Who was Jean Piaget?

Jean Piaget (1896 to 1980)

n       Education

n       Ph.D. in the Natural Sciences, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland (1918)

n       Postdoctoral studies in psychoanalysis, University of Zurich (Winter, 1918-1919)

n       Career

n       Publishes his first biology paper (on the albino sparrow) at age 10 (1907)

n       Théodore Simon asks him to standardize Cyril Burt's intelligence tests with Parisian children (1920)

n       Publishes his first article on the psychology of intelligence (1921)

n       Research Director, Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Geneva (1921-1925)

n       Professor of psychology, sociology and history of science, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland (1925-1929)

n       Professor of the History of Scientific Thought, University of Geneva (1929-1939)

n       Director of the International Bureau of Education, Geneva (1929-1967)

n       Director, Institute of Educational Sciences, University of Geneva (1932-1971)

n       Professor of Psychology and Sociology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland (1938-1951)

n       Professor of Sociology, University of Geneva (1939-1952)

n       Chair of Experimental Psychology, University of Geneva (1940-1971)

n       Professor of Genetic Psychology, the Sorbonne, Paris (1952-1963)

n       Founder/Director of the International Center for Genetic Epistemology, Geneva (1955-1980)

n       Founder, School of Sciences, University of Geneva (1956)

n       Emeritus Professor, University of Geneva (1971-1980)

n       Ph.D. in the Natural Sciences, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland (1918)

n       Postdoctoral studies in psychoanalysis, University of Zurich (Winter, 1918-1919)

 

Overview of Theory

n     Intelligence is a form of biological adaptation

n      Learning is a process of adaptation

n    Schemes

n    Assimilation

n    Accomodation

n     "Intelligence is an adaptation…To say that intelligence is a particular instance of biological adaptation is thus to suppose that it is essentially an organization and that its function is to structure the universe just as the organism structures its immediate environment" (Piaget, 1963, pp. 3-4).

n     "Intelligence is assimilation to the extent that it incorporates all the given data of experience within its framework…There can be no doubt either, that mental life is also accommodation to the environment. Assimilation can never be pure because by incorporating new elements into its earlier schemata the intelligence constantly modifies the latter in order to adjust them to new elements" (Piaget, 1963, p. 6-7).

 

 

Major Stages of Development

n    Stages are:

n   Universal

n   Invariant

n   Hierarchically related

n    Four Major Stages

n   Sensorimotor (birth to 2 years)

n   Preoperations (2 to 7 years)

n   Concrete Operations (7 to 11 years)

n   Formal Operations (11 to 15 years)

Sensorimotor Stage (0 to 2 years)

n    Les origines de la pensée chez l’enfant (1936)

n   (Origins of Intelligence in Children)

n    La Construction du réel chez l’enfant

n   (Construction of reality in children)

 

 

 

    

Sensorimotor Stage

What defines humans are uniquely intelligent?

n    General Trends through stage:

n   Behavior goes from reflexive to voluntary

n   Behavior goes from external to internal

n   Behavior gradual separates means from ends (strategies from goals)

Stage 1: Reflexes (0 to 1 month)

n    “How do the sensorimotor and other reactions, inherent in the hereditary equipment of the newborn child, prepare him to adapt himself to his external environment and to acquire subsequent behavior distinguished by the progressive use of experience

Stage 1: Reflexes and Sucking Response

n    Obs1: “ As soon as hands rub the lips the sucking reflex is Day2: Laurent again begins to make sucking like movements between meals thus repeating movements of the first day

n   Functional assimilation: repetition of new behaviors

n    Day4: “I hold out my crooked index finger to Laurent who is crying from hunger.  He immediately sucks it but rejects it after a few seconds and begins to cry”

Stage 1

n    There is a type of “assimilation” or learning

n   Classical Conditioning

n   Recognitory Assimilation

 

Stage 2: Repetitive Motions (Primary Circular Reactions, 1 to 4 mos)

n    “Lucienne at 0;4 looks at a rattle with desire, but without extending her had.  I place the rattle near her right hand.  As soon as Lucienne see rattle and hand together, she moves her hand closer t the rattle and finally grasps it. A moment later she is engaged in looking at her hand.  I then put the rattle aside; Lucienne looks at it, then directs her eyes to her hand, then to the rattle again, after which she slowly moves her hand towards the rattle .  As soon as she touches it, there is an attempt to grasp it and finally, success…

n    Continues to explain learning to use rattle

Stage 2

n    What type of conditioning?  Why is this a true accomodation

n    Summary of Behaviors

n   Intersensory coordinations

n   Circular reactions: Discovery and conservation of new behaviors

n   Lack of intention and “means-ends”

 

Stage 3: Extended Repetitive Motions (Secondary Circular Reactions, 4 to 8 mo)

n    “As Laurent was striking his chest and shaking his hands which were bandaged and held by strings attached to the handle of the bassinet (to prevent him from sucking), I had the idea of using the thing and I attached the strings to the celluloid balls hanging from the hood.  Laurent naturally shook the balls by chance and looked at them at once.  As the shaking was repeated more and more frequently Laurent arched himself, waved his arms and legs—in short, he revealed increasing pleasure and through this maintained the interesting result

Stage 3

n    Beginning of separating means-ends

n    Separation of external world versus self

n    Discovery requires more “internalization”

n    Behavior is still “accidental”, but more voluntary

 

 

 

Stage 4: Old Means-Ends (Coordination of Secondary Circular Reactions, 8 to 12 mo)

n    I present Laurent with a matchbox, extending my hand laterally to make an obstacle to his prehension.  Laurent tries to pass over my hand, or to the side, but he does not attempt to displace it.  As each time I prevent his passage, he ends by storming at the box while waving his hand, shaking himself, wagging his head from side to side, in short, by substituting magic-phenomenalistic procedures for prehension rendered impossible.

Stage 4

n    First appearance of “intelligent behavior”: Intentionality: “The child no longer merely tries to repeat or prolong an effect of which he has discovered or observed by chance, he pursues an end not immediate attainable and tries to reach it by different intermediate ends”

n    Separation of means-ends

n    Still no true internal problem solving

Stage 5: New Means-Ends (Tertiary Circular Reactions, 12 to 18 mo)

n    At 1;7 Jacqueline is seated in her bassinet whose handle is supported by a table facing the child.  I show her a swan whose neck has a string attached to it, then I put the swan on a table while leaving the string in the bassinet.  Jacqueline grasps it immediately and ulls it while looking at the swan.  But as the string is long she does not stretch it out but is limited to waving it.  Each shake of the string makes the swan move but it comes no nearer

Stage 5

n    After many attempts of the same kind, I move the swan farther away which results in stretching the string.  Jacqueline still shakes it without really pulling it.  The swan falls; Jacqueline holds onto the string, pulls it, but as the swan does not come at once, she resumes shaking the string.

Stage 5

n    The next day, I resume the experiment.  At first Jacqueline shakes the string, then pulls it.  When the swan is near enough she tries to reach  it directly with her hand.  When she does not succeed she gives up instead of resuming pulling.  The following days, same reactions, but it seems that she shakes the string less each time and pulls it more

n    Finally (the 10 days later) Jacqueline draws the object to her correctly by puling the string but she never does it without shaking it beforehand as though that nwere necessary.  Only ten days later does she pull it right away.

 

 

Stage 5

n    True means-ends and intentionality

n    Internal problem solving as long as solutions is physically discoverable.

n    Shift in interest from ends to means

 

 

Stage 6: Mental Representations (18 to 24 mo)

n     Laurent is playing with a child’s cane which he handles for the first time.  He is visibly surprised at the interdependence he observes between the two ends of the object.  He displaces the cane in all directions letting the free end drag along the floor and studies the coming and going of this end as a function of the movements he makes at the other.  In short, he begins to conceive of the stick as a rigid entity.  But this discovery does not lead him to that of the instrumental significance of the stick.  In effect, having by chance struck a tin box with the cane, he again strikes it but without the idea either of making it advance in that way or of bring it to him.

Stage 6

n    3 months later:  I give him back the stick because of his recent progress.  He has just learned to put objects on top of one another, to put them into a cup and turn it upside down, etc.  He grasps the stick and immediately strikes the floor with it, then strikes various objects placed on the floor.  He displaces them gently but it does not occur to him to utilize this result systematically.  At a given moment his stick gets caught in a rag and drags it for a few moments in the course of its movements.  But when I put various desirable objects 1 m. away from Laurent, he does not utilize the virtual instrument he holds.

Stage 6

n    Another month later: Laurent is seated before a table and I place a brad crust in front of him out of reach.  Also, to the right of the child I place a stick about 25 cm long.  At first Laurent tries to grasp the bread without paying attention to the instrument, and then he gives up.  I then put the stick between him and the bread so it does not touch the objective but nevertheless carries with it an undeniable visual suggestion.  Laurent again looks at the bread, without moving, looks very briefly at the stick, then suddenly grasps it and directs it toward the bread and draws the bread to him.

Stage 6

n    True internal thinking

n    Symbolic representation (tool use)

n    True understanding of means vs. ends

 

Development of Object Permanence

n    Stage 2: Stares at point of disappearance

n    Stage 3: Awareness of object permanence—infant will look at other end of tunnel and try to find fallen objects

 

 

 

Development of Object Permanence

n    Stage 4: Infant will retrieve hidden object but makes the A B or Stage 4 Error

 

Development of Object Permanence

n    Stage 5: Will search in Multiple Locations but will not do invisible displacements

n    Stage 6: Will do invisible displacement