Developmental Psychology
Exam Preparation (2 mini essay style questions with example answers)
Q1: Discuss the developmental theories of Piaget and Vygotsky highlighting some of the
main similarities and differences between them.
Both Piaget and Vygotsky considered cognitive development to be an active process.
However, while Piaget saw children primarily as scientists who construct their own
understanding of the world, Vygotsky saw children mainly as apprentices. He argued that
cognitive growth was essentially a sociocultural process, with development taking place
through individuals’ interactions with other members of their society, who are more
experienced and skilled with the cultural tools and intellectual practices.
Piaget emphasized individual learning and discovery. Although Vygotsky also acknowledged
that individual learning takes, he argued that collaborative work, given that partners are not
equal in terms of knowledge and skills, was more beneficial to cognitive development than
solitary work. Vygotsky tended to focus on the role adults played in children’s cognitive
development. However, he also maintained that peer collaboration can foster cognitive
growth, if one partner is more capable and knowledgeable than the other. This position was
supported by Azmitia (1988), who found that children were more likely to acquire cognitive
skills when they worked with partners of greater expertise. Piaget, on the other hand, argued
that cognitive growth was not necessarily constrained by partners’ expertise maintaining that
all social interactions, which involve the presentation and discussion of alternative
viewpoints, should stimulate cognitive change. He emphasized the role of cognitive
(intraindividual) and socio-cognitive (interindividual) conflicts in developing reasoning. In
support of this notion, Doise and Mugny (1979) found that socio-cognitive conflict between
equally advanced peers led to further progress.
Piaget argued that cognitive development occurs as a result of the interaction between innate
capacities and environmental factors and events. Central to his theory is the idea of schemas;
mental structures that include both categories of knowledge as well as the process of
obtaining those particular kinds of knowledge. According to Piaget, children are born with
very basic schemas, which become more complex as they grow and adopt to their
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, environment. Adaptation involves three subprocesses: assimilation (adopting new
information into existing schemas), accommodation (modifying existing schemas or
developing brand new ones in light of new information) and equilibration (balancing
assimilation and accommodation to restore mental balance). While emphasizing the role of
the environment in cognitive growth, Vygotsky also acknowledged biological precursors for
development.
Another similarity between Piaget and Vygotsky is that they both outlined stages of
development, in which the focus was on qualitative changes. Piaget argued that children
progress through a series of 4 hierarchical, universal stages. During the sensorimotor stage
(from birth to age 2), children experience the world around them predominantly through their
senses. By the end of this stage, object permanence is thought to develop. The preoperational
stage (between the ages of 2 and 6) is characterized by the continued development and use
of language and other symbols. According to Piaget, preoperational children are still
egocentric. Piaget and Inhelder (1956) investigated egocentrism in children and concluded
that they decentre around the age of 7. However, Hughes (1975) used an alternative task (the
policeman task, which very much resembled hide and seek and therefore made more sense
to the children than Piaget’s 3 mountain task) to study egocentrism in children aged 3.5 – 5
and found that 90% managed to complete the task successfully. Hughes proposed that
children start to lose their egocentric way of thinking by 4 years of age. This study
demonstrated that the type of task used to assess egocentrism can make a huge difference.
Additionally, some studies (Brownell, 1990; Guralick & Paul-Brown, 1984) reported that
children as young as 2 and 3 talked differently to handicapped and younger children and
played differently with younger and older playmates. These findings suggest that children of
such a young age can understand to some extent that others experience things differently
from them. During the concrete operational stage (between the ages of 7-11) children start
to attach more than one symbol to an object or event and become able to think more logically.
Piaget proposed that school-aged children can now use inductive logic, that is, reasoning from
their own experiences to arrive at general principles. The last stage is the formal operational
stage (from approximately 12 to 16 years of age) is marked by the appearance of systematic
problem-solving and hypothetico-deductive reasoning. However, formal operational thought
was found more often among young adults in industrialized cultures, which are marked by
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