ShmoopTube

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And here’s your Shmoop du jour, brought to you by Jean Piaget ,

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the Camille Pissarro of developmental psychology. [Photographs of both people]

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Who’s Camille Pissarro?

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He’s the Michael Jordan of Danish Neo-Impressionism. [Photo of Michael Jordan]

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Who’s Michael Jordan?

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He’s the Jean Piaget of the NBA.

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Full circle.

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Here’s the question:

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Jean Piaget proposed a theory of cognitive development that encompassed four stages.

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In which of these stages does symbolic thought develop, while the child still remains egocentric? [Asks question]

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And here are your potential answers…

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Alright, let’s start out with the basics: who is this Jean Piaget and what are the stages

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to his theory of cognitive development?

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Jean Piaget, noted Swiss psychologist and beret enthusiast, was the first psychologist

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to make a systematic study of cognitive development.

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He concluded that children weren’t just dumber versions of adults- or less competent [Children playing]

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thinkers, whatever, we’re paraphrasing- but that actually, their brains just thought

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in much different ways than those of a fully developed mind.

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Kind of like weird uncle Carl who likes eating glue. [Person eating glue]

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Piaget proposed four stages to cognitive development: Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational,

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and Formal Operational.

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You can remember them in order by remembering the acronym: SPCF [Child reading]

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Hmm…on second thought, maybe that’s not that helpful.

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Let’s try it as a mnemonic....

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Some. People. Can’t. Fart.

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That's why they pay us the big bucks, people.

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But enough farting around, let’s get to the stages:

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Sensorimotor is the first stage, and deals with children before they hit the Terrible Twos. [Playing with ball]

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Preoperational is the second stage, beginning when children start speaking, and lasting

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until the age of about 7. [Child smiling]

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Then comes Concrete Operational, which occurs during preadolescence, roughly the ages of

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7-11; before, finally, we have… [Putting money into piggy bank]

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Formal Operational, which covers adolescence into adulthood.

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The crux of the question deals with an egocentric viewpoint, meaning that the child can’t

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see the viewpoints of others. [Refusing to eat broccoli]

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But to be fair, our parents still don’t see things from our perspective- especially

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when it comes to trends that should never, ever, ever be repeated.

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Seriously.

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Bell-bottoms are dead and buried. [Holds up bell-bottom pants]

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But they're at least aware that we…and people in general…have a point of view that’s

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different from theirs..

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Now looking back at our answers, we can probably eliminate Formal Operational, because we expect

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people growing into adulthood not to be egocentric…

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…Which apparently, is sometimes too much to ask.,,

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We can also get rid of Sensorimotor, because a pre-talking baby isn’t really aware enough

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to be egocentric yet, and it also hasn’t developed symbolic thought. [Baby opens mouth]

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And we can eliminate Centration, because it isn’t even one of the four stages.

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Oh, the AP test…always keeping us on our toes.

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That leaves us with Preoperational and Concrete Operational, answers C and D.

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So which is it? [Highlighed choices]

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While Concrete Operational deals primarily with the development of reasoning and logic

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in preadolescence, the Preoperational stage deals mostly with the Egocentrism we were

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just discussing.

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So the correct answer is D, Preoperational. [Correct answer circled]

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Basically, Piaget says that in the Preoperational stage, children can generally only focus on

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one thing, and that one thing is usually themselves. [Baby playing with ladle]

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For example, when a group of children in this age group play in the same room, they are

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normally playing next to each other, not playing with each other; and when they talk, they’re

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talking to get out what’s in their brain, not to communicate.

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So basically like that one person you never want to work with in a group project, but

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someone always get paired with. [People in lab coats]

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Man, we hate that guy…

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