Editing Jean Piaget (section)

== Influence ==
[[File:JPiaget-PBovet-1925.jpg|thumb|Photo of the Jean Piaget Foundation with [[Pierre Bovet]] (1878–1965) first row (with large beard) and Jean Piaget (1896–1980) first row (on the right, with glasses) in front of the [[Rousseau Institute]] (Geneva), 1925]]
Despite his ceasing to be a fashionable [[psychologist]], the magnitude of Piaget's continuing influence can be measured by the global scale and activity of the [[Jean Piaget Society]], which holds annual conferences and attracts around 700 participants.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.piaget.org/Symposium/2011/JPS-2011-DRAFT-Program-May14.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150911221631/http://www.piaget.org/Symposium/2011/JPS-2011-DRAFT-Program-May14.pdf |archive-date=2015-09-11 |url-status=live |title=41st Annual Meeting of The Jean Piaget Society |website=Piaget.prg |date=2 June 2011 |access-date=17 October 2016}}</ref> His [[theory of cognitive development]] has proved influential in many different areas:
*[[Developmental psychology]]
*[[Education]] and [[Morality]]
*Historical studies of thought and cognition
*[[Evolution]]
*[[Philosophy]]
*[[Primatology]]
*[[Artificial intelligence (AI)]]

=== Developmental psychology ===
Piaget is considered the most influential figure in developmental psychology, though many of aspects of his theories are no longer accepted by mainstream psychologists. Developmental psychologists today do not view development as taking place in [[Stage theory|stages]]<ref name="Gopnik 1996">{{cite journal |title=The Post-Piaget Era |journal=Psychological Science |year=1996 |last=Gopnik |first=Alison |volume=7 |issue=4 |pages=221–225 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9280.1996.tb00363.x |s2cid=143973228 |url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1996.tb00363.x |access-date=2021-04-01 }}</ref><ref name="Hopkins 2011" /> and many of Piaget's empirical findings have been overturned by subsequent research.<ref name="Gopnik Wellman">{{cite journal |title=Reconstructing constructivism: Causal models, Bayesian learning mechanisms, and the theory theory |journal=Psychological Bulletin |year=2012 |last1=Gopnik |first1=A. |last2=Wellman |first2=H.M. |volume=138 |issue=6 |pages=1085–1108 |doi=10.1037/a0028044 |pmid=22582739 |pmc=3422420 }}</ref> For example, psychologists no longer view young children as being incapable of understanding abstract concepts,<ref name="IzardSann2009" /> and no longer believe that babies do not understand object permanence.<ref name="Dehaene 2020" /> Despite this, developmental psychologists do acknowledge the importance of Piaget's legacy as the founder of their field. They recognize his innovative empirical work, his attempts to integrate his results into a unified theoretical model and the way he created a path for subsequent researchers to follow.<ref name="Klahr" /> Indeed, many developmental psychology researchers today work in a post-Piagetian or [[Neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development|neo-Piagetian]] framework.<ref name="Martí">{{cite encyclopedia |last=Martí |first=E. |encyclopedia=Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education |title=Post-Piagetian Perspectives of Cognitive Development |year=2020 |publisher=Oxford University Press |doi=10.1093/acrefore/9780190264093.013.914 |isbn=978-0-19-026409-3 }}</ref><ref name="Morra">{{cite book | last = Morra | first = Sergio | title = Cognitive development: neo-Piagetian perspectives | publisher = Erlbaum | location = New York | year = 2008 | isbn = 978-0-8058-6350-5 }}</ref>

=== Education ===

By using Piaget's theory, educators focus on their students as learners. As a result of this focus, [[education]] is learner-centered and constructivist-based to an extent. It allows teachers to view students as individual learners who add new concepts to prior knowledge to construct, or build, understanding for themselves.<ref name="ReferenceA">{{cite journal|last1=Henson|first1=Kenneth|title=Foundations for Learner-Centered Education: A Knowledge Base|journal=Education|date=2003|volume=1124|issue=1|pages=5–16}}</ref> Teachers who use a learner-centered approach as a basis for their professional practices incorporate the several dispositions.<ref name="ReferenceA"/> They provide experience-based educational opportunities. These teachers also contemplate the learners' individual qualities and attitudes during curriculum planning. Educators allow learners' insights to alter the curriculum. They nourish and support learners' curiosity. They also involve learners' emotions and create a learning environment in which students feel safe.<ref name="ReferenceA"/>

There are two differences between the preoperational and concrete operational stages that apply to education. These differences are reversibility and decentration. At times, reversibility and decentration occur at the same time.<ref name="Educational Psychology">{{cite book|last1=Seifert|first1=Kelvin|last2=Sutton|first2=Rosemary|title=Educational Psychology|date=2009|publisher=Orange Grove|location=Florida|isbn=978-1-61610-154-1|edition=2nd|url=http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Educational-Psychology.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131025015203/http://www.saylor.org/site/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Educational-Psychology.pdf |archive-date=2013-10-25 |url-status=live|access-date=22 June 2015}}</ref> When students think about the steps to complete a task without using a particular logical, sequential order, they are using reversibility.<ref name="Educational Psychology"/> Decentration allows them to concentrate on multiple components of a problematic task at a time.<ref name="Educational Psychology"/> Students use both reversibility and decentration to function throughout the school day, follow directions, and complete assignments.

An example of a student using reversibility is when learning new vocabulary. The student creates a list of unfamiliar words from a literary text. Then, he researches the definition of those words before asking classmate to test him. His teacher has given a set of particular instructions that he must follow in a particular order: he must write the word before defining it, and complete these two steps repeatedly.<ref name="Educational Psychology"/> A child in the preoperational stage gets confused during this process and needs assistance from the teacher to stay on task. The teacher refers him back to his text in order to notate the next word before he can define it.<ref name="Educational Psychology"/> A child in the preoperational stage does not understand the organization required to complete this assignment. One in the concrete operational stage understands the organization, and can recall the steps in any order while being able to follow the order given.<ref name="Educational Psychology"/> Using decentration, the child has the two activities on his mind: identify words and find them in the dictionary.<ref name="Educational Psychology"/>

A sample of decentration is a preschooler may use a toy banana as a pretend telephone. The child knows the difference between the fruit and a phone. In this form of play, he is operating on two levels at once.<ref name="Educational Psychology"/> In an older child at the concrete operational level, decentration allows him to complete subtraction of two-digit numbers and indicate which of the problems also involved borrowing from the other column.  The student simultaneously does both.<ref name="Educational Psychology"/> Using reversibility, the student has to move mentally between two subtasks.

Regarding the giving of praise by teachers, praise is a reinforcer for students. Adolescents undergo social-emotional development such that they seek rapport with peers. Thus, teacher praise is not as powerful for students who see teachers as authority figures. They give no value to praise provided by adults, or they have no respect for the individual who is giving praise.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=Hawkins|first1=Shannon M.|last2=Heflin|first2=L. Juane|title=Increasing Secondary Teachers' Behavior-Specific Praise Using a Video Self-Modeling and Visual Performance Feedback Intervention|journal=Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions|date=2001|volume=12|issue=2|pages=97–108|doi=10.1177/1098300709358110|s2cid=143631715}}<!--|access-date=July 7, 2015--></ref>

During the 1970s and 1980s, Piaget's works also inspired the transformation of European and American education, including theory and practice, leading to a more 'child-centered' approach. In ''Conversations with Jean Piaget'', Bringuier says: "Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society ... but for me and no one else, education means making creators... You have to make inventors, innovators—not conformists" (Bringuier, 1980, p.&nbsp;132).

His [[Piaget's theory of cognitive development|theory of cognitive development]] can be used as a tool in the [[early childhood education|early childhood]] classroom. According to Piaget, children developed best in a classroom with [[Social interaction|interaction]].

Piaget defined knowledge as the ability to modify, transform, and "operate on" an object or idea, such that it is understood by the operator through the process of transformation.<ref name="Piaget">Piaget, J. (1964). "Development and learning". In R.E. Ripple and V.N. Rockcastle (Eds.), ''Piaget Rediscovered: A Report on the Conference of Cognitive Studies and Curriculum Development'' (pp. 7–20). Ithaca, NY: Cornell University.</ref> Learning, then, occurs as a result of experience, both physical and logical, with the objects themselves and how they are acted upon. Thus, knowledge must be assimilated in an active process by a learner with matured mental capacity, so that knowledge can build in complexity by scaffolded understanding. Understanding is scaffolded by the learner through the process of equilibration, whereby the learner balances new knowledge with previous understanding, thereby compensating for "transformation" of knowledge.<ref name="Piaget"/>

Learning, then, can also be supported by instructors in an educational setting. Piaget specified that knowledge cannot truly be formed until the learner has matured the mental structures to which that learning is specific, and thereby development constrains learning. Nevertheless, knowledge can also be "built" by building on simpler operations and structures that have already been formed. Basing operations of an advanced structure on those of simpler structures thus scaffolds learning to build on operational abilities as they develop. Good teaching, then, is built around the operational abilities of the students such that they can excel in their operational stage and build on preexisting structures and abilities and thereby "build" learning.<ref name="Piaget"/>

Evidence of the effectiveness of a contemporary curricular design building on Piaget's theories of developmental progression and the support of maturing mental structures can be seen in Griffin and Case's "Number Worlds" curriculum.<ref name="Number Worlds">{{cite journal | last1 = Griffin | first1 = S.A. | year = 2004 | title = Building number sense with Number Worlds: a mathematics program for young children | journal = Early Childhood Research Quarterly | volume = 19 |  pages = 173–180 | doi=10.1016/j.ecresq.2004.01.012}}</ref> The curriculum works toward building a "central conceptual structure" of number sense in young children by building on five instructional processes, including aligning curriculum to the developmental sequencing of acquisition of specific skills. By outlining the developmental sequence of number sense, a conceptual structure is built and aligned to individual children as they develop.

The cognitive scientist Karen Fuson has argued that the impact of Piagetian theories in education has not been entirely positive because his work has frequently been misinterpreted. In particular, Piaget's focus on children's interactions with objects in the concrete operational stage has led to an approach to education in which young children are encouraged to learn mathematics by manipulating real objects, but without the necessary direct instruction from teachers that they need to understand what they are doing and to link their activities to symbolic mathematics. This has had a particularly negative impact on low-attaining children who need more support from a more knowledgeable other to make meaning and progress with their learning.<ref name="Fuson2009">{{cite journal|last1=Fuson|first1=Karen C.|title=Avoiding misinterpretations of Piaget and Vygotsky: Mathematical teaching without learning, learning without teaching, or helpful learning-path teaching?|journal=Cognitive Development|volume=24|issue=4|year=2009|pages=343–361|issn=0885-2014|doi=10.1016/j.cogdev.2009.09.009}}</ref>

Psychologist [[Mark Seidenberg]] has criticised the field of [[education studies]] for placing too much emphasis on the works of Piaget, [[Lev Vygotsky]] and other historical psychologists while failing to keep up with the major advances in cognitive science in the decades since they were active.<ref name=Seidenberg2017>{{cite book | last = Seidenberg | first = Mark | title = Language at the speed of sight: how we read, why so many can't, and what can be done about it | publisher = Basic Books | page=260 | location = New York | year = 2017 | isbn = 978-1-5416-1715-5 }}</ref> Meanwhile, a 2016 [[systematic review]] of education research showed that constructivist approaches to early childhood education inspired by Piaget and Vygotsky are less effective than comprehensive approaches that incorporate direct skills teaching.<ref name="Chambers Cheung Slavin 2016 pp. 88–111">{{cite journal | last1=Chambers | first1=Bette | last2=Cheung | first2=Alan C.K. | last3=Slavin | first3=Robert E. | title=Literacy and language outcomes of comprehensive and developmental-constructivist approaches to early childhood education: A systematic review | journal=Educational Research Review | publisher=Elsevier BV | volume=18 | year=2016 | issn=1747-938X | doi=10.1016/j.edurev.2016.03.003 | pages=88–111}}</ref>

=== Morality ===
Piaget believed in two basic principles relating to [[character education]]: that children develop moral ideas in stages and that children create their conceptions of the world. According to Piaget, "the child is someone who constructs his own moral world view, who forms ideas about right and wrong, and fair and unfair, that are not the direct product of adult teaching and that are often maintained in the face of adult wishes to the contrary" (Gallagher, 1978, p.&nbsp;26). Piaget believed that children made moral judgments based on their own observations of the world.

Piaget's theory of [[morality]] was radical when his book ''[[The Moral Judgment of the Child]]'' was published in 1932 for two reasons: his use of philosophical criteria to define morality (as universalizable, generalizable, and obligatory) and his rejection of equating [[social norm|cultural norms]] with moral norms. Piaget, drawing on [[Immanuel Kant|Kantian]] theory, proposed that morality developed out of peer interaction and that it was autonomous from authority mandates. Peers, not parents, were a key source of moral concepts such as equality, reciprocity, and justice.

Piaget attributed different types of psychosocial processes to different forms of social [[Interpersonal relationship|relationships]], introducing a fundamental distinction between different types of said relationships. Where there is constraint because one participant holds more power than the other the relationship is [[asymmetrical]], and, importantly, the [[knowledge]] that can be acquired by the dominated participant takes on a fixed and inflexible form. Piaget refers to this process as one of social transmission, illustrating it through reference to the way in which the elders of a [[tribe]] initiate younger members into the patterns of beliefs and practices of the group. Similarly, where adults exercise a dominating influence over the growing child, it is through social transmission that children can acquire knowledge. By contrast, in [[cooperative]] relations, power is more evenly distributed between participants so that a more symmetrical relationship emerges. Under these conditions, authentic forms of intellectual exchange become possible; each partner has the freedom to project his or her own thoughts, consider the positions of others, and defend his or her own point of view. In such circumstances, where children's thinking is not limited by a dominant influence, Piaget believed "the reconstruction of knowledge", or favorable conditions for the emergence of constructive solutions to problems, exists. Here the knowledge that emerges is open, flexible and regulated by the logic of argument rather than being determined by an external authority.

In short, cooperative relations provide the arena for the emergence of operations, which for Piaget requires the absence of any constraining influence, and is most often illustrated by the relations that form between peers (for more on the importance of this distinction see Duveen & Psaltis, 2008; Psaltis & Duveen, 2006, 2007). This is thus how, according to Piaget, children learn ''moral judgement'' as opposed to ''cultural norms'' (or maybe [[ideology|ideological]] norms).

Piaget's research on morality was highly influential in subsequent work on [[moral development]], particularly in the case of Lawrence Kohlberg's highly influential [[Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development|stage theory of moral development]]<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Levine |first1=Charles |last2=Kohlberg |first2=Lawrence |last3=Hewer |first3=Alexandra |title=The Current Formulation of Kohlberg's Theory and a Response to Critics |journal=Human Development |date=1985 |volume=28 |issue=2 |pages=94–100 |doi=10.1159/000272945}}</ref> which dominated moral psychology research until the end of the twentieth century.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Shweder |first1=Richard A. |last2=Haidt |first2=Jonathan |title=The Future of Moral Psychology: Truth, Intuition, and the Pluralist Way |journal=Psychological Science |date=6 May 2016 |volume=4 |issue=6 |pages=360–365 |doi=10.1111/j.1467-9280.1993.tb00582.x|s2cid=143483576 }}</ref>

=== Historical studies of thought and cognition ===
Historical changes of thought have been modeled in Piagetian terms. Broadly speaking these models have mapped changes in morality, intellectual life and cognitive levels against historical changes (typically in the complexity of social systems).

Notable examples include:
*[[Michael Horace Barnes]]' study of the co-evolution of religious and scientific thinking<ref name="isbn0-19-513389-7">{{cite book |author=Barnes, Michael Horace |title=Stages of thought: the co-evolution of religious thought and science |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=Oxford [Oxfordshire] |year=2000 |isbn=978-0-19-513389-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/stagesofthoughtc00barn }}</ref>
*Peter Damerow's theory of prehistoric and archaic thought<ref name=Damerow1998>{{cite book | author = Damerow, P. | year = 1998 | title = Prehistory And Cognitive Development | journal = Piaget, Evolution, and Development | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=haCAIME9vnEC&q=Prehistory+and+cognitive+development&pg=PA247  | access-date = 24 March 2008 | publisher = Routledge | isbn = 978-0-8058-2210-6}}</ref>
*[[Kieran Egan (educationist)|Kieran Egan]]'s [[The Educated Mind|stages of understanding]]<ref>{{cite book|author=Kieran Egan |title=The educated mind: How Cognitive Tools Shape Our Understanding|location=Chicago | publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] |year=1997 |isbn=978-0-226-19036-5|author-link=Kieran Egan (educationist)}}</ref>
*[[James W. Fowler]]'s [[stages of faith development]]
*Suzi Gablik's stages of art history<ref name="isbn0847800822.">{{cite book |author=Gablik, Suzi |title=Progress in art |publisher=Rizzoli |location=New York |year=1977 |isbn=978-0-8478-0082-7 }}</ref>
*Christopher Hallpike's studies of changes in cognition and moral judgment in pre-historical, archaic and classical periods ... (Hallpike 1979, 2004)
*[[Lawrence Kohlberg]]'s [[Kohlberg's stages of moral development|stages of moral development]]
*Don Lepan's theory of the origins of modern thought and drama<ref name="isbn0-333-45796-X">{{cite book |author=LePan, Don |title=The cognitive revolution in Western culture |publisher=Macmillan |location=New York |year=1989 |isbn=978-0-333-45796-2 |url=https://archive.org/details/cognitiverevolut0000lepa }}</ref>
*Charles Radding's theory of the medieval intellectual development<ref name="isbn0-8078-1664-7">{{cite book |author=Radding, Charles |title=A world made by men: cognition and society, 400–1200 |publisher=University of North Carolina Press |location=Chapel Hill |year=1985 |isbn=978-0-8078-1664-6 }}</ref>
*[[Jürgen Habermas]]'s reworking of [[historical materialism]].

=== Non-human development ===
Neo-Piagetian stages have been applied to the maximum stage attained by various animals. For example, [[spider]]s attain the circular sensory motor stage, coordinating actions and perceptions. [[Pigeon]]s attain the sensory motor stage, forming concepts.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Dore |first1=F.Y |title=Psychology of animal cognition: Piagetian studies. |url=https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1987-33562-001 |journal=Psychological Bulletin |date=1987 |volume=102 |issue=2 |pages=219–233 |doi=10.1037/0033-2909.102.2.219 |access-date=8 October 2020}}</ref>

===Origins===
The origins of human intelligence have also been studied in Piagetian terms. Wynn (1979, 1981) analysed [[Acheulian]] and [[Oldowan]] tools in terms of the insight into spatial relationships required to create each kind. On a more general level, Robinson's [http://www.prometheus.org.uk ''Birth of Reason''] (2005) suggests a large-scale model for the emergence of a Piagetian intelligence.

=== Primatology ===
Piaget's models of cognition have also been applied outside the human sphere, and some primatologists assess the development and abilities of primates in terms of Piaget's model.<ref name="isbn0-8018-6012-1">{{cite book |author1=McKinney, Michael L. |author2=Parker, Sue Taylor |title=Origins of intelligence: the evolution of cognitive development in monkeys, apes, and humans |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |location=Baltimore |year=1999 |isbn=978-0-8018-6012-6}}</ref>

=== Philosophy ===
Philosophers have used Piaget's work. For example, the [[philosopher]] and [[social theorist]] [[Jürgen Habermas]] has incorporated Piaget into his work, most notably in ''[[The Theory of Communicative Action]].'' The philosopher [[Thomas Kuhn]] credited Piaget's work with helping him to understand the transition between modes of thought which characterized his theory of [[paradigm shift]]s.<ref name="Burman, J. T. 2007">{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1177/0959354307079306 | last1 = Burman | first1 = J. T. | year = 2007 | title = Piaget No 'Remedy' for Kuhn, But the Two Should be Read Together: Comment on Tsou's 'Piaget vs. Kuhn on Scientific Progress' | journal = Theory & Psychology | volume = 17 | issue = 5| pages = 721–732 | s2cid = 145497321 }}</ref> Yet, that said, it is also noted that the implications of his later work do indeed remain largely unexamined.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Burman | first1 = J. T. | year = 2008 | title = Experimenting in relation to Piaget: Education is a chaperoned process of adaptation | journal = Perspectives on Science | volume = 16 | issue = 2| pages = 160–195 | doi = 10.1162/posc.2008.16.2.160 | s2cid = 57572564 }}</ref> Shortly before his death (September 1980), Piaget was involved in a debate about the relationships between innate and acquired features of language, at the Centre Royaumont pour une Science de l'Homme, where he discussed his point of view with the linguist [[Noam Chomsky]] as well as [[Hilary Putnam]] and [[Stephen Toulmin]].

=== Artificial intelligence ===
Piaget also had a considerable effect in the field of [[computer science]] and [[artificial intelligence]]. [[Seymour Papert]] used Piaget's work while developing the [[Logo programming language]]. [[Alan Kay]] used Piaget's theories as the basis for the [[Dynabook]] programming system concept, which was first discussed within the confines of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center ([[Xerox PARC]]). These discussions led to the development of the [[Alto (computer)|Alto]] prototype, which explored for the first time all the elements of the [[graphical user interface]] (GUI), and influenced the creation of user interfaces in the 1980s and beyond.<ref name="isbn978-0262041201">{{cite book |author=Drescher, Gary |title=Made-Up Minds: A Constructivist Approach to Artificial Intelligence |publisher=MIT Press |location=Boston |year=1991 |page=236 |isbn=978-0-262-04120-1}}</ref>