardo, P. and Weber, A. ( 1994 ) . Psychology and Life. Saint Louis, Missouri: McGraw-Hill Company.