Cognitive Development Theory Of Moral Judgment

Psychologist Jean Piaget developed the Piaget’s theory around the late 1920’s and early 1930’s. Piaget’s theory implies that cognitive growth advances in different stages, influenced by an instinctive need to know basis. The four stages of Piaget’s theory are, sensorimotor (birth to about two years old), preoperational (average two to seven years old), concrete operational (seven to eleven years old), and formal operational stage (eleven to undetermined years old).

Piaget’s theory was introduced by Jean Piaget who established four periods of cognitive development. The four stages are; Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational, and Formal operational. The sensorimotor is the first stage and begins when the child is born and proceeds until the age of two years. The second stage is the preoperational stage and begins with the child is two years old and continues until the child reaches six years of age. The concrete stage is the third stage and begins when the child is six years old and proceeds until the age of 11 years old. The formal operational stage is the fourth stage and

As stages in psychological development have been defined by Freud, stages in moral development have been outlined by early educators Jean Piaget and Kohlberg, who put forth differing views on the moral development of children. Piaget theorized that children process morals in stages, first one then the next, with a transition in between. The first stage (from ages 4 to about 7) is referred to as “heteronymous morality”, where children think of rules as constants, that is to say, rules are part of the world’s makeup with no input or possibility of change by people. As children progress from seven to ten years of age, they move from one stage to the next, maintaining some of the traits of the

Piaget claims that before the beginning of this stage, children 's ideas about different objects, are formed and dominated by the appearance of the object. For example, there appears to be more blocks when they are spread out, than when they are in a small pile. During the Concrete Operational Stage, children gradually develop the ability to 'conserve ', or learn that objects are not always the way that they appear to be. This occurs when children are able to take in many different aspects of an object, simply through looking at it. Children are able to begin to imagine different scenarios, or 'what if ' something was to happen. This is because they now have more 'operational ' thought. Children are generally first able to conserve ideas about objects with which they are most comfortable. Once children have learnt to conserve, they learn about 'reversibility '. This means that they learn that if things are changed, they will still be the same as they used to be. For example, they learn that if they spread out the pile of blocks, there are still as many there as before, even though it looks different!

“According to Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development, it states that all children go through specific stages as their brain matures. It also stated that these stages are completed in a fixed order within all children, according to their range of age (Atherton).” In other words, one cannot expect a two month old baby to solve simple math problems as that of a five year old. There are four stages in which Piaget grouped the development of a child according to their age groups, in which children interact with people and their environment. The sensorimotor stage (birth until age 2) children use their senses to explore their environment. During this stage, children learn how to control objects, although they fail to understand that these objects if not within their view continue to exist. The preoperational stage (2 until age 7) children are not able to see other's viewpoints other than their own. In other words, if the same amount of water is poured into a short wide glass and then a tall thin glass the child will perceive that the taller glass has more water because of the height. The concrete operational stage (7 until 12) children begin to think logically, but only with a practical aid. The last stage of Piaget’s cognitive theory is the formal operation stage (12 through adulthood) in which children develop abstract thinking and begin to think logically in their minds (Piaget).

“The last Piagetian task that Child 2 participated in was the moral task. It was very typical for him to have answered in a premoral mindset this task because his age places him in Piaget’s heteronomous stage. In this stage which starts right around four years of age, according to Piaget, children understand rules as the almighty, unchangeable laws of nature. They base most decisions on punishment and not on intentions.” (Artifact #4, Interview Final Paper, PSY 370)

Jean Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory is one the most influential theory of cognition in social work and psychology. In his cognitive theory, our capacity for reasoning develops in stages, from infancy through adolescence and early adulthood. Piaget used four different stages; sensorimotor state, preoperational stage, concrete operations stage and formal operations stage. According to Hutchison, Piaget saw these four stages as sequential and interdependent, evolving from activity without thought, to thought with less emphasis on activity- from doing, to doing knowingly, and finally to conceptualizing.

The second stage of development throughout piaget’s stages, is the pre-operations stage. Children from the ages of 2 – 7 years of age go through this stage. During this stage, children's cerebration processes are developing, although they are still considered to be far from 'logical thought'. The vocabulary of a child is additionally expanded and developed during this stage, as they transmute from babies and toddlers into 'little people'. During the pre-operational stage of a child’s development, they are not able to consider things from their own point of view, and imagine that everyone shares this view with them, meaning they are ‘ego centric’. Progressively during this stage, an evident amount of 'decentering' occurs. This is when someone

Jean Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory describes four stages of human development which he described as naturally emerging reasoning and development. The first two stages can be described as sensori-motor development. In all stages of development, the child learns to adapt, assimilate, and accommodate new information into their thought process.  Stage one is Sensorimotor which lasts from birth to 2 years of age. There are six substages which the infant’s source of actions shifts from reflexes to

Jean Piaget is best known for his stage theory on moral development of children which occurs in two distinct stages from heteronomous to autonomous and three sub stages premoral (0 to 5 years), moral realism ( 5 to 10 years), and moral relativism (after age 10). In premoral development, children do not think about right or wrong. In the moral realism phase, children understand right and wrong. Lastly, in moral relativism children move from a concrete understanding of morality to an abstract one; meaning they make decisions according to their own rules. They understand that rules are not absolute but necessary for society to get along (Slavin & Schunk,

The distinctiveness of preoperational stage include an enhancement in language ability (with over generalizations), symbolic thought, egocentric perspective, and limited logic. In this second stage, children should engage with problem-solving

The purpose of this case study is to investigate and provide an overview of the physical, cognitive, social, and moral stages of development. Special emphasis will be placed on the progressive changes that can occur as an organism develops throughout his/her life spam, where the development of a child participant between the ages of 6-12 will be observed. It will also be based upon the attitudes , feelings, thoughts, and behaviors of an individual and the ways in which they operate in society. This will also be shown by an interview with a specific child, in this case, Hector, where he will be asked different questions which will help explain a childs developing mind. This case study will focus on some of the outstanding theorists involved

Children in this stage do not yet understand concrete logic and cannot mentally manipulate information.

Next, the "pre-operational stage" is the second stage of Piaget’s theory. This stage lasts from around 2 - 7 years. In this stage, Piaget proposed that a child fails to understand the concept “conservation” - the belief that things remain constant in terms of number, quantity and volume irrespective of variations in appearance. In experiments to test number conservation, Piaget showed the child two sets of checkers, which had exactly the same number of checkers in each set. He then changed one of the checker sets, keeping the same amount of checkers in it, so that it was only different in appearance. When the experiment ended, the results showed that the children believed that the sets were of different quantity, thereby, proving Piaget’s theory factual. (Piaget 1952)

For this paper I will be exploring Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Swiss Psychologist Jean Piaget, theorized that children progress through four key stages of cognitive development that change their understanding of the world. By observing his own children, Piaget came up with four different stages of intellectual development that included: the sensorimotor stage, which starts from birth to age two; the preoperational stage, starts from age two to about age seven; the concrete operational stage, starts from age seven to eleven; and final stage, the formal operational stage, which begins in adolescence and continues into adulthood. In this paper I will only be focusing on the