1. Early Cognitive Development

2. Jean Piaget
Highly influential Swiss developmental psychologist
Suggested nature and nurture work together
Searched for origins of intelligence in infancy and factors that lead to changes in knowledge over life span

3. Building Blocks of Cognitive Development
Schemas used to understand world
Generalizations based on experience that form basic units of knowledge
Organize past experience, provide framework for understanding future experience
Can apply to behaviors, mental symbols, mental activities

4. Building Blocks of Cognitive Development
Adaptation of schema
Assimilation
Understand new experiences by fitting them within existing schema
i.e. infants will use sucking behavioral schema to experience everything; children label many animals “doggy”
Accommodation
Process of modifying schemas to fit new experiences when familiar schema don’t work

5. Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development Believed child’s mind develops in series of stages

6. Sensorimotor Stage (Birth - 2 yrs.)
Take in information through sensory and motor interactions – seem to live in present
Before ~6 mo. seem to lack “object permanence”
Lack awareness that objects continue to exist when not perceived (“out of sight, out of mind”)
Begins developing by ~8 mo.

7. Sensorimotor Stage (Object Permanence)

8. Preoperational Stage (2 - 6 yrs.)
Too young to perform mental operations
Lack concept of “conservation”
Principle that mass, volume, number are constant despite changes in form/shape
May have difficulty distinguishing imagination/reality
“Egocentrism”
Inability to take another’s point of view
Not intentionally “selfish” or “inconsiderate”
Important period of language development

9. Preoperational Stage (Lack of Conservation)
Why it matters in Real Life!

10. Preoperational Stage (Egocentrism)
Why does the sun shine?
“To keep me warm”
Why is there snow?
“For me to play in”
Why is grass green?
“Because it’s my favorite color.”
How many brothers do you have?
“One.”
How many brothers does your brother have?
“None.”

11. Concrete Operational Stage
(7 – 11 yrs.)
Begin to understand :
Conservation
Reversibility
Mathematical operations
Concrete analogies

12. Concrete (Reversibility)

13. Formal Operational Stage
(12 – Adult)
Abstract reasoning
Can think of imagined reality, symbols
Piaget believed this allowed for development of moral reasoning

14. Formal (Deductive Reasoning)

16. Current evaluation of Piaget’s theories
Helped reshape the way we view children’s thinking and its development
Challenged idea that children’s minds work like adults, but just know less information
Many believe the sequence he outlined is fairly accurate
But many now view cognitive development as more fluid and have evidence that some development happens earlier than Piaget believed

17. Lawrence Kohlberg and his stages of Morality
MORAL DILEMMA ACTIVITY
Preconventional Morality
Conventional Morality
Postconventional Morality

18. Preconventional Morality
Morality of self- interest
Their actions are either to avoid punishment or to gain rewards.

19. Conventional Morality
Morality is based upon obeying laws to
Maintain social order
To gain social approval
I won’t speed down Broad St. because
my friends and family will look down on
me. Besides, the world would be chaotic
if everyone did it.

20. Postconventional Morality
Morality based on universal ethical principles.
I won’t speed down Broad St. b/c a society w/o laws is not good. If I feel the law is unjust then I’ll try to change it.