CHYS 2P10 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Cognitive Dissonance, Egocentrism, Lev Vygotsky
14 May 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Cognitive development is the development of thought
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Generally limited to non-emotional, social, etc. dimensions of thought
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Has involvement of planning
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Cognitive Development
Most widely used theory of development
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His first publication was at age 10!
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Offered a job in a natural history museum even before he graduated high school
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Continued studying biology (mollusks) for his PhD
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After, he left the field and studied psychology and philosophy at the Sorbonne for 2 years
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There, he met Theodore Simon, who worked on Binet’s intelligence tests (IQ)
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This was at last his great interest- how children’s thought developed
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Used it as a means of understanding the origins of human thought, soon changed to just
understanding children’s development of thought
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Each of the life stages of development is related to its previous ancestors
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Ontogeny-Phylogeny
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Started most of his own research on his own family, children and friends
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Piaget and His Family
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Jean Piaget
Structures are unobservable mental systems that underlie intelligence
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They are what change with development
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Children are motivated to learn by a need to satisfy their curiosity
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Discovery is the best way to learn
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Children build their own representations of reality; these change with child’s (st)age
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Enhanced as you get older
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As adult we have schemes that are more complex
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Structures (Schemes)- most important
Adaptation to new information & mental reorganization are the driving forces behind cognitive
development
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Broadly evolutionary idea, but more like development and embryonic development
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Processes of Development
Assimilation - is the incorporation of new information into existing schemas as well as the active
representation of new stimuli
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Accommodation - is the rearranging of previous ideas so that they incorporate the new
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Assimilation
Week 4: Cognitive Development
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Accommodation - is the rearranging of previous ideas so that they incorporate the new
information
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Really understand, no cognitive dissonance of confusion
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Equilibration - the organizations attempt to keep schemas in balance with new information
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Organization –the new information must be organized in a logical fashion that builds upon, and
co-exists with, current knowledge
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Processes of Development
New information causes disequilibrium, motivating the child to restore equilibrium by assimilating
the information, and then accommodating existing information to fit the new information leading
to a new organization of thought within the child
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Summary of Development
1. Each stage is a structured whole in equlibrium
2. New stage derives from previous stage, and prepares for the next stage
3. The order of stages is invariant
4. Stages are universal
5. Each stage has an initial transition phase
Stage Approach
Birth to 2 years, focus is on learning the environment and how to interact with it
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Substage 1: Birth to 1 month; reflexes are the original innate schemes, infant uses reflexes
to begin to understand the world
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Substage 2: 1-4 months; new behaviors built around reflexes, “primary circular reactions”,
beginnings of intent
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Substage 3: 4-8 months; new behaviors grow out of primary, reflexive behaviors - called
secondary circular reactions; Object Permanence
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Substage 4: 8-12 months; coordination of secondary circular reactions - one c.r. can lead to
another c.r., beginning of goal-directed behavior; A not B error
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Substage 5: 12-18 months; the child can make changes to circular reactions in order to
achieve a goal, tertiary circular reactions; can solve A not B errors
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Substage 6: 18-24 months; the beginning of symbolic thought, the child can invent new
meanings through mental combinations; Deferred Imitation
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There are six substages
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Sensorimotor Stage
Age 2 –7
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Operations are mental and symbolic, derive from action, and exist in an organized system that is
based on rules; they are reversible
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Preoperational stage is marked by the emergence of language and symbolism, but also by the use
of perception rather than higher thought or logic
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Most famously, children in this stage lack conservation –the knowledge that something
stays the same despite perceptual changes
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Conservation does not develop equally for all properties
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Culture can influence conservation through familiarity with tasks or the way that they are
presented to the child
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Lack of Conservation
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Children in the preoperational stage are also egocentric in assuming everyone else’s
thoughts and perceptions are the same as theirs
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We know now that this is heavily influenced by Theory of Mind, which develops at around 4
years of age
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Interruption
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Egocentrism
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Preoperational Stage
Ages 7-12
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Children understand operations, but not the underlying reasons behind them
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Concrete Operational
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Document Summary
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