Unit 8 Psychological Perspectives

416 Words2 Pages
The cognitive theory was used by Piaget and Chomsky. The goal of this theory was to explain the mechanisms and process of which the infant and then child develops into an individual who can then think by using hypotheses. Piaget’s theory is different to Kelly and Chomsky’s because it is concerned with children and not all learners, it focuses on development and not learning and it proposes stages of development. The cognitive stages of development are: • Sensorimotor stage • Preoperational stage • Concrete operational stage • Formal operational stage The sensorimotor stage is object permanence from 0-2 years, which the research study was with a blanket and a ball. Infancy was characterized by extreme egocentrism, which means that the child has no understanding of the world other than their own thoughts. Jean Piaget wanted to investigate at what age children gained object permanence. He placed a ball under a blanket, whilst the child was watching, and he then observed whether or not the child searched for the ball. Searching for the ball was the key feature of object permanence. The results were that Piaget found that infants were searching for the ball at around 8 months. The preoperational stage is egocentrism from 2-7 years, which the research study was three mountains. Egocentrism refers to the child’s ability to be able to see a situation from another’s point of view. Piaget used the three mountains task to find out whether children were egocentric. Egocentric children will think that other people will see the same view of the mountains as what they do. He wanted to find out when children decenter, which means that they are no longer egocentric. He sat a child at a table, and presented the three mountains task. The mountains were different, one had snow on top, another had a hut on top and another had a cross on top of the mountain. The child was
Open Document