PIAGET’S THEORY OF

COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
&
KOHLBERG’S THEORY OF
MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Prepared By: NAAZIRA SHABAN

M.Sc Nursing Ist year
PIAGET’S THEORY OF
COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT
Born: August 9, 1896,
Switzerland
• Died: September 16,1980
(Age 84)
• Parents: Eldest son of Arthur
Piaget and Rebecca Jackson.
• Education: Received Ph.D.
from University of Neuchatel in
1918.
• Wife: Married to Valentine
Chatenay in 1923
• Children: 3 children namely
Jacqueline, Lucienne and
Laurent whose intellectual
development from infancy to
language was studied by Piaget.
 Introduction
• Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was one of the 20th century's most
influential researchers in the area of developmental psychology.
• He was originally trained in the areas of biology and philosophy and
considered himself a "Genetic Epistemologist".
• Piaget wanted to know how children learned through their
development in the study of knowledge.
• He administered Binet's IQ test in Paris and observed that children's
answers were qualitatively different.
• Piaget's theory is based on the idea that the developing child builds
cognitive structures.
• He believes that the child's cognitive structure increases with the
development.
• Piaget's Theory of infant development were based on his
observations of his own three children.
 What is Cognition?
• The term cognition is derived from the latin word
"cognoscere" which means
"to know" or "to recognise“ or
"to conceptualise".
• Cognition is "the mental
action or process of acquiring
knowledge and understanding
through thought, experience,
and the senses."
 What is Cognitive Development?
• Cognitive Development is the emergence of the ability to
think and understand.
• The acquisition of the ability to think, reason and solve
problem.
• It is the process by which people's thinking changes across
the life span.
• Piaget studied Cognitive Development by observing
children in particular, to examine how their thought
processes changed with age.
• It is the growing apprehension and adaptation to the
physical and social environment.
 How Cognitive Development occurs?
• Cognitive Development is gradual and orderly
change by which mental process becomes more
complex and sophisticated.
• The essential development of cognition is the
establishment of new schemes.
• Assimilation and Accommodation are both the
processes of the ways of Cognitive Development.
• The equilibration is the symbol of a new stage of
the Cognitive Development.
 Key Concepts :
• Schema : Schema is an internal representation of
the world. It helps an individual understand the
world they inhabit. They are cognitive structures
that represent a certain aspect of the world, and
can be seen as categories which have certain
preconceived ideas in them.
• For example, my schema for Christmas includes:
Christmas trees, presents, giving, money, green,
red, gold, winter, Santa Claus etc. Someone else
may have an entirely different schema, such as
Jesus, birth, Church, holiday, Christianity etc
Assimilation : It is using
an existing schema to deal
with a new object or
situation. Here, the learner
fits the new idea into what
he already knows.
In Assimilation, the schema
is not changed, it is only
modified. Example : A 2
year old child sees a man
who is bald on top of his
head and has long frizzy
hair on the sides. To his
father’s horror, the
toddler shouts “Clown,
clown”
• Accommodation : This happens when the existing
schema (knowledge) does not work and needs to be
changed to deal with a new object or situation. In
accommodation, the schema is altered; a new schema
may be developed. Example : In the “clown” incident,
the boy’s father explained to his son that the man was
not a clown and that even though his hair was like a
clown’s, he wasn’t wearing a funny costume and wasn’t
doing silly things to make people laugh.
• With this new knowledge, the boy was able to change
his schema of “clown” and make this idea fit better to a
standard concept of “clown”.
• Equilibration : Piaget believed that cognitive
development did not progress at a steady rate, but
rather in leaps and bounds. Equilibrium occurs
when a child's schemas can deal with most new
information through assimilation. As a child
progresses through the stages of cognitive
development, it is important to maintain a balance
between applying previous knowledge
(assimilation) and changing behavior to account for
new knowledge (accommodation).
• Equilibrium helps explain how children are able to
move from one stage of thought to the next.
The Sensorimotor Stage
(Birth to 2 yrs)
- Infancy
• Infants construct an understanding
of the world by coordinating
sensory experiences
(seeing, hearing)
with motor actions (reaching, touching).
• Develop Object Permanence (memory) - Realize that
objects exist even if they are out of sight.
• Infants progress from reflexive, instinctual actions at
birth to the beginning of problem solving (intellectual)
and symbolic abilities (language) toward the end of this
stage.
Preoperational Stage(2-7 yrs)
-Toddler and Early Childhood
• This stage begins when the
child starts to use symbols and
language. This is a period
of developing language and
concepts. So,the child is capable
of more complex mental representation
( words and images).
He is still unable to use 'operations', i.e,
logical mental rules, such as rules of
arithmetic.
The following are the key features of this stage :
• Egocentrism: The child's thoughts and
communications are typically egocentric (i.e,
about themselves or their own point of view). Eg.:
"if i can't see you, you also can't see me". It is the
inability to see the world from anyone else's eyes.
It is well explained by Piaget as Three Mountain
Task.
• Animism: Treating inanimate objects as living
ones. Eg.: children dressing and feeding their
dolls as if they are alive.
• Concentration: The process of concentrating on
one limited aspect of a stimulus and ignoring
other aspects. It is noticed in Conservation.
Conservation on the other hand is the knowledge
that quantity is unrelated to the arrangement and
physical appearance of objects. Children at this
stage are unaware of conservation.
Concrete Operational Stage
(7-12 yrs)
-Childhood and Early Adolescence
The concrete operational stage is characterized
by the appropriate use of logic. Important
processes during this stage are :
• Seriation: The ability to sort objects in an order according to size,
shape or any other characteristic. Eg: if given different-sized objects,
they may place them accordingly.
• Transitivity: The ability to recognize logical relationships among
elements in a serial order. Eg. if A is taller than B and B is taller than C,
then A must be taller than C.
• Classification: The ability to group objects together on the basis of
common features. The child also begins to get the idea that one set can
include another. Eg. there is a class of objects called dogs. There is also a
class called animals. But all dogs are also animals, so the class of animals
includes that of dogs.
• Decentring: The ability to take multiple aspects of a
situation into account. Eg.: the child will no longer
perceive an exceptionally wide but short cup to contain
less than a normally-wide, taller cup.
• Reversibility: The child understands that numbers or
objects can be changed, then returned to their original
state. Eg.: the child will rapidly determine that if 4+4=8
then 8-4=4, the original quantity.
• Conservation: Understanding that the quantity, length or
number of items is unrelated to the arrangement or
appearance of the object or item.
• Elimination of
Egocentrism: The ability to view things from another's
perspective.
• The child performs operations: combining, separating,
Formal Operational Stage
(12 yrs & above)
-Adolscence and Adulthood
• The thought becomes increasingly flexible
and abstract, i.e, can carry out systematic
experiments.
• The ability to systematically solve a problem
in a logical and methodological way.
• Understands that nothing is absolute; everything is relative.
• Develops skills such as logical thought, deductive reasoning
as well as inductive reasoning and systematic planning etc.
• Understands that the rules of any game or social system are
developed by a man by mutual agreement and hence could
be changed or modified.
• The child's way of thinking is at its most advanced, although
the knowledge it has to work with, will change.
 KOHLBERG’S
THEORY
OF MORAL
DEVELOPMENT
Lawrence Kohlberg
YEAR EVENT

October born in Bronxville, New York

15, 1927

1948 enters The University of Chicago and

completes his bachelor’s degree in
Psychology in one year
1949 begins his doctoral work at The
University of Chicago

1957- 1958 completes his doctoral dissertation

research on the moral development
of children

1968 As a result of his dissertation

research, Kohlberg found professional
fame

1969 Influenced by the kibbutz in his travel

in Israel, Kohlberg returns to
US and founds several “just
communities”
1971-While conducting
• 1987
cross-cultural work in On leave from a
Belize, Kohlberg contracts
a tropical disease that Massachusetts hospital
plague him physically and where he was seeking
mentally for the next
sixteen years treatment for the above
illness, Kohlberg commits
suicide by drowning himself
in Boston Harbor.
• He was 59 years old
 Theory of Moral Development
Kohlberg extended Piaget's theory;
• proposed that moral development is a continual
process that occurs throughout the lifespan.
• used Piaget’s story-telling technique to tell people
stories involving moral dilemmas.
• He based his theory upon research and interviews
with groups of young children.
• A series of moral dilemmas were presented to these
participants and they were also interviewed to
determine the reasoning behind their judgments of
each scenario.
One of the best known stories of Kohlberg’s (1958)
concerns a man called Heinz who lived somewhere in
Europe.
• A woman was near to death from cancer. One drug
might save her, a form of radium that a druggist in the
same town had recently discovered. The druggist was
charging $2,000.00, ten times what the drug cost him
to make.
• The sick woman's husband, Heinz, went to everyone
he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get
together about half of what it cost. He told the
druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it
cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said "no."
• The husband got desperate and broke into the man's
store to steal the drug for his wife. Should the husband
have done that? .... Why do you think so?
Levels of Moral Reasoning
PRECONVENTIONAL • Stage 1-Obediance and punishment
MORALITY • Stage 2- Individualism and exchange

CONVENTIONAL • Stage 3- Interpersonal relationship

MORALITY • Stage 4- Maintaining social order

POST • Stage 5- Social contract and

CONVENTIONAL individual rights.
MORALITY • Stage 6- Universal principles
• (age 4 - 10)
• a person is motivated by obedience to authority.
• commonly associated with young children involves
little thought about morality.
• moral code is shaped by the standards of adults and
the consequences of following or breaking their
rules.
Stage 1 - Obedience & Punishment
• earliest stage of moral development
common in young children
• children see rules as fixed and absolute.
• Obeying the rules is important to avoid
punishment.
• morality is motivated solely by
punishment
 Stage 2 - Individualism & Exchange
children account individual
points of view
 judge actions based on how
they serve individual needs.
Reciprocity is possible but only
if it serves one's own interests.
children recognize that there is not just one right
view and that different individuals have different
viewpoints.
focuses on individualism and different
perspectives,
the goal is to avoid punishment.
• EXAMPLES:
• Stage 1:
“I will keep quiet so that teacher won’t get
mad at me.”
• Stage 2:
“I will let you copy mine if you do my
homework.”
• (age 10 - 13)
• people focus on following social norms and
customs.
• begin to internalize the moral standards of
valued adult role models.
• Reasoning is based on the norms of the
group to which the person belongs.
 Stage 3 - Interpersonal Relationships
• Also known as "good boy-good girl“ orientation
• focused on living up to social expectations and roles
• emphasis on conformity, being "nice,"
• emphasizes the maintenance happy
• interpersonal relationships and pleasing others.
• a need to avoid rejection, disaffection, or
disapproval from others.
• consider how choices influence relationships.
 Stage 4 - Maintaining Social Order
• consider society as a whole when making
judgments
• focus is on maintaining law and order by following
the rules, doing one’s duty and respecting authority.
• please individuals to maintaining social order by
following social norms, customs, and laws.
• becomes aware of the wider rules of society to
avoid guilt.
• a need to not be criticized by a true authority figure
• EXAMPLES:
• Stage 3:
“I will buy that dress so that my friends will like
me.”
• Stage 4:
“You should not cut the class because it’s
against school rules.”
• (adolescence - adulthood)
• people look beyond convention to
determine moral norms and appropriate
social interactions.
• judgment is based on self-chosen
principles
• moral reasoning is based on individual
rights and justice
 Stage 5 - Social Contract & Individual
Rights
begin to account the
differing values, opinions
and beliefs of other people.
Laws are important but
members of the society
should agree upon these standards.
 becomes aware there are times when they will
work against rules or the interest of particular
individuals
emphasis on the social contract and the
maintenance of individual rights
 Stage 6 - Universal Principles
reasoning is based on universal
ethical principles and abstract
reasoning
follow these internalized
principles of justice, even if its
against the law
moral judgment is motivated by one's own
conscience
People have developed their own set of moral
guidelines which may or may not fit the law.
search for universal principles.
• EXAMPLES:
• Stage 5:
“It is her own decision, we should just respect
that.”
• Stage 6:
“If abortion became legal in our country, I will
be one of the people who will be against it
because it’s
against God’s Law.”
 Resources:
• http://psychology.about.com/od/developmentalp
sychology/a/kohlberg.htm
• http://www.simplypsychology.org/kohlberg.html
• http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/ko
hlberg-moral-development
• http://relong.myweb.uga.edu/#who
• http://tigger.uic.edu/~lnucci/MoralEd/articles/n
uccisynthesis.html