Psychology 2040A/B Lecture 4: Lecture 4

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2040A/B
• Professor: Bruce Morton

Document Summary

Piaget history: noticed that child made systematically and fundamentally different errors than adults did (during work with binet) This thinking about child thinking lead to his development of (cid:862)ge(cid:374)eti(cid:272) episte(cid:373)olog(cid:455)(cid:863) Trained biologist and philosopher: ge(cid:374)eti(cid:272) as i(cid:374) (cid:862)de(cid:448)elop(cid:373)e(cid:374)tal(cid:863) Increasingly objective and freed of individual perspective: concrete abstract, uncoordinated coordinated, ex. the coordinated of various schemes. Distinct stages: according to piaget, mental development occurs in stages. Within a stage, mental functioning develops little by little. Universal: piaget emphasized universal aspects of development and downplayed possible cultural differences. Not focused on: piaget was primarily interested in normative developmental change. As such, his theory had little to say about why children differ from each other. Active: piaget always maintained development was driven by the active child interacting with his/her world. He dismissed empiricist/nativist claims that the child was passive: very clear that children are active players in their development.