Piaget’s most emblematic theory is one of those that every lover of psychology should know.
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Cognitive development according to Piaget
A child is not a half-baked adult . At least on a quantitative level, and for a long time the idea that a child is a small adult who lacks experience in life was widespread.
Piaget took it upon himself to demonstrate the most qualitative part of the matter. Cognitive development should not be understood as something linear and cumulative, rather the person has different cognitive characteristics depending on their life stage.
In this way, people who are in one evolutionary stage have a different way of seeing things than those who are in another. It is not only that older women have more experience in life, but on a psychological level there are a number of things that must be taken into account.
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Jean Piaget’s 4 stages of cognitive development
Today evolutionary psychology would not be the same without the figure of Jean Piaget . And even more specifically, evolutionary psychology, since Jean Piaget’s theory of the stages of cognitive development laid the foundations for this psychological discipline.
Below are the famous stadiums that the author proposed. They are the essential part of this theory that is studied today in all psychology faculties, although there are also some criticisms of it.
1. Sensorimotor stage
The sensorimotor stage is from when the baby is born until he begins to speak . This moment comes around two years of age, at which point the person is able to construct simple sentences.
The first of Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development has as its fundamental characteristic the way in which the baby interacts with the world. His senses give him all the information about the world, his eagerness to explore being fundamental for his cognitive development.
The need to understand the world through the senses does not prevent babies from knowing that there are objects that exist despite not having them in front of them.
On the other hand, there are people who are in the sensorimotor stage and are basically egocentric. It is not until later stages that behaviors more linked to altruism and self-sacrifice are usually shown.
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2. Preoperational stage
The preoperational stage is that which corresponds between two and seven years of age . People who are at this stage of Jean Piaget’s development already have more capacity to interact, and play through fictitious roles is frequent.
It is therefore a period in which the ability to use objects with a symbolic character is acquired. This is the case of children’s games in which they can both cook and fight with toys that represent pots or swords.
Although they continue to be self-centered people, it is from this stage that clear manifestations appear that they can put themselves in another person’s place. They therefore begin to show empathic and altruistic reactions, although this is not usual.
In the preoperational stage, the ability to associate ideas is clear, but so is its simplicity and low ability to contrast. It is for this reason that children between the ages of two and seven can easily resort to magical thinking to explain different facts.
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3. Stage of concrete operations
The stage of concrete operations goes from approximately seven to twelve years of age . In this evolutionary episode, the person is already capable of acquiring many of the mental capacities of an adult person.
It is at this stage, for example, when the use of logic gains strength. It is thus an evolutionary episode in which the person can reach conclusions using larger associative capacities.
The person may become less self-centered at this stage of Piaget, and is in a phase of development of his capacity for abstraction.
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4. Formal Operations Stage
The stage of formal operations runs from the age of twelve to the end of adulthood . The majority of the population, therefore, is in this stage of life, and it represents the culmination of cognitive development at the evolutionary level.
At this stage of Piaget, the person is already able to resort to his full capacity for abstraction and the use of logic to solve problems.
This is how hypothetical-deductive thinking becomes important in this phase of life. It is based on the idea that a person generates hypotheses to try to explain what he observes, being the experimentation and the use of reason the means to verify it.
Although some people are still self-centered, this is no longer a defining trait of this stage. People in the formal operations stage are capable of conditioning their thinking or behavior by causes that go beyond their person.
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Bibliographic references
- Cantero V. and Pilar, M. (2011). History And Concepts Of Developmental Psychology. Psychology of Human Development: From Birth to Old Age. University Club
- Dasen, P. (1994). Culture and cognitive development from a Piagetian perspective. En W.J. Lonner & R.S. Malpass (Eds.), Psychology and culture. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
- Vidal, F. (1994). Piaget before Piaget. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
To the classic question “what do you do?” I always answer “basically I am a psychologist”. In fact, my academic training has revolved around the psychology of development, education and community, a field of study influenced my volunteer activities, as well as my first work experiences in personal services.
