Question

Define operations and briefly discuss three of the changes that take place in the preoperational stage of development.

Answer 1

Operations according to Jean Piaget is a formal development of the brain along with other physical developments. It's about the different functions of the physical and psychological elements of a human beings. Piaget suggests four stages of development before someone becomes adult to understand the common practices, logics and functions of the world. He suggests four stages of operations, sensory motor stage (0-2 years), pre-operational stage (2-7 years), concrete operational stage (7-11 years) and formal operational stage (11-16 years).

Three key changes of Pre-operational Stage

1. Children's thought process - By this time around 2 years old children start speaking and they will keep asking questions. They had already seen things during their first two years but they were not able to think about them. Now that their brain grows and they acquired speech, they start asking chain of questions.

2. Self centric - During this stage, children base their action only from their point of view. They are ego centric and they want to derive pleasure from whatever they do. They won't listen to anyone because whatever they say or do is right according to them. They won't be able to view it from the other person's point of view.

3. Animism - Children at this stage thinks that everything has life and emotions. When a child is hurt by an object, the parents hit the object and the child becomes calm or the child itself will go and hit the object. This belief that everything has life and emotion is one of the important characteristics too.

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