Psych 19 Ch. 7

The Preoperational Stage

Sociocultural Theory

• -Cannot perform mental operations
• -Egocentrism
• -Animistic Thinking
• -Lack hierarchical classification

• -Many experts refute preoperational stage idea
• -Piaget's stages are too strict
• -Need flexible stage approach
• -Piaget assumes abrupt change
• -Most experts believe change is gradual

• -Helps explain cultural diversity in cognition
• -Emphasizes importance of teaching
• -Focus on language deemphasizes observation, other learning methods
• -Says little about biological contributions to cognition
• -Vague in explanation of change

Spans from 2 to 7 years. The most obvious change is an extraordinary increase in representational or symbolic activity.

Make believe with others that is under way around age 2 and increases rapidly during the next few years.

Viewing a symbolic object as both an object in its own right and a symbol.

Failure to distinguish the symbolic viewpoints of others from one's own

the belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities, such as thoughts, wishes, feelings and intentions.

Focus on one aspect of a situation, neglecting other important features.

Inability to mentally go through a series of steps in a problem and then reverse direction, returning to the starting poing

Organization of objects into classes and subclasses on the basis of similarities and differences.

Self-directed speech that children use to plan and guide their own behavior.

Adjusting the support offered during a teaching session to fit the child's current level of performance

A broader concept than scaffolding. Refers to shared endeavors between more expert and less expert participants, without specifying the precise features of communication.

"Thinking about thought" A coherent set of ideas about mental activities

Order relationships between quantities

The last number in a counting sequence indicates the quantity of items in a set