Exam 3

Sequence of Cognitive Development - Piaget

Pre-Operational Stage (2-6 years) "Operational" - logical thinking Pre-Operational - before logical thinking

How complex is identity formation?

Research shows that the identity formation process is more complex than either you form an identity or you do not. It is more complex because there can be multiple parts to person's identity, because there can be a lot of identity change during the adolescent life-phase, and because some adolescents do not go through experimentation and evaluation for some parts of their identity. According to Erikson, a person has to experiment with or evaluate different identity options.

understanding and assessing people's behavior and development involves

designing assessments that are relevant to people's daily life cultural activities.

Childhood Cognition preoperational stage

egocentric

when are there barriers to logical thinking?

preoperational and concrete operational stages

preschool in japan

17 kids in class, dont intervene fights, end of day at 4

preschool in Honalulu

20 kids 2 teachers, self expression emphasis, encourage to use words and give guidance in fights

Erik Erikson's theory

According to Erikson, identity is how a person defines him or herself as a separate individual and in relation to others. All people are both separate individuals and also connected to others, and Erikson used these two fundamental aspects of human experience in his conceptualization of identity. According to Erikson, forming an identity as a separate and connected person occurs throughout the lifespan, but it becomes conscious for the first time during adolescence. For Erikson, adolescence is a transitional period between childhood and adulthood when adolescents can work on identity issues. More specifically, Erikson posits that adolescents are going through an "identity crisis" which means they are asking some basic identity questions regarding who they are, their places in society, and who their friends are. According to Erikson, adolescents have to go through a time of experimentation and evaluation to resolve an identity crisis and construct answers to their identity questions. During this time, adolescents experiment with and evaluate different possible identities. Ultimately, Erikson claimed that adolescents then either resolve the identity crisis positively or negatively. The positive resolution, Identity Commitment, means that an adolescent commits to some social roles and values, and has a direction for the future. The negative resolution, Role Confusion, means that an adolescent does not have clear commitments or a clear future direction.

how does development happen?

According to Piaget development happens through assimilation and accommodation, and we discussed how assimilation and accommodation ultimately involve individual, social, and cultural processes.

formal operational stage Piaget

According to Piaget, it is during the formal operational stage that people achieve what he thought was the ultimate goal of cognitive development, namely abstract and logical thinking. Also, according to Piaget, such thinking emerges during adolescence and continues to characterize people's cognition during adulthood.

How does identity formation happen?

As always, we discussed HOW identity formation happens due to individual, social, and cultural factors. Think about this issue now. Be able to identify how identity formation happens through individual, social, and cultural factors. For example, individual factors shape how identity develops because every adolescent has to do some of the work of thinking about who they are. Individual adolescents are the ones who experiment with or evaluate different identity options. Social factors are involved as adults guide adolescents through experimentation and evaluation in varied ways. Interactions with peers may also be a source of guidance for identity development. Cultural factors shape development insofar as there are cultural beliefs and values about appropriate identities. There are also cultural guidelines for how to go about experimenting and evaluating identity possibilities. Be able to give at least two examples of how individual, social, and cultural factors can be played out more specifically for identity development.

can adolescents change identity statuses during adolescence?

However, it is important to point out that the Identity Statuses are NOT stages. A stage theory of development means that a person MUST go through a sequence of stages in a particular order. For example, to get to stage four in Piaget's theory, a child has to go first go through stage one, then stage two, then stage three, and then stage four. However, there is no single set pattern for going through the identity statuses, and different adolescents may go through several in different sequences. There is one exception to that statement: In order to get to identity achievement, an adolescent has to go through identity moratorium first. Identity achievement means that an adolescent has made some identity commitments, AFTER exploring different alternatives. If an adolescent has explored different alternatives, then that means he/she was in the status of Identity Moratorium at the time. Thus, Identity Achievement includes the idea that a person went through a time of Identity Moratorium. But other than that, there are usually two identity statuses that a person can move to from any one identity status.

There are four identity statuses which involve the following combinations of high and low Experimentation and Evaluation (E&E) and Commitment.

Identity Diffusion - Low E&E, Low Commitment; Identity Foreclosure - Low E&E, High Commitment; Identity Moratorium - High E&E, Low Commitment; Identity Achievement - High E&E (in the past), High Commitment. Be able to give examples of the different identity statuses. Remember that there are several ways that an adolescent can be classified in terms of identity foreclosure. Sometimes an adolescent makes a quick decision based on one experience (e.g., I saw an interesting movie about astronauts, so I want to be an astronaut), sometimes an adolescent is fulfilling others' expectations; and some adolescents have known for years and years what they want to do or be, and they do not find it necessary to explore other options.

Systems Thinking.

Increasingly, adolescents can understand the world in terms of systems. They think about varied phenomena systemically. A system is some phenomenon that is made up of multiple and interrelated parts. Interrelated means that the parts cannot function on their own, but only in relation to each other. If one part of a system is changed, it does not only affect that one part, but other parts of the system as well. Ultimately, the functioning of the whole system is affected. For example, a family can be understood as a system. If something happens to one family member, it affects other family members, it affects relationships between different family members, and can affect the functioning of the whole family.

Positive/fundamental/cumulative/differentiation and integration in identity status change

It is also interesting to apply the criteria for developmental change to some sequences of identity status changes. For example, say a person goes from identity diffusion to identity moratorium to identity achievement for some parts of his/her identity, say career. It is certainly a fundamental change to start with no identity commitments and no identity experimentation to then experiment, and to ultimately be committed to some career path. Most would probably agree that it is also a positive change. In going through this sequence, the person would have been differentiating among different career options, and figuring out how to integrate his/her interests and skills with different possible careers. It is also a cumulative change as the person identifies a particular career based on having evaluated varied possibilities. As a person constructs his/her identity for other identity parts, he/she can be differentiating among identity parts, and also constructing ways to integrate them—as in coordinating personal and professional identities.

Has development occurred as a child goes from the preoperational stage to the concrete operational stage?

It is certainly a fundamental change to go from not thinking logically to thinking logically about concrete information. Most people would probably agree that it is a positive change. Children are also differentiating among different aspects of situations, and figuring out how they go together, or integrating them when they overcome centration. Overcoming egocentrism also means that a child is differentiating between his/her own and another person's perspective, and is able to coordinate his/her perspective with another person's perspective.

How do children get through the preoperational stage and eventually overcome the barriers to logic?

Of course, this development happens through individual, social, and cultural factors. Remember, any development happens through individual, social, and cultural factors. Individually, children are actively trying to understand the world. Individually, children are playing with amounts, maybe in the sandbox, or with pieces of legos. Also, they are applying their own, individual schemes. Socially, children are interacting with others who can explain issues of amount to them, and who can guide their logical thinking. Culturally, children play with cultural toys that guide their thinking. Also, logical thinking is a culturally valued way of thinking.

What are some possibilities that adolescents might be thinking about?

One is that adolescents can think logically about the possible consequences of their action. However, adolescents are very well known, in fact notorious, for not thinking logically about the consequences of their action. The point here is that they are increasingly capable of doing so, but they do not actually consistently do so. They need guidance and training in this kind of thinking!

Trouble distinguishing between appearance and reality.

Sometimes, young children have trouble telling the difference between appearance and reality. Have you ever been with children around Halloween time? Sometimes, they don't understand that people have not actually become what they get dressed up as. Also, during the pre-operational stage children do a lot of pretending. But, sometimes they might get so engrossed in a pretend play game, that they are not sure where the pretend ends and reality begins. So, they sometimes think that they have become what they are pretending. If children have trouble sometimes telling the difference between appearance and reality, it is hard for them to think logically about some situations.

What is the next step in Piaget's theory?

The next step in theory and research on Piaget's theory involves culture. In the 1980s, researchers went around the world with conservation tasks. They found that in some cultures, especially where there is little or no formal schooling, people had trouble with the conservation tasks. Even some adults were confused by them. At first, some researchers concluded that in some cultures, people just do not make it to the concrete operational stage, and that Piaget's sequence of cognitive development is not universal. However, others immediately rejected this conclusion, arguing that a society cannot survive unless the adults, and even adolescents and older children, are thinking in terms of concrete operations. In class, we talked about how societal functioning requires overcoming the barriers to logical thinking. Researchers then designed other ways to assess cognitive development that are related to people's typical cultural activities. Around the world, children reach at least the concrete operational stage. This research also emphasizes the importance of studying behavior and development in relation to people's typical cultural activities.

Hypothetico-Deductive Reasoning.

There are two parts to hypothetico-deductive reasoning. One involves being able to draw logical conclusions about abstract information (deducing logical conclusions about hypothetical information).In addition, hypothetico-deductive reasoning involves being able to generate systematic hypotheses to solve a cognitive problem. This aspect of hypothetico-deductive reasoning is what is involved in scientific thinking. Again, there are many ways to assess this aspect of formal operational thinking. In class, we discussed the Combination of Chemicals task, and we pointed out that it is not necessarily the best way to assess formal operational thinking in all cultures or for all people.

several characteristics of abstract and logical thinking, or of the formal operational stage.

They are: thinking logically about possibilities, second order thinking, systems thinking, and hypothetico-deductive reasoning.

Second Order Thinking

This aspect of the formal operational stage builds on previous perspective-taking abilities that developed from the pre-operational to the concrete operational stage. adolescents might be comparing and contrasting different people's perspectives about different possibilities. Thus, we can see how this aspect of formal operational thinking is related to thinking logically about possibilities.

Perception bound.

This barrier to logical thinking is related to centration. It means that children tend to focus on what is perceptually salient to them in a situation. When they are centering their attention on one dimension of a situation, they go for the perceptually salient dimension. For example, sometimes children will argue over who has more sandwich if one child's sandwich is cut into two pieces, but the other child's sandwich is cut into four pieces. Perceptually, four pieces appears to be more sandwich than two pieces.

Trouble with seriation.

This barrier to logical thinking means that children have trouble putting things in systematic order. For example, they might have trouble putting sticks in order from biggest to smallest, or from smallest to biggest. It doesn't matter what the criterion for ordering is, they will have trouble. So much of logical thinking involves doing things in systematically, and following a particular order or sequence. It's no wonder that young children have trouble thinking logically!

Centration.

This barrier to logical thinking means that children will focus or center their attention on one dimension of a situation at a time. Most situations are complicated and involve several dimensions. To fully understand a complex situation, it helps to be able to understand the various dimensions. But children tend to focus on one dimension at a time, and thus cannot think logically about the whole situation.

What is the sequence of development according to Piaget?

Thus far, we know about the sensorimotor stage, the pre-operational stage, and the concrete operational stage. We will be adding to our knowledge of the sequence of cognitive development.

Barriers of logical thinking

Trouble distinguishing between appearance and reality. Centration. Perception bound. Egocentrism. Trouble with seriation.

Egocentrism.

We often talk about how children, and even some adults, can be egocentric. Usually, we have a social kind of egocentrism in mind, meaning that the person may be self-centered and only thinks about him/herself. Piaget had a more purely cognitive kind of egocentrism in mind. According to Piaget, children THINK about the world only from their own perspective, and then they think that everyone else shares their particular perspective. As discussed in class, Piaget used the "The Three Mountains Task" to assess children' egocentrism.

formal operational stage basic developmental questions

What is the domain of development for Piaget's theory? What is the ultimate goal of development according to Piaget? What is the sequence of development according to Piaget? how does development happen?

basic developmental questions for preoperational stage

What is the domain of development? Cognitive development What is the goal of development? Ultimately, for Piaget the final goal of cognitive development is abstract and logical thinking. Go back to our first session on Piaget's theory ("constructing knowledge") if you need to refresh your memory about Piaget's overall theory. What is the sequence of development? For Piaget's theory, you now know about the sensorimotor stage and the preoperational stage. How does development happen? We just answered that above in terms of individual, social, and cultural factors.

childhood cognition formal operational thinking

able to think about possibilities

childhood cognition concrete operational stage

able to understand physical objects

What is the ultimate goal of development according to Piaget?

abstract and logical thinking

What is the domain of development for Piaget's theory?

identity/self concept

Preschool in china

in school until ab 6, no stalls, shared

do people always use their formal operational thinking?

people do not always use their formal operational abilities. Even Piaget admitted that he did not always use his formal operational abilities in some situations.

Are the identity statuses stages?

the identity statuses are NOT stages because an adolescent may experience different identity statuses simultaneously for different aspects of identity. For example, an adolescent may be experiencing identity moratorium for career issues, and identity diffusion for political beliefs. Then, that adolescent could change identity statuses in different sequences for those different aspects of identity.

Identity Statuses

which are based on two dimensions: 1. Experimentation and evaluation, and 2. Commitment.