Cognitive Development Lecture Notes

Jean Piaget
● Swiss psychologist who observed his own children
● Observed that children “can” or “cannot” do things in ​successive stages, ​and it does not vary
from child to child or culture to culture
● The key to moving to the next stage is the child needs to be ​intellectually ready

Piaget’s​ ​Three Principles

● A child is NOT a miniature adult ! (Alfred Adler)
● A child needs to take an ​active part in learning
● Intellectual development involves changes in ways of ​organizing information​, not just in
acquiring knowledge

Piaget’s Construct
● Sensorimotor Stage
o Age: birth to 18 months
o Cognitive structures​ to ​schema​ are present in the child’s brain and are the means by
which the child acquires and applies knowledge about his world
▪ Assimilation​: using schema to gain ​NEW​ information
▪ Accommodation​: the ​process of modifying schema​ in the face of newly realized
complexities in the environment (allows us to adapt to new circumstances)
o No abstract thinking (examples of abstract thinking, i.e. math, space)
o Early evidence of “causal thinking” - cause and effect (examples: cry-get fed or have
diaper changed, etc.)
o All information comes through the child’s five senses (empiricism)
o Infant is the center of his world- “​egocentrism​”
o Circular reactions: ​repetitive motions babies engage in as they gradually learn to
explore their environment non-reflexively
o At about one year of age the child begins to develop “​object permanence​” (the object
has permanence (exists) even when it is not visible)
▪ Prior to this, whatever is out of sight, does not exist as far as the child is
concerned. That is why the child cries whenever the caregiver leaves the room,
or gets excited when the ball that was in your hand “magically” appears.
▪ Test: place your favorite toy under a cloth. If the child reaches out and attempts
to uncover the toy he has developed object permanence.
▪ Remind of scene from video “Everyone Rides the Carousal” playing peek-a-boo
with a baby in stroller

● Preoperational Thought Stage

o Age: 18 months to 6 yrs.
o Animism​: the tendency to attribute life to inanimate things
o Artificialism​: the tendency to believe everything is the product of human action
o Begins to develop basic abstract thinking - simple math (adding & subtracting)
o Begins using “symbols”
▪ What are the most common “symbols” we humans use?
▪ Child begins to use language to express himself - talking; at one time your
parents could not wait for you to talk, now they feel differently
● Concrete Operations
o Age 6 yrs. to adolescence
o Begins to use simple logic, measurements, relationships, and the concept of space
o Reversibility​: the understanding that mathematical operations can be undone
o Class Inclusion:​ the ability to understand the hierarchical nature of classification groups
(ex. boat, car, train - forms of transportation)
o Develops the concept of “​conservation​”
o Syllogism - a formal method in the discipline of logic to solve problems; theseis
(proposition) , antithesis (counterproposition) , and synthesis (resolution); if, then,
therefore
▪ Conservation of ​number​ (the number stays the same no matter how they are
arranged)
▪ Conservation of ​area and weight​ (area or space remains the same no matter how
the objects are arranged within the area; weight remains the same no matter what
objects are being compared: which weighs more 100 lbs. of feathers or 100 lbs.
of rocks?
▪ Conservation of ​volume​ (volume remains the same no matter the size or shape of
the container; fast food restaurants and carnival hawkers use this principle to
deceive you into thinking you get more is the container “looks” bigger or taller)
o Test: [illustrate on the board] you have three containers; one is an
8 oz. drinking glass, one is a shallow, 8” X 11” dish, and one is a
tall, thin vase. The child fills the drinking glass with water and
pours it it into the shallow dish. He then fills the drinking glass
again and pours it into the vase. He is then asked “which one
contains more water, the dish or the vase?” If he says the vase, he
has NOT developed conservation of volume, but is he says they
both have the same amount, then he has.
● Formal Operations
o Age: adolescence and adulthood
o More abstract thinking develops and is refined
o Ability to reason improves; hypothetical & deductive
o Use of propositional logic
o Concepts and symbols take on more important roles
o Able to view problems from several different perspectives BEFORE attempting to solve
o Able to organize facts and events (chronology, time lines, etc.)
o Able to associate things with common qualities (what does a truck, a bus, a ship, and an
airplane have in common? Modes of transportation)

● Criticisms:
○ A stage theorist you cannot skip one; must follow in the order; successive (kinda like
playing monopoly) (breezy)
● Notes:

○ In order to develop must be intellectually ready

○ cognitive - general mental activity
○ Alfred Adler also believed that children should not be viewed or treated as mini adults
○ Operant conditioning learning - requires an active subject
○ Infantile Narcissism - “all about me”;
○ Delayed gratification - marshmallow test
○ Reasoning
■ Inductive
■ Deductive
○

● Vocab :
○ Divine Command
■ is a meta-ethical theory which proposes that an action's status as morally good is
equivalent to whether it is commanded by God.
○ Virtue ethics
■ Aristotle
○ Kantianism
■ Immanuel Kant
○ Contractualism (social contract)
■ Jean-Jacques
■ John Locke
■ Thomas Hobbes
■ Hugo Grotius
○ Jean Piaget
○ Lawrence Kohlberg
○ Sigmund Freud
○ Robert Hogan
○ Albert Bandura
○ Moral
■ Principles or values that are used to assign right or wrong; good or bad to
behaviors and beliefs
○ Moral Knowledge
■ one's ​moral​ opinions are true and held justifiably
■ If you have a 7 year old is it right to lie
○ Morality
■ a particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a
specified person or society
■ Consistent application of moral knowledge.
○ Morally right/wrong
■ What we ought to do and what we ought not to do
○ Moral reasoning
 ■ is a thinking process with the objective of determining whether an idea is right or
wrong. To know whether something is "right" or "wrong" one must first know
what that something is intended to accomplish.
○ Moral judgment or decision
■ ​judgments​ that have ​moral​ content; they are used to evaluate situations,
courses of action, persons, behavior; based in intuition or feeling, often in
connection with the emotions
○ Moral dilemma
■ are situations in which there is a choice to be made between two options, neither
of which resolves the situation in an ​ethically​ acceptable fashion
■ Heinz
■ Kohlberg focus of his research was how the subject arrived to the decision
○ Amoral
■ lacking a moral sense; unconcerned with the rightness or wrongness of
something.
■ Without a conscience
○ moral subjectivism
■ stands in opposition to ​moral ​realism, which claims that ​moral​ propositions
refer to objective facts, independent of human opinion; to error theory, which
denies that any ​moral ​propositions are true in any sense
■ if everyone did right in his own eyes results in chaos
■ Morally bankrupt
○ Ethics
■ moral principles that govern a person's behavior or the conducting of an activity.
correct rules of conduct necessary when carrying out research;the professional
values foundational to the profession
■ Moral philosophy which addresses the question about morality
○ Absolute Ethics (absolutism)
■ is the ​ethical​ belief that there are ​absolute​ standards against which ​moral
questions can be judged, and that certain actions are right or wrong, regardless of
the context of the act
○ Relative Ethics (relativism) (Situational Ethics)
■ the doctrine that knowledge, truth, and morality exist in relation to culture,
society, or historical context, and are not absolute.
■ the belief that there's no absolute truth, only the truths that a particular individual
or culture happen to believe
○ Machiavellian
■ a personality trait which sees a person so focused on their own interests they will
manipulate, deceive, and exploit others to achieve their goals
■ Dictum - “the end justifies the means”
○ Utilitarianism - ​is an ethical theory; that the proper course of action in any circumstances
should maximize happiness and minimize suffering
■ Jeremy Bentham - ​A Fragment on Government; in which he put forth the theory
of utilitarianism
■ John Stuart Mill - wrote Utilitarianism
○ Descriptive
■ the intellectual discipline that makes explicit the implicit structure of the
behavioral sciences; is the study of people's beliefs about ​morality​; ​of ​empirical
 research into ​the attitudes of individuals or groups of people. In other words, this is
the division of philosophical or general ethics that involves the observation of the
moral decision-making process with the goal of describing the phenomenon
○ Prescriptive
■ the study of ethical theories that prescribe how people ought to act
○ Ethical egoism
■ is the normative ​ethical​ position that moral agents ought to do what is in their
own self-interest
○ altruism
■ the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of
others.

Kohlberg
I. Preconventional (self-interest)
A. Punishment-obedience orientation
1. moral motivation is simply to obey in order to avoid punishment
2. Example: don’t speed so you don’t get a ticket
B. Trade off orientation
1. pragmatic
2. Example: don’t speed so insurance rates don’t go up
II. Conventional (pleasing others)
A. Interpersonal Orientation
1. our moral decisions are influenced by other perceive us
B. Authority Orientation
1. Do stuff simply because it’s the law
III. Postconventional
A. Duty Orientation (social construct)/Consensus by the Citizens
1. It is your moral obligation to obey the law Consensus by the Citizens
2. legislate morality; to what extent does legislate morality increase moral behavior
B. Universal-ethical Orientation
1. focus on concepts justice, equality, insured by concrete rules
2. consistent application , logical, and universal application

Piaget
I. Pre-moral - children do not have any sense of morality; no obligations to rules
II. Heteronomous - other rule/governing
A. Objective
B. External
C. Concrete
D. Rule is unflexible
E. equate obligations with submissions to power and punishment
III. Autonomous - self rule/governing
A. Ages 8-12+
B. Rules are subjective
C. Abstract
D. Equality/justice/freedom
E. Challenge the actual value of the rule
F. Obligation in the autonomous stage is based on reciprocity and exchange
Sigmund Freud (Psychosexual Development)
1. Oral Stage (Birth to the age of 2)
a. Focus on the mouth
b. Sole contact between the infant’s environment
c. Source of nourishment
d. Oral Fixation - can not have things around their mouth; too little (always put things into
your mouth)
2. Anal Stage (1 ½ to 3 ½)
a. Controlling bowel movements
b. Caregiver is a vital part of this learning process
c. Can produce stinginess
d. Messy dirty poopy person
3. Phallic Stage (3-6)
a. comes from phallus meaning penis
b. “Period of Latency” (6 to adolescence)
i. libido becomes inactive
c. “Oedipus Rex”
d. Phallic Fixation - vanity, egotism, men will take pride in sexual prowess (treat women
with content), ambitious, perceive themselves as god’s gift to women, Women;
flirtatious, promiscuous, looking for love in all the wrong places, pathological shyness,
low self-esteem, avoidance of heterosexual relationships
4. Genital Stage (11-12)
a. onset of puberty
b. Genital Fixation - failure to accept those who are different, increase rate in homicide and
suicide, failure to launch
Libido - Gratification or​ delayed gratification
Fixation - Myred down in one side of the state or the other; do not progress