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Thinking Stages
Jean Piaget was an important psychologist who taught us much about how kids learn and grow. His ideas about how our brains develop made him famous. He helped us understand how children think and learn, and his research has helped us make better schools. Even Albert Einstein was amazed by Piaget’s ideas, calling them so smart that only a genius could have thought of them. Read the Piaget and Cognitive Development chapter for descriptions of the four stages.
A developmental psychologist is a psychologist who studies how people grow and change throughout their lives. They examine physical, cognitive, social, intellectual, perceptual, personality, and emotional changes. They want to understand what causes people to grow and change. Cognitive psychology is the study of how our brains work. It looks at how we perceive things, think, remember, pay attention, use language, solve problems, and learn. Sometimes, it helps to contrast and compare different viewpoints of psychology with each other.
Cognitive versus physiological psychology concerns how we think about situations, whereas physiological psychology concerns how our body reacts. For example, we can get high marks on a report card and think about how hard we worked—then jump for joy.
Cognitive versus psychosocial psychology is about how we think about situations. In contrast, psychosocial psychology is how we interact with others and our relationships. We can get high marks on a report card and think about how hard we worked – tell our friends about it.
Babies learn by playing. They learn by playing with their parents, siblings, and by themselves. Babies and small children like to repeat doing, watching, and saying things repeatedly. Young children can watch the same movie dozens of times and enjoy it each time.
Adolescents learn through positive relationships with mentors and teachers. They have choices when challenged, praised, and presented with novel and unexpected lessons. Teens might read a book or see a movie a few times, but they often won’t read it or watch it again immediately after just one time.
Humans begin learning in different ways—or stages when the brain matures. Piaget’s stages of development are called sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational (birth–2; 2–7; 7–11; 12–up).
Babies learn about colors, texture, taste, sound, and smell (the senses). Young children have fun imaginations, and something called conservation is developed. Elementary students learn well with physical things and concrete situations. Abstractions are difficult for k-6 kids. Preteens and adolescents can grasp logic and reasoning. They can imagine hypothetical situations – and apply concepts in one area to concepts in new places.
The lesson discusses the work of psychologist Jean Piaget and how he contributed to our understanding of how children learn. It also explores various types of psychology and the different stages of development that humans go through. The lesson emphasizes that play is how babies learn, and positive relationships with mentors and teachers are how adolescents learn. Lastly, it mentions that humans start learning in various ways as their brains mature, and Piaget named the stages of development as sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational.
Questions
How does Piaget’s theory of cognitive development help us understand the way children learn and grow?
In what ways do babies and young children learn differently from adolescents?
How can comparing different viewpoints of psychology help us better understand human growth and development?
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