'Object permanence' is a key concept in Piaget's theory. Observation of his own children led him to conclude that infants are unable to comprehend the existence of objects outside of their own perception. Piaget called this form of centration, egocentrism. The schema of 'object permanence' is constructed during the sensori-motor stage and Piaget saw the task of the pre-operational stage as 'breaking through the barrier of egocentrism' (P104 of Introduction to Psychology). In fact, thoughts and actions become less and less centred as the child progresses through Piaget's 4 stages.
Social development was neglected by Piaget, he believed it to run a similar path to that of intellectual development, but in parallel. He believed each had little effect on the other.
In T.V. program 2 some preschool children were shown playing alongside each other, each absorbed in their own individual activities. Even when playing with the same toys they were not interacting with each other. Piaget would say that their egocentrism was making social interaction difficult, which may be why he placed little importance on social factors in his theory. He was more concerned with the effects of egocentrism on cognitive abilities and devised his tasks to facilitate investigation into this area. His famous 3 mountains task illustrates the inability in young children to decentre from their own viewpoint.
If Piaget had studied the children in a social context he may have seen examples of them taking each other into account. In T.V. program 2 we saw one child direct another in putting out an imaginary fire whilst playing at being firemen. He had put himself in the others place and decided what the other should do.
Being unable to appreciate viewpoints other than your own, is a feature of egocentrism, which Robinson & Robinson (1976) were able to illustrate within the social context, with their study on communication failure.
Their results corresponded with Piaget’s findings; the ability to take account of another’s expectations improves as children develop into the concrete operational stage. As the study on communication failure involved assessing another’s needs and placing blame, it extends Piaget’s' theory to encompass social understanding.
Robinson & Robinson were not alone in their endeavour to extend Piaget’s work, there are many similar examples. The approach of Donaldson and her followers however, was fundamentally different to that of Piaget. They saw social development, not as a separate issue to cognitive development, but as inseparable from it.
Donaldson believed the capabilities of the preschool child to be linked to everyday experience. She believed them unable to 'disembed' these capabilities in order to apply them to unfamiliar tasks. The 3 mountains task didn't relate to the everyday life of a young child and so Donaldson re-designed it, to make it more familiar. Hide and seek is a concept all children encounter early on and so a task of hiding the boy from the policeman was created. Donaldson believed the task had to make 'human sense' to the child; it needed to have a purpose and a motive. The task of hiding from the policeman satisfied these criteria and was successful. A study by Hughes and Donaldson (1978) using the hiding from policemen task resulted in a 90 per cent success rate with pre-school age children. This proved that young children could, in the right circumstances, take account of another’s perspective.
Donaldson also found that children pay great attention to the social context of a task. As they are in the process of developing a vocabulary, they rely on contextual clues to enhance their understanding of verbal communications. Piaget devised a task to study children’s understanding of the conservation of liquid. He asked whether the amount of liquid had changed after being poured from one shape vessel to another. Unable to sense a purpose in the activity, the children gave an answer based on the variable that has changed, i.e. the shape of the vessel. Making sense of the conservation task, putting it in a socially understandable context, achieved better results. A study by Light, Buckingham & Robbins (1979) involved 2 groups of 6 year olds. The first group were shown some pasta shells poured from the first breaker to a wider one and 95 per cent of the children confirmed Piaget’s finding as being non-conservers. The second group of children were told that the shells were to be used in a game and the reason for the transference of shells was a chip on the rim of the first beaker. This time only 30 per cent of the children gave non-conserving answers. It would seem that the task must make human sense to the child, not just to the investigator.
Even though Donaldson’s approach highlights the way in which Piaget underestimated children’s abilities, it made no criticism of the theoretical framework. The lasting aspects of Piaget’s admirable body of work include the concept of a progression through developmental stages. There is a general agreement that the changes involved in the progression are of a qualitative nature, and, as Piaget explained, they come about as a result of constructive activity. Developmental psychology will continue to evolve, grateful for the solid foundation
created by Piaget.
