by DK
Attachment theory
While much developmental psychology concerned itself with the process of learning, a growing area of interest arose from the research carried out by the British psychoanalyst and psychiatrist John Bowlby. His study of children who had been separated from their families during World War II led to the formulation of attachment theory, which deals with the way we build and maintain relationships with family and friends, placing a special importance on the attachments made by infants to the people who care for them; Bowlby saw this as a natural impulse for survival. The basic ideas of attachment theory were reinforced by experiments carried out by psychologist Harry Harlow in the US, who showed the effects of isolation and maternal separation on infants. His experiments demonstrated that to build healthy cognitive and social development, infants needed companionship and care. Later research by Mary Ainsworth built on these findings, adding the concept of a “secure base” from which an infant can explore the world. Bruno Bettelheim developed his own, more controversial, theories of childhood development from the basis of attachment theory, rejecting the importance of the traditional family after his study of children brought up communally in kibbutzim. In the 1960s, social issues such as the civil rights movement and feminism were influencing thought in both social psychology and developmental psychology. How our prejudices are acquired, and at what stage of development, became an area of interest for the African-Americans Kenneth and Mamie Clark, who based their work on studies of child development in Harlem, New York; while Eleanor Maccoby examined the differences in development between the sexes—the first of many similar explorations in the new field of gender studies.
Developmental psychology is currently exploring the causes and treatment of autism and learning difficulties. And, with a growing aging population, psychology is also looking into issues that confront us as we enter old age.
IN CONTEXT
APPROACH
Genetic epistemology
BEFORE
1693 English philosopher John Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education suggests a child’s mind is a tabula rasa, or blank slate.
1780s German philosopher Immanuel Kant introduces the concept of the schema and suggests that morality develops independently of authority figures through interaction with peers.
AFTER
1907 Italian educator Dr. Maria Montessori opens the first Montessori school, which encourages independence and respect for natural developmental stages.
1970s—80s Many Western education systems incorporate a more child-centered approach to learning.
Somewhere between his roots as a precocious young biologist and his later fascination with epistemology, Jean Piaget carved out his own niche in a discipline that he called genetic epistemology, the study of how intelligence changes as children grow. Piaget was not interested in comparing levels of intelligence between children of different ages (quantitative cognitive change); his interests lay in the natural development of mental skills over time (qualitative cognitive change). Quantitative studies make possible numerical comparisons, but Piaget wanted to explore differences in the types, experience, and qualities of children’s learning, which required “qualitative” research. Breaking away from the prevalent behaviorist model, which had linked child development entirely with environmental factors, Piaget decided to explore the innate, or inborn, capacities that he believed guide children’s progression through a series of age-defined developmental stages.
Piaget believed that children are active and autonomous learners, using their senses to interact with the world around them as they move through the developmental stages. He also believed that it is of primary importance to nurture and guide children on this journey, giving them the freedom to experiment and explore on their own, in a very individual, trial-and-error manner. The task of a good teacher is, therefore, simply to support children on their journey through these stages, constantly encouraging their creativity and imagination, because “the goal of education is to create men and women who are capable of doing new things.”
"Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society."
Jean Piaget
Learning is active
One theme that pervades Piaget’s theory of intellectual development is the concept of learning as an active personal process. From infancy through childhood, he says, learning arises from a child’s natural desire to sense, explore, move, and then master. For this reason Piaget had many misgivings about the notion of standardized testing, in which children undergo preformatted tests that have “correct” answers to provide quantitative measures of intelligence. While working on standardizing intelligence tests for Alfred Binet in the early 1920s, he became interested less in a child’s ability to produce correct answers than in what those answers actually were. Their explanations revealed that children’s assumptions about how the world works are very different to those of adults, leading Piaget to believe that children not only think differently to adults, but also that children of different ages have different methods of thinking.
The evolving mind
Since the 17th century, the idea that a child is effectively a miniature adult had held sway. Empiricist philosophers of the time had suggested that a child’s brain works exactly like an adult’s, but has fewer associations. Another group of thinkers, the psychological nativists, claimed that certain concepts—such as the ideas of time, space, and number—are innate, or “hard-wired” into the brain, so babies are born with an ability to make use of them. Piaget’s suggestion that children’s mental processes—from infancy to adolescence—are fundamentally different to an adult’s was a radical and controversial departure from this view.
Piaget himself claimed that it is vitally important to understand the formation and evolution of intelligence during childhood, because this is the only way we can reach a full understanding of human knowledge. His use of psychotherapeutic interviewing techniques to ask children to explain their answers was inspired, and it became an important tool in all his research. Rather than adhering to a pre-determined and impersonal list of questions, this flexible method allowed the child’s answers to determine the subsequent question. By following the child’s line of thought, Piaget believed he could better understand the processes underlying it. His rejection of a notion of quantitative or measurable intelligence led to some groundbreaking theories of childhood cognitive development.
Children are not mini adults who simply do not yet know as much as adults; rather, they see the world differently and interact with it in a wholly distinct way.
Developing the intellect
Piaget initially believed that social factors, such as language and contact with family members and peers, impacted most on children’s intellectual development. However, while studying infants, he realized that for them language is less important and their own activity is paramount. In the first few days of life, babies have limited bodily movements—mainly crying and sucking—though they quickly begin to add new actions, such as reaching for a toy. So Piaget concluded that action, rather than social interaction, is the source of thought at this stage.
This discovery formed part of his theory that every child passes through various stages of cognitive development, and that these stages are different in quality and are hierarchical. A child only moves on to the next stage upon genuine completion of the current stage. In studies and observations, Piaget determined that all children pass through the stages in the same sequence, without skipping any or regressing to previous ones. This is
not a process that can be rushed, and although children generally tend to go through the same stage at roughly the same age, each individual child has his or her own pace of development.
The four stages defined by Piaget represent levels in the development of intelligence and, as such, they provide a list of the “schemas” that children make use of at that particular moment in their development. A schema is a representation in the mind of a set of ideas, perceptions, and actions that provide a mental structure to help us organize our past experiences, and prepare us for future experiences. During infancy and early childhood, a schema can be as simple as “things I can eat.” However, as children grow, their schemas become more complex, offering an understanding of what constitutes “a kitchen,” a “best friend,” or “democratic government.” Intelligent behavior, according to Piaget, is comprised of a growing collection of schemas.
"Knowledge… is a system of transformations that become progressively adequate."
Jean Piaget
Four stages of development
Piaget’s first stage is called the sensorimotor stage, and this spans the first two years of a child’s life. During this period, infants learn about the world primarily through their senses (sensori-) and through physical action or movement (motor). Children at this stage are egocentric, able to see the world only from their own viewpoint. At the beginning of this stage, infants practice reflexes without understanding or intention; later they can extend and coordinate reflexes with objects. Then they begin to coordinate their senses in a way that anticipates events; for example, they can imagine objects that are not present and find hidden ones. They begin to experiment and set goals in their use of objects, and think about a problem before acting. These developments mark the completion of the first stage.
As the child moves toward the development of self-awareness, they now have the tools of representational thought and can begin to develop and use internal images, symbols, and language. This constitutes the second, or pre-operational, stage when a child is primarily interested in how things look or appear. They will demonstrate skills such as arranging objects in a logical order (according to height, for example), or comparing two objects (such as blocks) through shared attributes, focusing on one perceptual quality (such as size or color) at a time. From years two to four, the child thinks in absolute terms (such as “big” or “biggest”); from four to seven, they begin to use relative terms (such as “bigger” or “heavier”). The ability to think logically is still limited and children remain egocentric, unable to see things from another’s perspective.
The third stage is the concrete operational stage, and this is when a child becomes capable of performing logical operations, but only in the presence of actual (concrete) objects. The child now begins to grasp the concept of conservation, understanding that the quantity of an object remains the same despite physical changes in its arrangement. They realize that if you pour liquid from a short, wide glass into a tall, thin one, the amount of liquid remains the same despite the difference in height. Children can also understand that objects can be sorted according to many qualities simultaneously—a marble can be large, green, or clear. A little less egocentric now, children begin to incorporate more relativity into their viewpoints.
During the fourth stage—the formal operational stage—children begin to manipulate ideas (rather than simply objects) and are able to reason purely on the basis of verbal statements. They no longer need to refer to concrete objects, and can follow an argument. They start to think hypothetically, and this new capacity for imagination, and their ability to discuss abstract ideas, reveals that they have now become less egocentric.
Reaching equilibrium
In addition to defining the four stages, Piaget identified several fundamental facets of the developmental process that were required through each of the stages; assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium. Assimilation is the process by which we incorporate new information into existing schemas. Accommodation is required when, in the process of assimilating, we discover that we need to modify existing knowledge or skills. A child who is able to assimilate successfully most or all new experiences is said to be in a state of equilibrium. However, if the existing schemas are inadequate for coping with new situations successfully, then the child is in a state of cognitive disequilibrium, and the schemas need to develop in order to accommodate the necessary information. Essentially, this is the process of adaptation, one of the most basic forms of learning.
Impact on education
Piaget’s work inspired the transformation of the education systems of Europe and the US during the 1970s and 80s, bringing about a more child-centered approach to teaching, in theory and in practice. Rather than trying to teach a child to think and behave like an adult, educators were encouraged to view their work as an opportunity to engage children in novel and individual modes of thinking. Piaget believed that education should inspire people to create, invent, and innovate, and actively discourage them from conforming or following established guidelines at the expense of imagination. If the natural process of learning—from infancy onwards—is individual, active, and exploratory, then so too should be a system of education that guides children’s formal intellectual development.
Another vitally important aspect of a child-centered education is an awareness of the concept of “readiness,” which involves setting limits on learning based on the child’s stage of development. One of Piaget’s most enduring contributions to the field of education, particularly with regards to mathematics and science, is the acknowledgement that teachers need to be aware of and honor an individual child’s capacity to deal with a novel experience or to take on fresh information. The tasks that a teacher sets should reflect, and also be adapted as precisely as possible to, the individual student’s cognitive level and capabilities. Piaget believed that children learn from being active rather than from passive observation, and teachers must adapt to this. Interaction between students is of primary significance in the classroom, and having established that one of the best ways to secure knowledge is to teach it to somebody else, it follows that if children are allowed to discuss topics actively among themselves (rather than listening passively to lessons), they are more likely to deepen and consolidate their existing knowledge.
Educators should not insist on a particular way of doing or understanding something, Piaget (pictured left) asserted, but nurture children’s natural learning processes.
"Intelligence is what you use when you don’t know what to do."
Jean Piaget
Moral education
As with intellectual development, Piaget believed that children also develop morally in stages and, for the most part, autonomously. Real moral growth is not the product of adult instruction, but is based on a child’s own observations of the world. Piaget viewed peer interaction as absolutely crucial for the moral development of children. Peers, not parents or other authority figures, are seen as being vital to moral growth, providing a key source for understanding concepts such as reciprocity, equality, and justice. Consequently, Piaget keenly promoted peer interaction within the classroom as an integral part of the learning experience.
The role of the teacher in Piaget’s child-centered classroom is, therefore, almost one of a mentor and an enabler rather than that of a standard instructor. Teachers need to assess carefully each student’s current level of cognitive development and then set tasks that are intrinsically motivating. Interestingly, teachers must also create cognitive disequilibrium in their students in order to help t
hem advance to the next stage of development, thereby providing genuine learning opportunities. They should focus on the process of learning, rather than on the achievement of end results, by encouraging their students to ask more questions, experiment, and explore, even if that means making some mistakes along the way. Above all, they must engender a collaborative space where students teach and learn from each other.
Children at this Montessori school bring Piaget’s ideas to life. They are encouraged to build their own learning with hands-on activities and plenty of discussion with their peers.
"Children have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves."
Jean Piaget
Criticisms of Piaget’s work
Despite his popularity and the broad influence of his work in the fields of developmental psychology, education, morality, evolution, philosophy, and even artificial intelligence, Piaget’s ideas were not accepted without scrutiny and criticism. As with all highly influential theories, years of exploration and research have brought to light its problems and weaknesses. Piaget’s notion of egocentrism, for instance, has been called into question. Studies by the US psychologist Susan Gelman in 1979 demonstrated that four-year-olds were able to adjust their explanation of something in order to clarify it for a blindfolded person, and would use simpler forms of speech when talking to younger children, which is inconsistent with Piaget’s description of an egocentric child who has no awareness of the needs of others.