preview

Jean Piaget Essay

Decent Essays

Jean Piaget was a major contributor to the world of psychology and sociology that we know today. His works and discoveries still help sociologist determine and figure out ways people in society interact and develop throughout time. Piaget was born on August 9, 1896 and was raised in Neuchâtel, Switzerland (Boeree n.d.). His family was very influential to his success. His father was a historian that authored many writings on the medieval times, and his mother was very intellectual and kind, however, she had a mental health problem that pushed Piaget to become interested in psychology (Presnell 1999). He became an enthused and determined scholar at a young age. Piaget’s early interests were of zoology (Jean Piaget n.d.). At age eleven, he …show more content…

Piaget worked in a psychiatric lab in Zurich for a year where he studied the thoughts of Jung and Freud. Piaget also started teaching psychology in 1919 in Paris. This is where he started doing studies of intelligence testing with Simon-Benet Fame. Piaget felt that the “right-wrong” ways of intelligence testing was an unreliable source; instead he started interviewing school boys. He used psychiatric techniques to learn about adolescence reasoning (Boeree n.d.). Piaget researched in many places, such as, the Jean-Jacques Rousseau Institute of Geneva in 1921 where he studied the mental capabilities of an infant in the first two years of life. This is where he would write and publish his first works on children phycology. During this time he met his soon to be wife, Valentine Chatenay. After his success of his first five books, in 1925 Piaget started teaching psychology at Neuchatel University (Presnell 1999). During this time he would become a father of two daughters and a son. He would use them as observational studies as they grew up (Boeree n.d.). Piaget continued to study and teach at numerous places, such as, Lausanne and Paris (Jean Piaget Biography n.d.). He ended up writing over sixty books and articles during his long career. Piaget past away in Geneva, Switzerland on the 16th of September 1980, over fifty years of excellent research that will shape the world of psychology and sociology for years to come (Boeree n.d.).
Through Jean Piaget’s long

Get Access