Jean Piaget Stages Of Cognitive Development Essay

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Jean Piaget is a well-known psychologist and he specialized in child development. He believed that children went through stages of cognitive development. When children reach adolescents they developmentally transition to stage four, formal operational thought. This stage is characterized by five significantly essential cognitive abilities: hypothetico-deductive reasoning, abstract thought, separating reality from probability, combinational logic, and reflective thinking. Hypothetico-deductive reasoning is basically the use of deductive, provable, reasoning to methodically influence several variables, test hypotheses to find out effectiveness in a universal way, and finally reach a conclusive decision. At this stage children can use trial and error to figure out a problem, even situations that contain many variables. For example, if a teenage boy decided …show more content…

Piaget argued that this stage is actually in reverse because a possibility is not added to a present situation; instead reality is one of many conceivable results. In other words, adolescents are able to imagine how things could be (I think some adults still do to-what if I won the mega millions!). For example, a junior high school student can envision what career they realistically see themselves doing. Moreover, combinational logic, an adolescent’s ability to generate and systemically consider all possible arrangements, also escorts young adults in this stage. For instance, the same child who envisions his career being an electrician, but he’s also interested in HVAC, this thought process will help guide the child down a path to accomplish his/her goals. Accordingly, the child will apply to a vocational school where he can “try out” these fields and figure out which one he fancies. He’ll use a grouping of logics to effectively think his way through the

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