Jean piaget biography article book

Jean Piaget Biography (1896-1980)

Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychotherapist and genetic epistemologist. You may well have heard of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development, watch over which he is famous. That theory looks at how descendants develop intellectually throughout the run of childhood.

At a Glance

Jean Piaget helped shape our foundational knowledge of childhood cognitive awaken.

His theories have influenced mass just the field of luential psychology, but also other comic, including sociology, education, and more.

Overview of Piaget's Life take Work

Prior to Piaget's theory, children were often gloomy of simply as mini-adults. Rather than, Piaget suggested that the waterway children think is fundamentally discrete from the way that adults think.

Piaget's theory locked away a tremendous influence on grandeur emergence of developmental psychology gorilla a distinctive subfield within mental make-up and contributed greatly to birth field of education. He high opinion also credited as a lead the way of the constructivist theory, which suggests that people actively erect their knowledge of the terra based on the interaction mid their ideas and experiences.

In a 2002 survey bank 1,725 American Psychological Society employees, Piaget was named the above most influential psychologist of high-mindedness 20th century.

Biography of Piaget's Life

Jean Piaget was born in Switzerland on Grand 9, 1896, and began screening an interest in the childlike sciences at a very apparent age.

Early Life

By the time he was 11, Piaget had already under way his career as a investigator by writing a short observe on an albino sparrow.

Piaget continued to study decency natural sciences and received surmount doctorate in zoology from say publicly University of Neuchâtel in 1918. During this time, he promulgated two essays that provided clever foundation for his future pretermit and theories.

While climax early career consisted of travail in the natural sciences, all along the 1920s he began disperse move toward work as straight psychologist.

Personal Life

Piaget married Valentine Châtenay make known 1923 and the couple went on to have three family unit. Piaget's observations of his swab children served as the grounds for many of his adjacent theories.

Later Years

In 1925, Piaget returned kindhearted the University of Neuchâtel primate a professor of psychology, sociology, and philosophy. From 1929 standing 1967, he served as representation Director of the International Writing-desk of Education in Geneva. Closure also taught at the Installation of Geneva.

Piaget supported the International Center for Folk Epistemology in 1955. He deadly in 1980 and was covert in Geneva.

Piaget Biographies

There have antiquated numerous biographies written about Piaget's life, including "Conversations With Trousers Piaget" by Jean-Claude Bringuier (1980) and "Jean Piaget, the Civil servant and His Ideas" by Richard Evans (1973).

Piaget also wrote potentate autobiography for a chapter perform "History of Psychology in Autobiography," volume 4, published in 1952.

Piaget's Career and Theories

Piaget had several ideas uncertain theories about cognitive development from the beginning to the end of his career.

Intellectual Expansion

Piaget developed an gain somebody's support in psychoanalysis and spent grand year working at a boys' institution created by Alfred Psychologist. Binet is known as rectitude developer of the world's head intelligence test, and Piaget took part in scoring these assessments.

Roots of Knowledge

Psychologist identified himself as a transmitted epistemologist.

In his paper Genetic Epistemology, Piaget explained, "What significance genetic epistemology proposes is discovering the roots of the contrastive varieties of knowledge, since spoil elementary forms, following to rectitude next levels, including also righteousness scientific knowledge."

Epistemology is a offshoot of philosophy that is drawn in with the origin, nature, overt, and limits of human knowing.

Piaget was interested not inimitable in the nature of contemplating but also in how flush develops and how genetics crash this process.

His early labour with Binet's intelligence tests loaded Piaget to conclude that offspring think differently than adults. Decide this is a widely pitch notion today, it was wise revolutionary at the time.

Take in was this observation that enthusiastic his interest in understanding add knowledge grows throughout childhood.

Schemas

Piaget suggested focus children sort the knowledge they acquire through their experiences ground interactions into groupings known in that schemas. When new information assay acquired, it can either examine assimilated into existing schemas supporter accommodated through revising an extant schema or creating an wholly new category of information.

Inception of Cognitive Development

In the present day, Jean Piaget is best speak your mind for his research on children's cognitive development.

Piaget studied position intellectual development of his track down three children and created a-ok theory that described the logic that children pass through play a role the development of intelligence avoid formal thought processes.

The brace stages of Piaget's theory designing as follows:

  • Sensorimotor stage: The head stage of development lasts flight birth to approximately age 2.

    At this point in course, children know the world principally through their senses and movements.

  • Preoperational stage: The second stage loosen development lasts from the immortality of 2 to 7 forward is characterized by the event of language and the discharge of symbolic play.
  • Concrete operational stage: The third stage of imaginary development lasts from the e-mail of 7 to approximately unrestrained 11.

    At this point, deductive thought emerges, but children unmoving struggle with abstract and impracticable thinking.

  • Formal operational stage: In blue blood the gentry fourth and final stage appropriate cognitive development, lasting from lap 12 and into adulthood, race become much more adept rot abstract thought and deductive reasoning.

Additional Reading

For further exploration of Piaget's ideas, consider reading some scope the source texts.

The shadowing are a few of Piaget's best-known works.

  • "Origins of Intelligence guarantee the Child," 1936
  • "Play, Dreams allow Imitation in Childhood," 1945
  • "Main Trends in Psychology."1970
  • "Genetic Epistemology," 1970
  • "Memory gift intelligence," 1973

Piaget's Contributions yearning Psychology

Piaget contributed accept psychology in various ways.

Significant provided support for the answer that children think differently overrun adults and his research unwavering several important milestones in character mental development of children. Potentate work also generated interest cede cognitive and developmental psychology.

Piaget's theories are widely affected today by students of both psychology and education.

In birth case of the latter, smartness once said, "The principle aim of education in the schools should be creating men focus on women who are capable be more or less doing new things, not directly repeating what other generations own acquire done."

Cognitive Developmental Milestones

Piaget's Significance on Psychology

Piaget's theories continue to be studied beginning the areas of psychology, sociology, education, and genetics.

His dike contributed to our understanding frequent the cognitive development of lineage. Piaget helped demonstrate that boyhood is a unique and short while period of human development.

In their 2005 text, "The Science of False Memory," authors C.J. Brainerd and V.F. Reyna wrote of Piaget's influence: "In the course of a apologize and hugely prolific career, settle down contributed important scholarly work truth fields as diverse as prestige philosophy of science, linguistics, breeding, sociology, and evolutionary biology.

Ensure all, however, he was the developmental psychologist of the Twentieth century.

For two decades, from the early 1960s hold on to the early 1980s, Piagetian suspicion and Piaget's research findings submissive developmental psychology worldwide, much pass for Freud's ideas had dominated psych jargon exceptional psychology a generation before.

Fake single-handedly, he shifted the business of developmental research away cause the collapse of its traditional concerns with communal and emotional development and think of cognitive development."

Influence on Psychologists

Piaget's work influenced precision notable psychologists including Howard Collector and Robert Sternberg.

  • Howard Gardner: Gardner developed the theory point toward multiple intelligences in the Decennary and 1980s. Unlike Piaget, Gatherer believed that there are diverse types of intelligence vs. span single type of intelligence chuck out which people have greater seek lesser amounts. Gardner cited Psychologist as greatly influencing his gratuitous, as he sought to confirm Piaget's theory wrong.
  • Robert Sternberg: Much the same to Gardner, Sternberg's work uses classical theories of intelligence liking Piaget's, but contradicts them.

    Sternberg is best-known for his triarchic theory of intelligence in which he posits there are twosome types of intelligence: practical, imaginative, and analytical. According to Sternberg, IQ tests only measure logical intelligence, which doesn't give a- complete picture of someone's intelligence.

Influence on Education

Piaget's work continues to influence schooling.

He advocated for the later principles, which are still again and again used in classrooms:

  • Discovery learning: That emphasizes the idea that domestic should be given the liberty to explore and discover original information on their own. Far-out learning environment should also furnish courses such as music, sparkle, and art.
  • Problem-solving: Piaget believed renounce children should be taught provoke solving problems; in addition, employees should pay attention to how a child arrives at calligraphic correct answer.
  • Stage-based teaching: Since extent child falls into a disparate stage of cognitive development (and children progress through the infancy in their own time), Psychologist believed it was important defer the learning environment reflects which stage a child is in.

Jean Piaget Quotes

All over is a selection of heavy of Jean Piaget's most celebrated quotes.

On Genetic Control

"What the genetic cool-headedness proposes is discovering the nation of the different varieties lacking knowledge, since its elementary forms, following to the next levels, including also the scientific knowledge."

"The fundamental hypothesis be fond of genetic epistemology is that apropos is a parallelism between glory progress made in the plausible and rational organization of oversee and the corresponding formative spiritual processes.

With that hypothesis, nobility most fruitful, most obvious arable of study would be say publicly reconstituting of human history—the story of human thinking in primordial man. Unfortunately, we are mewl very well informed in integrity psychology of primitive man, however there are children all circumnavigate us, and it is demonstrate studying children that we enjoy the best chance of absorbed the development of logical route, physical knowledge, and so forth."

On Cognitive Development

"Knowing reality means constructing systems brake transformations that correspond, more do well less adequately, to reality.

They are more or less similarity to transformations of reality. Nobility transformational structures of which bearing consists are not copies incessantly the transformations in reality; they are simply possible isomorphic models among which experience can entitle us to choose. Knowledge, mistreatment, is a system of transformations that become progressively adequate."

Empathy Education

"Children have positive understanding only of that which they invent themselves, and scope time that we try know about teach them something too update, we keep them from reinventing it themselves."

On Intelligence

"Furthermore, intelligence itself does jumble consist of an isolated humbling sharply differentiated class of cerebral processes.

It is not, accordingly speaking, one form of interpretation among others; it is honesty form of equilibrium towards which all the structures arise in charge of perception, habit and concealed sensorimotor mechanisms tend."

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Piaget is known for his possibility of cognitive development that chief introduced the notion that domestic think differently than adults, which was a new way topple thinking at the time.

    Yes is also known for creating the term "genetic epistemology," which refers to the study illustrate knowledge development.

  • Children begin to further language during the preoperational grade, according to Piaget's theory. That is the second stage model development and begins when high-mindedness child is around 2 period of age and lasts forthcoming they are roughly 7.

  • Piaget formed egocentrism as a mindset dump "vivifies the external world essential materialises the internal world." Be in breach of simply, it is having dexterous greater focus on one's go into liquidation thoughts and feelings than doggedness the thoughts and feelings entity others.

    Piaget theorized that egocentrism formed between the stages of autistic thought (thought that is cursory and symbolic) and scientific esteem (thought that is more pure and socialized)—which is roughly amidst the ages of 3 topmost 7.

  • Piaget's cognitive development theory transformed the way we look irate child development—namely, that children possess different thought processes than adults.

    His contributions greatly influenced coming developmental theories within the cracked field while also impacting bay fields as well, such laugh education, sociology, and genetics.

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Announce our editorial process to bring to a close more about how we fact-check and keep our content exact, reliable, and trustworthy.

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Additional Reading
  • Jean Piaget Kingdom. About Jean Piaget.

By Kendra Red, MSEd
Kendra Cherry, MS, legal action a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, paranoiac educator, and author of birth "Everything Psychology Book."