Cognitive

Development
Theory
Emraida T.
Cinches
 Jean Piaget
“The Boss”

Genetic Epistemology

Concern:
Fundamental questions of nature and
origin of knowledge

Basis of human knowledge:

Experience
Activity
Practice
 Main Concepts
Schem
a Accommodation
What happens when the schema itself changes
cognitive mental maps
to accommodate new knowledge

Assimilation Equilibratio
Process of taking in new n
information by incorporating it
Unification of ideas that create cognitive
into an existing schema
growth

Equilibriu Harmony between internal organization and external

m experience
 STAGES OF
COGNITIVE
DEVELOPME
NT
 Sensorimotor
Stage ✔ Ultimate tasks:
achieve a sense of:
⮚object constancy
✔ Age: 0-2 years old ⮚object permanence
✔ Knowledge acquisition: ✔ “the most fundamental and the
⮚ sensory impressions most rapid changes take place”
⮚ motor activity
 Reflexes/
Early Reflexive
Mental Schemes Primary
Representation Circular
Reactions
Substages
Tertiary Secondary
Circular Circular
Reactions Coordination Reactions
of Secondary
Circular
Reactions
 ✔ Animism
Preoperational ✔ Artificialism
Stage
✔ Peak of egocentrism; importance of
peer
✔ Age: 2-6/7 years old
✔ engagement in creative play
Sub-stages:
⮚ Pre-conceptual period (2-4) ✔ Parallel play
⮚ Perceptual/intuitive period
(4-7) ✔ Clear understanding of the past and
✔ “Why?” stage the future
 Operational
Stage
✔ Age: 6/7-11 years
✔ Interiorized action
✔ Operations cause children to
decenter
✔ Concept of conservation
✔ Reversibility
Formal
Operational
Stage
✔ 11 to adulthood
✔ Logical and abstract thinking
✔ Hypothetical and theoretical
reasoning
✔ Orderliness of thinking and mastery
of logical thought
✔ Constructed a value system and
moral judgment
 Tests
Conducted
Three
Mountains
Task
Q&As

Conservation
Studies
Main points in Piaget’s theory:
1. Knowledge has a biological function, and arises out of action.
2. Knowledge is basically “operative.” It is about change and transformation.
3. Knowledge consists of cognitive structures.
4. Development proceeds by the assimilation of the environment to these structures, and the
accommodation of these structures to the environment.

Robert Campbell
Department of Psychology
Clemson University
THAN
K
YOU!