PSYC 3510H Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Jean Piaget, Cognitive Development, Information Processing
22 Dec 2018
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Document Summary
Changes in cognitive development proceed in distinct stages (e. g. , discontinuous) Each person"s cognitive abilities are organized into one coherent mental structure. His approach is known as the cognitive-developmental approach. The driving forces behind development from one stage to the next is maturation. He learned this by observing errors that children made continuously (error-detection: how children are interpreting information. Stage theory: said you can"t skip stages, formal operation stages. As a child, you don"t understand other"s feelings. Once you hit adolescence, you start understanding all of these things. Piaget portrayed maturation as an active process: children will gravitate towards what they want to look at. Children seek out information and stimulation in the environment that matches the maturity of their thinking. Interesting footnote: this is in contrast with other theories such as behaviourism which views the environment as acting on the child through rewards and punishments.
