Piaget and Egocentrism - Essay Example

Piaget and Egocentrism What is the evidence that children in the pre-operational period (2 to 7 years) are egocentric? (IN PIAGET THEORY ONLY) Introduction In his theory of cognitive development, Piaget stated that egocentrism refers to the child’s inability, during the pre-operational stage, to have any other point of view apart from their own. Children exhibit egocentrism during the pre-operational stage, which starts from two years up to seven years. During this stage, the child views the environment around him or her in his or her own perspective and disregards other people’s perspectives. At this stage, children’s thoughts are structured in such a way that they think everyone should see things the same way as the children. As a result, the child does not portray any objective reality of happenings in his or her life; the child only has subjective reality (Rathus, 2010). Piaget performed experiments with the aim of establishing egocentrism in children and discovering the age at which children cease to be egocentric. Discussion Children in the pre-operational stage of development tend to showcase behavior, which portrays them as self-focused, self-serving, and self-centered. As such, they consider other members of their immediate family and society at large to be part of the world in which they (the child) happen to be at the center. The pre-operational stage is also characterized by key features such as animism. In this case, animism refers to the belief of children objects that are inanimate (such as toys) tend to posses human intentions and feelings (Piaget & Voneche, 2007). Piaget and Inhelder (1956) performed the ‘three mountains’ task with the aim of finding out the age at which children have egocentric traits and the age at which they decentre. In the experiment, there is three dimensional model of three mountains of different colors, sizes, and posses different features such as a house, snow, and a cross. The child then gets an opportunity to examine the model and explore it; the child explores the model by walking around it, looking it, and then sits down at one side of the table. After this, there is the introduction of a doll at various positions in the table. The child is then presented with ten photographs of the mountains, which were taken from varying positions. The next task involves asking the child to identify which photograph shows the view of the dolls (Cook & Cook, 2005). The assumption that Piaget made was that if the child could be able to pick the card that showed the view of the doll, then the child could not be regarded as egocentric. The child who would pick the card showing the view that he or she saw could be the one regarded to portray egocentrism. Piaget and Inhelder came to the conclusion that children point to photos showing their own view at the age of four years. Thus, children at this age pointed at the things they could see and were not aware that there would be a different view by the doll. Piaget also observed that children aged six years choose a picture that can be said to be different from their own view; however, the picture could not be regarded as correct according to the doll’s point of view. Children aged seven years chose the picture, which matched the doll’s point of view and they could thus be regarded as no longer egocentric (Doherty, 2009). Piaget’s main focus in the pre-operational stage dealt with the limitations, which existed in the thinking of the child. He also focused on the child’s ability to perform several mental tasks. Piaget argues that egocentrism impacts the ability of children to conserve, dissenter, and understand that objects can be arranged in a logical order. As a result of egocentrism portrayed during the preoperational stage, children only focus on a single aspect of problems and ignore multiple aspects that a phenomenon may have. Piaget gave an example of arranging blocks in two rows in such as the way that the row with five blocks appears to be longer than the row, which has seven blocks. Children in the preoperational stage have the ability to count the blocks contained in each row and also tell the number of blocks contained in each row. However, they may not be able to identify the row with many blocks, as they think that the longest row (with five blocks) has more blocks than the row with seven blocks (Piaget, 1973). Based on this, therefore, Piaget argued that children in the preoperational stage cannot focus on the number and length at the same time. Piaget argued that during the pre-operational stage children have not mastered skills such as conservation. Conservation entails the understanding that the quantity of something remains the same even though the appearance may change. According to Piaget, children in the preoperational stage have not gained the understanding that redistribution of material in an object may not have an impact on its volume, number, as well as mass (Donaldson, 1978). Piaget argued that the pre-operational stage tends to have some limitations; first, a child depends on alteration in appearance of an object in order to conclude that a change has taken place. The other limitation of egocentric thinking in this stage entails the fact that the child’s thinking tends to be focused on a single aspect of a certain situation. For instance, a child may realize changes in length or level of water without the realization that there is a simultaneous change in other aspects of the situation. Preoperational thinking in children also focuses more on states, as opposed to aspects such as transformations. For example, the child may not identify the changes that have occurred to materials; rather, they make judgments based on the appearance of the materials. In the preoperational stage, Piaget argued that children tend to have irreversible thinking. For example, they cannot deduce that a material can go back to its former state through a reverse transformation. Thus, the child has not yet developed logical thinking (Donaldson, 1978). Piaget argued that the thought processes of children were still under development during the pre-operational stage. However, the thoughts cannot be regarded to have fully developed logically. Other aspects of the child’s development during this stage include the development of vocabulary, which marks the change from toddlers to young people. The other crucial characteristic of the pre-operational stage is animism, which entails the belief that everything in existence possesses consciousness. For example, children may beat a stone because it hurt them (Wellman and Estes, 1986). At the preoperational stage, children also portray the aspect of ‘moral realism’, which entails the thinking of the child that everyone shares the same beliefs regarding what the child considers being wrong or right. Egocentrism portrayed by children during the pre-operational stage makes them think that nothing else is possible, apart from what they see as possible. As a result, there is the insistence on the part of the child that rules ought to be obeyed. Piaget argued that children at the preoperational stage engage in the drawing of symbols, which may serve as representation of what they see. For example, they may make drawings of adults such as their parents. This indicates that children start developing mental representations at the pre-operational stage. They can now be able to actualize what they see with their own eyes through images such as drawings. According to Cook & Cook (2005), Piaget held that the preoperational stage also involves the use of symbols by children, especially in play. For instance, at only the age of eighteen months, the child may use an object to represent another object. An example is the use of a banana as a telephone while playing with other children and assuming that a blanket can take the position of a carpet. The ability of children to use objects develops to the extent that they use symbols, which do not necessarily have to resemble the real object. Fantasy play incorporates the use of symbols by children more than any other phenomenon. For example, preoperational children may use symbols pretending that they are tigers or while engaging in impossible activities. From his research on egocentrism, Piaget contended that children tend to be a-dualistic as opposed to being dualistic. As a result, they lack the inability to realize the differences between the physical and non-physical realms, and objective and subjective. Consequently, this leads to them attributing psychological causes as well as motives to phenomena that tend to be physical. In addition, the child may also develop the ability to attribute mental phenomena with physical characteristics that are real (Wellman and Estes, 1986). Piaget concluded that the pre-operational stage also encompasses a vital development, which includes the emergence of intuitive thinking in children. This entails the reasoning of children with regard to the personal experience they have, rather than reasoning based on the use of logical thought. As such, the reasoning of children tends to be based on what things look like in accordance with the personal experiences of the children. According to Piaget, intuitive thinking during pre-operational stage tends to be a common characteristic of egocentrism in the pre-operational stage. This is demonstrated by the children’s acceptance of their world view as supreme (Bukatko & Daehler, 2011). Piaget argued that animism may comprise of some thoughts by the child such as thinking that the sun shines because it is happy. Piaget also argued that children portray artificialism during the pre-operational stage of cognitive development. Artificialism entails the belief that superhuman beings control natural objects, as well as natural events. For example, children think that objects and events such as the moon, sun, droughts, floods, and hurricanes tend to be under the control of superhuman beings. According to Piaget, children may, for example, say that the sun went down because someone switched it off and the moon did not shine because it has been blown off. Explanations of events and objects in children take a new shape when children stop thinking intuitively and move towards logical and factual thinking. Thus, the development of logical thinking in children marks the end of egocentrism (Cook & Cook, 2005). Conclusion While concluding this study, it is worth noting that egocentrism is a common phenomenon in children during the pre-operational stage of cognitive thinking. Children at this stage tend to view the world in their own perspectives and tend to disregard the perspective of other people. Therefore, thinking during the pre-operational stage tends to be centered on the child’s perspective of the world. The preoperational stage starts from two years and ends at the age of seven years. Piaget and Inhelder performed an experiment known as the ‘three mountains task’ in which they came to the conclusion that children tend to be egocentric during the pre-operational stage. References Bukatko, D. & Daehler, M. (2011). Child Development: A Thematic Approach (6ed). London: Cengage Learning. Cook, J. L. & Cook, G. (2005). Child Development: Principles and Perspectives. New York: Allyn & Bacon. Donaldson, M. (1978). Children’s Minds. New York: Fontana Press. Doherty, M. J. (2009). Theory of Mind: How Children Understand Others Thoughts and Feelings. New York: Psychology Press. Piaget, J. (1973). The Childs Conception of the World. Paladin: St. Albans,Herts. Piaget, J. & Voneche, J. (2007). The Childs Conception of the World. Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield. Rathus, A. (2010). Childhood and Adolescence: Voyages in Development. London: Cengage Learning. Wellman, H. M. and Estes, D. (1986). Early Understanding of mental entities: a re-examination of childhood realism. Child Development, 57, 910-923. Read More