Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development Essay Example
Piaget’s Theory Of Cognitive Development
Jaclyn F. Losquadro
Hunter College, The City Of New York
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Cognitive development is much more than addition of new facts and ideas to an existing store of information. According to Piaget, our thinking processes change radically, though slowly, from birth to maturity because we constantly strive to make sense of our world. He also believed that all people pass through the same four stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational) in the exact same order. These four stages are required for one to gain understanding of his or her world. As a result of Jean Piaget’s early research in Biology, Piaget concluded that all species inherit two basic tendencies. The first of these tendencies is toward organization- the combining, arranging, and rearranging of behavior, and thoughts in coherent systems (Miller 2011). The tendency to organize helps arrange psychological structures within the brain. These psychological structures are our systems for understanding and interacting with the world. These structures start off simple, becoming more and more complex and sophisticated as we learn and grow. Piaget called these structures schemes, the basic building blocks of thinking (Miller 2011). They are organized systems of actions or thoughts that allow us to mentally represent or “think about” the objects or events in our world. Schemes can be very small and specific or they can be large and more general. As a person’s thinking processes become more organized and new schemes develop, behavior also becomes more sophisticated and better suited to the environment. The second tendency Piaget concluded about all species is the tendency toward adaption (Miller 2011). One’s tendency to adapt to their environment involves two basic processes: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation refers to the way in which people transform incoming info so that it fits their
Jaclyn F. Losquadro
Hunter College, The City Of New York
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Cognitive development is much more than addition of new facts and ideas to an existing store of information. According to Piaget, our thinking processes change radically, though slowly, from birth to maturity because we constantly strive to make sense of our world. He also believed that all people pass through the same four stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational) in the exact same order. These four stages are required for one to gain understanding of his or her world. As a result of Jean Piaget’s early research in Biology, Piaget concluded that all species inherit two basic tendencies. The first of these tendencies is toward organization- the combining, arranging, and rearranging of behavior, and thoughts in coherent systems (Miller 2011). The tendency to organize helps arrange psychological structures within the brain. These psychological structures are our systems for understanding and interacting with the world. These structures start off simple, becoming more and more complex and sophisticated as we learn and grow. Piaget called these structures schemes, the basic building blocks of thinking (Miller 2011). They are organized systems of actions or thoughts that allow us to mentally represent or “think about” the objects or events in our world. Schemes can be very small and specific or they can be large and more general. As a person’s thinking processes become more organized and new schemes develop, behavior also becomes more sophisticated and better suited to the environment. The second tendency Piaget concluded about all species is the tendency toward adaption (Miller 2011). One’s tendency to adapt to their environment involves two basic processes: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation refers to the way in which people transform incoming info so that it fits their