Question

Considering that many people do not even achieve formal operational thinking, it might seem odd to speak of cognitive skills that are above and beyond what Piaget envisioned. Why might Piaget not have recognized that there was a form of thinking more sophisticated than his final stage? What fundamental error did Piaget make with respect to the achievement of this final stage? As always, be sure to explain your answer thoroughly

Answer 1

Development is the process by which human beings go through certain changes at different ages physically, emotionally and mentally. Different psychologists have interpreted development differently, over a period of time. Developmental theories were contributed by notable psychologists such as, Sigmund Freud (Psycho Sexual) Erik Erikson (Psychosocial), Kohlberg, (moral) and Jean Piaget's cognitive development.

Jean Piaget has proposed 4 stages of development. Sensory motor stage (0-2 years), Pre-operational stage (2-7), Concrete Operational Stage (7-11) and Formal Operational Stage (11-16). Formal Operation stage has got the following three main achievements, abstract thinking, metacognition and problem solving.

Most of the later psychologists such as Keating (1979) reported that 40-60 percentage of the college students fail at formal tasks. The typical college age is 17. Piaget's theory suggests the cognitive development is complete at the age of 16 and it doesn't talk about any continuity or change in later life. Dasen (1994) reported that only one third of the college students reach formal operating stage.

Piaget focused on cognitive growth alone leaving the social and cultural aspects that have tremendous effect on the cognitive development. Vygotski, a contemporary of Jean Piaget argued that social interactions are crucial in developing cognition. Children learn better in a real time social set-up than on their own.

Piaget's conclusions are based on observation and the children might not have understood the questions properly, besides the attention span of the children is very short. He didn't check his findings with another researcher for inter-rater reliability. According to Bruner (1966) Vygotsky (1978) reported that schema is an internal process and it cannot be measured. So their point was that Piaget's results may not be accurate.

In my opinion, Piaget's subjects of experiment were his own children and the children of his friends. All the children were Europeans and from economically rich families. So Piaget's results might not hold water for all the children in the world. Piaget argued that language happened after thought but many other psychologists argue that both happens simultaneously. Although there is no doubt that Jean Piaget's contribution to developmental psychology is really great, for some reasons such as the number of children, their background, ethnic group etc. didn't justify or not able to generalize the findings.

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