Trained as a biologist, Jean Piaget is interested in philosophical problems about the origin and explanation of knowledge. He proposes the study of human knowledge from an evolutionary perspective, proposing a new discipline called andgenetic pistemology or theory of knowledge development.
Piaget tries to find out how knowledge increases, both at the level of the species and at the level of the individual. Thus, for the study of human behavior, the Swiss psychologist proposes a series of structures that he calls stages of intellectual development. In this Psychology-Online article, we will see the most important aspects of Piaget’s stage theory.
Piaget’s stage theory
Piaget’s stage theory proposes that the development of children’s intelligence is carried out through four different stages: sensorimotor, , and formal operations. The Piaget’s stages They allow connecting the innate reflexes of babies with sensorimotor intelligence and, in turn, with the emergence of language, symbolic representation and logical intelligence.
In this way, Piaget’s 4 stages link formal intelligence with the innate interactions of boys and girls with their physical environment. Thus, it provides us with a complete and systematic vision of the intellectual development of people through stages. Each of Piaget’s stages corresponds to different moments of cognitive development and are characterized by qualitatively different structures.
Characteristics of Piaget’s stages
According to Piaget’s stage theory, the intellectual development of people is marked by four evolutionary stages. Next, we will see the characteristics of Piaget’s stages:
- Order of succession of the stadiums: the sequence of acquisition of the stages is constant for all subjects. It does not depend on age, since it varies according to social experience and intelligence levels.
- Stadium structure: each stage is characterized by a structure that defines it. These structures can be formulated in algebraic or logical terms. Piaget opts for mathematical language to characterize the structure that underlies the performance of the subjects in each of the stages.
- Integration: each stage integrates the characteristics of the previous stage as a subordinate structure.
- Distinction: in each Piaget stage it is necessary to distinguish between a preparation phase and a finishing phase or, in other words, training processes and final forms of equilibrium.
Piaget’s principles of cognitive development
Piaget tries to answer questions about the origin of structures and mechanisms of change from biology. Through intelligence, the human organism achieves a more complex and flexible balance in its relationships with the environment. The same type of adaptive exchanges also occur at the psychological level between the subject and the objects of knowledge during Piaget’s stages.
Let’s see what are the principles of the that regulate the transition mechanisms from one stage to another:
- Organization: attribute that allows people to interact coherently with the environment. It orders knowledge and, in each case, leads to the adoption of specific behaviors according to the context.
- Adaptation: two elements are involved. The assimilation It allows the subject to incorporate objects into their cognitive structure, into their previous schemes, in an active process through which the subject transforms the reality to which they adapt. The accommodation It is the complementary process by which the subject transforms his cognitive structure and modifies his schemes to be able to incorporate the objects of reality.
- Balance: organization of the cognitive process that regulates the subject’s interactions with reality. Balance is a factor self-regulating character that guides subjects in their adaptation to the environment. People tend to seek balance between their own knowledge schemes and the external events that occur around them.
Criticisms of Piaget’s theory
Piaget’s stages have given the most complete explanation of human cognitive development. Even so, his theoretical proposal contains relevant limitations. Let’s see what the main criticisms of the theory are using examples from Piaget’s stage theory.
- Piaget’s approaches to cognitive development are limited to a linear and cumulative model.
- The main limitation of Piaget’s theory is the difficulty in understanding the transition processes between stages. Piaget’s stage theory is able to better explain the quantitative changes that occur within each stage than the discontinuity that occurs from one stage to another.
- Studies of cognitive development, through Piaget’s stages, are based exclusively on experiments with boys and girls.
- Piaget proposes a “scientific child.” Does not take into account the implications of social interaction in cognitive development.
- The structural dimension of the stages, according to Piaget, requires stability in the behavior of boys and girls in each of the stages. Over time it has been seen that this is not the case. The norm in development is variation and not stability.
- Certain childhood cognitive abilities appear in the development of the boy or girl earlier than expected by Piaget’s stage theory. This aspect is especially manifested in the sensorimotor stage and in the stage of concrete operations.
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Bibliography
- Piaget, J. (1999). The psychology of intelligence. Barcelona: Editorial Crítica.
- Piaget, J., and Inhelder, B. (2015). Child psychology. Madrid: Morata Editions.