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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...