Theory of Jean Piaget explained in a very basic manner.

1. COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
THEORY
BY
JEAN PIAGET
MODERATOR – Dr. SARTHAK BHANDARI
PRESENTED BY – Dr. SUNIDHI RAUTHAN

2. Jean Piaget
Widely renowned child psychologist and genetic
epistemologist (study of the development of
abstractthought on the basis of biological or innate
substrate)
Focused on the progressive development of human
knowledge
Piaget in his work “Childhood Cognitive Development
Stages” emphasised the way children think and
acquire knowledge

3. Piaget’s four stages of cognitive
development
 Sensorimotor stage: From birth to 2 years
 Stage of preoperational thought: From 2 years to 7 years
 Stage of concrete operations : From 7 years to 11 years
 Stage of formal operations From 11 years to end of
adolescence

4. Basis of Piaget’s theory
 ADAPTATION – a process by which individuals build
mental representations of the world through direct
interactionwith it.
Assimilation – it is our tendency to fit new
information into existing mental frameworks.
Accommodation – it is our tendency to alter existing
concepts in response to new information

5. EXISTING CONCEPT/
SCHEMA
NEW INFORMATION - CLOSE TO
OUR TO EXISTING CONCEPT
NEW INFORMATION - DOES NOT
FIT INTO OUR EXISTING CONCEPT
ACCOMMODATION
It is the tension
between these two
components that fosters
adaptation and
cognitive development
ASSIMILATION
NEW
INFORMATION

6. Sensorimotor stage
- Children begin to learn throughsensory observation
- Gain control of their motor functions through activity,exploration
and manipulation of the environment

7. Substages of Sensorimotor stage
1. Inborn motor and sensory reflexes (birth to 2
months)
 Child uses inborn motor and sensory reflexes to
interact actively with the external world.
 Infant’s visual, spatial and tactile worlds expand
through this period

8. 2. Primary circular reaction (2- 5 months)
 Infant experiences an action/event and then
attempts to repeat the action
 Infant learns to coordinateactivities of his own
body and five senses.
 The reality for the infant remains subjective.

9. 3. Secondary circular reaction (5-9 months)
 The infant repeats an action with a
specific desired consequence -
beginningof intentionalbehaviour
 The child seeksnew stimuli from the
environment.

10. 4. Use of familiar means to obtain ends(9m – 1 y)
 It entails deliberate planning of steps to meet a goal or
objective
 Startsto build vague concept of object permanence
 Also imitatesnovel behaviours

11. 5. Tertiarycircular reaction and
discovery through active
experimentation (1y – 18 m)
 Seeks out new experiences.
Experiment with their environment
using properties of one object to
manipulate another
 Produces novelbehaviours by
himself
For example : using
a stick to push a
ball that then
makes a noise

12. 6. Insight and object permanence (18m – 2 y)
 Characterised by Insight
 Symbolic thought: symbolisation ofreal objects
 Attains OBJECTPERMANENCE –whichmarks the transition to
the next stage
It is for this reason that children who have not attained object
permanence (esp. those below 9 m of age) suffer from separation
anxiety
The ability to understand that objects have
existence independent of the child’s
involvement with them
Able to create a visual image of
an object example a ball to
signify the real object

13. Stage of preoperational thought (2-7 years)
◦In this stage children use the symbolsand languages in a more
elaborateway (starts to draw)
◦Thinking and reasoning are intuitive.
◦They have no sense of cause or effect.
◦The child is unable to thinklogically and cannot deal with moral
dilemmas, although they have a sense what is good or bad.
If a child drops a glass
and it breaks, he
believes that the glass
was ready to break, not
that he broke the glass

14. ◦Concepts are primitive therefore in situations where we need to
explain them things out of their league, role-playing works
better than verbal explanations.
◦Development in this stage is EGOCENTRIC (unable to take the role
of another person or understand the point of view of the other
person)
For example : If a child is
asked to be quiet so that
his brother can study the
child won’t listen because
he can’t understand his
brother’s perspective

15. ◦Phenomenalisticcausality i.e., events that occur together are
thought to cause one another
◦Animisticthinking – tendency to endow objects with life-like
psychological attributes like feelings or intentions
◦Semioticfunction-children can represent an object or an event
that is not present by means of another object that is present
(signifier)
For example : a child draws stick
figures to represent different
members of his/her family
For example : Thunder
causes lightening
because they occur
together
For example : child believes
stars twinkle because they are
happy

16. Stage of concrete operations (7-11 y)
◦Egocentric thought is replaced by operational thought (dealing
with wide array of information) Can now see thingswith someone
else’s perspective
◦Can SERIALISE things or CATEGORISEthingsinto classes based on
common characteristics

17. ◦Syllogisticreasoning – logical conclusion is formed from 2
premises
◦At this stage, children develop respect for rules and an
understanding that there are legitimate exceptions to the rules,
but some children may become overly invested in rules may
show obsessive compulsive behaviour while the children
who resist rules seem to be wilful and reactive.
For example : All horses are mammals ; and all
mammals are warm blooded they can come to a
conclusion that ALL HORSES ARE WARM
BLOODED.

18. ◦Attain concept of cause and effect
◦REVERSIBILITY – understands that one thing can be turned to
another and back again (ice and water)
◦CONSERVATION – ability to recognise that an object even if its
appearance is changed does not lose the characteristics(in
terms of substance, length and area) that enable it to be called
the same
◦Absence of this ability is characteristic of preoperational
stage

19. Absence of conservation is
characteristic of preoperational
stage

20. Stage of formal operations
◦Thinking operates in a highly logical,systematicand symbolic
manner
◦Characterised by ability to think ABSTRACTLY. This newly
acquired ability may result in adolescents being overly
abstract about things leading to confusion or uncertainty
which is normal at this stage

21. ◦Language use is complex (follows rules of grammar)
◦Hypotheticodeductive thinking – it is the highest organisation
of cognition which enables a person to make hypothesis and
test it against reality
◦Has 2 partsdeductivereasoningand inductivereasoning
Takes general information and
applies it to a particular
testable idea then deduces a
solution through reasoning
Involves taking an idea
and formulating a
general hypothesis

22. ◦Not all adolescents enter the stage of formal operations at the
same time or to the same degree (some may not reach at all and
may remain in concrete operational stage throughout their life)
◦Even adults under stress may regress cognitively as well as
emotionally and their thinking may become preoperational,
egocentric, and sometimes animistic.

23. “Cognitive revolutions” in psychology.
• Piaget’s work formed one of the foundations of “cognitive
revolutions” in psychology.
1) Cognitive therapy
• In increasing emphasis on cognitive components of
therapeutic endeavour.
• Cognitive therapy focuses on thought, including a person’s
automatic assumptions, beliefs, plans and intentions.

24. • It has been effective treatment to problems like depression,
anxiety disorders and substance abuse by assisting to
identify maladaptive thoughts and then trying to make
amends on a cognitive level.
2) Children’s concepts of other people by James Youniss
3) Model of moral reasoning by Lawrence Kohlberg is based on
Piaget’s theory

25. REFERENCES
• Kaplan and Sadock, Synopsis of psychiatry- Fifth edition, Wolters Kluwer
• Robert A. Baron, Introduction to Psychology - Fourth edition
• https://parenting.kars4kids.org/conservation-tasks-what-piaget-taught-me-
about-children/
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYbCE1udazw
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK448206/
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