Basics of Cognitive and Moral Development Essay

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Cognitive Development * Physical development has been studied and it is argued that it can be clearly mapped out with the use of ‘averages’ based on age * There are clear patterns of physical development on babies, infants and children * Psychological development can also been studied and child’s progress can be checked against expected behaviours
Jean Piaget * believed that children are born with certain predispositions that require interaction with a stimulating environment to develop * Believes that children have a set way of understanding of the world, this being built from different schemas or schemata * When schemas explain all things in life there is Equilibrium, when this is challenged there is Disequilibrium. The child is then motivated to achieve Equilibrium * To go from Disequilibrium to Equilibrium the child either adapts an existing schema (going from a typewriter to a keyboard) or develop a new one (pencil to keyboard) * Assimilation – a baby adapts breastfeeding to bottle-feeding * Accommodation – to move from a bottle to a cup requires a new schema * This means that a baby needs to keep meeting new challenges in order to develop, this is the route to progressing through the stages of cognitive development * Piaget’s 4 Developmental Stages 1. Sensori-Motor (Birth to 2 years) – co-ordinate reflexes 2. Pre-Operational (2-7 years) – Egocentric. Failing to conserve 3. Concrete Operational (7-12 years) – Decentre. Conserve. Basic grounded logic 4. Formal Operational (12 years on) – Capable of hypothetical and abstract logic * Sensori-Motor: * At this stage of cognitive development, infancy is characterised by extreme egocentrism where a child can only understand their current point of view. During this stage the main development is the understanding of object permanence. Piaget (1963) – toy under blanket. Piaget assumed that the child could only search for a hidden toy if they had a mental representation of it, the result showed that infant searched for hidden toy when they were around 8 months old. Piaget’s findings have been criticised over the years. One of the main people to criticise were Bower and Wishart (1972) where they waited for an infant to reach for an object then turned the lights off, using an infrared light they discovered that a child will reach for the object for up to 90 seconds after it became invisible (infants were between 1-4 months old). This shows that object permanence is evident in infants of a younger age than Piaget theorised, Bower and Wishart were not arguing with the stages of cognitive development but merely with the ages in which they happen as their results showed. * Pre-Operational: * Children in this stage are able to mentally represent events and objects and engage in symbolic play however they are still very egocentric. Another key feature displayed by children during this stage in animism (hello Mr Teddy). Piaget wanted to find out at what age children decentre. Piaget and Inhelder (1956) – no longer egocentric. 3 mountains, doll can see from photographs shown. Findings showed that children aged 4 are still very egocentric while 7 year olds are no longer egocentric. Martin Hughes (1975) – Policeman Doll Study - argued that the three mountains task did not make sense to the children and was made more difficult because the children had to match the doll’s view with a photograph. Hughes found that 90% of 4 year olds were successful. It is argued that the children were successful because Hughes made sure the task was clear to the children, whereas Piaget’s did not.
Moral Development * Using the foundation of Freud’s theory of the super-ego acting as a conscience, further research has explored our development as moral beings * The actual behaviour is of less importance than the underlying reason for the behaviour
Jean Piaget * Piaget (1932) asked children to explain the rules of a game;
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