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Critique of Piaget's development theory
Critique of Piaget's development theory
Jean Piaget discusses all aspects of each psychologists point of view on development
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Developmental psychology is a subfield of psychology that is responsible for studying the development of human beings from the moment they are born till their death. That is, this branch is focusing on assessing and getting to understand why and how a person changes physically, mentally (has to do with their cognition), and socially over their lifetime. As a result of these studies, many psychologists have come out with various concepts and ideas that divide the life span of a person into multiple stages. Three of these scientists were John Piaget, Erik Erikson, and Lawrence Kohlberg. Using the concepts presented by each of these developmental psychologists and the different stages of human life which varies in the eyes of each of them, I am …show more content…
John Piaget believed that most of our development occurs during our childhood and up to the age 12. In other words, he mostly focused on the cognitive development of human intelligence and he believed that this development takes place in stages. That is, human beings jump from each level of thinking at one stage to the next stage of higher level of thinking. According to Piaget, there are four stages that they mostly occur from our birth until when we are twelve years old. These stages are: sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years), preoperational stage (two to seven years), concrete operational stage (7 to 12 years), and formal operational stage (12 years and so forth). Based on Piaget’s classification, my cousin is at his last stage of cognitive development, formal operational stage. Piaget states that at this stage, the adolescent will have developed a decent level analytical thinking and he will be able to make hypothesis and test them accordingly. Also, they will be able to make abstract deductions based on their logical thinking. Looking at Saied, we can see that he behaves the same way that Piaget’s theory suggests. He uses his own logic and begins making inferences that School is pointless and that he needs to enter the workforce right away. He believes in his deductions so firmly that he would not listen to anyone else’s suggestions. Thus, he acts in accordance to his analysis and drops out of …show more content…
According to Piaget’s theory he would probably be in his concrete operational stage. In this stage he would definitely start questioning things around him; however, he would not have the ability to test any hypothesis and make any logical deductions on his own, so he would stay at school. Based on Erikson’s theory, Saied would be in the industry vs inferiority stage. During this stage the adolescent is learning how to blend in the society while taking care of his own tasks, little by little. If he succeeds in coping with these challenges then he would move on to the next stage successfully, but if he fails then he would feel inferior. However, he has not the capability to make such big decisions on his own, yet. Kohlberg would categorize Saied at the beginning of his conventional stage. At the age of 11 in that stage, Saied would be making his decisions about his moral dilemmas based on the laws and rules of the society. Since, it is not common at all and may be even against the rules for an eleven year old to quit school, despite the challenge he is facing, Saied would have to continue his
Development throughout the lifespan goes through many stages. According to Erikson, who is a renowned developmental theorist, development throughout the lifespan is psychosocial. Erikson’s theory is still prominent in today’s models of personalities and developmental psychology. Erikson believed that you had to move through each stage to be successful in subsequent stages. The stages of psychosocial development start at birth.
When studying human development, it is helpful to understand the main developmental domains (i.e physical, cognitive, emotional and moral) and the ways in which people develop within each domain at certain age stages. Use of psychological theories is also helpful to understand the reasons for this development and the ways in which it manifests at different age stages. The objective of this essay is to analyse the influences on development from conception to late adolescence. It will describe theories of lifespan development with information regarding my own development used to support these theories. It will be concluded that theories of lifespan development can be used to explain life experiences in the different developmental domains at different
The importance of an individual’s lifespan has to be taken into account in order to fully understand the human development. Throughout this module I have learned that an individual’s lifespan consists of several beliefs that form a group of perspectives, that gives a consistent outlook on the nature of development. The concept of lifespan development is the study that observes patterns of growth and change and stability in one’s behavior that occurs throughout one’s lifespan. An interesting thing I picked up is that lifespan development derives from other features, such as sociology, that suggest that this field of lifespan development did not completely originate from developmental psychology. There are different areas in a lifespan such as
In stage four, formal operational stage, the adolescent reasons in conceptual, idealistic and rational ways. They can imagine and reason about hypothetical
Jean Piaget was a theorist which “who” focused on people’s “children’s” mental processes (Rathus, S., & Longmuir, S., 2011, p.10). Piaget developed (words missing) how children differentiate and mentally show(tense) the world and how there , thinking , logic , and problem solving ability is developed (Rathus, S., & Longmuir, S., 2011 , p.10). Piaget analyzed that children’s cognitive processes develop in an orderly sequence or series (Rathus, S., & Longmuir, S., 2011 , p.11) . But each stage show how children understand the world around them. – sentence fragment; should be joined to the previous sentence. Every child goes through the same development”al” steps but some are more advance(d) than others . Piaget described four stages of child
Jean Piaget was an influential psychologist who created the Four Stages of Cognitive Development. He believed when humans are in their infancy, childhood, and adolescence they try to understand the world through experiments. During cognitive development children are little scientists that create theories, experiment, and conclusions on how to adapt to the world. By the time children become adults they will be able to put into affect everything they learned and utilize the skills they need to live in this world. Everyone fits perfectly into the Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development, even myself.
Lifespan development is discontinuous. It is a process in which new ways of understanding and responding to the world emerge at specific times. Although there is evidence that indicates that both continuous and discontinuous contributes to lifespan development, I believe that most of life can be described as discontinuous. Psychoanalytic perspective states that people go through a series of stages in which they confront conflicts between biological drives and social expectations, how they resolve these conflicts determines the person’s ability to learn, get along with others and to cope with anxiety. This theory explains that during this period of the child’s life they will set the course for the rest of their life based on these conflicts
Despite of the fact that Piaget (1969)'s theories are not that updated, his contributions to the field still manage to influence many human development experts. He divided children's cognitive development into four stages. There are specific mental and physical abilities that kids get to master as they go along their natural learning process. Piaget described children as natural scientists who assimilate knowledge of the world by interacting with their surroundings. These interactions not only boost children's intelligence but foster language acquisition as well. Piaget's cognitive development stages are as follows: from birth to two years of age (sensor-motor stage), from two to seven (pre-operational stage), from seven to twelve (concrete
This stage is when individuals develop their cognitive ability to utilize abstract concept, logical thought is one of these skills. Piaget’s cognitive development theory is a comprehensive model of the natural development of human intelligence, believing that childhood plays a critical and active role in the development of an individual. Piaget identifies four stages of cognitive development, these include sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and the formal operational stage. Piaget determined the concrete operational stage of cognitive development when an individual is cognitively capable of successfully preforming various mental operations utilizing concrete concepts to begin critical thinking skills. Consequently, the lack of deductive reasoning that accompanies this stage of cognitive development impedes an individual’s ability to predict the outcome of their actions. While testing their physical boundaries, a lack of cognitive maturity disallows the adolescents the ability to predict outcome of their actions. Formal operational thought, is when an individual can visualize the conclusion of a potential action before it begins. Formal operational thought, require the ability to think in an abstract manner that will combine the ability to classify items in a deductive order of reason, utilizing, higher levels of critical thinking
Lifespan development is essential, as it is the changes that happen to us throughout a person’s lifespan. Our development occurs at ages stages where we develop from infancy till death. This essay will contain my life story to display the domains in 5 age stages in my lifespan development. The domains I will be exploring is in this essay is physical, emotional, cognitive, social, cultural and moral domain. The influence of biological and environmental play a significant role in my development. Development is influenced by nature or nurture and its affect will occur throughout lifespan. The changes that occur during development have stage. Each theorists has stages of development where they display the changes. This essay will explore my development that will support theorist such as Erikson, Vygotsky, Berk, Piaget and other theorist. The age stages of prenatal will display physical and emotional domain, Infancy (0-2) will portray social and emotional domain, young children (2-6) will show cognitive and social domain, middle childhood (6-12) will display socio-cultural and moral domain and adolescence will portray nature vs. nurture and cultural domain. Development is crucial for a healthy wellbeing. As a physiotherapist it is significant to understand development in age stages, as it will aid knowing how young children will react compared to an adolescence who is more development mentally, emotionally, physically, socially and culturally.
Piaget’s Cognitive Development theory states that as children are adapting to the world they go through four stages that include: sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage. Each stage is very different according to Piaget. Cognitive theories focus the attention on conscious thoughts which means someone is more aware of their surroundings. Erik Erikson psychosocial theory differs from Piaget’s in a several ways. Erik Erikson believes people develop in psychosocial stages, which his theory consists of eight stages. Erikson’s theory states it is the main way connect with other people. Erikson says the first five years of life are the most important part in development and each stage has
Children’s behaviors and reactions have always been so interesting to me. Studying Erikson, Piaget, and Kohlberg’s different theories on human development has given me a much deeper understanding of these behaviors. Although their theories are different, they do share three assumptions according to an article on SparkNotes.com: 1. People pass through stages in a specific order, with each stage building on capacities developed in the previous stage. 2. Stages are related to age. 3. Development is discontinuous, with qualitatively different capacities emerging in each stage” ("Psychology/Development," 2012, p. 1). While studying these three theorists it has affected my own idea of human development in two ways. Additionally, my view of how a patient has been raised has affected my nursing care. I admit that when I care for a child, a majority of the time I silently blame the parents for the improper actions of the child. It is easy for me to forgo disciplining an adolescent patient. I often say to myself, it is not the child’s fault and excuse them for their behaviors, mainly because I believed that is how they were raised and they don’t know better.
The theory of cognitive development was created by Jean Piaget. Piaget can be classified as both a constructivist and a developmental theorist. This theory describes how the quality of children’s thinking changes over time, and how a child makes a mental model of the world. Piaget disagreed with the idea that intelligence is a fixed trait. Piaget believed that a child’s cognitive development was a process, and that there were four factors that affect the quality of children’s thinking as they grow; as well as four stages of qualitatively different types of thinking through which children progress towards adulthood.
Erik Erikson was a researcher of the Psychodynamic perspective who lived through the years 1902 to 1994. He developed a theory that dealt with the stages of human development and was referred to as a Neo-Freudian. A Neo-Freudian are those “who have revised Sigmund Freud’s theory” (Massey, 1986). His theory argued that “both society and culture challenge and shape us” (Feldman, 2011). Erik Erikson’s theory of psychological development does not specify specific ages, so the age categories can only be guessed upon. It is my personal thought that this was a smart move due to different age milestones for different cultures. The essay titled Erik Erikson: Ages, stages, and stories argues that the stages “are organized into a system of polarities that tempt us to think about psychological dynamics in a form that is more binary than Erikson intended.” Each stage has a ‘resolution’ or goal. Each stage presents a “crisis or conflict that the individual must resolve” (Feldman, 2011, p.16)
Jean Piaget was a well-known child psychologist and educator in America; he was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland, in 1896. His college and university training was in the natural sciences. Early on in his career he became fascinated with children’s intellectual development, and he spent most of his years collecting a large amount of research information relating to mental development. Piaget’s great works have produced an elaborate and comprehensive theory of how intelligence progresses. He has worked as a biologist, Swiss philosopher, psychologist, and educator. Every profession Piaget was in, he left his mark and made great contributions. His greatest impact was towards psychology and education. He preferred to