Download Georgina Salas Jean Piaget`s Cognitive Behaviorist Theory March

Georgina Salas
Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Behaviorist Theory
March 22, 2013
Siegler, R. S., & Ellis, S. (1996). PIAGET ON CHILDHOOD. Psychological Science (Wiley-Blackwell), 7(4),
211-215
Synopsis
This article describes how Piaget transformed thinking of childhood and development (Siegler &
Ellis 1996). P.H. Miller (1993) states that it is difficult to fathom how or why we ever thought about
them differently. Cognitive development has followed Piaget’s lead by learning how children come to
understand epistemologically central concepts such as causality, classification, morality, time, space,
and mind. The development also learns how the children solve Quine’s (1960) riddle of induction, and
what their basic ontological categories are. The research before 1965 on children’s learning show tow
alternative routes that might have been taken (Siegler & Ellis 1996). The research on children before
1965 highlighted questions concerning the way in which processes such as discrimination and
generalization shape a child’s learning. Siegler & Ellis (1996) state that part of Piaget’s enduring impact
has been his role in shaping the types of questions that are seen as central for understanding cognitive
development. The influence of Piaget has been felt in the types of tasks that are studied by researchers
interested in children’s thinking (Siegler & Ellis 1996). The tasks were created to elicit high level
cognition such as problem solving, reasoning, and understanding of complex concepts. On the other
hand, the cognitive psychology in adults, the tasks designed to reveal the workings of attention,
perceptual, basic learning and memory processes are given more attention. One final influence of
Piaget’s cognitive development is research methods. According to Siegler & Ellis (1996) the research has
followed Piaget in emphasizing the relatively direct evidence provided by verbal explanations of
reasoning and by the particular errors that children make in solving problems. The rest of this article
focuses on the three aspects of Piaget’s legacy which are important to the constructive behaviorist. They
are constructivism, essentialism, and dynamism.
Theory
The first part of the theory which is constructivism is the main theory of Piaget. It states that
children are active thinkers, constantly trying to construct more advanced understandings of the world
(Siegler & Ellis 1996). In order to create more advanced understandings of this theory there is evident in
the development of numerical knowledge. During the preschool period children construct numerical
strategies that no one teaches them. Gelman & Gallistel, 1978 gave an example that 5 year olds succeed
in devising novel counting procedures that allow them to cope with such instructions as “Count this row
of objects and make this one (the second object from the left) be number 5.” The children’s strategy of
construction to solve number conservation and class inclusion problems are two of Piaget’s classic
illustrations of constructivism in the numerical domain (Seigler & Ellis 1996). According to Seigler & Ellis
1996, they state that there have been recent findings regarding strategy discovery have gone beyond
Piaget’s observations to provide new kinds of evidence consistent with the spirit of constructivism. It
has been found that children have been found to continue to construct new strategies for solving
problems even though they already know adequate ones for solving them. One example of this strategy
is children’s addition. Geary & Burlingham-Dubree 1989 state that most 4 and 5 year olds from middle
income backgrounds know how to solve simple addition problems by using the sum strategy. The
children count out each addend on their fingers and then count all of the raised fingers to determine the
sum. Another strategy the students discover by kinder or first grade is the min strategy. For this
strategy the students count up from the larger addend the number of times indicated by the smaller
addend. For children who were in a group from low income background were taught to add by counting
from 1 spontaneously invented the min strategy soon after (Groen & Resnick 1977). Seigler and Ellis
(1996) state that another fundamental tenet of constructivism for which substantial evidence has
recently emerged is that construction of new understandings involves of prior understandings and new
experience. They also state that development is not viewed as a process which children copy and paste
what they are told but the knowledge created is viewed as occurring through a complex interplay
between preexisting knowledge and new information gathered through interaction with the external
world.
The next part of the theory is essentialism. Seigler and Ellis (1996) go on to say that part of the
appeal of Piaget’s theory is its clear, concise, and memorable depictions of children’s thinking at
particular ages. Cognitive development has proved to be considerable more complex than suggested by
crisp characterizations. An example of this complexity is found on an experiment titled 5-to-7 shift
(Sameroff & Haith 1965). Piaget and other investigators described many tasks in which 5 year olds base
responses on a single dimension, but 8 year olds and older children consider multiple dimensions. On
the other hand there have been many tasks that 5 year olds and younger children do engage in
multidimensional reasoning. Oyam (1995) suggests that in the context of cognitive development
research the goal is to identify the essence of thinking at each age. This goal leads to questions such as
what is 5 year olds thinking like and how does it differ from the thinking of 8 year olds. Another more
specific question it leads to is 5 year olds thinking fundamentally concrete rather than abstract?
The last part of the theory is dynamism. Piaget was thought to be ahead of his time because of
the crucial role of change mechanisms within a general theory of development. Klahr (1992) and Miller
(1993) state that Piaget’s specific proposals regarding assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration
have often and justifiable been faulted for vagueness and lack of precision, but he clearly understood
the importance of the issue. A reason why Piaget’s proposals remained vague was because he sought to
explain changes that are larger and more abrupt than any that actually occur. Seigler and Ellis, 1996
state that one way in which the attempt to identify essences seems to have interfered with
understanding of change lies in its leading to understating the variability of children’s thinking. An
example would be on number conservation and mathematical equivalence tasks children who exhibit
more varied ways of thinking on the pretest subsequently learn more from training (Goldin-Meadow,
Alibali & Church,1993 and Siegler, 1995). The findings would come as no surprise to Piaget. He was the
prototypic developmental stage theorist and dedicated much of his research to identifying the essence
of children’s thinking at particular ages. According to Piaget (1947/1950, 1967/1971) his guiding ideas
was that the equilibrative process by which such competitions among ideas produce change is the same
regardless of whether the conflicting ideas arise intraindividually, in the course of solitary reflection, or
interindicidually, as ideas are exchanged in social interaction. There is even stronger reason to believe
that cognitive variability and conflict among competing ideas are central to cognitive change than when
Piaget originally hypothesized such a relation (Seigler & Ellis 1996).
Analysis
Throughout this article Piaget’s ideas of how childhood thinking was transformed is supported.
For the constructivism theory he first describes how children first learn how to count on with their
fingers and then how they use manipulative to show the number they are counting to. He explains how
the children use the sum strategy (Geary & Burlingham-Dubree, 1989). In the sum strategy the children
first count out each addend on their fingers and then counting out all of the raised fingers to determine
the sum. He also suggests that by kinder or first grade most children discover the min strategy. The min
strategy involves counting up from the larger addend the number of times indicated by the smaller
addend.
For the essentialism theory Piaget (1946/1969) presented a task involving two toy trains that
travel in the same directions along parallel tracks. The 5 year olds were asked which train traveled for
the longer time. Their thinking is which train stopped farther up the track or which train stopped at the
later time. Whereas, 8 year olds, for example, might consider both the starting point and stopping point
of the toy trains. (Siegler, in press). Piaget also explained the difference between the reasoning of 5
and 8 year olds in terms of the older child being able to decanter, being less egocentric, and being able
to focus on transformations as well as concrete states (Seigler & Ellis 1996). Levin (1982) on the other
hand found that when 4 and 5 year olds are asked to judge the time of travel of two cars that rotate on
a turntable for varying amounts of time they consider both beginning time and ending time in making
their judgments.
For the dynamism theory Piaget considered the role of change mechanisms within a general
theory of development (Sieglar & Ellis 1996). According to Klahr (1982) and Miller (1993) they state that
Piaget’s specific proposals regarding assimilation, accommodation and equilibration have often been
faulted for vagueness and lack of precision. According to Seigler and Ellis (1996) Piaget’s proposals
remained as vague as they did may be that he sought to explain changes that are larger and more
abrupt than any that actually occur. His goal of identifying the essence of thinking at different ages may
have hindered his efforts to realize another goal that of understanding how changes in thinking occur.
As of today there are stronger reasons to believe that cognitive variabilities and conflict among
competing ideas are central to cognitive change (Seigler & Ellis 1996). Piaget’s argument that variability
within an individual child’s thinking is a crucial motivator of cognitive change may provide a firmer
foundation from which to build future theories of development (Seigler & Ellis 1996). This lead to his
attempt to identify the essence of children’s thinking at different ages.
Evaluation
This article provides information to the different cognitive theories that Piaget experimented
with. It provides enough evidence in how each part of the theory was used. It gave lots of examples for
the constructivism, essentialism, and dynamism theory that was discussed in this article. The examples
help get a better understanding of what the authors were talking about. As I was reading this article I
realized even back when Piaget was alive children learned just the same was as children do now for the
math part at least. I agree with Piaget when he said that children’s experiences help them with their
learning and even when the children don’t have much experience they still come up with their own way
of learning. I believe that children are sponges and they will respond and learn from anything that is
being taught to them.
References
Ellis, S., & Siegler, R.S. (1995, April). Developmental changes in children's understanding of principles and
procedures of measurement. Paper presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research
in Chiid Development, Indianapolis, IN.
Gelman, R., & Gallistel, C.R. (1978). The child's understanding of number. Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press.
Geary, D,C., & Burlingham-Dubree, M, (1989). External validation of the strategy
choice model for addition. Journal of Experimental Chiid Psychology, 47, 175-192.
Goldin-Meadow, S., Alibali, M.W., & Church, R.B. (1993). Transitions in concept
acquisition: Using the hand to read the mind. Psychological Review, 100, 279-297.
Groen, G.J., & Resnick, L.B. (1977). Can preschool children invent addition
aigont'htns'l Journal of Educational Psychology, 6P, 645-6
Klahr, D. (1982). Nonmonotone assessment of monotone development: An information
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MiUer, P.H. (1993). Theories of developmental psychology (3rd ed.). New York: Freeman.
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Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child (M. Gabain, Trans.). London: Kegan Paul.
Piaget, J, (1950). The psychology of intelligence (M. Piercy & D.E. Berlyne, Trans,). London: Routledge &
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Siegler, R,S. (in press). Unidimensional thinking, multidimensional thinking, and characteristic tendencies
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