Talk:Piaget's theory of cognitive development

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This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 January 2022 and 27 April 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Peer reviewers: Irvingca.

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This article is the subject of an educational assignment at King's University College supported by the Wikipedia Ambassador Program during the 2012 Q3 term. Further details are available on the course page.

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Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 4 January 2021 and 14 April 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rlilymm.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:38, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

untitled[edit]

Piaget is one of the most influential figures in the history of psychology. His work not only revolutionized developmental psychology but also formed the foundation for the subsequent investigation in the area of the formation of intellect.

Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

1. Sensori-Motor 0-2 years

2. Preoperational 2-7 years

3. Concrete operations 7-12 years

4. Formal Operations 12 and up

I am currently in a development class, so this is exciting for me! This information added to the article is very helpful and I believe it helps the readers know exactly what the specific ages are for every stage. Rlilymm (talk) 03:01, 21 January 2021 (UTC)Rlilymm[reply]

Dubious[edit]

The section on 'Classification' appears to be prematurely placed in Pre-operational. Classification isn't fully formed (i.e. hierarchical classification) until Concrete operationally aged kids. I went ahead and moved it to the Concrete stage. Briholt 00:16, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Criticisms[edit]

This article is titled misleadingly and should be called "Piaget's theory of cognitive development". There are several others that are just as interesting and valid (for example: Luria did some excellent work on describing ontogenetic development)

Why is there nothing on the current state of Piaget's theories in modern developmental science? I'm pretty sure most current infant researchers aren't Piagetians, or at least not strictly so. What are the criticisms or modern supporting evidence? — Asbestos | Talk (RFC) 17:43, 28 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]


I tried to (very briefly) address this in the new section I added, 'Challenges to Piagetian Stage Theory'. While only a start, it is at least that. I plan to add better referencing shortly! SlipperyN 21:22, 4 September 2006 (UTC)[reply]


Seems to neglect Piaget's moral development theories throughout the stages such as the heteronomous during the preoperational and the autonomoous during the concrete operationalJoshNck 12:55, 28 November 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The Challenges section seems to trail off at the end. I'm not sure what was trying to be said, but it certainly needs to be cleaned up. I undid the edit that replaced a bunch of content with the text "Uhhh,,, Chapp". Kainosnous (talk) 07:09, 19 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]


Rather than trying to add additional sections I would like to edit and clean up the formal operational stage section of this article. Michel8c (talk) 16:21, 21 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome! Please remember that Wikipedia is not an academic paper or essay! Wikipedia articles should not be based on WP:primary sources, but on reliable, published secondary sources (for instance, journal reviews and professional or advanced academic textbooks) and, to a lesser extent, on tertiary sources (such as undergraduate textbooks). WP:MEDRS describes how to identify reliable sources for medical information, which is a good guideline for many psychology articles as well. With friendly regards, Lova Falk talk 17:35, 23 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Application/Influence of the Theory[edit]

Can someone add some more information as to how Piaget's Theory is "the most historically influential theory" as I don't see anything mentioned on the influence his theory had on education. Gaz 09:57, 14 December 2006 (UTC). Piagets must have written his theory based on few unreliable sources as he tend to repeating himself over and over.. his theory needs an independent new review especially on the 4 stages of cognitive development. Job Hafeni[reply]

Animism[edit]

Animism The child believes that inanimate objects have "lifelike" qualities and are capable of action.
Example, a child plays with a doll and treats it like a real person. In a way this is like using their imagination.

I added this to the preoperational thinking. source: Santrock, W., John. (2006). Life-Span Development Tenth Edition. Mc-Graw Hill Custom Publishing. 235. (talkcontribs) 22:59, 12 May 2007 J1j2j3

Periods vs. Stages[edit]

This is probably a bit moot, but in class and in my text book we discussed Piaget's "Periods" such as the 'Motor-sensory Period', 'Pre-operational Period', and 'Concrete Operational Period' and their distinct "Stages".

The Wiki article mentions the Periods as Stages, and Stages mentioned above as "Sub-Stages"... I'm not sure which terminology is correct, but in case the terminology is wrong it may cause a lot of confusion and headaches... —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 130.85.242.32 (talk) 02:40, 15 May 2007 (UTC).[reply]

I google: Piaget "four stages" and Piaget "four periods". Four stages got more than ten times as many hits as four periods, so now I'll change period into stage.Lova Falk talk 05:56, 2 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

In Preoperational stage[edit]

It says in Classification: "A child is no longer subject to the illogical limitations of animism (the belief that all objects are animals and therefore have feelings)" and then later it says in Animism: "The child believes that inanimate objects have "lifelike" qualities and are capable of action. Example, a child plays with a doll and treats it like a real person. In a way this is like using their imagination", so basically it says that it doesn't happen, and then it says it does. How stupid. Jeffrey.Kleykamp 20:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It's not stupid, it's just unclear--don't be so concrete ;) Animism is definitely apart of Pre-operational thought. I'm going to strike it. Briholt 00:12, 3 August 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Dreadful lead paragraph[edit]

Kiwi points out in Talk:Asperger syndrome #Examples I found that Theory of cognitive development has a "DREADFUL intro paragraph. Why not an explanation that it refers to the development of thinking skills or something". That's a good point. The intro to this article is a dreadful lead. As far as I can see, the lead is missing. I'm making the comment here in the hopes that someone can write one. Eubulides 05:43, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Does this article mention his first name anywhere? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.174.152.13 (talk) 08:57, 2 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Not a wikipedia editor...[edit]

...but just eyeballing this, it looks like a few things may need addressing, at least in the preoperational area.

Egocentrism has at least two usage errors.

"Animism" is awkwardly written; among other problems, use of "their" as a gender-neutral singular pronoun isn't respectable English. Also, the final statement in that section hardly seems to need to be there, from a "quality of article" perspective.

Finally, there's no mention of transductive thought.

Not meaning to cast any stones here; you all do a great job, and if I had more time/ability, I'd try to get on board myself.

For that matter, I'm not entirely sure if I'm paying proper attention to the talk page guidelines; but I have a session to teach in a few moments, and if I don't point it out now, I may not remember to later. Apologies, if so.

Lauerc@gmail.com

146.7.31.81 23:22, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


"Also at this phase, passive reactions, llllllcaused by classical or operant conditioning, can begin" ??? what is with the l's?? Someone need to read through this page and make sure it is correct. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.177.35.135 (talk) 02:51, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Can someone dumb this article down. I dislike looking up every other word. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.177.35.135 (talk) 03:42, 22 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Assimilation and accommodation[edit]

The article needs an explanation of assimilation and accommodation, and perhaps of other global (non-stage-specific) concepts. The logical place would seem to be in a new section after the "General information regarding the stages" section. -DoctorW 20:48, 8 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Terrible Title[edit]

This is a theory of cognitive development, not 'The' theory of cognitive development. It should be titled Piaget's "theory of cognitive development" or "developmental stage theory." I don't know how to change the title, but someone should do it fast. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Agyong2 (talkcontribs) 23:40, 7 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]


Agreed. I came in here to comment on how this article reads like a grad student's homework - "According to Piaget" "Piaget notes that . . ." etc. Now I know why. This article could definately use a change of name; I'm a lay person and I came in to this thinking this ws IT, the ONE accepted 'theory of cognitive development'. I was expecting a theory in name only, like the theory of universal gravitation or something along those lines. 74.77.128.175 (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 04:53, 20 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

In fact, it is a theory of human developing condition of Piaget. Piaget developed it emphatizing cognition above other levels, but it is not a theory of cognition althogh it is some times called like that in recent psychology. In any case it is not the only theory of cognition, but the first mayor theory about it. There are many more, and probably more complete ones --Tommy The Wise (talk) 03:18, 15 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I think this should be renamed "Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development" or similar; the article is clearly about Piaget's theory. But the present title feels like blue sky mining to me. It is also now balanced by Neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development. In the event of a rename I'd suggest, Theory of Cognitive Development needs some form of disambiguation. Any objections to a rename and disambiguation?Finereach (talk) 19:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Needs formatting help![edit]

Call for help: Needs attention on the formatting. --1000Faces (talk) 23:39, 20 April 2008 (UTC) The title should be Piaget's Cognative Theory:Development of Reasoning. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.4.147.2 (talk) 15:49, 28 August 2008 (UTC)[reply]

even if they think incorrectly?[edit]

Elimination of Egocentrism—the ability to view things from another's perspective (even if they think incorrectly). Even if they think incorrectly? Those deviants.69.153.54.28 (talk) 22:22, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps this should be reworded in order to avoid confusion? This does not refer to matters of opinion or political incorrectness, but rather having mathematical or scientific misconceptions. --seberle (talk) 13:56, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Piaget's theory of cognitive equilibration[edit]

The stages of reasoning Piaget describes are not his theory of cognitive development, more properly named as Piaget did, cognitive equilibration. The stages are evidence of development in a person's reasoning. His description of the stages is an effort to describe patterns in the vast volume of data he and his colleagues collected. To leave out assimilation, accommodation, self-regulation and equilibration is to leave out Piaget's theory of cognitive equilibration.

A foundation of the theory is a fundamentally different view of the nature of knowledge. Because the nature of knowledge in Piaget's work is not a realist view of the nature of knowledge, Piaget's descriptions of the stages of reasoning and his theory of cognitive equilibration are essentially not capable of being understood from the realist point of view. (Check out the second quote on the Piaget page in Wikiquote.)

Because Piaget was a genetic epistemologist, he was essentially an experimental philosopher. To label him a developmental psychologist is to mislead the reader concerning Piaget. As an experimental philosopher the focus of his attention was on the origins and development of knowledge in human beings. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.41.40.69 (talk) 21:19, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Piaget was certainly interested in genetic epistemology, and as such might merit the additional label "experimental philosopher" for such work. However, most of Piaget's work can only be described as developmental psychology.--seberle (talk) 03:40, 15 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I propose adding a section specifically for equilibration. I suggest using this passage:

Piaget agreed with most other developmental psychologists in that there are three very important factors that are attributed to development: maturation, experience, and the social environment. But where his theory differs involves his addition of a fourth factor, equilibration, which “refers to the organism’s attempt to keep its cognitive schemes in balance.” (Bjorklund, 2011). Equilibration is the motivational element that guides cognitive development. As humans, we have a biological need to make sense of the things we encounter in every aspect of our world in order to muster a greater understanding of it, and therefore, to flourish in it. This is where the concept of equilibration comes into play. If a child is confronted with information that does not fit into his or her previously held schemes, disequilibrium is said to occur. This, as one would imagine, is unsatisfactory to the child, so he or she will try to fix it. The incongruence will be fixed in one of three ways. The child will either ignore the newly discovered information, assimilate the information into a preexisting scheme, or accommodate the information by modifying a different scheme. Using any of these methods will return the child to a state of equilibrium, however, depending on the information being presented to the child, that state of equilibrium is not likely to be permanent.

For example, let’s say Dave, a three year old boy who has grown up on a farm and is accustomed to seeing Horses regularly, has been brought to the zoo by his parents and sees an Elephant for the first time. Immediately he shouts “look mommy, Horsey!” Because Dave does not have a scheme for Elephants, he interprets the Elephant as being a Horse due to its large size, color, tail, and long face. He believes the Elephant is a Horse until his mother corrects. The new information Dave has received has put him in a state of disequilibrium. He now has to do one of three things. He can either: (1) turn his head, move towards another section of animals, and ignore this newly presented information; (2) distort the defining characteristics of an Elephant so that he can assimilate it into his “Horsey” scheme; or (3) he can modify his preexisting “Animal” schema to accommodate this new information regarding Elephants by slightly altering his knowledge of animals as he knows them.

With age comes entry into a higher stage of development. With that being said, previously held schemes (and the children that hold them) are more than likely to be confronted with discrepant information the older they get. Silverman and Geiringer (1973) propose that one would be more successful in attempting to change a child’s mode of thought by exposing that child to concepts that reflect a higher rather than a lower stage of development. Furthermore, children are better influenced by modeled performances that are one stage above their developmental level, as opposed to modeled performances that are either lower or two or more stages above their level. (Silverman & Geiringer, 1973) LawrenceT731 (talk) 20:49, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Content from developmental psychology page[edit]

FYI, I have copied some detail from the Developmental psychology page as a first step in potentially summarising the detail in that rather lengthy section to this page, which appears a more appropriate place for it. Will leave here for a while to see if there is any objection, before summarising that content on Developmental psychology. Finereach (talk) 21:37, 13 October 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Correction of Intelligence Testing[edit]

Piaget was not the founder of intelligence testing; that would be Alfred Binet and Lewis Terman, so I removed that from the first sentence. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.229.54.243 (talk) 20:30, 21 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Editor's Privilege for Tenured Faculty in Cognitive Development?[edit]

I am the teaching assistant for Cognitive Development at UC San Diego. I am also a PhD Candidate in the field. As a class assignment last spring, our students produced revised articles for wikipedia. As such, we have substantial edits to the page and new linking articles we feel should be accessible from this page. We are not sure how to be assigned editor's privileges for this article, but we have the academic credentials to do so. The instructor is tenured faculty. Can someone please reply with information how to do this?

These will be major edits.

Aeholt (talk) 17:36, 23 September 2010 (UTC)aeholt[reply]

Hi There is no category of editor's privilege, or more correctly we are all privileged editors, qualified or not. So go ahead and make the changes, if they stand up hurray! if not, another step closer to the truth. Just click [edit] at the start of the section you feel needs to change. Apologies for the delay, if you have already made the changes great, if not, go ahead.

TonyClarke (talk) 21:53, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Similar article[edit]

Hi, I'm just a harmless de-orphanator. In the course of my work, I've come across the article, Jean Piaget's theory of Cognitive Development-Educational Psychology which, from the text, appears to be an alternative version of this article. I recommend a merge and suggest the other article be deleted on the grounds of having such a clumsy title. However, I know enough of Wikipedia to wonder whether there are any issues to be considered first. For example, was the article created by a disgruntled editor? Is the article creator's username a sock puppet? I thought I'd post on this talk page to give those with more expertise on the topic to decide how to proceed. LordVetinari (talk) 09:13, 26 January 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Section 2...[edit]

...ends in the middle of a sentence. I believe it addresses early language acquisition; I only know I'm not quite qualified to finish it. ~~~~

"For example, young children whose symbolic play is of a violent nature tend to exhibit less prosocial behavior and are more likely to display antisocial tendencies in later years."

The abovementioned sentence is the last sentence of the 1st paragraph of section 2.2.1. I checked the referenced article, and such a conclusion is not possible from the study. Study is correlational and there is not any longitudunal element in the study. Therefore another appropriate source must be find Mahmutyoung (talk) 10:17, 15 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Chapter 6.[edit]

Chapter 6 includes the description of the post-Piagetian stage theories and the bibliography. I think the bibliography should be under a separate heading. I am not sure I can correct this properly. Someone who can help please do it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Open 2 (talkcontribs) 14:02, 20 June 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Suggestions[edit]

This article seems to be a bit lengthy in certain sections such as the Challenges section. The Article seems to be well organized and reliable. (~~~~) — Preceding unsigned comment added by POYNOR (talkcontribs) 02:42, 13 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

King's University College[edit]

Hi, I will be updating this article for my Developmental Psychology class Krowe24 (talk) 15:44, 20 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Welcome! Lova Falk talk 17:15, 21 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Hey I would like to make a few improvements in the future to this article:

(1) Add new reference; Lutz, S., & Huitt, W. (2004). Connecting cognitive development and constructivism: Implications from theory for instruction and assessment. Constructivism in the Human Sciences,9(1), 67-90,

(2) Improve the introduction of the article

(3) Improve the structure of the article

Thanks, Krowe24 (talk) 19:51, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Great, go ahead and make the changes, we look forward to seeing them! Usually people just get torn in and make the changes. If not good enough, this is soon be pointed out. No need to ask permission. Be bold! TonyClarke (talk) 21:58, 3 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks Tony. I asked my students to make these proposals as part of the assignment. Looks good KRowe. Agreed--now its time to be bold and make those edits. Paul Conway, Instructor, Introduction to Child Development, Fall 2012, King's University College Canada 02:28, 5 October 2012 (UTC)

Piagetian and post-Piagetian stage theories/heuristics[edit]

This section contained both Piagetian and post-Piagetian stage theories/heuristics and references. In 2008, an ip-editor merged these sections and nobody thought of reverting this. Now I split them and call the references for Further reading, because there is a proper ref section. I also removed the following theorists out of the Piagetian and post-Piagetian stage theories/heuristics because they neither have a WP article, nor a reference:

  • Cheryl Armon's Stages of the Good Life
  • Michael Barnes' stages of religious and scientific thinking
  • Suzy Gablik's stages of art history
  • Christopher Hallpike's stages of moral understanding
  • Don Lepan's theory of the origins of modern thought and drama
  • Charles Radding's theory of the medieval intellectual development
  • R.J. Robinson's stages of history and theory of the origins of intelligence

Please feel free to put them back in, but provide a source! Lova Falk talk 10:01, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Further reading[edit]

The section Further reading has grown out of control, which is why I moved it to the talk page. Please see Wikipedia:Further reading and put only entries that are topical, reliable and balanced, and please, keep the section limited in size. "Wikipedia is not a catalogue of all existing works." Thank you! Lova Falk talk 10:20, 8 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

  • Ashby, W.Ross (1952/1960) Design for a Brain. London: Chapman & Hall — gives a theoretical brain model which implies stages of development comparable to Piaget's; see Traill (1978).
  • Stafford Beer, a cybernetician and business-consultant, attempted to apply Ashby's principles to Companies and Government organizations. (e.g. Beer, 1972).
  • Biggs, J. & K.Collis (1982). A system of evaluating learning outcomes: The SOLO Taxonomy. New York: Academic Press.
  • Chapman, M. (1988). "Constructive Evolution: Origins and Development of Piaget’s Thought". New York: Cambridge University Press.
  • Cole, M, et al. (2005). The Development of Children. New York: Worth Publishers.
  • Commons, M.L. & F.A. Richards (1984). "A general model of stage theory" — and — "Applying the general stage model".  In M.L.Commons, F.A.Richards, & C.Armon (Eds.). Beyond formal operations: Vol.1: Late adolescent and adult cognitivedevelopment (pp. 120–140, 141-157). New York: Praeger.
  • Commons, M.L. & F.A. Richards (2002). "Organizing components into combinations: How stage transition works". Journal of Adult Development, 9(3), 159-177.
  • Commons, M.L. & F.A. Richards (2003). "Four postformal stages". In J. Demick & C. Andreoletti (Eds.), Handbook of adult development (pp. 199–219). New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum.
  • Demetriou, A. (1998). Cognitive development. In A. Demetriou, W. Doise, K. F. M. van Lieshout (Eds.), Life-span developmental psychology (pp. 179–269). London: Wiley.
  • Demetriou, A., Mouyi, A., & Spanoudis, G. (2010). The development of mental processing. Nesselroade, J. R. (2010). Methods in the study of life-span human development: Issues and answers. In W. F. Overton (Ed.), Biology, cognition and methods across the life-span. Volume 1 of the Handbook of life-span development (pp. 36–55), Editor-in-chief: R. M. Lerner. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
  • Fischer, K.W. (1980). "A theory of cognitive development: The control and construction of hierarchical skills". Psychological Review, 87(2), 477-531.
  • Oliver, C.R. (2004). Impact of catastrophe on pivotal national leaders' vision statements: Correspondences and discrepancies in moral reasoning, explanatory style, and rumination. Dissertation: Fielding Graduate Institute. http://dareassociation.org/Carl.Oliver_Dissertation_2004.pdf
  • Marcus, G. F. (2001). The Algebraic Mind: Integrating Connectionism and Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  • Mattick, J.S. (2001). “Noncoding RNAs: the architects of eukaryotic complexity”. EMBO Reports 2(11), 986-991. [1]
  • Mattick, J.S. (2003). “Challenging the dogma: The hidden layer of non-protein-coding RNAs on complex organisms” Bioessays. 25, 930-939. [2]
  • Mattick, J.S. (2004). “The hidden genetic program of complex organisms” Scientific American. 291(4), 30-37. [3]
  • Pascual-Leone, J. (1970). "A mathematical model for the transition rule in Piaget's developmental stages", Acta Psychologica, 32(4), 301-345.
  • Pascual-Leone, J. (1987). "Organismic processes for neo-Piagetian theories: A dialectical causal account of cognitive development". In: A.Demetriou (Ed.) The neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development: Towards an integration. Amsterdam: North-Holland; pp. 531–569.
  • Piaget, J. (1937/1954). La construction du réel chez l'enfant   /  The construction of reality in the child. New York: Basic Books.
  • Piaget, J. (1967). Biology and Knowledge, Chicago University Press.
  • Piaget, J. (1977). The Essential Piaget. ed by Howard E. Gruber and J. Jacques Vonèche, New York: Basic Books.  [An anthology of Piaget's works, with editorial comment].
  • Piaget, J. (1983). "Piaget's theory". In P. Mussen (ed). Handbook of Child Psychology. 4th edition. Vol. 1. New York: Wiley.
  • Piaget, J. (1995). Sociological Studies. London: Routledge.
  • Piaget, J. (2000). "Commentary on Vygotsky". New Ideas in Psychology, 18, 241–259.
  • Piaget, J. (2001). Studies in Reflecting Abstraction. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.
  • Seifer, Calvin Educational Psychology
  • Traill, R.R. (1976/2007) Short papers and letters on the 'linear micro-element' theory of mental mechanism, and related questions of scientific method. Monograph 18, Cybernetics Department, Brunel University. [4]
  • Traill, R.R. (1978) Molecular Explanation for Intelligence, including its growth, maintenance, and failings. Thesis, Brunel University, Uxbridge, Middx. http://hdl.handle.net/2438/729 [or separate chapters via http://www.ondwelle.com]
  • Traill, R.R. (1999) Mind and Micro-Mechanism: a Hunt for the Missing Theory. Melbourne: Ondwelle. ISBN 0-9577737-0-6 [5]
  • Traill, R.R. (2005/2008) Thinking by Molecule, Synapse, or both? — From Piaget's Schema, to the Selecting/Editing of ncRNA. Melbourne: Ondwelle. [6] — [also in French: [7] ]
  • Traill, R.R. (2012) A molecular basis for Piaget's "schème" (memory code): Some surprising implications — Paper presented at the 42nd Annual Conference of the Jean Piaget Society, Toronto Canada. — PowerPoint presentation [8] plus related notes-&-references [9] — [also in French: [10] ]
  • Commons, M. L., & Miller, P. M. (2007). How early negative caregiving experiences relate to stage of attachment. Behavioral Development Bulletin, 13, 14-17. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=32894499&site=ehost -live
  • Elkind, D. ((Dec., 1967)). Egocentrism in adolescence . [Child Development] Vol. 38(No. 4)pp. 1025-1034.
  • Feldman, D. H. (December 2004). New ideas in psychology. [Piaget'sstages: the unfinished symphony of cognitive development ] Vol 23(3), pgs,175-231.
  • Kesselring, T., & Müller, U. (2011). The concept of egocentrism in the context of Piaget’s theory. New Ideas in Psychology, 29(3), 327-345. doi: 10.1016/j.newideapsych.2010.03.008
  • Mensah, F. (2011). Investigating whether children's transition from pre-operational stage to concrete-operational stage can be accelerated using an intervention strategy. IFE PsychologIA, 19(2), 462-482. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=66960379&site=ehost -live
  • Nakagaki, A. (2011). The significance and potential of piaget's developmental stage theory. (english). Japanese Journal of Developmental Psychology, 22(4), 369-380. Retrieved from http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=70924138&site=ehost-live

Proposed addition to Sensorimotor Stage: Object Permanence Tasks[edit]

Sensorimotor Stage

Symbolic Functioning/Object Permanence Tasks

Piaget held that the highlight of the sixth Substage in the Sensorimotor period is the acquisition and development of symbolic function (Bjorklund, 169). Following this newfound ability, the child can then transition into the second Stage of Cognitive Development: The Preoperational Stage. To determine whether the child has achieved symbolic function, or object permanence, Piaget developed multiple experiments to gauge the child’s development. Piaget defines object permanence as an object which continues to exist in an individual’s mind, even though it is outside of their sight (Piaget, 4). Acquiring the sense of object permanence is one of the infant's most important accomplishments, according to Piaget.

Simple Hiding Task

To test the child, Piaget used an experiment in which the child is tantalized by some object (such as a toy), and then the object is hidden behind a napkin. During the first four months of the child’s life, there is little to no effort made by the infant to find the object under the napkin. After the first year, however, the child begins to search for the hidden item (Piaget, 4). Once the child is able to successfully and deliberately complete the simple hiding task by locating the object under the napkin, another task, the A-not-B search, is utilized.

A-not-B Search or Invisible Displacement Task In the A-not-B search, a desired object is hidden beneath a napkin, just like the Simple Hiding Task; however, once the child sees the object disappear, the experimenter visibly removes the object and places it beneath a second napkin. Amazingly, the child still looks beneath the first napkin even though he saw it change locations. This is an indication that object permanence has not fully developed (Bjorklund, 138). This is what Piaget labeled the “Invisible Displacement Task” (Bjorklund, 138).

Piaget found a way to observe the child’s level of object permanence after the first year was to transitioning an object from a place visible to the infants view, to behind an object, and then to the other side where the child can see it again. Piaget states that “there is a stage when, at the moment the child sees the watch disappear at the left, he immediately turns back to the right and looks for the watch there. In other words, he looks for the object where he has found it before” (4). Object permanence can not only be monitored through this particular exercise, but also conditioned through its repetition (provided the child possesses the developmental capacity for object permanence). Through this mode of experimentation with the child, it becomes clear that the child is now aware of objects as things that can exist and move beyond his own intent and action (Maier, 116). For Piaget, the expected age during which a child must be able to complete the invisible displacement problems is between 18-24 months (Bjorklund, 139). After achieving this cognitive milestone, according to Piaget, the child transitions into the second phase of cognitive development: the Preoperational Stage.


Apa Reference list

Bjorklund, David F.(2012). Children’s Thinking: Cognitive Development and Individual Differences. Fifth edition. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.

Maier, Henry W. (1969). Three Theories of Child Development: The Contributions of Erik H. Erikson, Jean Piaget, and Robert R. Sears, and Their Applications. Revised Edition. New York, NY: Harper & Row, Publishers.

Piaget, Jean (1896). Piaget Sampler: An Introduction to Jean Piaget Through His Own Words. Sarah F. Campbell, Ph. D. (Eds). Evanston, Illinois: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by John Rogers III (talkcontribs) 17:01, 28 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed revision to assimilation and accommodation[edit]

Elaborate on the definition of assimilation and accommodation by providing an in depth definition and examples of what a schema is and how it is related to assimilation and accommodation. Schemas are an important part of cognitive development, and need to be understood in order to understand how one learns new knowledge through assimilation and accommodation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bart23 (talkcontribs) 19:22, 29 November 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Proposed revision to Piaget's Sensorimotor Stage[edit]

Sensorimotor Stage:

According to Piaget, the sensorimotor stage starts at birth, and it lasts until 2 years of age. During this stage children’s intelligence is limited to their own actions (Bjorklund, 2012). Children use sensorimotor schemas in infancy. Schemas are knowledge structures in which children represent knowledge (Piaget, 2000). There are six substages to the sensorimotor stage:

1. Basic Reflexes Stage The first substage is the basic reflexes stage (from birth to 1 month), in which infants use their reflexes that they were born with to interpret their experiences (Bjorklund, 2012). These reflexes include sucking, grasping, eye movements, etc.

2. Primary Circular Reactions Stage The second substage is the primary circular reactions stage (from 1 to 4 months) in which the infant starts to do repetitive actions that are based on reflexes, such as voluntarily sucking on their thumb (Bjorklund, 2012). The infant may have randomly sucked on their thumb once and then wanted to recreate the experience and eventually would be able to suck their thumb whenever they pleased.

3. Secondary Circular Reactions Stage The third substage is the secondary circular reactions stage (from 4 to 8 months) in which the infant requires their first adaption of new behaviors. A major difference between primary and secondary circular reactions is that the interesting events are based on reflexes in the primary, and in the secondary the interesting events are found in the external world, such as objects and other people (Bjorklund, 2012). For example, if an infant while throwing a tantrum and waving their arms and legs around hits a toy ball nearby and causes it to roll away across the room then they will become fascinated with the ball rolling away and they will learn to do it again and learn to make the ball roll.

4. Coordination of the Secondary Circular Reactions Stage The fourth substage is the coordination of the secondary circular reactions (from 8-12 months) in which the infant first beings to have goal-directed behavior. Piaget suggested that one of the most simplest coordinations is the infant moving an obstacle out of the way so that it could retrieve a visible object (Bjorklund, 2012). The infant wanted an object but something was in the way, so the infant moved what was in the way so they could get to the object that they wanted.

5. Tertiary Circular Reactions Stage The fifth substage is the tertiary circular reactions (from 12-18 months) in which the infant can make subtle alterations in their existing schemes that are directly related to solving a problem. An infant in this stage can solve problems using trial-and-error processes. According to Piaget, the infants intelligence is still limited to physical actions on objects in this stage (Bjorklund, 2012).

6. Invention of New Means Through Mental Combinations The sixth substage is the Invention of new means through mental combinations (from 18-24 months) in which the infant shows their first sign on mental representation (Bjorklund, 2012). Mental representation is being able to think about objects without directly acting on them. Also, the infant developed symbolic function by this time, which is expressed by language, deferred imitation, gestures, symbolic play, and mental imagery.

The milestone for the sensorimotor stage would be object permanence. A milestone is when a child undergoes a major development or change. Object permanence develops during the last substage and it is the knowledge that objects continue to exist when they are not currently in view (Russell, 1999). SaraBarratt2 (talk) 00:52, 5 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]


Bjorklund, David F. (2012). Children’s thinking Cognitive Development and Individual Differences. Wadsworth: Cengage Learning.

Piaget, J. (2000). Piaget's theory. In K. Lee (Ed.) , Childhood cognitive development: The essential readings (pp. 33-47). Malden: Blackwell Publishing.

Russell, J. (1999). Cognitive development as an executive process—in part: A homeopathic dose of Piaget. Developmental Science, 2(3), 247-295. doi:10.1111/1467-7687.00072

Untitled[edit]

Check the end of the Assimilation and Accomodation section for line: "One change is characterized as "instagram". One must follow @aleepoo to reach the full state of adulthood." !?! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:CE0:2201:8805:443F:78AE:B933:6B46 (talk) 10:50, 9 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

 Fixed (not by me though) Lova Falk talk 08:04, 22 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Piaget's Theory and Its Impact on Education[edit]

I can add more information about how this theory impacts education to the Practical Applications section, or I can create a section for Piaget's Impact on Education. There is a brief mention in the Practical Applications section about how teachers can use this information, but there needs to be more information provided. M02000297 (talk) 20:20, 18 June 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Graphic[edit]

There is another Graphic I made as an Inkscape svg that can be edited. CC-BY-SA: http://marclandolt.ch/svg/JeanPiaget-PiagetianOperations.svg 91.138.25.122 (talk) 08:10, 26 October 2016 (UTC) Landev[reply]

the term "deduction" is incorrectly used throughout the article[edit]

The article is quoted by operationalizing deductive logic as "using a general principle to predict the outcome of a specific event". In every sense of the word, this is false. The definition they gave has nothing to do with the induction/deduction distinction, and both types of arguments are able to use general principles to make specific predictions. The true definition of deduction is that a deductive argument is intended to use logical means to prove the conclusion using the premises. Conversely, induction aims to show the probability or plausibility of the conclusion using the premises. When this article states that "children [in the concrete operational stage] at this age have difficulty using deductive logic", it is completely unknown if this is a true statement because the article fails to accurately describe deductive logic. This is a critical error in the article and should be corrected as soon as possible by someone more knowledgeable in developmental psychology than me.

Johnnmillerr (talk) 17:35, 6 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified (January 2018)[edit]

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Comment on new section, June 2019[edit]

This new section in good faith (Neo-Piagetian physical microstructure for schemes and schemata) appears to be largely speculative, with only one relevant citation, referencing work which may not have been peer reviewed.

The speculative nature is in the use of such phrases as ‘Piaget tentatively hinted’ (no citation or quotation); ‘ample ncRNA perhaps acting in their own right…’; ‘a seemingly plausible mechanistic framework’; ’it remains to be seen whether this will be consistent with new direct experimental evidence (if indeed such experiments are possible)’.

Also the citations need proper formatting ,and the use of an exclamation mark is not encyclopaedic.

Unless the entry can be improved and better supported by relevant citations of sources, I believe it should be deleted. TonyClarke (talk) 08:40, 6 June 2019 (UTC)[reply]

History of the theory[edit]

This article could really do with a section to summarise the history of the theory. When did he first propose it, and what was the timeline of its formulation? Is it the sole foundation of all his work, or were some later propositions and research independent of it? In which publication did he first propose it? 112.119.116.84 (talk) 18:35, 20 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

This article is really long. Maybe condense some of the information or only put what is absolutely necessary in order to keep the reader's attention longer? Or put a list of other article links and put excess information there? Amy912356 (talk) 02:47, 21 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright problems[edit]

I noticed extensive copyvio issues with this article that are not straightforward to clean up. The relevant report can be found on this page. Aspening (talk) 20:08, 29 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

There are some parts of the article that I think could be phrased in better ways to make more sense. For example, in the second paragraph of the first section it reads "Piaget believed that children are not like "little adults" who may know less; children just think and speak differently". Does anyone else think that is an issue? Or should it be left as is? Rguerrer (talk) 05:02, 4 May 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Adult Development Spring 2022[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 18 April 2022 and 18 July 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Rmbillings2 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Gal17014 (talk) 20:57, 8 June 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education Assignment[edit]

I think that this article does a great job generally explaining this theory, however, I do think that it needs help with its wording. Some of the wording is biased and difficult to follow. I also think that the organization of the overall article needs help as well. Definitely not a finished article but with a little help, it could turn out great. Nrlucier (talk) 01:35, 27 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education assignment: Developmental Psychology[edit]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 February 2023 and 12 May 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): MAC2147740 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Explorepsych (talk) 20:04, 12 April 2023 (UTC)[reply]