Samantha Cruz
Evaluate one theory of cognitive development.
Research on cognitive development highlights which skill or ability should be mastered at a particular age.
One theory of cognitive development is Piaget’s Theory. The main idea of this theory is children know what
they know because of their genes and biological makeup (nature). Piaget viewed children as “active learners”
where they would be the center of the learning experience and learned by playing, exploring, and physical
involvement. He saw cognitive development as four stages which was the same in every child. In addition, he
theorized that children had an inherited mental structure, which was the basis of their cognitive development.
This maturation-based theory looked at cognitive development through age and developmental milestones.
Piaget’s theory gives a great insight of the role of genetics in cognitive development. However, it does not take
into account sociocultural and environmental factors and lacks validity and support from research.
The second stage in Piaget’s theory is the preoperational stage which occurs between the ages of two to
seven years old. This is when children start to think symbolically. Imagination and play also start to emerge
during this stage. The main characteristic here is that children are egocentric, meaning, they cannot take
another perspective as they think their perspective is the only version of reality.
Piaget and Inhelder conducted a study to investigate whether children in the preoperational stage were
egocentric. Children were asked to walk around and observe a model with three mountains. Each of the
mountains had something at the top of it: a cross, a house, or snow. The child was then asked to sit down and
a doll was placed somewhere on the model. The researcher then showed the child ten pictures where they
had to choose the image that represented the doll’s perspective. The doll was then moved around and this
procedure was repeated. It was found that children aged four were hopeless as this task and would always
choose their perspective instead of the dolls. However, children aged seven to eight would consistently
choose the doll’s perspective. From this, it is illustrated that children in the preoperational stage are egocentric
as children less than seven think they see the true world.
However, there are aspects to consider about this study. Little is know how the researchers chose the children
or even information about the characteristics of the children. This lowers the generalizability of results as
cultural factors can play a role in egocentric thinking. The data produced is qualitative, allowing for rich and
robust insight. At the same time, findings can be subjective to the researcher, thus lowering validity of results
as researcher bias can occur. To further emphasize the potentiality of researcher bias, Piaget was testing his
own theory. This means he could have had experimenter expectancies to validate his theory and create a
procedure that would do so. Then again, the study was replicated in lab conditions to gain a quantitative
perspective and the same results were found, increasing reliability.
It can be argued that Piaget and Inhelder’s study overestimated the ability of children and the task was too
difficult, leading them to believe that this was egocentrism in play. On the other hand, Hughes wanted to
conduct a lab experiment to investigate egocentrism with a more age appropriate task. Children were shown a
model that had two intersecting walls. A police man was placed at the end of one of the walls. The child was
then given a boy doll where they had to place the doll where the policeman could not see the boy doll, like hide
and seek. This process was repeated by adding more walls and more police dolls. Hughes found that 90% of
children aged 3.5 to five years old completed this with no errors. Four year olds also did not find it difficult
when the amount of walls increased. This study suggests that by four years old, children have lost their
egocentric thinking. Overall, Hughes is not disagreeing with the Piaget’s theory of egocentrism, he is merely
suggesting that this processes ends much earlier than Piaget suggests. This highlights the main limitation of
Piaget’s theory in regards to overestimating tasks and underestimating the ability of children.
This limitation was further highlighted when it came to investigating object permanence in children in the
Evaluate one theory of cognitive development.
Research on cognitive development highlights which skill or ability should be mastered at a particular age.
One theory of cognitive development is Piaget’s Theory. The main idea of this theory is children know what
they know because of their genes and biological makeup (nature). Piaget viewed children as “active learners”
where they would be the center of the learning experience and learned by playing, exploring, and physical
involvement. He saw cognitive development as four stages which was the same in every child. In addition, he
theorized that children had an inherited mental structure, which was the basis of their cognitive development.
This maturation-based theory looked at cognitive development through age and developmental milestones.
Piaget’s theory gives a great insight of the role of genetics in cognitive development. However, it does not take
into account sociocultural and environmental factors and lacks validity and support from research.
The second stage in Piaget’s theory is the preoperational stage which occurs between the ages of two to
seven years old. This is when children start to think symbolically. Imagination and play also start to emerge
during this stage. The main characteristic here is that children are egocentric, meaning, they cannot take
another perspective as they think their perspective is the only version of reality.
Piaget and Inhelder conducted a study to investigate whether children in the preoperational stage were
egocentric. Children were asked to walk around and observe a model with three mountains. Each of the
mountains had something at the top of it: a cross, a house, or snow. The child was then asked to sit down and
a doll was placed somewhere on the model. The researcher then showed the child ten pictures where they
had to choose the image that represented the doll’s perspective. The doll was then moved around and this
procedure was repeated. It was found that children aged four were hopeless as this task and would always
choose their perspective instead of the dolls. However, children aged seven to eight would consistently
choose the doll’s perspective. From this, it is illustrated that children in the preoperational stage are egocentric
as children less than seven think they see the true world.
However, there are aspects to consider about this study. Little is know how the researchers chose the children
or even information about the characteristics of the children. This lowers the generalizability of results as
cultural factors can play a role in egocentric thinking. The data produced is qualitative, allowing for rich and
robust insight. At the same time, findings can be subjective to the researcher, thus lowering validity of results
as researcher bias can occur. To further emphasize the potentiality of researcher bias, Piaget was testing his
own theory. This means he could have had experimenter expectancies to validate his theory and create a
procedure that would do so. Then again, the study was replicated in lab conditions to gain a quantitative
perspective and the same results were found, increasing reliability.
It can be argued that Piaget and Inhelder’s study overestimated the ability of children and the task was too
difficult, leading them to believe that this was egocentrism in play. On the other hand, Hughes wanted to
conduct a lab experiment to investigate egocentrism with a more age appropriate task. Children were shown a
model that had two intersecting walls. A police man was placed at the end of one of the walls. The child was
then given a boy doll where they had to place the doll where the policeman could not see the boy doll, like hide
and seek. This process was repeated by adding more walls and more police dolls. Hughes found that 90% of
children aged 3.5 to five years old completed this with no errors. Four year olds also did not find it difficult
when the amount of walls increased. This study suggests that by four years old, children have lost their
egocentric thinking. Overall, Hughes is not disagreeing with the Piaget’s theory of egocentrism, he is merely
suggesting that this processes ends much earlier than Piaget suggests. This highlights the main limitation of
Piaget’s theory in regards to overestimating tasks and underestimating the ability of children.
This limitation was further highlighted when it came to investigating object permanence in children in the
