The Influence of Piaget’s 4 Stage Theory

The Influence of Piaget’s 4 Stage Theory

Jean Piaget was an influential psychologist who created the Four Stages of Cognitive Development. He believed when humans are in their infancy, childhood, and adolescence they try to understand the world through experiments. During cognitive development children are little scientists that create theories, experiment, and conclusions on how to adapt to the world. By the time children become adults they will be able to put into affect everything they learned and utilize the skills they need to live in this world. Everyone fits perfectly into the Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development, even myself.

The first stage is Sensorimotor. As the name says sensoimotor helps the newborn to understand all its senses. This stage ranges from birth to 2 years old. I don’t recall much of this stage because my brain wasn’t fully developed. During this stage I probably understood that if I cried my mom would rush to my need. Understanding that much I probably cried a lot. I also probably put everything into my mouth to see if everything was edible. I really don't recall much during this stage.

Preoperational thought is the second stage in Piaget’s theory. In this stage a child ranging from 2 to 6 years of age learns how to talk and walk to understand their bodies. I grew up as an only child. I did not have an older sibling to take care of me so I was always at daycare. I had tons of friends in daycare. I made friends left and right because I did not care whom it was as long as they loved to play. When I was at daycare I didn't care much about anything until I went home. I barely got to see my parents maybe once or twice a week. I usually lived with my grandparents or my uncle. I never had much parental supervision so in that sense I had to observe and pick up everything by myself. I never had anyone teach me how to walk, but I tried on my own. Learning to talk wasn’t easy, but through trials and error everything begins to fall in place. I remember stumbling and falling down many times, but I still picked up walking. Talking I had to listen, try, and then succeed. I was a fast learner.

Concrete operational thought is the third stage. In this stage a 7-year-old to adolescence starts to put reason and logic being everything they do. They begin to understand better, but not fully. They only understand what is going on here and now. During this stage was when I begin to realize why my parents were always missing. I hated them for never being there and always going away. I felt as if they left me behind to be taken by my grandparents or my uncle. I felt like they didn’t love me. To me it felt like they loved work more than they loved me. When I see them maybe once or twice a week I always acted like a little brat, I wanted them to care about what I thought and how I felt. I didn’t care about what they were feeling or why they had to work. I always acted like I didn't care about them. Immaturity played a great role during this stage. I never really thought about consequences and or the end result of things. The only things in life that mattered to me was here and now. I picked up drinking, drugs, and smoking during this age. I wanted to fit in with the “cool kids”. If I look back on it they were fucked up just as much as I was. Funny thing is what I picked up during this stage moved onto the next stage.

Formal