The American Psychological Association explains cognitive psychology as “the branch of psychology that explores the operation of mental processes related to perceiving, attending, thinking, language, and memory, mainly through inferences from behavior.” Child development psychologist Jean Piaget developed the first cognitive psychology theories in the 1930s from his work with infants and young children. He suggested an alternative theory to behaviorism, which was the prevailing psychological theory at the time. Behaviorists (psychologists who study behavior) and behavioral theory placed sole focus on behaviors that could be observed externally and hypothesized that these behaviors were the result of a subject’s interaction with external events and actions. Whereas Piaget focused on mental processes that occurred internally. Further, Piaget suggested that the way children think is fundamentally different from the way that adults think. Through his research he observed that young children were largely incapable of expressing complex motives, feelings, and thoughts, as their brains had not fully developed the capability of abstract thought. The following three major assumptions about children informed Piaget’s work:
- Children construct their own knowledge in response to their experiences: According to Piaget, knowledge construction is developed overtime through the dynamic process of active engagement with the environment. As explained by Human Development Traditional and Contemporary Theories, “it occurs through the exploration of the objects (and later, the ideas) in the environment, using existing schema (organized action and mental connections).”
- Children learn things on their own without influence from older children or adults: Piaget believed that learning proceeded by the interplay of assimilation (solving new experiences using existing schemata) and accommodation (changing existing schemata to solve new experiences) not only led to short-term learning, but also promoted long-term developmental change.
- Children are intrinsically motivated to learn and do not need rewards to motivate learning: Intrinsic motivation refers to the “stimulation that drives adopting or changing behavior for personal satisfaction or fulfillment. Such motivation drives an individual to perform an activity for internal reasons that are personally satisfying, as opposed to being motivated extrinsically – that is, by the prospect of obtaining some external reward…” Through mastery, for example, a child experiences a feeling of efficacy, which is an intrinsic motive.
Further Information and Support
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