Piaget’s theory of cognitive development has come under many criticisms from different theorists. We must take into account that Piaget wrote this theory in 1930 when Psychology as a discipline was only taking off. It would be absurd to presume that unrefined theories from 80 years ago could hold to be totally true in the present day, taking into account the many technological and social advances that have been made.
Many theorists have further researched the concepts that underlie each of Piaget’s four stages. There is evidence to support his concepts but a considerable amount of evidence that he may have underestimated children’s mental capacity. For example Bower (1982) showed that object permanence could be seen in children as young as a few months old.
Bower monitored children’s heart rates to measure changes which reflected surprise. This method of monitoring heart rates would not have been accessible to Piaget in the 1930’s. Baillargeon & DeVos (1991) preformed experiments which also yielded evidence that; “young children are aware of the continued existence of objects even when they have been out of view. The results from Bower (1982) and from Baillargeon & DeVos (1991) indicate that children have some understanding of object permanence earlier than Piaget suggested.” (Smith, Cowie & Blades, 4th Edn). Piaget also claimed that imitation occurs only toward the end of the sensori-motor stage. “However, Meltzoff & Moore (1994) showed that six week old infants could imitate a behaviour a day after they had seen the original behaviour.” (Smith, Cowie & Blades, 4th Edn). All these theorists have provided evidence of mental representations in children at a much earlier age than Piaget had proposed. A reason put forward to explain why Piaget may have underestimated infant cognition was that he may have been limited by direct observation of his own three infants. Also technological advance such as fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) have provided present day theorists with new methods to study cognition that were not available to Piaget. fMRI has given us empirical evidence of mental combinations and memories in infants earlier than Piaget predicted. “So although modern research finds that Piaget underestimated infant cognition, his basic concepts still inspire researchers.” (Berger, 2005).
Many of Piaget’s research methods in the pre-operational stage of cognitive development have also come under attack. First to come under criticism were his methods used to test conservation. These tests focus mainly on the child’s words and not his actions. Researchers found that “children as young as 3 years old can distinguish appearance from reality if the test is non-verbal.” (Berger, 2005). Donaldson challenged his methods of testing conservation by introducing a “naughty teddy” into her experiment with reorganised rows of sweets or checkers. She found that children could understand the concept of conservation at a much younger age than Piaget had claimed. Donaldson explained that because it was the “naughty teddy” rather than the experimenter who had muddled up the display a child might have fewer expectations that a deliberate action had occurred and so they had no reason to believe that a real change had occurred. Hence because this experiment now made “social sense” to the child they are more likely to provide the correct answer. This idea of the importance of social influences on cognitive development was introduced by the Russian psychologist Vygotsky. It has been said that Piaget limited his developmental theories to cognition omitting any kind of social factors which today have been proved to contribute greatly to development. Many theorists believed that Piaget “designed his experiments to reveal what young children seemed not to understand, rather than identify what they could understand.” (Berger, 2005).
Piaget’s “three mountain test” used to demonstrate the egocentric viewpoint of the pre-operational child has proved to be another bearer of great criticisms. The notion of mountains is alien to non Swiss or children unfamiliar with mountains. Donaldson replaced the mountains with her “hiding from the policeman” experiment and found 90% of children completed the task successfully. From these results it appears that children at this stage can decentre from being egocentric earlier than Piaget thought if the tasks are presented in a relevant context to the child. We can see from the “three mountains” test that Piaget’s research can be criticised as being culturally specific and can hence have no standing as being a standardised cross cultural theory. For example; “different societies value and reward different skills so that when people from underdeveloped societies are tested they appear to have less success in solving Piagets concrete and formal operational tasks, but these differences disappear when culturally relevant tasks are applied.” (Passer & Smith, 2001).
A great deal of criticism has also fallen on Piagets Formal operations stage. Research has shown that nearly half the adult population do not reach this stage as not everyone appears to be capable of abstract reasoning. “Piaget’s formal operations stage is tested by mathematical and scientific thinking with no measure for the more non-scientific fields such as art, history or practical problem solving.” (Papalia, Olds & Feldman, 1998). It was demonstrated through Danner & Day’s research (1977), that a “training component can increase success on formal operational tasks. Therefore it is now thought that formal operational thinking is specific to domains in which we are either familiar with, trained in or domains which are important to us.” It has also been suggested by recent research that achievement of formal operational thinking is a much more “gradual and haphazard than Piaget assumed.” (Smith, Cowie & Blades, 4th Edn).
It has been noted that Piaget contributed enormously to the present day field of cognitive development. However several objections have been raised in relation to his methods. “He used a flexible method of interviewing children, the clinical method, which meant that he adapted his procedure to suit the children rather than following a standardised method.” (Santrock, 2002). This makes replications of the experiment difficult and questions the validity of the results. He has also been criticised for putting too much emphasis on the child’s failures rather than his successes. Many of his finding came from direct observation of his three children. Not only was this a minute sample size, the three children were all from the same middle class background and environment and all were Swiss. This further questions the ecological validity and possibility of extrapolation in relation to his theory. In his defence however it can be seen that he “later used larger samples in his systematic and rigorous research and his experiments, though old fashioned in today’s terms, were ingenious for the times.” (Wadsworth, 1996). Neo-Piagetian's emerged as a direct result of Piagets theories. They believe that Piaget had some great ideas. However they argue that “a more accurate vision of the child’s cognitive development involves fewer references to grand stages and more emphasis on the role of strategies, skills, how fast and automatically children can process information, the task specific nature of children’s cognition, and the importance of dividing cognitive problems into smaller, more precise steps.” (Santrock, 2002).
The statement claiming “classical Piagetian theory is outdated and no longer useful” is untrue. Piaget’s theory has stood to be the cornerstone of cognitive development. His methods and to some extent his concepts have proved to be inaccurate but they have provided the first stepping stone on which new theorists can build and expand on said theories. Boden wrote that; “Piaget is vague and often wrong but he created a framework on which much has been built and he has contributed greatly to educational development and cognitive psychology.” Piaget must be credited with providing a sound conceptual framework from which to view educational problems. Piaget focused primarily on development from a cognitive perspective. This may be seen as narrowed minded in our present world, where the notion of development has enlarged to include not only cognition but social, ecological, religious and environmental factors. However it is important to recognise that no one theory can possibly explain development in its entirety. Piaget was one of the first developmentalists to get off the fence and make an attempt to ring fence development and place boundaries around it. He may not have been justified in doing so but he paved the path for others to criticise his theories which resulted in the new and improved theories we have today. Piaget contributed immensely to how we view development. Many of his basic concepts are still used in schools nationwide. Piagetian theory has laid the foundations for the psychologists of today; it will always be useful even if it is just stands as reminder of the mistakes we as psychologists have made in the past.
References
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Wadsworth, B. J. (1996), Piagets Theory of Cognitive and Affective Development (5th Ed), New York; Longman Publishers.