Piaget's theory of cognitive development

Piaget's theory is a theory developed by Jean Piaget to explain childhood development. In this theory, as a child learns about the world, they continually refine schemas to explain it. Among these schemas are overarching worldviews of how the child interacts with the world, called stages.

Piaget outlined four stages of cognitive development:

1. Sensorimotor stage
2. Preoperational stage
3. Concrete Operational
4. Formal Operational

These four stages have the following characteristics:

1. invariant sequence
2. universal (not culturally specific)
3. related to cognitive development. but...
4. generalizable to other functions
5. stages are logically organized wholes
6. hierarchical nature of stage sequences (each successive stage incorporates elements of previous stages, but is more differentiated and integrated)
7. stages represent qualitative differences in modes of thinking, not merely quantitative differences

Piaget's theory is considered to be basically correct by most psychologists, and has had a great deal of influence over developmental psychology. However, most psychologists take a more dynamic view.

Development has been found to be less clearcut than Piaget supposed. Children often combine conceptions from different stages, are in different stages in different areas of life, and advancement in their thinking can be seen to vary from minute to minute. The stages are now seen as overall tendencies in thought processes; as a child develops they more frequently choose concepts from higher levels.