Paper Topic:

Piaget

Piaget 's cognitive and moral development theories

Introduction

Many of the theories today get their ideas from theorists of the earlier years and mushroom them to the world of science attracting their own followers . Piaget is considered a pioneer however in his field . His presuppositions mainly point to the person 's acting ' or operating on his /her environment which enables the development to put into motion or enable the person to develop in his cognition (Atkinson 1993

To put into more detail , Piaget 's theory of cognitive development refers to how

a person perceives , thinks , and gains an understanding of his or her world through the interaction and influence of genetic and learning factors . Jean Piaget , who was both a biologist and psychologist , developed one of the most influential theories of cognitive development . Piaget 's work led to the current view that children are actively involved in their own cognitive development . By active involvement , Piaget meant that children are constantly striving to understand what they encounter , and in such encounters they form their own guesses or hypotheses about how the world works (Atkinson 1993

Basic assumptions

Piaget 's cognitive stages refer to four different stages - sensorimotor , preoperational , concrete operational , and formal operational stages - each of which is more advanced than the preceding stage because it involves new reasoning and thinking abilities (Papalia et al , 2002 . Although Piaget believed that all people go through the same four cognitive stages , he acknowledged that they may go through the stages at different rates . Piaget 's hypothesis that cognitive development occurs in stages was one of his unique contributions to developmental psychology (Atkinson 1993

The cognitive changes that occur in various stages of development are influenced by the individual 's adaptation which can come in the form of either or both assimilation or accommodation . Assimilation is the easier process of the two where the brain or the mind is concerned , according to Piaget . Assimilation is fitting in the new material coming from the environment by transforming the data in the individual 's internal senses . As this happens , the individual hardly feels any difficulty concerning the change that is occurring . Contrariwise , though both occur in a child or individual together , accommodation usually happens when the person or child 's present explanation of the way things work is inadequate or insufficient and the child or individual must change his /her way of explaining these things hence , must accommodate ' that which is the newer theory (Atherton 2005

Operating on assumptions held by Piaget , there are many considerations that may come up when Piaget and his theory is to be applied to a counseling setting . His proposition of the nature of assimilation and accommodation helps the counselor see the basic issues that surround a person in specific stages ' as Piaget had described in the four cognitive developmental stages (Piaget , 1936 Bernstein et al , 1991 Supposing the concerned individual happens to be a child who might be approximately three years of age and hence as hypothesized would be within...

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