essay on child development stages

Jean Piaget’s Stages of Child Development

This essay about Piaget’s stages of development outlines the Swiss psychologist’s theory, which segments cognitive growth into four distinct phases: the Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, and Formal Operational stages. It emphasizes the active engagement of children with their environment, showcasing how they progress from understanding the world through sensory experiences and motor actions to developing the capacity for abstract thinking and hypothesis testing in adolescence. The piece also discusses the implications of Piaget’s theory for educational practices, advocating for environments that support exploration and discovery according to each developmental stage. While acknowledging critiques of Piaget’s work, particularly the underestimation of children’s abilities and the influence of cultural factors, the essay highlights the enduring value of Piaget’s framework for comprehending the intricate evolution of human intelligence.

How it works

Jean Piaget, a titan in the field of developmental psychology, gifted us with a roadmap to understanding how children blossom intellectually. His theory of cognitive development, which delineates four distinct stages, has become a cornerstone in both psychological theory and educational practice. Let’s unpack these stages and explore their significance in the grand tapestry of human growth.

The starting point is the Sensorimotor stage, covering the first two years of life. Here, infants are not just passive recipients of external stimuli; they’re active participants, engaging with their surroundings through their senses and motor actions.

The crowning achievement of this stage is the development of object permanence – the understanding that objects continue to exist even when out of sight. This realization marks a fundamental shift in the child’s cognitive architecture, laying the groundwork for more complex thought processes.

As children venture into the Preoperational stage, from ages 2 to 7, their cognitive landscape is dramatically transformed by the emergence of symbolic thought. Language acquisition is a hallmark of this period, enabling children to navigate and articulate their experiences with newfound depth. However, this stage is also characterized by egocentrism – the assumption that others perceive the world as they do. Additionally, children’s thinking at this stage is intuitive rather than logical, illustrated by their difficulty in understanding concepts such as conservation, the principle that quantity remains unchanged despite alterations in shape or appearance.

The transition to the Concrete Operational stage, occurring between ages 7 and 11, heralds a significant leap in cognitive abilities. Children begin to think more logically, but their reasoning is anchored to concrete, tangible objects and events. The concept of conservation is now within their grasp, along with the ability to classify objects and understand the concept of reversibility. It’s a stage where the physical and the knowable reign supreme, paving the way for the development of operational thought.

The journey culminates in the Formal Operational stage, which begins in adolescence and extends into adulthood. This stage is marked by the capacity for abstract thinking, allowing individuals to hypothesize, deduce, and reason in a more sophisticated manner. Adolescents can contemplate possibilities, engage in deductive reasoning, and understand abstract concepts such as justice, freedom, and love. This stage represents the pinnacle of cognitive development, characterized by an ability to think about thinking itself, known as metacognition.

Piaget’s theory does more than chart the evolution of thought from infancy through adolescence; it emphasizes the active role of the learner. According to Piaget, children are not mere sponges soaking up information. Instead, they are young scientists, constantly hypothesizing, experimenting, and learning from their interactions with the world. This perspective has profound implications for education, suggesting that learning environments should cater to the developmental stage of the child, offering opportunities for exploration and discovery.

While Piaget’s theory has been influential, it has not escaped criticism. Some argue that he underestimated the cognitive abilities of children, while others point to cultural and social factors that might accelerate or alter the progression through these stages. Nevertheless, Piaget’s stages of development have endured as a vital framework for understanding the complex process of human cognitive growth.

In sum, Piaget’s stages of development offer a fascinating lens through which to view the unfolding of human intelligence. From the sensorimotor explorations of infancy to the sophisticated abstract reasoning of adolescence and beyond, each stage is a stepping-stone in the intricate journey of cognitive development. Understanding these stages not only enriches our appreciation of the human mind’s complexity but also underscores the importance of nurturing environments that foster and facilitate this remarkable journey of growth.

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1 Chapter 1: Introduction to Child Development

Chapter objectives.

After this chapter, you should be able to:

• Describe the principles that underlie development.
• Differentiate periods of human development.
• Evaluate issues in development.
• Distinguish the different methods of research.
• Explain what a theory is.
• Compare and contrast different theories of child development.

Introduction

Welcome to Child Growth and Development. This text is a presentation of how and why children grow, develop, and learn.

We will look at how we change physically over time from conception through adolescence. We examine cognitive change, or how our ability to think and remember changes over the first 20 years or so of life. And we will look at how our emotions, psychological state, and social relationships change throughout childhood and adolescence. 1

Principles of Development

There are several underlying principles of development to keep in mind:

• Development is lifelong and change is apparent across the lifespan (although this text ends with adolescence). And early experiences affect later development.
• Development is multidirectional. We show gains in some areas of development, while showing loss in other areas.
• Development is multidimensional. We change across three general domains/dimensions; physical, cognitive, and social and emotional.
• The physical domain includes changes in height and weight, changes in gross and fine motor skills, sensory capabilities, the nervous system, as well as the propensity for disease and illness.
• The cognitive domain encompasses the changes in intelligence, wisdom, perception, problem-solving, memory, and language.
• The social and emotional domain (also referred to as psychosocial) focuses on changes in emotion, self-perception, and interpersonal relationships with families, peers, and friends.

All three domains influence each other. It is also important to note that a change in one domain may cascade and prompt changes in the other domains.

• Development is characterized by plasticity, which is our ability to change and that many of our characteristics are malleable. Early experiences are important, but children are remarkably resilient (able to overcome adversity).
• Development is multicontextual. 2 We are influenced by both nature (genetics) and nurture (the environment) – when and where we live and our actions, beliefs, and values are a response to circumstances surrounding us.  The key here is to understand that behaviors, motivations, emotions, and choices are all part of a bigger picture. 3

Now let’s look at a framework for examining development.

Periods of Development

Think about what periods of development that you think a course on Child Development would address. How many stages are on your list? Perhaps you have three: infancy, childhood, and teenagers. Developmentalists (those that study development) break this part of the life span into these five stages as follows:

• Prenatal Development (conception through birth)
• Infancy and Toddlerhood (birth through two years)
• Early Childhood (3 to 5 years)
• Middle Childhood (6 to 11 years)
• Adolescence (12 years to adulthood)

This list reflects unique aspects of the various stages of childhood and adolescence that will be explored in this book. So while both an 8 month old and an 8 year old are considered children, they have very different motor abilities, social relationships, and cognitive skills. Their nutritional needs are different and their primary psychological concerns are also distinctive.

Prenatal Development

Conception occurs and development begins. All of the major structures of the body are forming and the health of the mother is of primary concern. Understanding nutrition, teratogens (or environmental factors that can lead to birth defects), and labor and delivery are primary concerns.

Figure 1.1 – A tiny embryo depicting some development of arms and legs, as well as facial features that are starting to show. 4

Infancy and Toddlerhood

The two years of life are ones of dramatic growth and change. A newborn, with a keen sense of hearing but very poor vision is transformed into a walking, talking toddler within a relatively short period of time. Caregivers are also transformed from someone who manages feeding and sleep schedules to a constantly moving guide and safety inspector for a mobile, energetic child.

Figure 1.2 – A swaddled newborn. 5

Early Childhood

Early childhood is also referred to as the preschool years and consists of the years which follow toddlerhood and precede formal schooling. As a three to five-year-old, the child is busy learning language, is gaining a sense of self and greater independence, and is beginning to learn the workings of the physical world. This knowledge does not come quickly, however, and preschoolers may initially have interesting conceptions of size, time, space and distance such as fearing that they may go down the drain if they sit at the front of the bathtub or by demonstrating how long something will take by holding out their two index fingers several inches apart. A toddler’s fierce determination to do something may give way to a four-year-old’s sense of guilt for action that brings the disapproval of others.

Figure 1.3 – Two young children playing in the Singapore Botanic Gardens 6

Middle Childhood

The ages of six through eleven comprise middle childhood and much of what children experience at this age is connected to their involvement in the early grades of school. Now the world becomes one of learning and testing new academic skills and by assessing one’s abilities and accomplishments by making comparisons between self and others. Schools compare students and make these comparisons public through team sports, test scores, and other forms of recognition. Growth rates slow down and children are able to refine their motor skills at this point in life. And children begin to learn about social relationships beyond the family through interaction with friends and fellow students.

Figure 1.4 – Two children running down the street in Carenage, Trinidad and Tobago 7

Adolescence

Adolescence is a period of dramatic physical change marked by an overall physical growth spurt and sexual maturation, known as puberty. It is also a time of cognitive change as the adolescent begins to think of new possibilities and to consider abstract concepts such as love, fear, and freedom. Ironically, adolescents have a sense of invincibility that puts them at greater risk of dying from accidents or contracting sexually transmitted infections that can have lifelong consequences. 8

Figure 1.5 – Two smiling teenage women. 9

There are some aspects of development that have been hotly debated. Let’s explore these.

Issues in Development

Nature and nurture.

Why are people the way they are? Are features such as height, weight, personality, being diabetic, etc. the result of heredity or environmental factors-or both? For decades, scholars have carried on the “nature/nurture” debate. For any particular feature, those on the side of Nature would argue that heredity plays the most important role in bringing about that feature. Those on the side of Nurture would argue that one’s environment is most significant in shaping the way we are. This debate continues in all aspects of human development, and most scholars agree that there is a constant interplay between the two forces. It is difficult to isolate the root of any single behavior as a result solely of nature or nurture.

Continuity versus Discontinuity

Is human development best characterized as a slow, gradual process, or is it best viewed as one of more abrupt change? The answer to that question often depends on which developmental theorist you ask and what topic is being studied. The theories of Freud, Erikson, Piaget, and Kohlberg are called stage theories. Stage theories or discontinuous development assume that developmental change often occurs in distinct stages that are qualitatively different from each other, and in a set, universal sequence. At each stage of development, children and adults have different qualities and characteristics. Thus, stage theorists assume development is more discontinuous. Others, such as the behaviorists, Vygotsky, and information processing theorists, assume development is a more slow and gradual process known as continuous development. For instance, they would see the adult as not possessing new skills, but more advanced skills that were already present in some form in the child. Brain development and environmental experiences contribute to the acquisition of more developed skills.

Figure 1.6 – The graph to the left shows three stages in the continuous growth of a tree. The graph to the right shows four distinct stages of development in the life cycle of a ladybug. 10

Active versus Passive

How much do you play a role in your own developmental path? Are you at the whim of your genetic inheritance or the environment that surrounds you? Some theorists see humans as playing a much more active role in their own development. Piaget, for instance believed that children actively explore their world and construct new ways of thinking to explain the things they experience. In contrast, many behaviorists view humans as being more passive in the developmental process. 11

How do we know so much about how we grow, develop, and learn? Let’s look at how that data is gathered through research

Research Methods

An important part of learning any science is having a basic knowledge of the techniques used in gathering information. The hallmark of scientific investigation is that of following a set of procedures designed to keep questioning or skepticism alive while describing, explaining, or testing any phenomenon. Some people are hesitant to trust academicians or researchers because they always seem to change their story. That, however, is exactly what science is all about; it involves continuously renewing our understanding of the subjects in question and an ongoing investigation of how and why events occur. Science is a vehicle for going on a never-ending journey. In the area of development, we have seen changes in recommendations for nutrition, in explanations of psychological states as people age, and in parenting advice. So think of learning about human development as a lifelong endeavor.

Take a moment to write down two things that you know about childhood. Now, how do you know? Chances are you know these things based on your own history (experiential reality) or based on what others have told you or cultural ideas (agreement reality) (Seccombe and Warner, 2004). There are several problems with personal inquiry. Read the following sentence aloud:

Paris in the

Are you sure that is what it said? Read it again:

If you read it differently the second time (adding the second “the”) you just experienced one of the problems with personal inquiry; that is, the tendency to see what we believe. Our assumptions very often guide our perceptions, consequently, when we believe something, we tend to see it even if it is not there. This problem may just be a result of cognitive ‘blinders’ or it may be part of a more conscious attempt to support our own views. Confirmation bias is the tendency to look for evidence that we are right and in so doing, we ignore contradictory evidence. Popper suggests that the distinction between that which is scientific and that which is unscientific is that science is falsifiable; scientific inquiry involves attempts to reject or refute a theory or set of assumptions (Thornton, 2005). Theory that cannot be falsified is not scientific. And much of what we do in personal inquiry involves drawing conclusions based on what we have personally experienced or validating our own experience by discussing what we think is true with others who share the same views.

Science offers a more systematic way to make comparisons guard against bias.

Scientific Methods

One method of scientific investigation involves the following steps:

• Determining a research question
• Reviewing previous studies addressing the topic in question (known as a literature review)
• Determining a method of gathering information
• Conducting the study
• Interpreting results
• Drawing conclusions; stating limitations of the study and suggestions for future research
• Making your findings available to others (both to share information and to have your work scrutinized by others)

Your findings can then be used by others as they explore the area of interest and through this process a literature or knowledge base is established. This model of scientific investigation presents research as a linear process guided by a specific research question. And it typically involves quantifying or using statistics to understand and report what has been studied. Many academic journals publish reports on studies conducted in this manner.

Another model of research referred to as qualitative research may involve steps such as these:

• Begin with a broad area of interest
• Gain entrance into a group to be researched
• Gather field notes about the setting, the people, the structure, the activities or other areas of interest
• Ask open ended, broad “grand tour” types of questions when interviewing subjects
• Modify research questions as study continues
• Note patterns or consistencies
• Explore new areas deemed important by the people being observed
• Report findings

In this type of research, theoretical ideas are “grounded” in the experiences of the participants. The researcher is the student and the people in the setting are the teachers as they inform the researcher of their world (Glazer & Strauss, 1967). Researchers are to be aware of their own biases and assumptions, acknowledge them and bracket them in efforts to keep them from limiting accuracy in reporting. Sometimes qualitative studies are used initially to explore a topic and more quantitative studies are used to test or explain what was first described.

Let’s look more closely at some techniques, or research methods, used to describe, explain, or evaluate. Each of these designs has strengths and weaknesses and is sometimes used in combination with other designs within a single study.

Observational Studies

Observational studies involve watching and recording the actions of participants. This may take place in the natural setting, such as observing children at play at a park, or behind a one-way glass while children are at play in a laboratory playroom. The researcher may follow a checklist and record the frequency and duration of events (perhaps how many conflicts occur among 2-year-olds) or may observe and record as much as possible about an event (such as observing children in a classroom and capturing the details about the room design and what the children and teachers are doing and saying). In general, observational studies have the strength of allowing the researcher to see how people behave rather than relying on self-report. What people do and what they say they do are often very different. A major weakness of observational studies is that they do not allow the researcher to explain causal relationships. Yet, observational studies are useful and widely used when studying children. Children tend to change their behavior when they know they are being watched (known as the Hawthorne effect) and may not survey well.

Experiments

Experiments are designed to test hypotheses (or specific statements about the relationship between variables) in a controlled setting in efforts to explain how certain factors or events produce outcomes. A variable is anything that changes in value. Concepts are operationalized or transformed into variables in research, which means that the researcher must specify exactly what is going to be measured in the study.

Three conditions must be met in order to establish cause and effect. Experimental designs are useful in meeting these conditions.

The independent and dependent variables must be related. In other words, when one is altered, the other changes in response. (The independent variable is something altered or introduced by the researcher. The dependent variable is the outcome or the factor affected by the introduction of the independent variable. For example, if we are looking at the impact of exercise on stress levels, the independent variable would be exercise; the dependent variable would be stress.)

The cause must come before the effect. Experiments involve measuring subjects on the dependent variable before exposing them to the independent variable (establishing a baseline). So we would measure the subjects’ level of stress before introducing exercise and then again after the exercise to see if there has been a change in stress levels. (Observational and survey research does not always allow us to look at the timing of these events, which makes understanding causality problematic with these designs.)

The cause must be isolated. The researcher must ensure that no outside, perhaps unknown variables are actually causing the effect we see. The experimental design helps make this possible. In an experiment, we would make sure that our subjects’ diets were held constant throughout the exercise program. Otherwise, diet might really be creating the change in stress level rather than exercise.

A basic experimental design involves beginning with a sample (or subset of a population) and randomly assigning subjects to one of two groups: the experimental group or the control group. The experimental group is the group that is going to be exposed to an independent variable or condition the researcher is introducing as a potential cause of an event. The control group is going to be used for comparison and is going to have the same experience as the experimental group but will not be exposed to the independent variable. After exposing the experimental group to the independent variable, the two groups are measured again to see if a change has occurred. If so, we are in a better position to suggest that the independent variable caused the change in the dependent variable.

The major advantage of the experimental design is that of helping to establish cause and effect relationships. A disadvantage of this design is the difficulty of translating much of what happens in a laboratory setting into real life.

Case Studies

Case studies involve exploring a single case or situation in great detail. Information may be gathered with the use of observation, interviews, testing, or other methods to uncover as much as possible about a person or situation. Case studies are helpful when investigating unusual situations such as brain trauma or children reared in isolation. And they are often used by clinicians who conduct case studies as part of their normal practice when gathering information about a client or patient coming in for treatment. Case studies can be used to explore areas about which little is known and can provide rich detail about situations or conditions. However, the findings from case studies cannot be generalized or applied to larger populations; this is because cases are not randomly selected and no control group is used for comparison.

Figure 1.7 – Illustrated poster from a classroom describing a case study. 12

Surveys are familiar to most people because they are so widely used. Surveys enhance accessibility to subjects because they can be conducted in person, over the phone, through the mail, or online. A survey involves asking a standard set of questions to a group of subjects. In a highly structured survey, subjects are forced to choose from a response set such as “strongly disagree, disagree, undecided, agree, strongly agree”; or “0, 1-5, 6-10, etc.” This is known as Likert Scale . Surveys are commonly used by sociologists, marketing researchers, political scientists, therapists, and others to gather information on many independent and dependent variables in a relatively short period of time. Surveys typically yield surface information on a wide variety of factors, but may not allow for in-depth understanding of human behavior.

Of course, surveys can be designed in a number of ways. They may include forced choice questions and semi-structured questions in which the researcher allows the respondent to describe or give details about certain events. One of the most difficult aspects of designing a good survey is wording questions in an unbiased way and asking the right questions so that respondents can give a clear response rather than choosing “undecided” each time. Knowing that 30% of respondents are undecided is of little use! So a lot of time and effort should be placed on the construction of survey items. One of the benefits of having forced choice items is that each response is coded so that the results can be quickly entered and analyzed using statistical software. Analysis takes much longer when respondents give lengthy responses that must be analyzed in a different way. Surveys are useful in examining stated values, attitudes, opinions, and reporting on practices. However, they are based on self-report or what people say they do rather than on observation and this can limit accuracy.

Developmental Designs

Developmental designs are techniques used in developmental research (and other areas as well). These techniques try to examine how age, cohort, gender, and social class impact development.

Longitudinal Research

Longitudinal research involves beginning with a group of people who may be of the same age and background, and measuring them repeatedly over a long period of time. One of the benefits of this type of research is that people can be followed through time and be compared with them when they were younger.

Figure 1.8 – A longitudinal research design. 13

A problem with this type of research is that it is very expensive and subjects may drop out over time. The Perry Preschool Project which began in 1962 is an example of a longitudinal study that continues to provide data on children’s development.

Cross-sectional Research

Cross-sectional research involves beginning with a sample that represents a cross-section of the population. Respondents who vary in age, gender, ethnicity, and social class might be asked to complete a survey about television program preferences or attitudes toward the use of the Internet. The attitudes of males and females could then be compared, as could attitudes based on age. In cross-sectional research, respondents are measured only once.

Figure 1.9 – A cross-sectional research design. 14

This method is much less expensive than longitudinal research but does not allow the researcher to distinguish between the impact of age and the cohort effect. Different attitudes about the use of technology, for example, might not be altered by a person’s biological age as much as their life experiences as members of a cohort.

Sequential Research

Sequential research involves combining aspects of the previous two techniques; beginning with a cross-sectional sample and measuring them through time.

Figure 1.10 – A sequential research design. 15

This is the perfect model for looking at age, gender, social class, and ethnicity. But the drawbacks of high costs and attrition are here as well. 16

Table 1 .1 – Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Research Designs 17

Consent and Ethics in Research

Research should, as much as possible, be based on participants’ freely volunteered informed consent. For minors, this also requires consent from their legal guardians. This implies a responsibility to explain fully and meaningfully to both the child and their guardians what the research is about and how it will be disseminated. Participants and their legal guardians should be aware of the research purpose and procedures, their right to refuse to participate; the extent to which confidentiality will be maintained; the potential uses to which the data might be put; the foreseeable risks and expected benefits; and that participants have the right to discontinue at any time.

But consent alone does not absolve the responsibility of researchers to anticipate and guard against potential harmful consequences for participants. 18 It is critical that researchers protect all rights of the participants including confidentiality.

Child development is a fascinating field of study – but care must be taken to ensure that researchers use appropriate methods to examine infant and child behavior, use the correct experimental design to answer their questions, and be aware of the special challenges that are part-and-parcel of developmental research. Hopefully, this information helped you develop an understanding of these various issues and to be ready to think more critically about research questions that interest you. There are so many interesting questions that remain to be examined by future generations of developmental scientists – maybe you will make one of the next big discoveries! 19

Another really important framework to use when trying to understand children’s development are theories of development. Let’s explore what theories are and introduce you to some major theories in child development.

Developmental Theories

What is a theory.

Students sometimes feel intimidated by theory; even the phrase, “Now we are going to look at some theories…” is met with blank stares and other indications that the audience is now lost. But theories are valuable tools for understanding human behavior; in fact they are proposed explanations for the “how” and “whys” of development. Have you ever wondered, “Why is my 3 year old so inquisitive?” or “Why are some fifth graders rejected by their classmates?” Theories can help explain these and other occurrences. Developmental theories offer explanations about how we develop, why we change over time and the kinds of influences that impact development.

A theory guides and helps us interpret research findings as well. It provides the researcher with a blueprint or model to be used to help piece together various studies. Think of theories as guidelines much like directions that come with an appliance or other object that requires assembly. The instructions can help one piece together smaller parts more easily than if trial and error are used.

Theories can be developed using induction in which a number of single cases are observed and after patterns or similarities are noted, the theorist develops ideas based on these examples. Established theories are then tested through research; however, not all theories are equally suited to scientific investigation.  Some theories are difficult to test but are still useful in stimulating debate or providing concepts that have practical application. Keep in mind that theories are not facts; they are guidelines for investigation and practice, and they gain credibility through research that fails to disprove them. 20

Let’s take a look at some key theories in Child Development.

Sigmund Freud’s Psychosexual Theory

We begin with the often controversial figure, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939). Freud has been a very influential figure in the area of development; his view of development and psychopathology dominated the field of psychiatry until the growth of behaviorism in the 1950s. His assumptions that personality forms during the first few years of life and that the ways in which parents or other caregivers interact with children have a long-lasting impact on children’s emotional states have guided parents, educators, clinicians, and policy-makers for many years. We have only recently begun to recognize that early childhood experiences do not always result in certain personality traits or emotional states. There is a growing body of literature addressing resilience in children who come from harsh backgrounds and yet develop without damaging emotional scars (O’Grady and Metz, 1987). Freud has stimulated an enormous amount of research and generated many ideas. Agreeing with Freud’s theory in its entirety is hardly necessary for appreciating the contribution he has made to the field of development.

Figure 1.11 – Sigmund Freud. 21

Freud’s theory of self suggests that there are three parts of the self.

The id is the part of the self that is inborn. It responds to biological urges without pause and is guided by the principle of pleasure: if it feels good, it is the thing to do. A newborn is all id. The newborn cries when hungry, defecates when the urge strikes.

The ego develops through interaction with others and is guided by logic or the reality principle. It has the ability to delay gratification. It knows that urges have to be managed. It mediates between the id and superego using logic and reality to calm the other parts of the self.

The superego represents society’s demands for its members. It is guided by a sense of guilt. Values, morals, and the conscience are all part of the superego.

The personality is thought to develop in response to the child’s ability to learn to manage biological urges. Parenting is important here. If the parent is either overly punitive or lax, the child may not progress to the next stage. Here is a brief introduction to Freud’s stages.

Table 1. 2 – Sigmund Freud’s Psychosexual Theory

Strengths and Weaknesses of Freud’s Theory

Freud’s theory has been heavily criticized for several reasons. One is that it is very difficult to test scientifically. How can parenting in infancy be traced to personality in adulthood? Are there other variables that might better explain development? The theory is also considered to be sexist in suggesting that women who do not accept an inferior position in society are somehow psychologically flawed. Freud focuses on the darker side of human nature and suggests that much of what determines our actions is unknown to us. So why do we study Freud? As mentioned above, despite the criticisms, Freud’s assumptions about the importance of early childhood experiences in shaping our psychological selves have found their way into child development, education, and parenting practices. Freud’s theory has heuristic value in providing a framework from which to elaborate and modify subsequent theories of development. Many later theories, particularly behaviorism and humanism, were challenges to Freud’s views. 22

Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory

Now, let’s turn to a less controversial theorist, Erik Erikson. Erikson (1902-1994) suggested that our relationships and society’s expectations motivate much of our behavior in his theory of psychosocial development. Erikson was a student of Freud’s but emphasized the importance of the ego, or conscious thought, in determining our actions. In other words, he believed that we are not driven by unconscious urges. We know what motivates us and we consciously think about how to achieve our goals. He is considered the father of developmental psychology because his model gives us a guideline for the entire life span and suggests certain primary psychological and social concerns throughout life.

Figure 1.12 – Erik Erikson. 23

Erikson expanded on his Freud’s by emphasizing the importance of culture in parenting practices and motivations and adding three stages of adult development (Erikson, 1950; 1968). He believed that we are aware of what motivates us throughout life and the ego has greater importance in guiding our actions than does the id. We make conscious choices in life and these choices focus on meeting certain social and cultural needs rather than purely biological ones. Humans are motivated, for instance, by the need to feel that the world is a trustworthy place, that we are capable individuals, that we can make a contribution to society, and that we have lived a meaningful life. These are all psychosocial problems.

Erikson divided the lifespan into eight stages. In each stage, we have a major psychosocial task to accomplish or crisis to overcome.  Erikson believed that our personality continues to take shape throughout our lifespan as we face these challenges in living. Here is a brief overview of the eight stages:

Table 1. 3 – Erik Erikson’s Psychosocial Theory

These eight stages form a foundation for discussions on emotional and social development during the life span. Keep in mind, however, that these stages or crises can occur more than once. For instance, a person may struggle with a lack of trust beyond infancy under certain circumstances. Erikson’s theory has been criticized for focusing so heavily on stages and assuming that the completion of one stage is prerequisite for the next crisis of development. His theory also focuses on the social expectations that are found in certain cultures, but not in all. For instance, the idea that adolescence is a time of searching for identity might translate well in the middle-class culture of the United States, but not as well in cultures where the transition into adulthood coincides with puberty through rites of passage and where adult roles offer fewer choices. 24

Behaviorism

While Freud and Erikson looked at what was going on in the mind, behaviorism rejected any reference to mind and viewed overt and observable behavior as the proper subject matter of psychology. Through the scientific study of behavior, it was hoped that laws of learning could be derived that would promote the prediction and control of behavior. 25

Ivan Pavlov

Ivan Pavlov (1880-1937) was a Russian physiologist interested in studying digestion. As he recorded the amount of salivation his laboratory dogs produced as they ate, he noticed that they actually began to salivate before the food arrived as the researcher walked down the hall and toward the cage. “This,” he thought, “is not natural!” One would expect a dog to automatically salivate when food hit their palate, but BEFORE the food comes? Of course, what had happened was . . . you tell me. That’s right! The dogs knew that the food was coming because they had learned to associate the footsteps with the food. The key word here is “learned”. A learned response is called a “conditioned” response.

Figure 1.13 – Ivan Pavlov. 26

Pavlov began to experiment with this concept of classical conditioning . He began to ring a bell, for instance, prior to introducing the food. Sure enough, after making this connection several times, the dogs could be made to salivate to the sound of a bell. Once the bell had become an event to which the dogs had learned to salivate, it was called a conditioned stimulus . The act of salivating to a bell was a response that had also been learned, now termed in Pavlov’s jargon, a conditioned response. Notice that the response, salivation, is the same whether it is conditioned or unconditioned (unlearned or natural). What changed is the stimulus to which the dog salivates. One is natural (unconditioned) and one is learned (conditioned).

Let’s think about how classical conditioning is used on us. One of the most widespread applications of classical conditioning principles was brought to us by the psychologist, John B. Watson.

John B. Watson

John B. Watson (1878-1958) believed that most of our fears and other emotional responses are classically conditioned. He had gained a good deal of popularity in the 1920s with his expert advice on parenting offered to the public.

Figure 1.14 – John B. Watson. 27

He tried to demonstrate the power of classical conditioning with his famous experiment with an 18 month old boy named “Little Albert”. Watson sat Albert down and introduced a variety of seemingly scary objects to him: a burning piece of newspaper, a white rat, etc. But Albert remained curious and reached for all of these things. Watson knew that one of our only inborn fears is the fear of loud noises so he proceeded to make a loud noise each time he introduced one of Albert’s favorites, a white rat. After hearing the loud noise several times paired with the rat, Albert soon came to fear the rat and began to cry when it was introduced. Watson filmed this experiment for posterity and used it to demonstrate that he could help parents achieve any outcomes they desired, if they would only follow his advice. Watson wrote columns in newspapers and in magazines and gained a lot of popularity among parents eager to apply science to household order.

Operant conditioning, on the other hand, looks at the way the consequences of a behavior increase or decrease the likelihood of a behavior occurring again. So let’s look at this a bit more.

B.F. Skinner and Operant Conditioning

B. F. Skinner (1904-1990), who brought us the principles of operant conditioning, suggested that reinforcement is a more effective means of encouraging a behavior than is criticism or punishment. By focusing on strengthening desirable behavior, we have a greater impact than if we emphasize what is undesirable. Reinforcement is anything that an organism desires and is motivated to obtain.

Figure 1.15 – B. F. Skinner. 28

A reinforcer is something that encourages or promotes a behavior. Some things are natural rewards. They are considered intrinsic or primary because their value is easily understood. Think of what kinds of things babies or animals such as puppies find rewarding.

Extrinsic or secondary reinforcers are things that have a value not immediately understood. Their value is indirect. They can be traded in for what is ultimately desired.

The use of positive reinforcement involves adding something to a situation in order to encourage a behavior. For example, if I give a child a cookie for cleaning a room, the addition of the cookie makes cleaning more likely in the future. Think of ways in which you positively reinforce others.

Negative reinforcement occurs when taking something unpleasant away from a situation encourages behavior. For example, I have an alarm clock that makes a very unpleasant, loud sound when it goes off in the morning. As a result, I get up and turn it off. By removing the noise, I am reinforced for getting up. How do you negatively reinforce others?

Punishment is an effort to stop a behavior. It means to follow an action with something unpleasant or painful. Punishment is often less effective than reinforcement for several reasons. It doesn’t indicate the desired behavior, it may result in suppressing rather than stopping a behavior, (in other words, the person may not do what is being punished when you’re around, but may do it often when you leave), and a focus on punishment can result in not noticing when the person does well.

Not all behaviors are learned through association or reinforcement. Many of the things we do are learned by watching others. This is addressed in social learning theory.

Social Learning Theory

Albert Bandura (1925-) is a leading contributor to social learning theory. He calls our attention to the ways in which many of our actions are not learned through conditioning; rather, they are learned by watching others (1977). Young children frequently learn behaviors through imitation

Figure 1.16 – Albert Bandura. 29

Sometimes, particularly when we do not know what else to do, we learn by modeling or copying the behavior of others. A kindergartner on his or her first day of school might eagerly look at how others are acting and try to act the same way to fit in more quickly. Adolescents struggling with their identity rely heavily on their peers to act as role-models. Sometimes we do things because we’ve seen it pay off for someone else. They were operantly conditioned, but we engage in the behavior because we hope it will pay off for us as well. This is referred to as vicarious reinforcement (Bandura, Ross and Ross, 1963).

Bandura (1986) suggests that there is interplay between the environment and the individual. We are not just the product of our surroundings, rather we influence our surroundings. Parents not only influence their child’s environment, perhaps intentionally through the use of reinforcement, etc., but children influence parents as well. Parents may respond differently with their first child than with their fourth. Perhaps they try to be the perfect parents with their firstborn, but by the time their last child comes along they have very different expectations both of themselves and their child. Our environment creates us and we create our environment. 30

Theories also explore cognitive development and how mental processes change over time.

Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) is one of the most influential cognitive theorists. Piaget was inspired to explore children’s ability to think and reason by watching his own children’s development. He was one of the first to recognize and map out the ways in which children’s thought differs from that of adults. His interest in this area began when he was asked to test the IQ of children and began to notice that there was a pattern in their wrong answers. He believed that children’s intellectual skills change over time through maturation. Children of differing ages interpret the world differently.

Figure 1.17 – Jean Piaget. 32

Piaget believed our desire to understand the world comes from a need for cognitive equilibrium . This is an agreement or balance between what we sense in the outside world and what we know in our minds. If we experience something that we cannot understand, we try to restore the balance by either changing our thoughts or by altering the experience to fit into what we do understand. Perhaps you meet someone who is very different from anyone you know. How do you make sense of this person? You might use them to establish a new category of people in your mind or you might think about how they are similar to someone else.

A schema or schemes are categories of knowledge. They are like mental boxes of concepts. A child has to learn many concepts. They may have a scheme for “under” and “soft” or “running” and “sour”. All of these are schema. Our efforts to understand the world around us lead us to develop new schema and to modify old ones.

One way to make sense of new experiences is to focus on how they are similar to what we already know. This is assimilation . So the person we meet who is very different may be understood as being “sort of like my brother” or “his voice sounds a lot like yours.” Or a new food may be assimilated when we determine that it tastes like chicken!

Another way to make sense of the world is to change our mind. We can make a cognitive accommodation to this new experience by adding new schema. This food is unlike anything I’ve tasted before. I now have a new category of foods that are bitter-sweet in flavor, for instance. This is  accommodation . Do you accommodate or assimilate more frequently? Children accommodate more frequently as they build new schema. Adults tend to look for similarity in their experience and assimilate. They may be less inclined to think “outside the box.”

Piaget suggested different ways of understanding that are associated with maturation. He divided this into four stages:

Table 1.4 – Jean Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory

Piaget has been criticized for overemphasizing the role that physical maturation plays in cognitive development and in underestimating the role that culture and interaction (or experience) plays in cognitive development. Looking across cultures reveals considerable variation in what children are able to do at various ages. Piaget may have underestimated what children are capable of given the right circumstances. 33

Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a Russian psychologist who wrote in the early 1900s but whose work was discovered in the United States in the 1960s but became more widely known in the 1980s. Vygotsky differed with Piaget in that he believed that a person not only has a set of abilities, but also a set of potential abilities that can be realized if given the proper guidance from others. His sociocultural theory emphasizes the importance of culture and interaction in the development of cognitive abilities. He believed that through guided participation known as scaffolding, with a teacher or capable peer, a child can learn cognitive skills within a certain range known as the zone of proximal development . 34 His belief was that development occurred first through children’s immediate social interactions, and then moved to the individual level as they began to internalize their learning. 35

Figure 1.18- Lev Vygotsky. 36

Have you ever taught a child to perform a task? Maybe it was brushing their teeth or preparing food. Chances are you spoke to them and described what you were doing while you demonstrated the skill and let them work along with you all through the process. You gave them assistance when they seemed to need it, but once they knew what to do-you stood back and let them go. This is scaffolding and can be seen demonstrated throughout the world. This approach to teaching has also been adopted by educators. Rather than assessing students on what they are doing, they should be understood in terms of what they are capable of doing with the proper guidance. You can see how Vygotsky would be very popular with modern day educators. 37

Comparing Piaget and Vygotsky

Vygotsky concentrated more on the child’s immediate social and cultural environment and his or her interactions with adults and peers. While Piaget saw the child as actively discovering the world through individual interactions with it, Vygotsky saw the child as more of an apprentice, learning through a social environment of others who had more experience and were sensitive to the child’s needs and abilities. 38

Like Vygotsky’s, Bronfenbrenner looked at the social influences on learning and development.

Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Model

Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917-2005) offers us one of the most comprehensive theories of human development. Bronfenbrenner studied Freud, Erikson, Piaget, and learning theorists and believed that all of those theories could be enhanced by adding the dimension of context. What is being taught and how society interprets situations depends on who is involved in the life of a child and on when and where a child lives.

Figure 1.19 – Urie Bronfenbrenner. 39

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems model explains the direct and indirect influences on an individual’s development.

Table 1.5 – Urie Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Model

For example, in order to understand a student in math, we can’t simply look at that individual and what challenges they face directly with the subject. We have to look at the interactions that occur between teacher and child. Perhaps the teacher needs to make modifications as well. The teacher may be responding to regulations made by the school, such as new expectations for students in math or constraints on time that interfere with the teacher’s ability to instruct. These new demands may be a response to national efforts to promote math and science deemed important by political leaders in response to relations with other countries at a particular time in history.

Figure 1.20 – Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory. 40

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems model challenges us to go beyond the individual if we want to understand human development and promote improvements. 41

In this chapter we looked at:

underlying principles of development

the five periods of development

three issues in development

Various methods of research

important theories that help us understand development

Next, we are going to be examining where we all started with conception, heredity, and prenatal development.

Child Growth and Development Copyright © by Jean Zaar is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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Erikson's Stages of Development

A Closer Look at the Eight Psychosocial Stages

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

• Overview of Erikson's Stages of Development
• Support and Criticism
• Next in Psychosocial Development Guide Trust vs. Mistrust: Psychosocial Stage 1

Erik Erikson was an ego psychologist who developed one of the most popular and influential theories of development. While his theory was impacted by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud's work , Erikson's theory centered on psychosocial development rather than psychosexual development .

The stages that make up his theory are as follows:

• Stage 1 : Trust vs. Mistrust (Infancy from birth to 18 months)
• Stage 2 : Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt (Toddler years from 18 months to three years)
• Stage 3 : Initiative vs. Guilt (Preschool years from three to five)
• Stage 4 : Industry vs. Inferiority (Middle school years from six to 11)
• Stage 5 : Identity vs. Confusion (Teen years from 12 to 18)
• Stage 6 : Intimacy vs. Isolation (Young adult years from 18 to 40)
• Stage 7 : Generativity vs. Stagnation (Middle age from 40 to 65)
• Stage 8 : Integrity vs. Despair (Older adulthood from 65 to death)

Let's take a closer look at the background and different stages that make up Erikson's psychosocial theory.

Overview of Erikson's Stages of Development

So what exactly did Erikson's theory of psychosocial development entail? Much like Sigmund Freud , Erikson believed that personality developed in a series of stages.

Unlike Freud's theory of psychosexual stages, however, Erikson's theory described the impact of social experience across the whole lifespan. Erikson was interested in how social interaction and relationships played a role in the development and growth of human beings.

Erikson's theory was based on what is known as the epigenetic principle . This principle suggests that people grow in a sequence that occurs over time and in the context of a larger community.

Click Play to Learn More About Erik Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development

This video has been medically reviewed by Steven Gans, MD .

Conflict During Each Stage

Each stage in Erikson's theory builds on the preceding stages and paves the way for following periods of development. In each stage, Erikson believed people experience a conflict that serves as a turning point in development.  

In Erikson's view, these conflicts are centered on either developing a psychological quality or failing to develop that quality. During these times, the potential for personal growth is high but so is the potential for failure.

If people successfully deal with the conflict, they emerge from the stage with psychological strengths that will serve them well for the rest of their lives. If they fail to deal effectively with these conflicts, they may not develop the essential skills needed for a strong sense of self.

Mastery Leads to Ego Strength

Erikson also believed that a sense of competence motivates behaviors and actions. Each stage in Erikson's theory is concerned with becoming competent in an area of life.

If the stage is handled well, the person will feel a sense of mastery, which is sometimes referred to as ego strength or ego quality. If the stage is managed poorly, the person will emerge with a sense of inadequacy in that aspect of development.

Stage 1: Trust vs. Mistrust

The first stage of Erikson's theory of psychosocial development occurs between birth and 1 year of age and is the most fundamental stage in life. Because an infant is utterly dependent, developing trust is based on the dependability and quality of the child's caregivers.

At this point in development, the child is utterly dependent upon adult caregivers for everything they need to survive including food, love, warmth, safety, and nurturing. If a caregiver fails to provide adequate care and love, the child will come to feel that they cannot trust or depend upon the adults in their life.

If a child successfully develops trust, the child will feel safe and secure in the world.   Caregivers who are inconsistent, emotionally unavailable, or rejecting contribute to feelings of mistrust in the children under their care. Failure to develop trust will result in fear and a belief that the world is inconsistent and unpredictable.

During the first stage of psychosocial development, children develop a sense of trust when caregivers provide reliability, care, and affection. A lack of this will lead to mistrust.

No child is going to develop a sense of 100% trust or 100% doubt. Erikson believed that successful development was all about striking a balance between the two opposing sides. When this happens, children acquire hope, which Erikson described as an openness to experience tempered by some wariness that danger may be present.

Subsequent work by researchers including John Bowlby and Mary Ainsworth demonstrated the importance of trust in forming healthy attachments during childhood and adulthood.

Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt

The second stage of Erikson's theory of psychosocial development takes place during early childhood and is focused on children developing a greater sense of personal control.

The Role of Independence

At this point in development, children are just starting to gain a little independence. They are starting to perform basic actions on their own and making simple decisions about what they prefer. By allowing kids to make choices and gain control, parents and caregivers can help children develop a sense of autonomy.  

Potty Training

The essential theme of this stage is that children need to develop a sense of personal control over physical skills and a sense of independence. Potty training plays an important role in helping children develop this sense of autonomy.

Like Freud, Erikson believed that toilet training was a vital part of this process. However, Erikson's reasoning was quite different than that of Freud's. Erikson believed that learning to control one's bodily functions leads to a feeling of control and a sense of independence. Other important events include gaining more control over food choices, toy preferences, and clothing selection.

Children who struggle and who are shamed for their accidents may be left without a sense of personal control. Success during this stage of psychosocial development leads to feelings of autonomy; failure results in feelings of shame and doubt.

Finding Balance

Children who successfully complete this stage feel secure and confident, while those who do not are left with a sense of inadequacy and self-doubt. Erikson believed that achieving a balance between autonomy and shame and doubt would lead to will, which is the belief that children can act with intention, within reason and limits.

Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt

The third stage of psychosocial development takes place during the preschool years. At this point in psychosocial development, children begin to assert their power and control over the world through directing play and other social interactions.

Children who are successful at this stage feel capable and able to lead others. Those who fail to acquire these skills are left with a sense of guilt, self-doubt, and lack of initiative.

The major theme of the third stage of psychosocial development is that children need to begin asserting control and power over the environment. Success in this stage leads to a sense of purpose. Children who try to exert too much power experience disapproval, resulting in a sense of guilt.

When an ideal balance of individual initiative and a willingness to work with others is achieved, the ego quality known as   purpose emerges.

Stage 4: Industry vs. Inferiority

The fourth psychosocial stage takes place during the early school years from approximately ages 5 to 11. Through social interactions, children begin to develop a sense of pride in their accomplishments and abilities.

Children need to cope with new social and academic demands. Success leads to a sense of competence, while failure results in feelings of inferiority.

Children who are encouraged and commended by parents and teachers develop a feeling of competence and belief in their skills. Those who receive little or no encouragement from parents, teachers, or peers will doubt their abilities to be successful.

Successfully finding a balance at this stage of psychosocial development leads to the strength known as competence, in which children develop a belief in their abilities to handle the tasks set before them.

Stage 5: Identity vs. Confusion

The fifth psychosocial stage takes place during the often turbulent teenage years. This stage plays an essential role in developing a sense of personal identity which will continue to influence behavior and development for the rest of a person's life. Teens need to develop a sense of self and personal identity. Success leads to an ability to stay true to yourself, while failure leads to role confusion and a weak sense of self.

During adolescence, children explore their independence and develop a sense of self.   Those who receive proper encouragement and reinforcement through personal exploration will emerge from this stage with a strong sense of self and feelings of independence and control. Those who remain unsure of their beliefs and desires will feel insecure and confused about themselves and the future.

What Is Identity?

When psychologists talk about identity, they are referring to all of the beliefs, ideals, and values that help shape and guide a person's behavior. Completing this stage successfully leads to fidelity, which Erikson described as an ability to live by society's standards and expectations.

While Erikson believed that each stage of psychosocial development was important, he placed a particular emphasis on the development of ego identity. Ego identity is the  conscious  sense of self that we develop through social interaction and becomes a central focus during the identity versus confusion stage of psychosocial development.

According to Erikson, our ego identity constantly changes due to new experiences and information we acquire in our daily interactions with others. As we have new experiences, we also take on challenges that can help or hinder the development of identity.

Why Identity Is Important

Our personal identity gives each of us an integrated and cohesive sense of self that endures through our lives. Our sense of personal identity is shaped by our experiences and interactions with others, and it is this identity that helps guide our actions, beliefs, and behaviors as we age.

Stage 6: Intimacy vs. Isolation

Young adults need to form intimate, loving relationships with other people. Success leads to strong relationships, while failure results in loneliness and isolation. This stage covers the period of early adulthood when people are exploring personal relationships.  

Erikson believed it was vital that people develop close, committed relationships with other people. Those who are successful at this step will form relationships that are enduring and secure.

Building On Earlier Stages

Remember that each step builds on skills learned in previous steps. Erikson believed that a strong  sense of personal identity  was important for developing intimate relationships. Studies have demonstrated that those with a poor sense of self tend to have less committed relationships and are more likely to struggler with emotional isolation,  loneliness , and depression.

Successful resolution of this stage results in the virtue known as love. It is marked by the ability to form lasting, meaningful relationships with other people.

Stage 7: Generativity vs. Stagnation

Adults need to create or nurture things that will outlast them, often by having children or creating a positive change that benefits other people. Success leads to feelings of usefulness and accomplishment, while failure results in shallow involvement in the world.

During adulthood, we continue to build our lives, focusing on our career and family. Those who are successful during this phase will feel that they are contributing to the world by being active in their home and community.   Those who fail to attain this skill will feel unproductive and uninvolved in the world.

Care is the virtue achieved when this stage is handled successfully. Being proud of your accomplishments, watching your children grow into adults, and developing a sense of unity with your life partner are important accomplishments of this stage.

Stage 8: Integrity vs. Despair

The final psychosocial stage occurs during old age and is focused on reflecting back on life.   At this point in development, people look back on the events of their lives and determine if they are happy with the life that they lived or if they regret the things they did or didn't do.

Erikson's theory differed from many others because it addressed development throughout the entire lifespan, including old age. Older adults need to look back on life and feel a sense of fulfillment. Success at this stage leads to feelings of wisdom, while failure results in regret, bitterness, and despair.

At this stage, people reflect back on the events of their lives and take stock. Those who look back on a life they feel was well-lived will feel satisfied and ready to face the end of their lives with a sense of peace. Those who look back and only feel regret will instead feel fearful that their lives will end without accomplishing the things they feel they should have.​

Those who are unsuccessful during this stage will feel that their life has been wasted and may experience many regrets. The person will be left with feelings of bitterness and despair.

Those who feel proud of their accomplishments will feel a sense of integrity. Successfully completing this phase means looking back with few regrets and a general feeling of satisfaction. These individuals will attain   wisdom, even when confronting death.

Strengths and Weaknesses of Erikson's Theory

Erikson's theory also has its limitations and attracts valid criticisms. What kinds of experiences are necessary to successfully complete each stage? How does a person move from one stage to the next?

One major weakness of psychosocial theory is that the exact mechanisms for resolving conflicts and moving from one stage to the next are not well described or developed. The theory fails to detail exactly what type of experiences are necessary at each stage in order to successfully resolve the conflicts and move to the next stage.

One of the strengths of psychosocial theory is that it provides a broad framework from which to view development throughout the entire lifespan. It also allows us to emphasize the social nature of human beings and the important influence that social relationships have on development.

Researchers have found evidence supporting Erikson's ideas about identity and have further identified different sub-stages of identity formation.   Some research also suggests that people who form strong personal identities during adolescence are better capable of forming intimate relationships during early adulthood. Other research suggests, however, that identity formation and development continues well into adulthood.  

Why Was Erikson's Theory Important?

The theory was significant because it addressed development throughout a person's life, not just during childhood. It also stressed the importance of social relationships in shaping personality and growth at each point in development.

A Word From Verywell

It is important to remember that the psychosocial stages are just one theory of personality development . Some research may support certain aspects of this theoretical framework, but that does not mean that every aspect of the theory is supported by evidence. The theory can, however, be a helpful way to think about some of the different conflicts and challenges that people may face as they go through life.

It is also easy to look at each stage of Erikson's theory and consider how it can apply to your life. Learning about each stage can provide insight into what you might face as you age. It can also help you reflect on things that may have happened in the past and help you see ways you might be able to improve your coping skills to better deal with today's challenges.

Vogel-Scibilia SE, McNulty KC, Baxter B, Miller S, Dine M, Frese FJ. The recovery process utilizing Erikson's stages of human development . Community Ment Health J . 2009;45(6):405-14. doi:10.1007/s10597-009-9189-4

Malone JC, Liu SR, Vaillant GE, Rentz DM, Waldinger RJ. Midlife Eriksonian psychosocial development: Setting the stage for late-life cognitive and emotional health . Dev Psychol . 2016;52(3):496-508. doi:10.1037/a0039875

Orenstein GA, Lewis L. Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development. In: StatPearls [Internet]. Treasure Island (FL): StatPearls Publishing.

Meeus W, van de Schoot R, Keijsers L, Branje S. Identity statuses as developmental trajectories: A five-wave longitudinal study in early-to-middle and middle-to-late adolescents .  J Youth Adolesc . 2012;41(8):1008-1021. doi:10.1007/s10964-011-9730-y

Fadjukoff P, Pulkkinen L, Kokko K. Identity formation in adulthood: A longitudinal study from age 27 to 50 .  Identity (Mahwah, N J) . 2016;16(1):8-23. doi:10.1080/15283488.2015.1121820

Carver, CS & Scheir, MF.  Perspectives on Personality . Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon; 2011.

• Erikson, E.H. Childhood and Society . (2nd ed.). New York: Norton; 1993.
• Erikson, EH & Erikson, JM. The Life Cycle Completed. New York: Norton; 1998.

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Piaget’s Theory and Stages of Cognitive Development

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

On This Page:

Key Takeaways

• Jean Piaget is famous for his theories regarding changes in cognitive development that occur as we move from infancy to adulthood.
• Cognitive development results from the interplay between innate capabilities (nature) and environmental influences (nurture).
• Children progress through four distinct stages , each representing varying cognitive abilities and world comprehension: the sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years), the preoperational stage (2 to 7 years), the concrete operational stage (7 to 11 years), and the formal operational stage (11 years and beyond).
• A child’s cognitive development is not just about acquiring knowledge, the child has to develop or construct a mental model of the world, which is referred to as a schema .
• Piaget emphasized the role of active exploration and interaction with the environment in shaping cognitive development, highlighting the importance of assimilation and accommodation in constructing mental schemas.

Stages of Development

Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four different stages of intellectual development which reflect the increasing sophistication of children’s thought

Each child goes through the stages in the same order (but not all at the same rate), and child development is determined by biological maturation and interaction with the environment.

At each stage of development, the child’s thinking is qualitatively different from the other stages, that is, each stage involves a different type of intelligence.

Although no stage can be missed out, there are individual differences in the rate at which children progress through stages, and some individuals may never attain the later stages.

Piaget did not claim that a particular stage was reached at a certain age – although descriptions of the stages often include an indication of the age at which the average child would reach each stage.

The Sensorimotor Stage

Ages: Birth to 2 Years

The first stage is the sensorimotor stage , during which the infant focuses on physical sensations and learning to coordinate its body.

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

• The infant learns about the world through their senses and through their actions (moving around and exploring their environment).
• During the sensorimotor stage, a range of cognitive abilities develop. These include: object permanence; self-recognition (the child realizes that other people are separate from them); deferred imitation; and representational play.
• They relate to the emergence of the general symbolic function, which is the capacity to represent the world mentally
• At about 8 months, the infant will understand the permanence of objects and that they will still exist even if they can’t see them and the infant will search for them when they disappear.

During the beginning of this stage, the infant lives in the present. It does not yet have a mental picture of the world stored in its memory therefore it does not have a sense of object permanence.

If it cannot see something, then it does not exist. This is why you can hide a toy from an infant, while it watches, but it will not search for the object once it has gone out of sight.

The main achievement during this stage is object permanence – knowing that an object still exists, even if it is hidden. It requires the ability to form a mental representation (i.e., a schema) of the object.

Towards the end of this stage the general symbolic function begins to appear where children show in their play that they can use one object to stand for another. Language starts to appear because they realise that words can be used to represent objects and feelings.

The child begins to be able to store information that it knows about the world, recall it, and label it.

Individual Differences

• Cultural Practices : In some cultures, babies are carried on their mothers’ backs throughout the day. This constant physical contact and varied stimuli can influence how a child perceives their environment and their sense of object permanence.
• Gender Norms : Toys assigned to babies can differ based on gender expectations. A boy might be given more cars or action figures, while a girl might receive dolls or kitchen sets. This can influence early interactions and sensory explorations.

Learn More: The Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development

The Preoperational Stage

Ages: 2 – 7 Years

Piaget’s second stage of intellectual development is the preoperational stage . It takes place between 2 and 7 years. At the beginning of this stage, the child does not use operations, so the thinking is influenced by the way things appear rather than logical reasoning.

A child cannot conserve which means that the child does not understand that quantity remains the same even if the appearance changes.

Furthermore, the child is egocentric; he assumes that other people see the world as he does. This has been shown in the three mountains study.

As the preoperational stage develops, egocentrism declines, and children begin to enjoy the participation of another child in their games, and let’s pretend play becomes more important.

Toddlers often pretend to be people they are not (e.g. superheroes, policemen), and may play these roles with props that symbolize real-life objects. Children may also invent an imaginary playmate.

• Toddlers and young children acquire the ability to internally represent the world through language and mental imagery.
• During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically. This is the ability to make one thing, such as a word or an object, stand for something other than itself.
• A child’s thinking is dominated by how the world looks, not how the world is. It is not yet capable of logical (problem-solving) type of thought.
• Moreover, the child has difficulties with class inclusion; he can classify objects but cannot include objects in sub-sets, which involves classifying objects as belonging to two or more categories simultaneously.
• Infants at this stage also demonstrate animism. This is the tendency for the child to think that non-living objects (such as toys) have life and feelings like a person’s.

By 2 years, children have made some progress toward detaching their thoughts from the physical world. However, have not yet developed logical (or “operational”) thought characteristics of later stages.

Thinking is still intuitive (based on subjective judgments about situations) and egocentric (centered on the child’s own view of the world).

• Cultural Storytelling : Different cultures have unique stories, myths, and folklore. Children from diverse backgrounds might understand and interpret symbolic elements differently based on their cultural narratives.
• Race & Representation : A child’s racial identity can influence how they engage in pretend play. For instance, a lack of diverse representation in media and toys might lead children of color to recreate scenarios that don’t reflect their experiences or background.

Learn More: The Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development

The Concrete Operational Stage

Ages: 7 – 11 Years

By the beginning of the concrete operational stage , the child can use operations (a set of logical rules) so they can conserve quantities, realize that people see the world in a different way (decentring), and demonstrate improvement in inclusion tasks. Children still have difficulties with abstract thinking.

• During this stage, children begin to think logically about concrete events.
• Children begin to understand the concept of conservation; understanding that, although things may change in appearance, certain properties remain the same.
• During this stage, children can mentally reverse things (e.g., picture a ball of plasticine returning to its original shape).
• During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think and feel.

The stage is called concrete because children can think logically much more successfully if they can manipulate real (concrete) materials or pictures of them.

Piaget considered the concrete stage a major turning point in the child’s cognitive development because it marks the beginning of logical or operational thought. This means the child can work things out internally in their head (rather than physically try things out in the real world).

Children can conserve number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9). Conservation is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance changes.

But operational thought is only effective here if the child is asked to reason about materials that are physically present. Children at this stage will tend to make mistakes or be overwhelmed when asked to reason about abstract or hypothetical problems.

• Cultural Context in Conservation Tasks : In a society where resources are scarce, children might demonstrate conservation skills earlier due to the cultural emphasis on preserving and reusing materials.
• Gender & Learning : Stereotypes about gender abilities, like “boys are better at math,” can influence how children approach logical problems or classify objects based on perceived gender norms.

Learn More: The Concrete Operational Stage of Development

The Formal Operational Stage

Ages: 12 and Over

The formal operational period begins at about age 11. As adolescents enter this stage, they gain the ability to think in an abstract manner, the ability to combine and classify items in a more sophisticated way, and the capacity for higher-order reasoning.

Adolescents can think systematically and reason about what might be as well as what is (not everyone achieves this stage). This allows them to understand politics, ethics, and science fiction, as well as to engage in scientific reasoning.

Adolescents can deal with abstract ideas: e.g. they can understand division and fractions without having to actually divide things up, and solve hypothetical (imaginary) problems.

• Concrete operations are carried out on things whereas formal operations are carried out on ideas. Formal operational thought is entirely freed from physical and perceptual constraints.
• During this stage, adolescents can deal with abstract ideas (e.g. no longer needing to think about slicing up cakes or sharing sweets to understand division and fractions).
• They can follow the form of an argument without having to think in terms of specific examples.
• Adolescents can deal with hypothetical problems with many possible solutions. E.g. if asked ‘What would happen if money were abolished in one hour’s time? they could speculate about many possible consequences.

From about 12 years children can follow the form of a logical argument without reference to its content. During this time, people develop the ability to think about abstract concepts, and logically test hypotheses.

This stage sees the emergence of scientific thinking, formulating abstract theories and hypotheses when faced with a problem.

• Culture & Abstract Thinking : Cultures emphasize different kinds of logical or abstract thinking. For example, in societies with a strong oral tradition, the ability to hold complex narratives might develop prominently.
• Gender & Ethics : Discussions about morality and ethics can be influenced by gender norms. For instance, in some cultures, girls might be encouraged to prioritize community harmony, while boys might be encouraged to prioritize individual rights.

Learn More: The Formal Operational Stage of Development

Piaget’s Theory

• Piaget’s theory places a strong emphasis on the active role that children play in their own cognitive development.
• According to Piaget, children are not passive recipients of information; instead, they actively explore and interact with their surroundings.
• This active engagement with the environment is crucial because it allows them to gradually build their understanding of the world.

1. How Piaget Developed the Theory

Piaget was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, where his job was to develop French versions of questions on English intelligence tests. He became intrigued with the reasons children gave for their wrong answers to the questions that required logical thinking.

He believed that these incorrect answers revealed important differences between the thinking of adults and children.

Piaget branched out on his own with a new set of assumptions about children’s intelligence:

• Children’s intelligence differs from an adult’s in quality rather than in quantity. This means that children reason (think) differently from adults and see the world in different ways.
• Children actively build up their knowledge about the world . They are not passive creatures waiting for someone to fill their heads with knowledge.
• The best way to understand children’s reasoning is to see things from their point of view.

Piaget did not want to measure how well children could count, spell or solve problems as a way of grading their I.Q. What he was more interested in was the way in which fundamental concepts like the very idea of number , time, quantity, causality , justice , and so on emerged.

Piaget studied children from infancy to adolescence using naturalistic observation of his own three babies and sometimes controlled observation too. From these, he wrote diary descriptions charting their development.

He also used clinical interviews and observations of older children who were able to understand questions and hold conversations.

2. Piaget’s Theory Differs From Others In Several Ways:

Piaget’s (1936, 1950) theory of cognitive development explains how a child constructs a mental model of the world. He disagreed with the idea that intelligence was a fixed trait, and regarded cognitive development as a process that occurs due to biological maturation and interaction with the environment.

Children’s ability to understand, think about, and solve problems in the world develops in a stop-start, discontinuous manner (rather than gradual changes over time).

• It is concerned with children, rather than all learners.
• It focuses on development, rather than learning per se, so it does not address learning of information or specific behaviors.
• It proposes discrete stages of development, marked by qualitative differences, rather than a gradual increase in number and complexity of behaviors, concepts, ideas, etc.

The goal of the theory is to explain the mechanisms and processes by which the infant, and then the child, develops into an individual who can reason and think using hypotheses.

To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes as a result of biological maturation and environmental experience.

Children construct an understanding of the world around them, then experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment.

Piaget claimed that knowledge cannot simply emerge from sensory experience; some initial structure is necessary to make sense of the world.

According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure (genetically inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent learning and knowledge are based.

Schemas are the basic building blocks of such cognitive models, and enable us to form a mental representation of the world.

Piaget (1952, p. 7) defined a schema as: “a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning.”

In more simple terms, Piaget called the schema the basic building block of intelligent behavior – a way of organizing knowledge. Indeed, it is useful to think of schemas as “units” of knowledge, each relating to one aspect of the world, including objects, actions, and abstract (i.e., theoretical) concepts.

Wadsworth (2004) suggests that schemata (the plural of schema) be thought of as “index cards” filed in the brain, each one telling an individual how to react to incoming stimuli or information.

When Piaget talked about the development of a person’s mental processes, he was referring to increases in the number and complexity of the schemata that a person had learned.

When a child’s existing schemas are capable of explaining what it can perceive around it, it is said to be in a state of equilibrium, i.e., a state of cognitive (i.e., mental) balance.

Operations are more sophisticated mental structures which allow us to combine schemas in a logical (reasonable) way.

As children grow they can carry out more complex operations and begin to imagine hypothetical (imaginary) situations.

Apart from the schemas we are born with schemas and operations are learned through interaction with other people and the environment.

Piaget emphasized the importance of schemas in cognitive development and described how they were developed or acquired.

A schema can be defined as a set of linked mental representations of the world, which we use both to understand and to respond to situations. The assumption is that we store these mental representations and apply them when needed.

Examples of Schemas

A person might have a schema about buying a meal in a restaurant. The schema is a stored form of the pattern of behavior which includes looking at a menu, ordering food, eating it and paying the bill.

This is an example of a schema called a “script.” Whenever they are in a restaurant, they retrieve this schema from memory and apply it to the situation.

The schemas Piaget described tend to be simpler than this – especially those used by infants. He described how – as a child gets older – his or her schemas become more numerous and elaborate.

Piaget believed that newborn babies have a small number of innate schemas – even before they have had many opportunities to experience the world. These neonatal schemas are the cognitive structures underlying innate reflexes. These reflexes are genetically programmed into us.

For example, babies have a sucking reflex, which is triggered by something touching the baby’s lips. A baby will suck a nipple, a comforter (dummy), or a person’s finger. Piaget, therefore, assumed that the baby has a “sucking schema.”

Similarly, the grasping reflex which is elicited when something touches the palm of a baby’s hand, or the rooting reflex, in which a baby will turn its head towards something which touches its cheek, are innate schemas. Shaking a rattle would be the combination of two schemas, grasping and shaking.

4. The Process of Adaptation

Piaget also believed that a child developed as a result of two different influences: maturation, and interaction with the environment. The child develops mental structures (schemata) which enables him to solve problems in the environment.

Adaptation is the process by which the child changes its mental models of the world to match more closely how the world actually is.

Adaptation is brought about by the processes of assimilation (solving new experiences using existing schemata) and accommodation (changing existing schemata in order to solve new experiences).

The importance of this viewpoint is that the child is seen as an active participant in its own development rather than a passive recipient of either biological influences (maturation) or environmental stimulation.

When our existing schemas can explain what we perceive around us, we are in a state of equilibration . However, when we meet a new situation that we cannot explain it creates disequilibrium, this is an unpleasant sensation which we try to escape, and this gives us the motivation to learn.

According to Piaget, reorganization to higher levels of thinking is not accomplished easily. The child must “rethink” his or her view of the world. An important step in the process is the experience of cognitive conflict.

In other words, the child becomes aware that he or she holds two contradictory views about a situation and they both cannot be true. This step is referred to as disequilibrium .

Jean Piaget (1952; see also Wadsworth, 2004) viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This happens through assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration.

To get back to a state of equilibration, we need to modify our existing schemas to learn and adapt to the new situation.

This is done through the processes of accommodation and assimilation . This is how our schemas evolve and become more sophisticated. The processes of assimilation and accommodation are continuous and interactive.

5. Assimilation

Piaget defined assimilation as the cognitive process of fitting new information into existing cognitive schemas, perceptions, and understanding. Overall beliefs and understanding of the world do not change as a result of the new information.

Assimilation occurs when the new experience is not very different from previous experiences of a particular object or situation we assimilate the new situation by adding information to a previous schema.

This means that when you are faced with new information, you make sense of this information by referring to information you already have (information processed and learned previously) and trying to fit the new information into the information you already have.

• Imagine a young child who has only ever seen small, domesticated dogs. When the child sees a cat for the first time, they might refer to it as a “dog” because it has four legs, fur, and a tail – features that fit their existing schema of a dog.
• A person who has always believed that all birds can fly might label penguins as birds that can fly. This is because their existing schema or understanding of birds includes the ability to fly.
• A 2-year-old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has long frizzy hair on the sides. To his father’s horror, the toddler shouts “Clown, clown” (Siegler et al., 2003).
• If a baby learns to pick up a rattle he or she will then use the same schema (grasping) to pick up other objects.

6. Accommodation

Accommodation: when the new experience is very different from what we have encountered before we need to change our schemas in a very radical way or create a whole new schema.

Psychologist Jean Piaget defined accommodation as the cognitive process of revising existing cognitive schemas, perceptions, and understanding so that new information can be incorporated.

This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.

In order to make sense of some new information, you actually adjust information you already have (schemas you already have, etc.) to make room for this new information.

• A baby tries to use the same schema for grasping to pick up a very small object. It doesn’t work. The baby then changes the schema by now using the forefinger and thumb to pick up the object.
• A child may have a schema for birds (feathers, flying, etc.) and then they see a plane, which also flies, but would not fit into their bird schema.
• In the “clown” incident, the boy’s father explained to his son that the man was not a clown and that even though his hair was like a clown’s, he wasn’t wearing a funny costume and wasn’t doing silly things to make people laugh. With this new knowledge, the boy was able to change his schema of “clown” and make this idea fit better to a standard concept of “clown”.
• A person who grew up thinking all snakes are dangerous might move to an area where garden snakes are common and harmless. Over time, after observing and learning, they might accommodate their previous belief to understand that not all snakes are harmful.

7. Equilibration

Piaget believed that all human thought seeks order and is uncomfortable with contradictions and inconsistencies in knowledge structures. In other words, we seek “equilibrium” in our cognitive structures.

Equilibrium occurs when a child’s schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation. However, an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation).

Piaget believed that cognitive development did not progress at a steady rate, but rather in leaps and bounds. Equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as we do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge (accommodation).

Once the new information is acquired the process of assimilation with the new schema will continue until the next time we need to make an adjustment to it.

Equilibration is a regulatory process that maintains a balance between assimilation and accommodation to facilitate cognitive growth. Think of it this way: We can’t merely assimilate all the time; if we did, we would never learn any new concepts or principles.

Everything new we encountered would just get put in the same few “slots” we already had. Neither can we accommodate all the time; if we did, everything we encountered would seem new; there would be no recurring regularities in our world. We’d be exhausted by the mental effort!

Applications to Education

Think of old black and white films that you’ve seen in which children sat in rows at desks, with ink wells, would learn by rote, all chanting in unison in response to questions set by an authoritarian old biddy like Matilda!

Children who were unable to keep up were seen as slacking and would be punished by variations on the theme of corporal punishment. Yes, it really did happen and in some parts of the world still does today.

Piaget is partly responsible for the change that occurred in the 1960s and for your relatively pleasurable and pain-free school days!

“Children should be able to do their own experimenting and their own research. Teachers, of course, can guide them by providing appropriate materials, but the essential thing is that in order for a child to understand something, he must construct it himself, he must re-invent it. Every time we teach a child something, we keep him from inventing it himself. On the other hand that which we allow him to discover by himself will remain with him visibly”. Piaget (1972, p. 27)

Plowden Report

Piaget (1952) did not explicitly relate his theory to education, although later researchers have explained how features of Piaget’s theory can be applied to teaching and learning.

Piaget has been extremely influential in developing educational policy and teaching practice. For example, a review of primary education by the UK government in 1966 was based strongly on Piaget’s theory. The result of this review led to the publication of the Plowden Report (1967).

In the 1960s the Plowden Committee investigated the deficiencies in education and decided to incorporate many of Piaget’s ideas into its final report published in 1967, even though Piaget’s work was not really designed for education.

The report makes three Piaget-associated recommendations:

• Children should be given individual attention and it should be realized that they need to be treated differently.
• Children should only be taught things that they are capable of learning
• Children mature at different rates and the teacher needs to be aware of the stage of development of each child so teaching can be tailored to their individual needs.

“The report’s recurring themes are individual learning, flexibility in the curriculum, the centrality of play in children’s learning, the use of the environment, learning by discovery and the importance of the evaluation of children’s progress – teachers should “not assume that only what is measurable is valuable.”

Discovery learning – the idea that children learn best through doing and actively exploring – was seen as central to the transformation of the primary school curriculum.

How to teach

Within the classroom learning should be student-centered and accomplished through active discovery learning. The role of the teacher is to facilitate learning, rather than direct tuition.

Because Piaget’s theory is based upon biological maturation and stages, the notion of “readiness” is important. Readiness concerns when certain information or concepts should be taught.

According to Piaget’s theory, children should not be taught certain concepts until they have reached the appropriate stage of cognitive development.

According to Piaget (1958), assimilation and accommodation require an active learner, not a passive one, because problem-solving skills cannot be taught, they must be discovered.

Therefore, teachers should encourage the following within the classroom:

• Educational programs should be designed to correspond to Piaget’s stages of development. Children in the concrete operational stage should be given concrete means to learn new concepts e.g. tokens for counting.
• Devising situations that present useful problems, and create disequilibrium in the child.
• Focus on the process of learning, rather than the end product of it. Instead of checking if children have the right answer, the teacher should focus on the student’s understanding and the processes they used to get to the answer.
• Child-centered approach. Learning must be active (discovery learning). Children should be encouraged to discover for themselves and to interact with the material instead of being given ready-made knowledge.
• Accepting that children develop at different rates so arrange activities for individual children or small groups rather than assume that all the children can cope with a particular activity.
• Using active methods that require rediscovering or reconstructing “truths.”
• Using collaborative, as well as individual activities (so children can learn from each other).
• Evaluate the level of the child’s development so suitable tasks can be set.
• Adapt lessons to suit the needs of the individual child (i.e. differentiated teaching).
• Be aware of the child’s stage of development (testing).
• Teach only when the child is ready. i.e. has the child reached the appropriate stage.
• Providing support for the “spontaneous research” of the child.
• Using collaborative, as well as individual activities.
• Educators may use Piaget’s stages to design age-appropriate assessment tools and strategies.

Classroom Activities

Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years):.

Although most kids in this age range are not in a traditional classroom setting, they can still benefit from games that stimulate their senses and motor skills.

• Object Permanence Games : Play peek-a-boo or hide toys under a blanket to help babies understand that objects still exist even when they can’t see them.
• Sensory Play : Activities like water play, sand play, or playdough encourage exploration through touch.
• Imitation : Children at this age love to imitate adults. Use imitation as a way to teach new skills.

Preoperational Stage (2-7 years):

• Role Playing : Set up pretend play areas where children can act out different scenarios, such as a kitchen, hospital, or market.
• Use of Symbols : Encourage drawing, building, and using props to represent other things.
• Hands-on Activities : Children should interact physically with their environment, so provide plenty of opportunities for hands-on learning.
• Egocentrism Activities : Use exercises that highlight different perspectives. For instance, having two children sit across from each other with an object in between and asking them what the other sees.

Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years):

• Classification Tasks : Provide objects or pictures to group, based on various characteristics.
• Hands-on Experiments : Introduce basic science experiments where they can observe cause and effect, like a simple volcano with baking soda and vinegar.
• Logical Games : Board games, puzzles, and logic problems help develop their thinking skills.
• Conservation Tasks : Use experiments to showcase that quantity doesn’t change with alterations in shape, such as the classic liquid conservation task using different shaped glasses.

Formal Operational Stage (11 years and older):

• Hypothesis Testing : Encourage students to make predictions and test them out.
• Abstract Thinking : Introduce topics that require abstract reasoning, such as algebra or ethical dilemmas.
• Problem Solving : Provide complex problems and have students work on solutions, integrating various subjects and concepts.
• Debate and Discussion : Encourage group discussions and debates on abstract topics, highlighting the importance of logic and evidence.
• Feedback and Questioning : Use open-ended questions to challenge students and promote higher-order thinking. For instance, rather than asking, “Is this the right answer?”, ask, “How did you arrive at this conclusion?”

While Piaget’s stages offer a foundational framework, they are not universally experienced in the same way by all children.

Social identities play a critical role in shaping cognitive development, necessitating a more nuanced and culturally responsive approach to understanding child development.

Piaget’s stages may manifest differently based on social identities like race, gender, and culture:

• Race & Teacher Interactions : A child’s race can influence teacher expectations and interactions. For example, racial biases can lead to children of color being perceived as less capable or more disruptive, influencing their cognitive challenges and supports.
• Racial and Cultural Stereotypes : These can affect a child’s self-perception and self-efficacy . For instance, stereotypes about which racial or cultural groups are “better” at certain subjects can influence a child’s self-confidence and, subsequently, their engagement in that subject.
• Gender & Peer Interactions : Children learn gender roles from their peers. Boys might be mocked for playing “girl games,” and girls might be excluded from certain activities, influencing their cognitive engagements.
• Language : Multilingual children might navigate the stages differently, especially if their home language differs from their school language. The way concepts are framed in different languages can influence cognitive processing. Cultural idioms and metaphors can shape a child’s understanding of concepts and their ability to use symbolic representation, especially in the pre-operational stage.

Curriculum Development

According to Piaget, children’s cognitive development is determined by a process of maturation which cannot be altered by tuition so education should be stage-specific.

For example, a child in the concrete operational stage should not be taught abstract concepts and should be given concrete aid such as tokens to count with.

According to Piaget children learn through the process of accommodation and assimilation so the role of the teacher should be to provide opportunities for these processes to occur such as new material and experiences that challenge the children’s existing schemas.

Furthermore, according to this theory, children should be encouraged to discover for themselves and to interact with the material instead of being given ready-made knowledge.

Curricula need to be developed that take into account the age and stage of thinking of the child. For example there is no point in teaching abstract concepts such as algebra or atomic structure to children in primary school.

Curricula also need to be sufficiently flexible to allow for variations in the ability of different students of the same age. In Britain, the National Curriculum and Key Stages broadly reflect the stages that Piaget laid down.

For example, egocentrism dominates a child’s thinking in the sensorimotor and preoperational stages. Piaget would therefore predict that using group activities would not be appropriate since children are not capable of understanding the views of others.

However, Smith et al. (1998), point out that some children develop earlier than Piaget predicted and that by using group work children can learn to appreciate the views of others in preparation for the concrete operational stage.

The national curriculum emphasizes the need to use concrete examples in the primary classroom.

Shayer (1997), reported that abstract thought was necessary for success in secondary school (and co-developed the CASE system of teaching science). Recently the National curriculum has been updated to encourage the teaching of some abstract concepts towards the end of primary education, in preparation for secondary courses. (DfEE, 1999).

Child-centered teaching is regarded by some as a child of the ‘liberal sixties.’ In the 1980s the Thatcher government introduced the National Curriculum in an attempt to move away from this and bring more central government control into the teaching of children.

So, although the British National Curriculum in some ways supports the work of Piaget, (in that it dictates the order of teaching), it can also be seen as prescriptive to the point where it counters Piaget’s child-oriented approach.

However, it does still allow for flexibility in teaching methods, allowing teachers to tailor lessons to the needs of their students.

Social Media (Digital Learning)

Jean Piaget could not have anticipated the expansive digital age we now live in.

Today, knowledge dissemination and creation are democratized by the Internet, with platforms like blogs, wikis, and social media allowing for vast collaboration and shared knowledge. This development has prompted a reimagining of the future of education.

Classrooms, traditionally seen as primary sites of learning, are being overshadowed by the rise of mobile technologies and platforms like MOOCs (Passey, 2013).

The millennial generation, defined as the first to grow up with cable TV, the internet, and cell phones, relies heavily on technology.

They view it as an integral part of their identity, with most using it extensively in their daily lives, from keeping in touch with loved ones to consuming news and entertainment (Nielsen, 2014).

Social media platforms offer a dynamic environment conducive to Piaget’s principles. These platforms allow for interactions that nurture knowledge evolution through cognitive processes like assimilation and accommodation.

They emphasize communal interaction and shared activity, fostering both cognitive and socio-cultural constructivism. This shared activity promotes understanding and exploration beyond individual perspectives, enhancing social-emotional learning (Gehlbach, 2010).

A standout advantage of social media in an educational context is its capacity to extend beyond traditional classroom confines. As the material indicates, these platforms can foster more inclusive learning, bridging diverse learner groups.

This inclusivity can equalize learning opportunities, potentially diminishing biases based on factors like race or socio-economic status, resonating with Kegan’s (1982) concept of “recruitability.”

However, there are challenges. While the potential of social media in learning is vast, its practical application necessitates intention and guidance. Cuban, Kirkpatrick, and Peck (2001) note that certain educators and students are hesitant about integrating social media into educational contexts.

This hesitancy can stem from technological complexities or potential distractions. Yet, when harnessed effectively, social media can provide a rich environment for collaborative learning and interpersonal development, fostering a deeper understanding of content.

In essence, the rise of social media aligns seamlessly with constructivist philosophies. Social media platforms act as tools for everyday cognition, merging daily social interactions with the academic world, and providing avenues for diverse, interactive, and engaging learning experiences.

Applications to Parenting

Parents can use Piaget’s stages to have realistic developmental expectations of their children’s behavior and cognitive capabilities.

For instance, understanding that a toddler is in the pre-operational stage can help parents be patient when the child is egocentric.

Play Activities

Recognizing the importance of play in cognitive development, many parents provide toys and games suited for their child’s developmental stage.

Parents can offer activities that are slightly beyond their child’s current abilities, leveraging Vygotsky’s concept of the “Zone of Proximal Development,” which complements Piaget’s ideas.

• Peek-a-boo : Helps with object permanence.
• Texture Touch : Provide different textured materials (soft, rough, bumpy, smooth) for babies to touch and feel.
• Sound Bottles : Fill small bottles with different items like rice, beans, bells, and have children shake and listen to the different sounds.
• Memory Games : Using cards with pictures, place them face down, and ask students to find matching pairs.
• Role Playing and Pretend Play : Let children act out roles or stories that enhance symbolic thinking. Encourage symbolic play with dress-up clothes, playsets, or toy cash registers. Provide prompts or scenarios to extend their imagination.
• Story Sequencing : Give children cards with parts of a story and have them arranged in the correct order.
• Number Line Jumps : Create a number line on the floor with tape. Ask students to jump to the correct answer for math problems.
• Classification Games : Provide a mix of objects and ask students to classify them based on different criteria (e.g., color, size, shape).
• Logical Puzzle Games : Games that involve problem-solving using logic, such as simple Sudoku puzzles or logic grid puzzles.
• Debate and Discussion : Provide a topic and let students debate on pros and cons. This promotes abstract thinking and logical reasoning.
• Hypothesis Testing Games : Present a scenario and have students come up with hypotheses and ways to test them.
• Strategy Board Games : Games like chess, checkers, or Settlers of Catan can help in developing strategic and forward-thinking skills.

Critical Evaluation

• The influence of Piaget’s ideas on developmental psychology has been enormous. He changed how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying children.

He was an inspiration to many who came after and took up his ideas. Piaget’s ideas have generated a huge amount of research which has increased our understanding of cognitive development.

• Piaget (1936) was one of the first psychologists to make a systematic study of cognitive development. His contributions include a stage theory of child cognitive development, detailed observational studies of cognition in children, and a series of simple but ingenious tests to reveal different cognitive abilities.
• His ideas have been of practical use in understanding and communicating with children, particularly in the field of education (re: Discovery Learning). Piaget’s theory has been applied across education.
• According to Piaget’s theory, educational programs should be designed to correspond to the stages of development.
• Are the stages real? Vygotsky and Bruner would rather not talk about stages at all, preferring to see development as a continuous process. Others have queried the age ranges of the stages. Some studies have shown that progress to the formal operational stage is not guaranteed.

For example, Keating (1979) reported that 40-60% of college students fail at formal operation tasks, and Dasen (1994) states that only one-third of adults ever reach the formal operational stage.

The fact that the formal operational stage is not reached in all cultures and not all individuals within cultures suggests that it might not be biologically based.

• According to Piaget, the rate of cognitive development cannot be accelerated as it is based on biological processes however, direct tuition can speed up the development which suggests that it is not entirely based on biological factors.
• Because Piaget concentrated on the universal stages of cognitive development and biological maturation, he failed to consider the effect that the social setting and culture may have on cognitive development.

Cross-cultural studies show that the stages of development (except the formal operational stage) occur in the same order in all cultures suggesting that cognitive development is a product of a biological process of maturation.

However, the age at which the stages are reached varies between cultures and individuals which suggests that social and cultural factors and individual differences influence cognitive development.

Dasen (1994) cites studies he conducted in remote parts of the central Australian desert with 8-14-year-old Indigenous Australians. He gave them conservation of liquid tasks and spatial awareness tasks. He found that the ability to conserve came later in the Aboriginal children, between ages of 10 and 13 (as opposed to between 5 and 7, with Piaget’s Swiss sample).

However, he found that spatial awareness abilities developed earlier amongst the Aboriginal children than the Swiss children. Such a study demonstrates cognitive development is not purely dependent on maturation but on cultural factors too – spatial awareness is crucial for nomadic groups of people.

Vygotsky , a contemporary of Piaget, argued that social interaction is crucial for cognitive development. According to Vygotsky the child’s learning always occurs in a social context in cooperation with someone more skillful (MKO). This social interaction provides language opportunities and Vygotsky considered language the foundation of thought.

• Piaget’s methods (observation and clinical interviews) are more open to biased interpretation than other methods. Piaget made careful, detailed naturalistic observations of children, and from these, he wrote diary descriptions charting their development. He also used clinical interviews and observations of older children who were able to understand questions and hold conversations.

Because Piaget conducted the observations alone the data collected are based on his own subjective interpretation of events. It would have been more reliable if Piaget conducted the observations with another researcher and compared the results afterward to check if they are similar (i.e., have inter-rater reliability).

Although clinical interviews allow the researcher to explore data in more depth, the interpretation of the interviewer may be biased.

For example, children may not understand the question/s, they have short attention spans, they cannot express themselves very well, and may be trying to please the experimenter. Such methods meant that Piaget may have formed inaccurate conclusions.

• As several studies have shown Piaget underestimated the abilities of children because his tests were sometimes confusing or difficult to understand (e.g., Hughes , 1975).

Piaget failed to distinguish between competence (what a child is capable of doing) and performance (what a child can show when given a particular task). When tasks were altered, performance (and therefore competence) was affected. Therefore, Piaget might have underestimated children’s cognitive abilities.

For example, a child might have object permanence (competence) but still not be able to search for objects (performance). When Piaget hid objects from babies he found that it wasn’t till after nine months that they looked for it.

However, Piaget relied on manual search methods – whether the child was looking for the object or not.

Later, researchers such as Baillargeon and Devos (1991) reported that infants as young as four months looked longer at a moving carrot that didn’t do what it expected, suggesting they had some sense of permanence, otherwise they wouldn’t have had any expectation of what it should or shouldn’t do.

• The concept of schema is incompatible with the theories of Bruner (1966) and Vygotsky (1978). Behaviorism would also refute Piaget’s schema theory because is cannot be directly observed as it is an internal process. Therefore, they would claim it cannot be objectively measured.
• Piaget studied his own children and the children of his colleagues in Geneva to deduce general principles about the intellectual development of all children. His sample was very small and composed solely of European children from families of high socio-economic status. Researchers have, therefore, questioned the generalisability of his data.
• For Piaget, language is considered secondary to action, i.e., thought precedes language. The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) argues that the development of language and thought go together and that the origin of reasoning has more to do with our ability to communicate with others than with our interaction with the material world.

Piaget’s Theory vs Vygotsky

Piaget maintains that cognitive development stems largely from independent explorations in which children construct knowledge of their own.

Whereas Vygotsky argues that children learn through social interactions, building knowledge by learning from more knowledgeable others such as peers and adults. In other words, Vygotsky believed that culture affects cognitive development.

These factors lead to differences in the education style they recommend: Piaget would argue for the teacher to provide opportunities that challenge the children’s existing schemas and for children to be encouraged to discover for themselves.

Alternatively, Vygotsky would recommend that teachers assist the child to progress through the zone of proximal development by using scaffolding.

However, both theories view children as actively constructing their own knowledge of the world; they are not seen as just passively absorbing knowledge.

They also agree that cognitive development involves qualitative changes in thinking, not only a matter of learning more things.

What is cognitive development?

Cognitive development is how a person’s ability to think, learn, remember, problem-solve, and make decisions changes over time.

This includes the growth and maturation of the brain, as well as the acquisition and refinement of various mental skills and abilities.

Cognitive development is a major aspect of human development, and both genetic and environmental factors heavily influence it. Key domains of cognitive development include attention, memory, language skills, logical reasoning, and problem-solving.

Various theories, such as those proposed by Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, provide different perspectives on how this complex process unfolds from infancy through adulthood.

What are the 4 stages of Piaget’s theory?

Piaget divided children’s cognitive development into four stages; each of the stages represents a new way of thinking and understanding the world.

He called them (1) sensorimotor intelligence , (2) preoperational thinking , (3) concrete operational thinking , and (4) formal operational thinking . Each stage is correlated with an age period of childhood, but only approximately.

According to Piaget, intellectual development takes place through stages that occur in a fixed order and which are universal (all children pass through these stages regardless of social or cultural background).

Development can only occur when the brain has matured to a point of “readiness”.

What are some of the weaknesses of Piaget’s theory?

Cross-cultural studies show that the stages of development (except the formal operational stage) occur in the same order in all cultures suggesting that cognitive development is a product of a biological maturation process.

However, the age at which the stages are reached varies between cultures and individuals, suggesting that social and cultural factors and individual differences influence cognitive development.

What are Piaget’s concepts of schemas?

Schemas are mental structures that contain all of the information relating to one aspect of the world around us.

According to Piaget, we are born with a few primitive schemas, such as sucking, which give us the means to interact with the world.

These are physical, but as the child develops, they become mental schemas. These schemas become more complex with experience.

Baillargeon, R., & DeVos, J. (1991). Object permanence in young infants: Further evidence . Child development , 1227-1246.

Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge, Mass.: Belkapp Press.

Cuban, L., Kirkpatrick, H., & Peck, C. (2001). High access and low use of technologies in high school classrooms: Explaining an apparent paradox.  American Educational Research Journal ,  38 (4), 813-834.

Dasen, P. (1994). Culture and cognitive development from a Piagetian perspective. In W .J. Lonner & R.S. Malpass (Eds.), Psychology and culture (pp. 145–149). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Gehlbach, H. (2010). The social side of school: Why teachers need social psychology.  Educational Psychology Review ,  22 , 349-362.

Hughes, M. (1975). Egocentrism in preschool children . Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Edinburgh University.

Inhelder, B., & Piaget, J. (1958). The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence . New York: Basic Books.

Keating, D. (1979). Adolescent thinking. In J. Adelson (Ed.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (pp. 211-246). New York: Wiley.

Kegan, R. (1982).  The evolving self: Problem and process in human development . Harvard University Press.

Nielsen. 2014. “Millennials: Technology = Social Connection.” http://www.nielsen.com/content/corporate/us/en/insights/news/2014/millennials-technology-social-connecti on.html.

Passey, D. (2013).  Inclusive technology enhanced learning: Overcoming cognitive, physical, emotional, and geographic challenges . Routledge.

Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child . London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Piaget, J. (1936). Origins of intelligence in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Piaget, J. (1945). Play, dreams and imitation in childhood . London: Heinemann.

Piaget, J. (1957). Construction of reality in the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Piaget, J., & Cook, M. T. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children . New York, NY: International University Press.

Piaget, J. (1981).  Intelligence and affectivity: Their relationship during child development.(Trans & Ed TA Brown & CE Kaegi) . Annual Reviews.

Plowden, B. H. P. (1967). Children and their primary schools: A report (Research and Surveys). London, England: HM Stationery Office.

Siegler, R. S., DeLoache, J. S., & Eisenberg, N. (2003). How children develop . New York: Worth.

Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Wadsworth, B. J. (2004). Piaget’s theory of cognitive and affective development: Foundations of constructivism . New York: Longman.

Further Reading

• BBC Radio Broadcast about the Three Mountains Study
• Piagetian stages: A critical review
• Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological Systems Theory

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Child Development Stages, Essay Example

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Childhood development is important to study, as it reveals the main steps of personality formation and socialization. Early childhood experiences and gender socialization patterns influence the personal values and preferences of the individual. According to my observation and experience, traumatic events during childhood and the quality of child care will impact career choices, as well as future socialization.

In adolescence, individuals usually need to face choices and will develop their own path. In early adolescence (10-14 years), individuals will expand their social circle outside of their family and choose peers based on their preferences. Friendships are becoming extremely important, as they help define one’s personality. The trust of authority figures disappears as later teenagers become more independent in thinking and initiating change. By late adolescence, a well defined image of self-identity will develop, and people become able to compromise and decide based on an independent analysis of facts.

In adulthood, people usually choose a path. They select an attractive profession, enter the world of work and family life. Many choose partners based on past experiences and well defined ideas of what they imagine the future to be like. Responsibilities take over individuals’ lives, and instead of searching for ways, they start pursuing their personal goals. This is the time when many will identify their mission in life, and surround themselves with people who are like them.

Reaching old age is a challenging period for many. It is full of reflection on the past, and the assessment of achievements. One would feel left out, and when children grow up and move away, older people often feel the need to find a hobby or interest after retiring. Many will catch up with things they  did not have time for while they were working and taking care of their family.

Briefly describe how Freud, Erickson, and Piaget developed their theories

Freud’s theory was closely related to biological maturity stages. According to the theorist, the five stages of child development are oral, anal, phallic, latency, and genital. Freud also stated that three parts of personality impact development: id, ego, and superego.

Erickson, just like Freud, considered development to be an individual journey, however, stated that there is no conflict among the different layers of ego. Further, the author states that each stage of development has a conflict that the individual has to resolve.

Piaget, unlike the above two authors, viewed development from the cognitive perspective.  The older the child gets, the more complex cognitive functions it is able to develop. The stages are based on different cognitive development phases.

Explain why there is much criticism about race, ethnicity, gender, and social and economic status when it comes to human growth and development theories.

According to Vygotsky, a child’s development cannot be viewed as a standalone process, and is always influenced by the environment. Bronfenbrenner, however, went further than that, and stated that the system of social and family relationships impacts children’s cognitive and emotional development. Therefore, it is important to examine the impact of race, gender, and socialization in general.

Choose two theories, each from a different area (e.g., psychoanalytic, cognitive, and behavioral or social cognitive theories). Briefly describe their main features, explain their major similarities and differences.

The cognitive development theory developed by Piaget is based on the assumption that children go through various cognitive phases, and educators need to develop programs to provide a stimulating environment. The stages of cognitive development are sensory-motor, pre-operational, concrete operations, and formal operation.

As a contrast, Vygotsky’s social development theory emphasized not only the importance of development stages, but also the influence of peer and family relationships on social, cognitive, and emotional development.

Santrock, J. (11/2012). Life-Span Development, 14th Edition. [VitalSource Bookshelf Online]. Retrieved from https://digitalbookshelf.southuniversity.edu/#/books/0077733908/

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Childhood Development Stages

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Childhood development refers to various changes in growth that occur in children, starting from infancy and running all through to adulthood. Childhood development occurs in stages, and involves emotional and social development, approaches to learning, general knowledge and thinking capabilities, language, literacy and communication, and also the physical well-being, health and movement. Approaches to learning is a crucial stage in the development of a child as it determines the child’s ease of learning and knowledge acquisition all through his/her life. The paper addresses this stage of child development and by doing so seeks to explain the relevance of approaches to learning to the ones proposed by McDevvit. Consequently, the paper seeks to illustrate why the approaches to learning stage is very important in the development of a child and also puts across some learning objectives of the topic of childhood development.

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Approaches to Learning

Every child is an active learner and acquires intelligence from social experiences, physical experiences and culturally transmitted knowledge, which aids the child to have his/her own perception and interpretation of the universe around him/her. As time goes by, the child advances in learning as she/he gets the opportunity to practice all the skills he/she has garnered from these three kinds of experiences. This is in line with Sigmund Freud’s assertion that a child acquires knowledge through emotional, social and even cultural interactions (Swabey, 2013). During their infancy stages, toddlers exhibit eagerness and curiosity through a range of activities such as gazing at people, paying attention to any sound which may be produced within his/her environment, for example, the ticking of a clock, or responding to the actions or voice of his/her caregiver (North Carolina Division of Child Development, 2008). Through studying such activities, an infant may start developing some skills such as making facial expressions which demonstrate their liking or disliking of a certain activity, these expressions are always a result of mimicking his/her caregiver’s reaction. In addition, the child may also start getting engaged in activities which attract the attention of the caregivers and at times try to get the caregivers involved in their activities by, for instance, throwing toys and then prompting the caregiver to get them back to him/her. As a means of trying to socialize with people around him/her, a child may also gaze at people in an effort to study them and also draw closer to the familiar ones without showing any fear.

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Infants also learn to take risks and even develop confidence in the activities they engage in through trying to implement several approaches for attaining what they may be in need of (North Carolina Division of Child Development, 2008). Such approaches include, crying as they point to a toy so as to force the caregiver to give it to them or even crawling towards where the toy is; an infant may also be delighted while repeating such an action so as to build confidence as the caregiver will always respond in a positive manner once he/she cries. With time, the infant also learns how to attract the attention of the people around him/her by either imitating the actions of those around him or making some noises so as to draw their attention. These experiences help the young one determine which actions can draw the attention of the people around him/her and he/she, therefore, keeps repeating them if the results turn out to be positive. At the creativity and invention stage, the young one starts using any materials around him/her in a new way and begins to pretend quite often. For instance, the child might start beating a drum with a spoon instead of using the drumstick; the child may also curl a rope in a snake-like manner or even try acting a scene he/she may have seen on television. Finally, the child ascertains his/her dislikes and likes in the delight and wonders stage by either smiling, giggling or even laughing at the activities he/she considers to be pleasurable and also showing lack of interest in the activities he/she may interpret as boring.

Similarity to McDevvit’s concepts

The concepts discussed above are quite similar to the concepts on childhood development put across by McDevvit, Ormond, Cupit, Chandler and Aloa. These scholars propose that within a few weeks after birth, a young child is able to distinguish familiar faces and unfamiliar ones in his/her environment and, for instance, resist from interacting with the unfamiliar ones by crying (McDevvitt et al., 2012). In addition, they argue that babies are driven by an innate desire to know everything within their environment by either touching or even tasting anything they can get hold of and thus affirming the concept of curiosity and eagerness as explained above. McDevvitt et al. (2012) also argue that children start trying out new roles in their lives by viewing imagination and drama as key concepts of life which also affirms the child’s activities as discussed in the creativity and invention stage above.

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Why this topic is important and How It Enriches My Understanding

My choice for this topic was anchored on the desire to understand how a child acquires knowledge since learning is a lifetime process which starts as soon as a child is born and keeps advancing as a child progresses to adulthood. Knowledge gained from this topic is crucial to every individual as it helps him/her understand the basic the traits of a young one as he/she advances in learning. This helps an individual engage a child in positive activities such as playing or even acting which in turn motivates an infant for such activities which may eventually end up as a source of livelihood for the child later in his/her life. For instance, as a result of encouraging the child to play football at a young age, the child might in adulthood become a professional football player.

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Compare and Contrast Child Developmental Theories

Psychologists have made tremendous progress in their attempts to explain how development occurs among human beings. Over a long period of time, developmental psychologists have been engaged in controversies in their understanding of development as either continuous or stage oriented (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2008).

Those who propose that human development is discontinuous argue that it involves distinct stages which are uniquely identified by significant behavioral differences. Psychological theorists who say that development is a continuous process have very contrary explanations.

There are several theories that have been advanced in support of the stage oriented development. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast three major developmental theories as advanced by Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson and Jean Piaget. The key concepts of the three theories are discussed in the paper. The outstanding similarities and differences of these theories are elaborated.

Moreover, the interactions of cognitive, physical and emotional development on the overall development of the child are discussed. The paper also provides explanations of the importance of understanding the normal child and adolescent development as far as assisting each child to reach their full potential is concerned.

According to Papalia, Olds, and Feldman (2007), theories that explain human development are characterized by models of how individuals undergo transformation (and stay unchanged) over time.

Sigmund Freud is considered the pioneer of the psychoanalytic school of thought of human development. He developed this theory towards the close of 19 th century and the beginning of the 20 th century. Freud advanced the psychosexual theory of human development with emphasize on sexual drive being crucial in influencing behavior.

According to Freud, human beings have sexual instincts that unfold in distinct stages right from birth (Zerucha, 2003). This sexual drive is referred to as libido. The source of the drive is peculiar to each stage and is called the erogenous zone and shifts with time. This theory has three major components.

The first is the dynamic component or the economic concept. Freud too up the concept of energy and applied it to human behavior (Papalia et al., 2007). He identified the psychic energy which operates the different parts of an organism. This energy is biological based and always available in same form. The source of this energy, according to Freud, is instinctual in nature which implies that it is not learnt. The most powerful of the instincts are those dealing with creation and sustenance of life, the sexual instinct.

He named them Eros. There are other instincts that were identified but the sexual instinct becomes a main life instinct which is necessary for the survival of species (Rayner, Joyce & Clulow, 2005). Sigmund also identified another class of instincts called Thanatos which represented death and aggression.

Libido is the special form of energy used by the Eros. Freud believed that human behavior occurs unconsciously. This means that the development of human behaviour is out of awareness and the unconscious part of the brain stores up all experiences, memories and repressed material and motivations.

The second component of Freud’s theory is the structural component which illustrates three levels of personality. The Id is the inborn, biological structure and its main purpose is immediate gratification and reduction of tension through the pleasure principle (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2008).

This part is illogical, blind, demanding, insistent, and unconscious, lacks organization, and cannot tolerate tension. The Id never matures and remains the spoilt part of human personality. The Ego, on the other hand, deals with the interaction between the individual and the environment. It is ruled by the reality principle (Papalia et al., 2007).

This is the part that is responsible for ensuring realistic human behavior and logical thinking. It formulates plans of actions for satisfying individual needs. The ego is the seat of intelligence and rationality since it checks and controls the blind impulses of the id. The third part of personality, according to Feud, is the Superego.

It is the judicial part of personality since it represents the internalized standards, values, and attitudes. The ego-ideal component has the ideal standards while the conscience deals with the judge and punishing agency that leads the child to experience guilt each time the standards of the ego-ideal are violated (Rayner et al., 2005).

The third and the most significant component of psychosexual theory is the stage component. It has five main stages of human development. In this theory, Freud explains the development of child from birth to the adolescence stage. He observed that the demands of each of the stages must be fulfilled, otherwise the individual becomes fixated.

Fixation refers to the arrested development at one of the psychosexual stages because of under or over-gratification of a need (Zerucha, 2003). The following are the five stages of Freud’s model of human development.

The first is the oral stage which starts from birth to one year of age. The primary focus of stimulation is the mouth and lips. The child gets gratification in feeding through the oral cavity. One main source of a child at this stage is breastfeeding.

An adult who show excessive oral needs such as excessive eating, chewing, talking, smoking, drinking, gossip, hostility, aggression, and greediness, according to Freud, may have oral fixation (Rayner et al., 2005). He proposed that children should be breastfed, given food and love if this problem is to be avoided.

The second is the anal stage which is experienced at age 1 to three. The anal area becomes the erogenous zone where the child derives pleasure. Children will get bowel as well as bladder elimination pleasurable (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2008). This stage is naturally oriented to coincide with toilet-training and the method of training affects the formation of particular personality traits.

Individuals fixated at this stage will display cruelty, inappropriate display of anger, extreme disorderliness, and anal aggressive personality. These behavior characteristics occur when the individual perceives the waste from the body as not useful.

If the waste is perceived as useful, the person will develop extreme orderliness, hoarding, stubbornness, and meanness. In general, the fixated person exhibits anal retentive personality characterized by selfishness.

The third is the phallic stage occurring at between age three to six. The focus is on the genital zone where the child derives pleasure from manipulating its genitals (Papalia et al., 2007).

A child at this stage faces a crisis which must be resolved. A boy-child experiences Oedipus complex where the boy desires to posses the mother as she is possessed by the father. However, the boy fears creating trouble wit the father. According to Freud, the boy develops castration fear or anxiety and resolves this problem by identifying with the father (Rayner et al., 2005).

This implies that the boy possesses the mother vicariously and engages in manly activities. Faced with similar conflict, the girl-child experiences Electra complex; the penis envy. To resolve this problem with the mother, she identifies with the mother and posses the father vicariously and develops gender roles.

The fourth stage in Freud’s psychosexual theory is the latency stage experienced between age six and 11. At this stage, there is loss of interest in sexual gratification and their energy is channeled to other behaviors like developing affection with others; parents, age mates, school mates, and sports (Zerucha, 2003). This marks a period of socialization.

The last is the genital stage which sets off at puberty to 18 and beyond. This stage is characterized by the maturity of sexual interests. The old sexual themes of the phallic stage are revived.

The adolescents develop interest in the opposite sex and there is some sexual experimentation (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2008). The individual assumes responsibility and the conflicts at the phallic stage have been solved through socialization.

The second developmental theory was advanced by Erik Erikson who was Freud’s student. Erik extended Freud’s work and emphasized the role played by the social and environmental factors in human development. He was also a member of the psychoanalytic school of thought. Erik’s theory is commonly referred to as the psychosocial theory which focuses on the entire life span of an individual. Just like Freud, he examined the consequences of early experiences on later behavior in life (Zerucha, 2003).

Erik also developed the idea of crisis/conflict which must be resolved in constructive and satisfactory manner for the enhancement of human development. He observed that if resolved in an unsatisfactory manner, the negative quality will hinder further development which may manifest itself in psychopathology (Rayner et al., 2005). Eight developmental stages are outlined under the psychosocial theory.

The human development as explained by the psychosocial theory uses the crisis approach where there are two direct opposites to be experienced. The first is the early infancy stage starting at birth to one year of age.

The crisis here is the trust versus mistrust and centers on the development of trust (Zerucha, 2003). The child develops trust through being given support, provision of basic needs, and continuous and prompt response. If there is lack of trust, mistrust will result from inconsistency, frustration and deprivation.

The second stage is the late infancy and spans ages 2 and 3. It starts when the child learns to control and regulate its behavior (Papalia et al., 2007). Activities indicating control include toilet-training. The issue at this stage is autonomy and shame and doubt.

For a child to exercise autonomy, he should not be criticized, ridiculed or laughed at incase of failure to perform some activities as expected. This is because the child will doubt themselves and always seek approval, hence lowering their self-esteem (Zerucha, 2003). If this crisis is not resolved, the child develops defensive behaviors like projection, and drug abuse.

Thirdly, there is the early childhood (4-6 years) stage which is characterized by initiative and guilt crisis. Initiative indicates that the child feels sure to take positive actions of its own, like dressing and feeding oneself (Rayner et al., 2005).

Failure to solve the problems at the autonomy stage will delay initiative or destroy it completely. Parents, according to Erik, should encourage children’s self-initiated behavior. If the child lacks initiative, he will experience guilt, low self confidence and self control.

The fourth stage is the middle childhood or the industry versus inferiority crisis stage (6-11 years). This is a period of learning and mastering more basic skills necessary in the society (Zerucha, 2003). Children ought to learn to take pride in their work through well cultivated attitudes.

Failure to be productive results in inferiority feelings. Children will withdraw and regress to dependent behavior (Papalia et al., 2007). They may direct their energies to socially unacceptable behaviors in defense.

Identity versus role confusion crisis characterizes the fifth stage and occurs at age 12 to 18; the adolescence stage. At this stage, the individual is expected to develop identity and role clarity. Due to physical, emotional, social, and intellectual changes, there is change of expectations.

The adolescents are no longer sure of the roles they are supposed to play. In order to resolve these confusions, identity grows out of identification with parents, teachers, friends, and other role models (Zerucha, 2003). According to Erikson, this is the most sensitive stage since identity grows out of the preceding stages.

The sixth stage is the early adulthood (19- about 40 years). It is marked by intimacy versus isolation crisis. Once the sense of identity has been developed, it is ready to be fused with another identity of another person especially of the opposite sex (Zerucha, 2003).

There is manifestation of true love between two people with intimate/mutual relationship. Failure to achieve intimacy, there is development of feelings of isolation even when married and with children.

Stage seven of Erikson’s theory occurs between the age of 40 and 60 and is referred to as the middle adulthood. The crisis at this stage is generativity versus stagnation. It involves the achievement of productive, purposeful, and creative personality (Zerucha, 2003). The negative aspect of this stage is the feeling of stagnation.

The last stage is the old age at 60 and beyond. It characterized y the ego integrity versus despair crisis. The individuals at this stage look back in their lives and are content because they know that they have done it! Failure to develop a sense of integrity leads to despair and regret (Papalia et al., 2007).

The third human development theory was advanced by Jean Piaget. His theory focuses mostly on human cognitive development and describes four stages of how children think and reason about their environment (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2008).

Piaget believed that all children go through these stages in the same way and warned that no skipping of one stage. Differences in the stages are both qualitative and quantitative.

The first is the sensori-motor stage which occurs in children from birth up to 2 years. At this stage, children evolve from reflexive creatures into reflective planful problem solvers (Zerucha, 2003). He divided this stage six other sub-stages.

The second stage is the pre-operational stage (2-7 years) where children are more proficient at constructing and using mental images to think about objects, situations and events they encounter. Piaget divided this stage into two more sub-stages; the pre-conceptual period (2-4 years) and the intuitive period (4-7 years).

The third stage identified by Piaget is the concrete operational stage from age 7 to 11. Piaget believe that children at this stage can apply their operations to objects and events that are real or imaginable (Papalia et al., 2007). The child achieves class inclusion, mental representation and has concrete operation as well as reversibility.

The fourth stage of Piaget’s cognitive development theory is the formal operational stage starting at age 12 and above. A child at this stage is able to reason logically, give creative responses, and exhibit systematic problem-solving approaches (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2008).

A number of factors, according to Piaget, play a role in influencing human cognitive development. These include; biological, educational, socio-cultural, and the physical environment.

From the above discussion, it is evident that there are a number of similarities and differences between the three developmental theories.

The theories provide very reach information on the physical, emotional, and cognitive development in human beings. The explanations given are convincing and can be used in guiding the general development of the child from the formative stages. Erikson’s psychosocial theory provides a comprehensive analysis of human development from birth to death.

This enables the handling of life experiences from a knowledgeable perspective and to make necessary amends. In general, it is important to understand the normal child as well as adolescent in order to help them attain full potential in life.

The paper has compared and contrasted three major developmental theories using the block method as advanced by Sigmund Freud, Erik Erikson and Jean Piaget. The key concepts of the three theories have been discussed in the paper. The outstanding similarities and differences of these theories have emerged from the discussion.

Moreover, the interactions of cognitive, physical and emotional development on the overall development of the child have been highlighted. The paper has also provided an explanation of the importance of understanding the normal child and adolescent development as far as assisting each child to reach their full potential is concerned.

Kail, R. V. & Cavanaugh, J. C. (2008). Human development: a life-span perspective (5 th ed). Cengage Learning.

Papalia, D., Olds, S. & Feldman, R. (2007). A Childs World (11 th ed). McGraw-Hill Plc.

Rayner, E., Joyce, A. & Clulow, C. (2005). Human development; psychodynamics of growth, maturity, and ageing (4 th ed). Psychology Press.

Zerucha, T. (2003). Understanding human development . Infobase Plc.

Further Study: FAQ

📌 how were the early human development theories similar, 📌 what are the five major developmental theories.

• Erikson’s Psychosocial Developmental Theory.
• Bowlby’s Attachment Theory.
• Freud’s Psychosexual Developmental Theory.
• Bandura’s Social Learning Theory.
• Piaget’s Cognitive Developmental Theory.

📌 What is developmental theory?

📌 what are the similarities between freud and erikson.

• Chicago (A-D)
• Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2023, October 28). Compare and Contrast Child Developmental Theories. https://ivypanda.com/essays/comparing-and-contrasting-developmental-theories/

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IvyPanda . 2023. "Compare and Contrast Child Developmental Theories." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/comparing-and-contrasting-developmental-theories/.

1. IvyPanda . "Compare and Contrast Child Developmental Theories." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/comparing-and-contrasting-developmental-theories/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Compare and Contrast Child Developmental Theories." October 28, 2023. https://ivypanda.com/essays/comparing-and-contrasting-developmental-theories/.

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