Since we are boys and girls we develop abilities that allow us to understand and adapt to society. Have you ever wondered how and when we learn them? The psychologist Jean Piaget did it and developed a theory to explain how, from the time we are little, we acquire knowledge. Specifically, between the ages of 2 and 7 we acquire vital skills for our development. Piaget’s theory named this period as preoperational stage.
In this Psychology-Online article, you will see the characteristics and examples of Piaget’s preoperational stagethe second stage of the Swiss psychologist’s theory of cognitive development.
What is the preoperational stage?
What is Piaget’s preoperational stage? According to it, it begins when boys and girls, between 2 and 7 years old, use language, images and symbols to represent real aspects of their environment. During this period they begin to understand what surrounds them and develop the ability to communicate with words, count objects and draw thoughts and ideas.
This phase of children’s cognitive development is called preoperational because children are not yet able to use logic efficiently.
Substages of the preoperational stage
The theory of cognitive development divides the preoperational stage into two substages:
- Symbolic or preconceptual: ranges from 2 to 4 years. They understand the world around them through concrete images. They associate the meaning of the words with the lived experience. They have preconceptions about what surrounds them based on what they perceive through their senses.
- Intuitive or conceptual: It goes from 4 to 7 years old. They have an immediate perception of what surrounds them. They use images and sensory experiences to identify concepts and internalize what each one of them means.
Characteristics of the preoperational stage
According to Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, during the preoperational stage, boys and girls develop a series of characteristics. Next, we will see the characteristics of Piaget’s preoperational stage:
- Centralization: Little boys and girls tend to focus on only one object or aspect of each situation in which they find themselves. They have trouble taking into account more than one characteristic at a time. Furthermore, it is difficult for them to change the focus of attention in social contexts.
- Egocentrism: They are only able to see situations from their own experience. They are unable to take into account another person’s point of view. This is what is known as childhood egocentrism.
- Game: between 2 and 7 years old, boys and girls can play in the same room with other children but they do not interact or establish bonds with them. As they develop during the preoperational stage, according to Piaget, they learn to play and relate to others.
- symbolic representation: They have the ability to carry out an action to represent a specific fact. The main tool of symbolic representation that they learn in the preoperational stage of cognitive development is language.
- symbolic game: Another characteristic of the preoperational stage is that boys and girls are able to play at being other people, such as astronauts or superheroes. Symbolic play helps them get to know the people and objects around them through words, objects and symbols. In this article, you can see more about it.
- Animism: Boys and girls believe that everything around them is alive and has a purpose. They have the tendency to give human feelings and qualities to inanimate objects.
- Artificialism: Little boys and girls are interested in the natural world but believe that phenomena such as trees, animals or clouds are created by people.
- Irreversibility: One of the characteristics of the preoperational stage is the inability to reverse the directionality of a sequence of events to its starting point. For example, after placing a series of objects in a specific order, boys or girls are not able to carry out the same steps that they followed to do it in the opposite order.
Piaget’s experiments of the preoperational stage
Piaget conducted studies to support his theory of childhood egocentrism with real examples. The best known is the three mountains experiment. To perform the test you must follow the following steps:
- A boy or girl sits in front of a table on which there is a model with three different mountains: one with snow, one with a house on the top and another with a red cross on top.
- The child is allowed to walk around the model.
- A doll is placed in different places on the table.
- The child is shown 10 photographs of the mountains in the model taken from different positions. The objective is for the child to indicate which photograph shows the doll’s perspective.
- Result: if you are able to identify what the doll sees and you are correct, you have overcome your egocentric vision of the world. If, on the other hand, the child only points to the photograph that corresponds to his vision, he is still egocentric.
With this experiment, Piaget concluded that from the age of 6, boys and girls begin to be able to overcome the childhood egocentrism.
Examples of the preoperational stage
In the preoperational stage there are activities that are very important for the cognitive development of boys and girls. Specifically, during this stage they develop many skills thanks to games. Next, we will see how we can work on cognitive development in the preoperational stage.
How to work in the preoperational stage
During Piaget’s preoperational stage there are activities that help improve the development of boys and girls’ cognitive abilities. We’ll see real examples of these activities according to age:
- 2 years: play to imitate the people around you.
- 3-4 years: draw objects and figures by doodling.
- 4-5 years: build objects with different materials. Musical games are also recommended at this age.
- 5-6 years: invent imaginary friends to learn to create bonds of friendship.
- 6-7 years: carry out role-playing games in which each participant has a character more adjusted to reality. For example, family roles where everyone has a specific role.
This article is merely informative, at Psychology-Online we do not have the power to make a diagnosis or recommend a treatment. We invite you to go to a psychologist to treat your particular case.
If you want to read more articles similar to The preoperational stage according to Piaget: characteristics and exampleswe recommend that you enter our category.
Bibliography
- Borke, H. (1975). Piaget’s mountains revisited: Changes in the egocentric landscape. Developmental Psychology, 11(2), 240.
- Piaget, J. (1951). The Child’s Conception of the World. Minnesota: Humanities Press
- Piaget, J., and Inhelder, B. (2015). Child psychology. Madrid: Morata Editions.
- Saldarriaga-Zambrano, P., Bravo-Cedeño, G. and Loor Rivadeneira, M. (2016). Jean Piaget’s constructivist theory and its significance for contemporary pedagogy. Mastery of Sciences, 2127-137.