Two and a half year old Sara is frequently taking her friends’ toys during playtime without asking. She shows little concern over their pleas to give them back and her father is often telling her to imagine how sad she is making her friends. Taking Piag

Swiss developmental psychologist Jean Piaget discovered , during his half-century research about children 's thoughts , that .a child 's mind is not a miniature model of an adult 's , according to David G Myers (David G . Myers ,

. 141 , 2007 . Piaget believed that the cognition of a child and an adult about the same thing differs because cognition varies depending on what stage a person is in the four stages of cognitive development . In addition to this , he believes that the maturing brain builds concepts ' called schemas . A schema is like a

blueprint of concepts that a person develops as one experiences things For example , if a child sees a butterfly , he develops the schema of a creature with wings . When the same child sees a bird , he may think it is a butterfly . Then , when someone corrects the child and tells him it is a bird , he assimilates the new information in his schema of flying creatures

In the scenario , Sara , a two-year old who takes her friend 's toys not paying heed to their distress , is in the second stage of cognitive development - the pre-operational stage . This stage is characterized by egocentrism . Being in this stage , Sara thinks only of herself and cannot think about another 's point of view . In other words , she cannot empathize with her friends , even with her father 's pleas for her to return the toys . Sara just does not understand why she should . This stage lasts until age six to seven years during which the concrete operational stage starts

Two of the characteristics of the concrete operational stage is the elimination of egocentrism and appropriate use of logic (http /en .wikipedia .org /wiki /Cognitive_development . At age four , as Sara moves into the concrete operation stage of her cognitive development and as she assimilates repeated occurrences of the effects of taking her friends ' toys in her schema , she may have a hint about what it does to their mental states . Sara may not fully comprehend the situation , but she understands that what she does in turn evokes a negative reaction from her friends...