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This lecture is on developmental research methods, and covers the end of Chapter 1.

Piaget's cognitive developmental theory focuses on the structure and development of an

individual's thought processes. This theory also focuses on how our thought processes

affect our understanding of the world, as well as our behavior.

Piaget published his first research article at the age of 10. He later received his PhD in

zoology, and was concerned with how animals adapt to their environment.

He first worked with Binet on devising intelligence tests. In devising these intelligence

tests for children, Piaget found out he was more interested in the types of errors the

children were making. He noticed that children of about the same age would make the

same kinds of errors. After questioning children further about these wrong answers, he

found that not only were younger children thinking, answering, differently, but they had

qualitatively different ways of thinking altogether.

Piaget viewed children as actively structuring their own experiences, not simply imitating

others in their environment, like social learning theory would propose, and not just

responding to reward and punishments, like behaviorists would propose. According to

Piaget, children actively construct knowledge as they manipulate and explore their

environment. He viewed children as being naturally curious and eager to learn, very

observant, and aware of what was happening all around them.

Piaget described intelligence as a basic life process that helped the organism adapt to

their environment. Piaget developed stages of cognitive development that are

represented in a table in your textbook in Chapter 1. We will learn these stages in great

detail later in the semester.

Piaget viewed cognitive development as a process that follows a universal sequence of

stages. The stages included the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and

formal operational stages. Each stage is characterized...