Theory 1: Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive and moral development
The first theory we’ll look at is Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive and moral development. Before doing so, it might be useful to first make sure that we understand what is meant by the words “Cognitive” and “Moral”.
Cognitive definition: “Cognition” refers to the mental processes in our brain – the acts of thinking, reasoning, and remembering. “Cognitive” simply means development relating to cognition.
Moral definition: Morality refers to the understanding of how we determine what is right and wrong. The principles that can shape our decisions.
Getting these definitions out of the way should help to make it much easier to understand the points covered in Jean Piaget’s theory – even if you were already aware of these definitions.
Who was Jean Piaget?
Piaget was a Swiss psychologist who lived from 1896 – 1980 and was famous for his studies into the mindset of children.
While employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, he worked to develop French translations of English tests that were used to assess intelligence. Many of these tests use answers that require logical thought rather than academic knowledge – assessing how well a person can examine a situation and determine the correct answer from it.
He became fascinated with the reasons that children gave for answering these logical questions, and began to research this topic in detail – eventually publishing his first study in 1936.
What does his theory propose?
Piaget proposed that there were four sequential stages of learning abilities that humans go through before reaching full development:
He proposed that humans must go through these stages in order, starting from the first stage and ending with the last. While people can progress through stages at different paces, they largely fit into certain age-related brackets. The pace that people/children progress through these stages can be accelerated based on their active engagement with the world around them.
Key stages outlined by Piaget:
1.Sensorimotor stage
Age range: Birth to 18–24 months old
This is where we develop our basic senses – touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste. At this stage, everything is learned through direct experiences, basic actions/movements, sensations, or trial and error.
An example here can be how a child at this stage could learn that banging a toy drum with a stick can make a stimulating sound.
As they advanced through this stage, children will reach a milestone where they’ll realize a concept known as “object permanence“. This is the understanding that when an object can no longer be seen, it doesn’t mean that it no longer exists.
An example of understanding object permanence could be with an infant playing the “peekaboo” game (where an adult will hide their face and pop-out from behind cover again). When an infant reaches an understanding of object permanence, they’ll know that just because the adult can no longer be seen behind the cover, they’ll still be there.
2. Preoperational stage
Age range: 2 to 7 years old
This is where imagination, memory, and language start to develop. Children start to understand that words, objects, and gestures can have symbolic meanings.
An example here can be waving your finger to gesture “no” or giving a thumbs up to mean “good”.
Other examples can be with how childrens’ drawings of their family members will often symbolize who the person is and the feelings they represent, though their scale and details might not be accurate.
As they progress through this stage, children will become very inquisitive and will ask lots of questions. This can be seen as the start of reasoning, trying to understand the world around them, but without developed analytical skills.
Most of their thoughts at this still will still be largely egocentric (concerned about themselves), and they’ll find it difficult to consider perspectives other than their own.
3. Concrete operational stage
Age range: 7 to 11 years old
This is where children begin to develop a sense of logic. They’ll be able to handle cognitive operations based on certain concrete tasks, for example – sorting objects in a specific order, and will also develop “inductive reasoning”.
Inductive reasoning is the ability to observe something and then deduce a likely situation based on this observation. For example, noticing that a dog is showing its teeth, and then avoiding it. Or noticing that an adult has an icecream, and might potentially be able to provide more for them.
In the study of maths, students at this stage will begin to understand concepts such as if 5+6 = 11, then 11-6 = 5. The concept of this will be something they’ll start to understand and be able to repeat for themselves in different scenarios.
4. Formal operational stage
Age range: Adolescence to adulthood
This is where we start to see the emergence of abstract thought and reasoning. Children will have more understanding about the use of symbols to give meaning to abstract concepts, and they’ll better understand the relationships between things. They’ll be able to use deductive reasoning (working out logical answers from the options available), and will be able to construct hypotheses based on previous knowledge.
Piaget stated that the formal operational stage is the final stage, despite most people achieving it at around early adolescence. From this point onwards, including adulthood, they’ll still be operating at the same level, but with increased efficiency, and with compounded knowledge.
It’s important to note that although this is a significant theory for teachers to learn about, some researchers have disputed Piaget’s research methods and, importantly, his argument that all children will automatically move to the next stage of development as they mature.
Learning and schemas
Piaget’s beliefs rest on the notion that cognitive development happens through a process of forming and developing “schemas”.
A schema is a mental framework or concept that helps us to understand and organize information. (This will become more clear with the examples below).
For a child, an example schema could be with how they recognize and interpret different animals. After experiencing several encounters with dogs, a child might develop a schema in their mind that helps them to quickly identify dogs in the future. The characteristics they’d have in mind would likely be “short, brown, furry, four legs, a tail, and make barking sounds”.
If they encounter another animal meeting those descriptions, they’ll likely be able to recognize it as a dog. However, the first time they meet a Great Dane (an especially large breed of dog) or a Chihuahua (an especially small breed of dog), they’ll need to reassess their previous schema to now consider dogs ranging quite drastically in size.
It’s through this same process, that we constantly learn and develop from new sights, sounds, experiences, sensations, and social patterns.