Piaget’s cognitive development theory

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a Swiss clinical psychologist and trained biologist. Piaget formed highly influential theories on cognitive development among children, becoming a prominent scholar of cognitive and developmental psychology. His interest in cognitive development was inspired by his observations of his relatives and daughter (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2013). Drawing on observations of children, Piaget developed a theory of cognitive development that included distinct stages. A few key ideas are central to Piaget’s cognitive development theory, including:

Cognitive schemas

Piaget argued that young people are naturally curious and explorative (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2013). They actively seek information from their environment. They use schemas, mental frameworks or “blueprints”, that help them make sense of the world (Katie’s lecture, 2017).

With schemas, young people organize what they learn from their experiences. For example, a teen might develop schemas surrounding fashion or beliefs around what she and her peers consider “in or out” of style.

Assimilation and accommodation

Another major idea is Piaget's concept of assimilation, which is the process of taking in new information to fit with our preexisting beliefs, or existing schemas. For example, a young person growing up with people of a similar background may have formed a schema about people from another ethnic group. Congruent information he takes in about this ethnic group might be absorbed to fit with this existing schema (assimilation).

Some information we receive might not fit into our existing schemas, and we must change or alter our beliefs to accommodate the new information. Piaget referred to this process as accommodation. For example, attending a new high school and interacting with people from different ethnic groups, a teen may realize his experiences are different than he expected. Subsequently, he may change his views (accommodation). When new schemas are formed, development occurs.

Piaget’s stages of cognitive development

Instead of viewing children as miniature adults, Piaget found that intellectual growth moves through a series of stages. Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development include:

• The Sensorimotor Stage: (Birth to Age 2). In this stage, reasoning is largely dependent on perception (Katie’s lecture, 2017). We use our senses to understand and experiment with our environment. For example, infants use their eyes, mouths, and hands to learn more about objects.

• The Preoperational Stage: (Ages 2 to 7). Young children represent objects and events mentally. They process and represent things in their mind--not just through touching and seeing. For example, young children might use a pretend phone to interpret using a real phone.

• The Concrete Operational Stage: (Ages 7 to 11). At this stage, kids have the ability to reason logically about concrete objects. They can perform a variety of thoughts and mental operations using concrete concepts.

• The Formal Operational Stage: (Adolescence to Adulthood). At around 11 or 12, teens and tweens can reason logically about abstract concepts like algebra, social justice, freedom, or racism. They may begin to think more critically about moral or ethical issues, e.g. codes of conduct in online settings or principles regarding right or wrong. They start to infer, tease out, and come up with their own solutions and answers without experiencing something firsthand.

Neo-Piagetian theories have critiqued and built upon Piaget's stages of cognitive development. In fact, researchers are finding that Piaget may have overestimated the reasoning and logic skills of teens and young adults. While teens are beginning to reason about abstract concepts and think creatively, recent research has found that the brain continues to develop up until age 25 (Johnson, Blum, Giedd, 2009).

This animation explains what’s happening in teenagers’ heads and how researchers at the University of Oxford are trying to understand this developmental period