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Piaget’S (1936/1953) Stages Of Cognitive Development.In

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Piaget’s (1936/1953) stages of cognitive development. In his theory of cognitive development, Piaget (1936/1953) asserted that children have a natural ability to construct meaning about the world around them. Piaget (1952) believed that children build their knowledge of the world around them using schema, which he defined as “a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning” (p. 7). In other words, schema act as blocks of knowledge on which children build their capacity to understand the world around them. Piaget (1952) supposed that all individuals seek to exist in a state of equilibrium, in which their schema and environment are balanced and they can …show more content…

The final stage of cognitive development is the formal operational stage, which begins in adolescence and continues through adulthood. Early in the formal operational stage, there is a brief return to egocentrism as a child enters adolescence. Knowledge is demonstrated through hypothetical thinking and scientific reasoning, however, Piaget (1952) admitted that some individuals do not attain the formal operational stage until well into adulthood. Erikson’s (1959/1980) stages of psychosocial development. Though Erikson was influenced early on by his teacher, Sigmund Freud, unlike Freud or Piaget, Erikson emphasized the role of culture and society in the development of personality throughout an individual’s lifespan. Erikson (1950) believed that individuals experience a psychosocial crisis during each of the stages of development and that the way in which those crises are resolved results in either a positive or negative impact on the development of personality as one progresses through life. In his Eight Stages of Man, Erikson (1950) argued that psychosocial development occurs through the positive resolution of the following eight crises: (a) trust v. mistrust, (b) autonomy v. shame and doubt, (c) initiative v. guilt, (d) industry v. inferiority,

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