Chapter 7

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: PIAGETS

THEORY AND VYGOTSKYS
SOCIOCULTURAL VIEWPOINT

PIAGETS THEORY OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Genetic epistemology experimental study of
the origin of knowledge
What is intelligence?
A basic life function that helps an organism
adapt to the environment
Cognitive equilibrium balance between
thought processes and the environment
Constructivist approach child constructs
knowledge

PIAGETS THEORY OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Gaining Knowledge: Schemes and Processes
Schemes: mental patterns (thought/action)
Organization combine existing
schemes into new/complex schemes
Adaptation adjustment to environment
Assimilation new information into
existing schemes
Accommodation modify existing
schemes for new information

Table 7.1 A small sample of cognitive growth from Piagets perspective

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Invariant developmental sequence
Sequencing fixed
Individual differences entering/emerging
stages

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
The Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 years)
Coordinate sensory inputs and motor skills
Transition from being reflexive to reflective
Development of Problem-Solving Abilities
Reflex activity (birth 1 month)
Primary circular reactions (1-4 months)
first motor habits, repetitive

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Secondary circular reactions

(4-8 months)
Repetitive actions with objects beyond
the body
Coordination of secondary reactions
(8-12 months)
Coordinate 2 or more actions to
achieve an objective (intentional)

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Tertiary circular reactions -12-18 months
Active experimentation, trial & error
Symbolic problem solving -18-24 months
Inner (mental) experimentation

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Development of Imitation
Novel responses by 8-12 months of age
Deferred imitation 18-24 months
Research now shows 6-month-olds are
capable of deferred imitation

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Development of Object Permanence
Objects continue to exist when they are
no longer visible/detectable
Appears by 8-12 months of age
A-not-B error: search in the last place
found, not where it was last seen
Complete by 18-24 months

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Challenges to Piaget Account
Neo-nativism
Infants are born with substantial innate
knowledge
Require less time/experience to be
demonstrated
Young children seem to possess some
object permanence, memory

Table 7.2 Summary of Piagets account of sensorimotor development

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Challenges to Piagets Approach
Theory theories
Combination of neo-nativist and
Piagetian perspective
Infants are prepared at birth to make
sense of some information
Beyond this, Piagets constructivist
approach is generally accurate

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
The Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)
Symbolic function / representational insight
One thing represents another
Language
Pretend (symbolic) play
developmentally a positive activity
New views on symbolism
Dual representation think about an
object in 2 ways at one time (3 years)

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Deficits in preoperational thinking
Animism
Attribute life/life like qualities to
inanimate objects
Egocentrism
View world from own perspective,
trouble recognizing others point of
view

Figure 7.2 Piagets three-mountain problem. Young preoperational children are egocentric. They
cannot easily assume another persons perspective and often say that another child viewing the
mountain from a different vantage point sees exactly what they see from their own location.

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Deficits in preoperational thinking
Appearance/reality distinction
Cannot distinguish between the
two
Dual encoding
Representing an object in more
than one way at a time

Figure 7.3 Maynard the cat, without and with a dog mask. Three-year-olds who met Maynard
before his change in appearance nonetheless believed that he had become a dog.

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Deficits in preoperational thinking
Lack of conservation do not realize
properties of objects do not change
just because appearance does
Lack of decentration concentrate
on more than one aspect of a
problem at the same time
Lack of reversibility mentally
undo an action

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Did Piaget Underestimate the Preoperational
Child?
New evidence on egocentrism
Piagets tasks were too complex
Another look at childrens reasoning
Animism not routine among 3-year-olds
Can preoperational children conserve?
Can be trained at 4 years (identity
training)

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
The Development Theory of Mind (TOM)
Belief-desire reasoning
Understand behavior is based on
What an individual knows or believes
What they want or desire
Develops after preschool age
False-belief task desire, not belief
Based on lack of cognitive inhibition
Improves with interaction with siblings

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
The Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)
Cognitive operations
Internal mental activity to modify
symbols to reach a logical conclusion
Conservation capable of
Decentering
Reversibility

Table 7.3 A comparison of preoperational and concrete operational thought

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Relational logic capable of
Mental seriation
Transitivity
Horizontal decalage different levels of
understanding that seem to require same
mental operations
Based on complexity
Limited to real or tangible aspects of
experience

Figure 7.7 Childrens performance on a simple seriation task. If asked to arrange a series of sticks
from shortest to longest, preoperational children often line up one end of the sticks and create an
incomplete ordering (a) or order them so the top of each successive stick extends higher than the

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
The Formal Operational Stage (11-12 +)
Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
Ability to generate hypotheses and use
deductive reasoning (general to specific)
Inductive reasoning
Going from specific observations to
generalizations

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Personal and Social Implications of Formal
Thought
Thinking about what is possible in life
Stable identity
Understanding of others perspectives
Questioning others
Thinking of how the world ought to be

PIAGETS STAGES OF COGNITIVE

DEVELOPMENT
Does Everyone Reach Formal Operations?
Early Piaget Yes, at least some signs
by 15-18
Other researchers No. Lack of
education
Later Piaget Yes, but only on problems
that are either interesting or important
Seem to be more adolescents at this
level than 30 years ago

Figure 7.8 Expertise and formal operations. College students show the greatest command of
formal-operational thought in the subject area most related to their major. ADAPTED FROM DE
LISI & STAUDT, 1980.

AN EVALUATION OF PIAGETS THEORY

Piagets Contributions
Founded cognitive development
Stated children construct their knowledge
First attempt to explain development
Reasonably accurate overview of how
children of different ages think
Major influence in social and emotional
development, and education
Influenced future research

AN EVALUATION OF PIAGETS THEORY

Challenges to Piaget
Piaget failed to distinguish competence
from performance
Does cognitive development really occur in
stages?
Little evidence of broad stages
Does Piaget explain cognitive
development? more of an description
Little attention to social/cultural influences

VYGOTSKYS SOCIOCULTURAL
PERSPECTIVE
The Role of Culture in Development
Ontogenetic development development
of an individual over his or her lifetime
Microgenetic development change over
relatively brief periods of time
Phylogenetic development changes over
evolutionary time
Sociohistorical development changes in
ones culture

VYGOTSKYS SOCIOCULTURAL
PERSPECTIVE
Tools of Intellectual Adaptation
Born with elementary mental functions
(attention, memory)
Culture transforms these into higher
mental functions
Culture specific tools allow the use
of the basic functions more
adaptively (language, pencils)

Table 7.4 Chinese and English number words from 1 to 20. The more systematic Chinese
numbering system follows a base-ten logic (i.e., 11 translating as ten one [shi yee]) requiring less
rote memorization, which may explain why Chinese-speaking children learn to count to 20 earlier
than English-speaking children.

VYGOTSKYS SOCIOCULTURAL
PERSPECTIVE
The Social Origins of Early Cognitive
Competencies
Many discoveries active learners make
occur in collaborative dialogue with a tutor
The Zone of Proximal Development
Difference between what a learner can
do independently and what can be done
with guidance

VYGOTSKYS SOCIOCULTURAL
PERSPECTIVE
Scaffolding tendency to tailor support
to a learner near the limit of capability
Guided participation/apprenticeship
May be very formal and context
dependent
May occur in day-to-day activities

Figure 7.9 Some functions of shared remembering in childrens memory development. Source:
Gauvin, M (2001). The social context of cognitive development. New York: Guilford, p. 211.

VYGOTSKYS SOCIOCULTURAL
PERSPECTIVE
Working in the Zone of Proximal Development
in Different Cultures
Cultures where adults and children are
segregated, learning is in schools
Cultures where adults and children are
together most of the day, learning is
through real life observation
Verbal versus nonverbal emphasis of
instruction

VYGOTSKYS SOCIOCULTURAL
PERSPECTIVE
Playing in the Zone of Proximal Development
More likely to engage in symbolic play
when others are present
Cooperative social play of preschoolers is
related to later understanding of others
feeling and beliefs

VYGOTSKYS SOCIOCULTURAL
PERSPECTIVE
Implications for Education
Active, not passive learning
Assess what is known to estimate
capabilities
Guided participations structured by
teachers who would gradually turn over
more of activity to students
Cooperative learning exercises help each
other; very effective!

VYGOTSKYS SOCIOCULTURAL
PERSPECTIVE
The Role of Language in Cognitive
Development
Primary method of passing modes of
thinking to children
Becomes important tool of intellectual
adaptation

VYGOTSKYS SOCIOCULTURAL
PERSPECTIVE
Piagets Theory of Language/Thought
Egocentric speech
Self-directed utterances
Reflected ongoing mental activity
Shifted to communicative speech
with age
Little role in cognitive development

VYGOTSKYS SOCIOCULTURAL
PERSPECTIVE
Vygotskys Theory of Language/Thought
Egocentric is really an illustration of
transition from prelinguistic to verbal
reasoning
Private speech communicative
speech for self
Serves as a cognitive selfguidance system; does not
disappear, becomes inner speech

VYGOTSKYS SOCIOCULTURAL
PERSPECTIVE
Which viewpoint should be endorsed?
Vygotsky
Social speech gives rise to private
speech
More common with difficult tasks
Self-instruction improves
performance
Does tend to turn into inner speech

VYGOTSKYS SOCIOCULTURAL
PERSPECTIVE
Vygotsky in Perspective: Summary
Cognitive development involves
Dialogues with skilled partners within the
zone of proximal development
Incorporation of what tutors say into what
they say to themselves
Expect wide variations in development
across cultures

VYGOTSKYS SOCIOCULTURAL
PERSPECTIVE
Vygotsky in Perspective: Evaluation
Not yet received intense scrutiny
Verbal guided participation may be less
adaptive in some instances than others
Collaborative problem solving can
undermine performance
More a perspective, not a theory with as
many testable hypotheses as Piaget

Table 7.5 Comparing Vygotskys and Piagets theories of cognitive development