An in-depth summary of the Cognition and Development part of the AQA Psychology course. Covers:
- Pigaet’s theory of cognitive development
- Piaget's theory of intellectual development
- Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development
- Baillargeon’s explanation of early infant abilities
- Th...
KEYWORDS:
Egocentrism: seeing things from your own point of view and being unaware of other possible
viewpoints
Class inclusion: the principle that one category or class of things can include several
subclasses
Conservation: the ability to understand that simply changing the appearance of an object
does not change the object's nature
Object permanence: the understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of view
Stages of intellectual development: Piaget identified four stages of intellectual development.
Each stage is characterised by a different level of reasoning ability. Although the exact ages
vary from child to child, all children develop through the same sequence of stages
Key Principles:
Piaget suggested that we understand the world around us by using schemas. A schema is a
pattern of learning, linking perceptions, ideas and actions to make sense of the world. Piaget
described it simply as the “way we see the world”. When a child’s experience matches what
they understand they are in a state of equilibrium. If they come across a new situation or
task that they do not understand, Piaget called this disequilibrium. This occurs when a child
is unable to use existing schema to understand new information to make sense of objects
and concepts. To enable understanding, Piaget suggested that new information is added to
a current schema (assimilation) or the schema is changed, or a new one is developed to
improve understanding of the task (accommodation).
Stages of development:
Piaget believed that children pass through stages of development in a sequence which is
universal and not predetermined by gender or culture. This theory shows how thought and
reason change from birth to adolescence. Piaget stated that children may go through this at
different paces.
Age Stage Key Points
0-2 years Sensorimotor - This is the first stage of Piaget’s theory. He suggested that children learn by
Stage using their senses and through actions.
- Infants learn through using their reflexes and, according to Piaget, these are
important for the development of schemas.
- Children learn that objects still exist even when out of sight (object
permanence) from around 7-8 months of age.
- If a parent hides a toy and a child looks for it, this indicates that the child has
object permanence.
, 2-7 years Pre-operational - During the pre-operational stage, the child is unable to use logic to problem
Stage solve. Children are unable to see situations from the perspective of others.
Piaget referred to this as egocentrism. Although children are unable to see
situations from the perspective of others, this is not the same as selfishness.
The egocentric child assumes that the other person thinks and experiences
situations in the same way that they do.
Vocab for stage 2:
- Conservation: the ability to distinguish between
reality and appearance
- At the pre-operational stage, children have some
kind of logic, but not enough to understand how the
world really works meaning they rely on
appearance rather than reality. Piaget
demonstrated this in his conservation tasks.
- Conservation of volume:
- Egocentric: only able to see the world from their own
viewpoint and be unaware of other possible viewpoints.
7-11 Concrete - During the concrete operational stage, the child has learned to think logically
years Operational if the concepts are familiar to them. Children can start to problem solve and
Stage often learn new logic through discovery learning.
- During this stage children also learn to conserve quantities.
- Conservation refers to the ability to think logically to determine that a
particular quantity will remain the same, even if there is a change in shape or
size.
11+ Formal - This is the final stage of Piaget’s theory. Children can now think abstractly
years Operations and can problem solve and reason using hypothetico-deductive thought,
Stage thinking like a scientist - for example developing hypotheses and testing
them to determine causal relationships.
Before Piaget, people believed that the difference in thinking between children and adults
was that adults knew more; as you get older, you learn more information. However, Piaget
proposed a theory that suggested that adults don’t just know more, they think in a completely
different way.
Piaget believed that cognitive development was a result of maturation and the environment.
Maturation refers to the effects of the biological process of ageing. As children get older,
certain mental operations become possible and through interaction with their environment,
their understanding of the world becomes more complex.
Schemas:
● Mental structures that represent a group of related concepts
● Can be behavioural (such as grasping an object) or cognitive (such as classifying
projects)
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