The three concepts and their stages
- Piaget picked out three features of early thinking, each one tied to a particular stage.
- Object permanence belongs to the sensori-motor stage, from birth to about two.
- Animism and egocentrism belong to the pre-operational stage, from about two to seven.
- Each one shows up as a typical mistake: not reaching for a toy hidden under a cloth, saying sorry to a table, or picking your own view of a model instead of the doll's.
- Every child passes through all three, and they drop away in a set order as thinking becomes more logical.
Key Idea
- Each of the three concepts names a piece of thinking a young child has yet to build, and each one shows up as a particular mistake.
- Object permanence arrives in the sensori-motor stage, the point at which a baby lifts the cloth to find the toy underneath.
- Animism and egocentrism fade out of pre-operational thinking, when a child stops treating a teddy as able to hurt and can say what a doll on the far side of a model can see.
Object permanence
Definition
Object permanence
The understanding that an object still exists even when you can no longer see, hear or touch it. Piaget argued this develops towards the end of the sensorimotor stage.
- A very young baby behaves as though an object that disappears has stopped existing.
- Piaget tested this by hiding a toy under a cloth while the baby was watching.
- Before about eight months the baby does not reach for it, because they cannot yet hold a picture of the toy in mind once it is out of sight.
- From about eight months the baby lifts the cloth and finds the toy, so object permanence has arrived.
- Once object permanence is in place, peek-a-boo becomes a game the baby enjoys.
Note
- Piaget judged object permanence by whether the baby reached, so a baby who cannot yet co-ordinate lifting a cloth may look as though they lack the understanding.
- Later studies measuring how long babies look at an impossible event suggest they expect hidden objects to still be there before eight months.
- Eight months is an average, and individual babies pass the cloth test either side of it.
Animism
Definition
Animism
A pre-operational child's tendency to treat lifeless objects as though they are alive, with feelings and intentions of their own, such as a teddy that can be hurt or a sun that gets tired.
- A pre-operational child treats lifeless objects as if they are alive, with feelings and intentions.
- Piaget called this animism.
- It happens because the child explains everything using the only kind of existence they know, which is being alive themselves.
- Animism fades in the concrete-operational stage, once the child can tell living things from objects by more than how they move.
Example
- A four-year-old insists the sun is tired and has gone to sleep behind the clouds.
- The same child says sorry to the table they walked into.
- A plaster goes on the teddy's knee after it falls off the sofa, because the teddy is treated as able to hurt.
Egocentrism and the three mountains task
Definition
Egocentrism
A young child's tendency to see the world only from their own point of view and to assume that other people see, think and feel exactly the same things they do.
- A pre-operational child assumes that everyone else sees, thinks and knows exactly what they do.
- Piaget tested this with the three mountains task.
- The child sat in front of a model of three mountains, each with a different feature on top, such as snow or a cross.
- A doll was placed on the far side, and the child was asked to choose the picture showing what the doll could see.
- Pre-operational children usually chose the picture of their own view instead of the doll's.
- The child has not yet developed the ability to picture where another person is standing.
- A three-year-old hides by covering their own eyes, certain that if they cannot see you then you cannot see them.
- Egocentrism fades around the age of seven, when the child becomes able to hold a viewpoint other than their own in mind.
Common Mistake
- Egocentrism is not selfishness; it is an inability to picture another viewpoint.
Turning this into marks
- When two of the three concepts are asked for, give each one its own error rather than the same error reworded.
- Name the three mountains task when you explain egocentrism, because saying the child only thought about themselves does not secure the knowledge mark.
- The mark most often lost is defining the concept without saying which stage or age it belongs to.
- Add the behaviour to the definition, such as failing to lift the cloth or saying sorry to a table.
Self review
- What is object permanence, and in which stage does it develop?
- How did Piaget test object permanence, and what does a baby under eight months do?
- What is animism, and give one example of it.
- What did children in the three mountains task tend to choose?
- Why is egocentrism not the same as being selfish?
