尚·皮亞傑

尚·威廉·弗里茲·皮亞傑
皮亞傑在於1968年在 密西根大學
原文名	Jean William Fritz Piaget
出生	(1896-08-09)1896年8月9日 瑞士納沙泰爾
逝世	1980年9月16日(1980歲—09—16)（84歲） 瑞士日內瓦
母校	納沙泰爾大學
知名於	建構主義、日內瓦學派、發生認識論、認知發展理論、客體恆常性、自我中心
科學生涯
研究領域	發展心理學、知識論
受影響自	伊曼努爾·康德、 亨利·柏格森、 皮耶·珍尼特、 阿爾弗雷德·比奈、西奧多·西蒙、 莎賓娜·史碧爾埃、 詹姆斯·馬克·鮑德溫
施影響於	施洛莫·沃爾伯、 巴貝爾·英海爾德、 傑羅姆·布魯納, 肯尼斯·凱、 勞倫斯·柯爾伯格 、羅伯特·凱根 、哈沃德·加德納、托馬斯·庫恩, 、西摩爾·派普特、 利維·維谷斯基、 約翰·弗拉韋、 楊立昆、 喬丹·彼得森、安伯托·艾柯

尚·皮亞傑（法語：Jean Piaget，1896年8月9日—1980年9月16日），全名尚·威廉·弗里茲·皮亞傑（法語：Jean William Fritz Piaget），瑞士人，是近代最有名的發展心理學家，同時也是哲學家。他的認知發展理論成為了這個學科的典範。皮亞傑早年接受生物學的訓練，他在大學讀書時就已經開始對心理學有興趣，並曾涉獵心理學早期發展的各個學派如病理心理學、精神分析學、榮格的潛意識心理學和弗洛伊德的學說。皮亞傑從1929年到1975年在日內瓦大學擔任心理學教授。

皮亞傑非常重視兒童教育。在1934年，時任國際教育局局長的皮亞傑宣稱：「只有教育才能尚我們社會免遭暴力或漸進式崩潰的影響。」 他的兒童發展理論的研究在他入職前便已開始。此時的教育依然是採用基於建構主義的教學策略。

1955年，皮亞傑在日內瓦大學任教時創立了國際發生認識論中心。他擔任該中心領導，直到1980年去世。 該中心因自成立後成果豐碩，在學術圈中被稱為「 皮亞傑工廠」（英語：Piaget's factory）。

恩斯特·馮·格拉斯費爾德認為，皮亞傑是「建構主義的先驅」。 但是，直到20世紀60年代後，菲爾德的想法才廣為人知。 從此，人的發展成為心理學的一個重要子學科。 到20世紀末，在心理學領域中，皮亞傑的文獻引用量僅次於斯金納 。

生平

皮亞傑於1896年出生在瑞士法語區的納沙泰爾，是家中的長子，其父亞瑟·皮亞傑是納沙泰爾大學的中世紀文學教授（瑞士人），母親名為麗貝卡·傑克遜（法國人）。他在小時候就對生物學和自然世界產生了極大的興趣。這尚他在15歲之前發表了幾篇有關軟體動物的文章，這幾篇的文章尚皮亞傑在相關領域有了一定的聲譽。 在皮亞傑15歲那年，他的前保姆寫信給其父母一封道歉信，向皮亞傑父母承認他曾撒謊說他在皮亞傑是嬰兒時與一名搶嬰兒車的綁架者作鬥爭的故事——實際上，這件事在當時並不存在，從來就沒有人要搶走皮亞傑。但這個綁架事件的記憶對皮亞傑來說有著某種未知的吸引力，即使在他認為這是假的之後他依然時常回憶起這件事。

由於當時的教父的極力推廣哲學和邏輯領域的研究，他對認識論產生了興趣。 他在納沙泰爾大學接受教育，並在蘇黎世大學進修。在此期間，他發表了兩篇哲學論文，這些論文綜述了當時的思想方向，但後來因他認為不夠成熟被拋棄。 他對精神分析的興趣，可以追溯到在這一心理學領域迅速發展的時期。皮亞傑畢業後從瑞士搬到法國巴黎，並在格蘭奇·奧克斯·貝爾斯（法語：Grange-Aux-Belles）街男校任教。該學校由比奈-西蒙測驗（後由劉易斯·特爾曼改名為斯坦福-比奈智力量表）的開發者阿爾弗雷德·比奈運營。皮亞傑在此協助比奈的智力測驗計分。在他幫助給其中一些測試計分時，皮亞傑注意到幼兒始終對某些問題給出錯誤的答案。而皮亞傑並沒有過多地關注孩子們的回答是錯誤這一表面現象，而是將目光放在了年幼的孩子會不斷犯錯誤，但成年人則沒有這樣的現象。這使他產生了一個理論，即幼兒的認知過程與成年人的認知過程本質上是不同的。最後，他提出了一種有關人的認知發展所有階段的理論，其中個體在每個發展階段都表現出某些共同的認知模式。 1921年，皮亞傑返回瑞士，成為日內瓦盧梭學會的所長。在此之前，該研究所是由愛德華·克拉帕雷德擔任所長。 皮亞傑熟悉克拉帕雷德的許多思想，如心理學概念「摸索」，這與在人類心理模式中所觀察到的「試錯」密切相關。

1923年，他和瓦倫丁·查特尼（法語：Valentine Châtenay）（1899年1月7日-1983年7月3日）結婚 ，並生下了三個孩子。這三個孩子都是從嬰兒期開始就被皮亞傑作為其研究的對象。從1925年到1929年，皮亞傑在納沙泰爾大學擔任心理學，社會學和科學哲學的教授。 1929年，皮亞傑擔任國際教育局局長，並一直擔任該國際組織的負責人，直至1968年。在擔任負責人期間，每年他都會為國際教育局理事會和國際公共教育會議起草「指導演講」，並在發言中明確表達了他的教育理念。

皮亞傑曾在1964年在日內瓦大學和巴黎大學的任教期間，應邀擔任康奈爾大學（3月11日至13日）和加利福尼亞大學柏克萊分校（3月16日至18日）的兩次學術研討會的首席顧問。這兩次會議探討了認知領域中的研究與課程發展之間的關係，並對在近期的對兒童認知發展對課程的啟示的研究成果進行了深入的探討。

1979年，他被授予巴爾贊社會和政治科學獎。在1980年去世後，應皮亞傑生前的要求，他與其家人一同被安葬在位於日內瓦的國王公墓里的一個無名墓中。

職業生涯

位於日內瓦堡壘公園（法語：Parc des Bastions）的皮亞傑的半身像

哈利·貝林（英語：Harry Beilin）認為皮亞傑的理論的研究綱領 由四個方面組成：

1. 人的發展的社會學模型
2. 智力發展的生物學模型
3. 智力發展的邏輯模型的完善
4. 形象思維的研究

因上述四個部分的理論框架彼此之間有較大的差異，以至它們被視為這是代表了「皮亞傑」的不同人格。而傑里米·布爾曼（英語：Jeremy Burman）認為還應在此之前增加一個「第零位皮亞傑」。

進入心理學研究之前

在皮亞傑成為心理學家之前，他曾接受過自然歷史和哲學方面的訓練。他於1918年從納沙泰爾大學獲得博士學位。然後，他先後在蘇黎世（1918–1919）和巴黎（1919–1921）進行了博士後培訓。他在1919年被塞奧多·西蒙聘用，致力於把法國的兒童心理測驗走向標準化。 我們當今所熟知的他的理論家的形象，更多是形成於他移居日內瓦後，在1922年為愛德華·克拉帕雷德工作並成為盧梭學會的研究主任後的研究經歷。

人的發展的社會模型

皮亞傑在20世紀20年代決定向心理學家方向發展，他想研究兒童思維中未被發現的方面。皮亞傑提出了兒童的從自我中心主義轉向社會中心主義的觀點。對於該觀點，他使用了心理學和臨床心理學相結合的方法的使用來構建他的半臨床訪談。這樣的測試，是以向兒童提問若干標準化問題為開始，然後根據他們的回答方式，向他們提出一系列非標準問題。皮亞傑一直在尋找他所謂的「自發信念」，因此他經常會問到許多孩子們意料之外的問題。在皮亞傑的研究中，他注意到兒童都會逐步從直觀的反應發展到在科學以及社會上可接受的反應。皮亞傑理想化的兒童如此成長，是源於社會互動以及兒童的更高級的思維對年幼孩子的思維的挑戰。

這項成果成了埃爾頓·梅奧的著名實驗霍桑實驗的基礎。對於皮來傑而言，它還於1936年獲得了哈佛大學的名譽博士學位。

智力發展的生物學模型

皮亞傑認為，人的這一階段的思維和智力發展的過程可以看作是對物種適應的生物學過程的延伸，該階段同樣也是有兩個進行的過程：同化和調節。當孩子以與現有圖式相一致的方式響應新事件時，就會同化。 在進行適應時，孩子要麼修改現有的圖式，要麼是創造出一種全新的圖式來應對新的對象或事件。

他認為，嬰兒在吮吸自己所能觸及的一切東西時，正是在進行同化。他認為嬰兒會將所有物體都變成能吮吸的物體，兒童正同化該物體以符合他自己的心理結構。皮亞傑隨後做出了這樣的假設：每當人們改變其周圍的環境以滿足個人的需求或理念時，人們在某種程度上就將其同化。皮亞傑還觀察到他的孩子不僅會同化滿足他們需求的物體，還會改變他們的一些心理結構以滿足環境的需求。這是適應的第二部分，稱為調節。首先，嬰兒只進行例如吮吸等的主要的反射動作，但在不久之後，他們就會在抓起物體後放在嘴裡。當他們這樣做時，他們會改變自己的反射動作，以適應外部物體的反射動作。因兩者經常發生衝突，這給它們的智力發展提供了動力，這需要不斷地在兩者之間取得平衡，智力才會得以增長。

為了檢驗他的理論，皮亞傑觀察了自己孩子的習慣。

智力發展的邏輯模型的完善

在皮亞傑的模型的第三部分中，他認為智力是在與年齡相關的一系列階段中發展的，並且是漸進的——必須先完成一個階段，然後才能進行下一個階段。在每個發育階段，孩子都會形成一個在該年齡段的對現實世界的看法。在進入下一階段時，兒童必須基於先前的智力才能重建觀念。皮亞傑認為智力發展是向上擴展的螺旋式運動，在這種螺旋式的發展中，兒童必須不斷地重構在先前發展水平時形成的思想，才能在下一水平上獲得新的，更高級的觀念。

在20世紀60年代皮亞傑的思想被「重新發現」時，美國心理學家爭論的論點的主要是圍繞智力發展的邏輯模型展開（「第三皮亞傑」）。

形象思維的研究

皮亞傑研究的諸如感知和記憶等的智力領域的主題，並非是完全是用邏輯學的方法。邏輯的觀念被認為是完全可逆的，它們總是可以回到起點，這意味著，如果從一個給定的前提開始並遵循邏輯步驟得出結論，則從相反的順序開始執行相同的步驟可以從結論回到前提。皮亞傑所研究的感性觀念無法被操縱和影響的。為了描述此形象化思維發展的過程，皮亞傑使用了圖片作為例子——因無法把輪廓與主體分開，所以圖片也會無法被分離。而記憶也是一樣的：它不是完全可逆的；人們不能想起兩點之間的所有介入事件。在他最後的工作期間，皮亞傑和他的同事殷海德（法語：Inhelder）還出版了有關知覺、記憶和其他形像思維發展過程（如學習）的書。

由於皮亞傑的理論是基於生物學中的成熟和各個發展階段的各種概念，因而「心理準備「是非常重要的。準備工作涉及何時應傳授某些信息或概念等。根據皮亞傑的理論，在兒童的認知發展到適當階段之前，不應該教給他們某些概念。 例如，處於前運算階段的幼兒處於「不可逆」的思維狀態，無法理解已經以某種方式轉換的對象可能返回其原始狀態。

理論

皮亞傑稱自己為「發生的」認識論學家，他對知識質性的發展過程很感興趣。他認為認知結構的發展是生物學規則的差異。當他的這個基於結構主義和認知方法的理論體系首次為人所知時，對當時的心理學界來說，這是一個令人振奮的巨大進步。

皮亞傑的一些有關發展心理學主題的著作中含有他的總共四個部分的研究的內容。特別是在其中一項研究中，有他研究了自己的三個孩子，並仔細觀察和解釋了他們的認知發展的敘述。 在他的最後一本書《認知結構的平衡：智力發展的中心問題》中，他用他理論中的兩個主要概念（同化和調節）將知識發展解釋為一種平衡的過程，這不僅是生物學上的相互作用，同時也是認知的作用。

皮亞傑希望，如果有人想能關注認識發生的相關方面，當時的認識論的問題的可以得到解答或者會有新問題的提出，因此他對兒童和青少年進行了實驗。正如他在《發生認識論》一書的引言中所說：「發生認識論提出的是發現各種知識的根源，因為包括科學知識在內，其基本形式已經發展到了更高的層次。」

發展階段

主條目：認知發展論

在皮亞傑理論中，他將兒童的發展分成4個發展階：

感知運動階段

從出生到兩歲。兒童通過運動和感覺來體驗世界。在感覺運動階段，兒童以自我為中心，這意味著他們無法從他人的角度看待世界。感覺運動階段分為六個子階段：

1. 簡單反射
2. 第一習慣和最初循環反應
3. 二級循環反應
4. 二級循環反應的協調
5. 三級循環反應
6. 圖式的內化

一些追隨皮亞傑嬰兒研究者，如肯尼斯·凱（Kenneth Kaye） 認為，皮亞傑的貢獻體現在他一名觀察者，因為在此之前未曾有人描述過如此之多的現象，但亞傑並沒有立刻解釋導致這些發展的過程，而是將它們比喻為關於生物適應性的空泛概念。凱伊（Kaye）關於認知和社會發展的「學徒理論」駁斥了皮亞傑的假設，認為嬰兒的內心發展是內在的，符號推理能力的形成才會使他們學習語言。

前運算階段

這是皮亞傑理論的第二階段，它開始於孩子從2歲開始學習說話的時候，持續到7歲。皮亞傑指出，在認知發展的前運算階段，兒童尚未了解具體的邏輯，也無法在心理的層面上對信息進行操縱。在這個階段，兒童進行假裝遊戲及其他形式的玩耍的行為在增加。但是，此時的兒童能從不同的角度看事物依然很難。兒童遊戲主要可分為符號遊戲和操縱符號遊戲。這種假裝遊戲就是像如棋子是零食，紙片是盤子，盒子是桌子等的方式呈現。兒童如此看待符號的方式解釋了在他們的遊戲中沒有涉及到的實際物體的現象。通過觀察遊玩的順序，皮亞傑得以證明，到兒童2歲末期，出現了一種新的心理機能，稱為前運算階段。

前運算階段在心理運算方面是不成熟且在邏輯上尚未發展完善。兒童此時能夠形成穩定的觀念以及相信有神的存在。但是，兒童仍然不能進行心理運算，這裡所說的心理運算指的是可以在智力上而不是在身體上執行的任務。在這個階段，思考仍然是自我中心的，這意味著孩子很難理解到他人的觀點。前運算階段分為兩個子階段：符號功能子階段和直觀思維子階段。符號功能子階段是指當兒童能夠在他們的腦海中理解、表示、記住並描繪對象時，無需在他們面前擺放對象；直觀的思維子階段是指兒童傾向於提出「為什麼」和「怎麼來？」的問題。處於前運算階段的兒童渴望了解一切知識。

前運算階段分為兩個子階段，分別是符號功能子階段和直覺思維子階段。對於符號功能子階段，此時兒童處在2至4歲的，他們會意識自己可以使用符號來表示周圍世界的物理對象。這個結論是通過兒童繪製他們自己的家庭畫來驗證的，這時期的畫作中的人物並沒有按比例繪製或沒有給出準確的身體特徵。兒童知道他們不準確，但這對他們來說並不是問題。而對於直覺思維子階段，兒童在大約4到7歲時，他們會開始變得非常好奇，並會提出許多問題，開始進行原初的推理。此時的兒童對推理和想知道事物是為何如此的興趣大大提升。皮亞傑稱其為「直覺的次級階段」，因為兒童意識到他們擁有大量的知識，但他們不知道如何獲得知識。

總之，單維注意、守恆、不可逆、包容性和及逆轉推理都是前運算階段的思維特徵 。

具體運算階段

具體的運算階段：從7歲到11歲。此時的兒童可以在冷靜與邏輯地思考（理解事物具有可逆性），但僅限於他們可在物理層面上操縱的東西。他們此時不再以自我為中心。在此階段，兒童將對邏輯和守恆有更深的了解，這些都是他們以前不熟悉的。兒童的分類技巧也大大地提高。

形式運算階段

形式運算階段：從11歲到16歲及以後，兒童發展出抽象的思維，他們已經可以冷靜與邏輯地思考。在這一發展階段，出現了抽象思維。此時，兒童能夠運用元認知並進行抽象思考。處在形式運算階段的兒童通常會在那些解決問題需要執行許多步驟的場合下表現出更強的解決問題的能力。

Developmental process

Piaget provided no concise description of the development process as a whole. Broadly speaking it consisted of a cycle:

• The child performs an action which has an effect on or organizes objects, and the child is able to note the characteristics of the action and its effects.
• Through repeated actions, perhaps with variations or in different contexts or on different kinds of objects, the child is able to differentiate and integrate its elements and effects. This is the process of "reflecting abstraction" (described in detail in Piaget 2001).
• At the same time, the child is able to identify the properties of objects by the way different kinds of actions affect them. This is the process of "empirical abstraction".
• By repeating this process across a wide range of objects and actions, the child establishes a new level of knowledge and insight. This is the process of forming a new "cognitive stage". This dual process allows the child to construct new ways of dealing with objects and new knowledge about objects themselves.
• However, once the child has constructed these new kinds of knowledge, he or she starts to use them to create still more complex objects and to carry out still more complex actions. As a result, the child starts to recognize still more complex patterns and to construct still more complex objects. Thus a new stage begins, which will only be completed when all the child's activity and experience have been re-organized on this still higher level.

This process may not be wholly gradual, but new evidence shows that the passage into new stages is more gradual than once thought. Once a new level of organization, knowledge and insight proves to be effective, it will quickly be generalized to other areas if they exist. As a result, transitions between stages can seem to be rapid and radical, but oftentimes the child has grasped one aspect of the new stage of cognitive functioning but not addressed others. The bulk of the time spent in a new stage consists of refining this new cognitive level; however it does not always happen quickly. For example, a child may see that two different colors of Play-Doh have been fused together to make one ball, based on the color. However, if sugar is mixed into water or iced tea, then the sugar "disappeared" and therefore does not exist to the child at that stage. These levels of one concept of cognitive development are not realized all at once, giving us a gradual realization of the world around us.

It is because this process takes this dialectical form, in which each new stage is created through the further differentiation, integration, and synthesis of new structures out of the old, that the sequence of cognitive stages are logically necessary rather than simply empirically correct. Each new stage emerges only because the child can take for granted the achievements of its predecessors, and yet there are still more sophisticated forms of knowledge and action that are capable of being developed.

Because it covers both how we gain knowledge about objects and our reflections on our own actions, Piaget's model of development explains a number of features of human knowledge that had never previously been accounted for. For example, by showing how children progressively enrich their understanding of things by acting on and reflecting on the effects of their own previous knowledge, they are able to organize their knowledge in increasingly complex structures. Thus, once a young child can consistently and accurately recognize different kinds of animals, he or she then acquires the ability to organize the different kinds into higher groupings such as "birds", "fish", and so on. This is significant because they are now able to know things about a new animal simply on the basis of the fact that it is a bird – for example, that it will lay eggs.

At the same time, by reflecting on their own actions, children develop an increasingly sophisticated awareness of the "rules" that govern them in various ways. For example, it is by this route that Piaget explains this child's growing awareness of notions such as "right", "valid", "necessary", "proper", and so on. In other words, it is through the process of objectification, reflection and abstraction that the child constructs the principles on which action is not only effective or correct but also justified.

One of Piaget's most famous studies focused purely on the discriminative abilities of children between the ages of two and a half years old, and four and a half years old. He began the study by taking children of different ages and placing two lines of sweets, one with the sweets in a line spread further apart, and one with the same number of sweets in a line placed more closely together. He found that, "Children between 2 years, 6 months old and 3 years, 2 months old correctly discriminate the relative number of objects in two rows; between 3 years, 2 months and 4 years, 6 months they indicate a longer row with fewer objects to have "more"; after 4 years, 6 months they again discriminate correctly" (Cognitive Capacity of Very Young Children, p. 141). Initially younger children were not studied, because if at four years old a child could not conserve quantity, then a younger child presumably could not either. The results show however that children that are younger than three years and two months have quantity conservation, but as they get older they lose this quality, and do not recover it until four and a half years old. This attribute may be lost due to a temporary inability to solve because of an overdependence on perceptual strategies, which correlates more candy with a longer line of candy, or due to the inability for a four-year-old to reverse situations.

By the end of this experiment several results were found. First, younger children have a discriminative ability that shows the logical capacity for cognitive operations exists earlier than acknowledged. This study also reveals that young children can be equipped with certain qualities for cognitive operations, depending on how logical the structure of the task is. Research also shows that children develop explicit understanding at age 5 and as a result, the child will count the sweets to decide which has more. Finally the study found that overall quantity conservation is not a basic characteristic of humans' native inheritance.

Genetic epistemology

According to Jean Piaget, genetic epistemology attempts to "explain knowledge, and in particular scientific knowledge, on the basis of its history, its sociogenesis, and especially the psychological origins of the notions and operations upon which it is based". Piaget believed he could test epistemological questions by studying the development of thought and action in children. As a result, Piaget created a field known as genetic epistemology with its own methods and problems. He defined this field as the study of child development as a means of answering epistemological questions.

Schema

A Schema is a structured cluster of concepts, it can be used to represent objects, scenarios or sequences of events or relations. The original idea was proposed by philosopher Immanuel Kant as innate structures used to help us perceive the world.

A schema (pl. schemata) is the mental framework that is created as children interact with their physical and social environments. For example, many 3-year-olds insist that the sun is alive because it comes up in the morning and goes down at night. According to Piaget, these children are operating based on a simple cognitive schema that things that move are alive. At any age, children rely on their current cognitive structures to understand the world around them. Moreover, younger and older children may often interpret and respond to the same objects and events in very different ways because cognitive structures take different forms at different ages.

Piaget (1953) described three kinds of intellectual structures: behavioural (or sensorimotor) schemata, symbolic schemata, and operational schemata.

• Behavioural schemata: organized patterns of behaviour that are used to represent and respond to objects and experiences.
• Symbolic schemata: internal mental symbols (such as images or verbal codes) that one uses to represent aspects of experience.
• Operational schemata: internal mental activity that one performs on objects of thought.

According to Piaget, children use the process of assimilation and accommodation to create a schema or mental framework for how they perceive and/or interpret what they are experiencing. As a result, the early concepts of young children tend to be more global or general in nature.

Similarly, Gallagher and Reid (1981) maintained that adults view children's concepts as highly generalized and even inaccurate. With added experience, interactions, and maturity, these concepts become refined and more detailed. Overall, making sense of the world from a child's perspective is a very complex and time-consuming process.

Schemata are:

• Critically important building block of conceptual development
• Constantly in the process of being modified or changed
• Modified by on-going experiences
• A generalized idea, usually based on experience or prior knowledge.

These schemata are constantly being revised and elaborated upon each time the child encounters new experiences. In doing this children create their own unique understanding of the world, interpret their own experiences and knowledge, and subsequently use this knowledge to solve more complex problems. In a neurological sense, the brain/mind is constantly working to build and rebuild itself as it takes in, adapts/modifies new information, and enhances understanding.

Physical microstructure of schemata

In his Biology and Knowledge (1967+ / French 1965), Piaget tentatively hinted at possible physical embodiments for his abstract schema entities. At the time, there was much talk and research about RNA as such an agent of learning, and Piaget considered some of the evidence. However, he did not offer any firm conclusions, and confessed that this was beyond his area of expertise.

One difficulty at that time was that it was generally assumed that nearly all RNA served as mere templates for protein production, and such ideas offered no coherent explanation for Piaget's schema account. However (from 2001 onward), Mattick [1] and others pointed out that, in humans, only about 3% of RNA serves that purpose! – leaving ample stocks of ncRNA available for other tasks (perhaps acting in their own right, rather than as templates). On that new basis, it has now been possible to reverse engineer a seemingly plausible mechanistic framework, based on Piaget's work, accounting for some of the activities of the hippocampus and cerebral cortex etc. Meanwhile, it remains to be seen whether this will be consistent with new direct experimental evidence (if indeed such experiments are possible).

Research methods

Piaget wanted to revolutionize the way research was conducted. Although he started researching with his colleagues using a traditional method of data collection, he was not fully satisfied with the results and wanted to keep trying to find new ways of researching using a combination of data, which included naturalistic observation, psychometrics, and the psychiatric clinical examination, in order to have a less guided form of research that would produce more empirically valid results. As Piaget developed new research methods, he wrote a book called The Language and Thought of the Child, which aimed to synthesize the methods he was using in order to study the conclusion children drew from situations and how they arrived to such conclusion. The main idea was to observe how children responded and articulated certain situations with their own reasoning, in order to examine their thought processes (Mayer, 2005).

Piaget administered a test in 15 boys with ages ranging from 10 to 14 years in which he asked participants to describe the relationship between a mixed bouquet of flowers and a bouquet with flowers of the same color. The purpose of this study was to analyze the thinking process the boys had and to draw conclusions about the logic processes they had used, which was a psychometric technique of research. Piaget also used the psychoanalytic method initially developed by Sigmund Freud. The purpose of using such method was to examine the unconscious mind, as well as to continue parallel studies using different research methods. Psychoanalysis was later rejected by Piaget, as he thought it was insufficiently empirical (Mayer, 2005).

Piaget argued that children and adults used speech for different purposes. In order to confirm his argument, he experimented analyzing a child's interpretation of a story. In the experiment, the child listened to a story and then told a friend that same story in his/her/their own words. The purpose of this study was to examine how children verbalize and understand each other without adult intervention. Piaget wanted to examine the limits of naturalistic observation, in order to understand a child's reasoning. He realized the difficulty of studying children's thoughts, as it is hard to know if a child is pretending to believe their thoughts or not. Piaget was the pioneer researcher to examine children's conversations in a social context – starting from examining their speech and actions – where children were comfortable and spontaneous (Kose, 1987).

Issues and possible solutions

After conducting many studies, Piaget was able to find significant differences in the way adults and children reason; however, he was still unable to find the path of logic reasoning and the unspoken thoughts children had, which could allow him to study a child's intellectual development over time (Mayer, 2005). In his third book, The Child's Conception of the World, Piaget recognized the difficulties of his prior techniques and the importance of psychiatric clinical examination. The researcher believed that the way clinical examinations were conducted influenced how a child's inner realities surfaced. Children would likely respond according to the way the research is conducted, the questions asked, or the familiarity they have with the environment. The clinical examination conducted for his third book provides a thorough investigation into a child's thinking process. An example of a question used to research such process was: "Can you see a thought?" (Mayer, 2005, p. 372).

Development of new methods

Piaget recognized that psychometric tests had its limitations, as children were not able to provide the researcher with their deepest thoughts and inner intellect. It was also difficult to know if the results of child examination reflected what children believed or if it is just a pretend situation. For example, it is very difficult to know with certainty if a child who has a conversation with a toy believes the toy is alive or if the child is just pretending. Soon after drawing conclusions about psychometric studies, Piaget started developing the clinical method of examination. The clinical method included questioning a child and carefully examining their responses – in order to observe how the child reasoned according to the questions asked – and then examining the child's perception of the world through their responses. Piaget recognized the difficulties of interviewing a child and the importance of recognizing the difference between "liberated" versus "spontaneous" responses (Mayer, 2005, p. 372).

Criticism of Piaget's research methods

"The developmental theory of Jean Piaget has been criticized on the grounds that it is conceptually limited, empirically false, or philosophically and epistemologically untenable." Piaget responded to criticism by contending that the vast majority of critics did not understand the outcomes he wished to obtain from his research.

As Piaget believed development was a universal process, his initial sample sizes were inadequate, particularly in the formulation of his theory of infant development. Piaget's theories of infant development were based on his observations of his own three children. While this clearly presents problems with the sample size, Piaget also probably introduced confounding variables and social desirability into his observations and his conclusions based on his observations. It is entirely possible Piaget conditioned his children to respond in a desirable manner, so, rather than having an understanding of object permanence, his children might have learned to behave in a manner that indicated they understood object permanence. The sample was also very homogenous, as all three children had a similar genetic heritage and environment. Piaget did, however, have larger sample sizes during his later years.

Development of research methods

Piaget wanted to research in environments that would allow children to connect with some existing aspects of the world. The idea was to change the approach described in his book The Child's Conception of the World and move away from the vague questioning interviews. This new approach was described in his book The Child's Conception of Physical Causality, where children were presented with dilemmas and had to think of possible solutions on their own. Later, after carefully analyzing previous methods, Piaget developed a combination of naturalistic observation with clinical interviewing in his book Judgment and Reasoning in the Child, where a child's intellect was tested with questions and close monitoring. Piaget was convinced he had found a way to analyze and access a child's thoughts about the world in a very effective way (Mayer, 2005). Piaget's research provided a combination of theoretical and practical research methods and it has offered a crucial contribution to the field of developmental psychology (Beilin, 1992). "Piaget is often criticized because his method of investigation, though somewhat modified in recent years, is still largely clinical". He observes a child's surroundings and behavior. He then comes up with a hypothesis testing it and focusing on both the surroundings and behavior after changing a little of the surrounding.

Influence

Photo of the Jean Piaget Foundation with Pierre Bovet (1878–1965) first row (with large beard) and Jean Piaget (1896–1980) first row (on the right, with glasses) in front of the Rousseau Institute (Geneva), 1925

Despite his ceasing to be a fashionable psychologist, the magnitude of Piaget's continuing influence can be measured by the global scale and activity of the Jean Piaget Society, which holds annual conferences and attracts around 700 participants. His theory of cognitive development has proved influential in many different areas:

• Developmental psychology
• Education and Morality
• Historical studies of thought and cognition
• Evolution
• Philosophy
• Primatology
• Artificial intelligence (AI)

Developmental psychology

Piaget is the most influential developmental psychologist to date, influencing not only the work of Lev Vygotsky and of Lawrence Kohlberg but whole generations of eminent academics. Although subjecting his ideas to massive scrutiny led to innumerable improvements and qualifications of his original model and the emergence of a plethora of neo-Piagetian and post-Piagetian variants, Piaget's original model has proved to be remarkably robust.

Piaget on education

By using Piaget's theory, educators focus on their students as learners. As a result of this focus, education is learner-centered and constructivist-based to an extent. Piaget's theory allows teachers to view students as individual learners who add new concepts to prior knowledge to construct, or build, understanding for themselves. Teachers who use a learner-centered approach as a basis for their professional practices incorporate the several dispositions. They provide experience-based educational opportunities. These teachers also contemplate the learners' individual qualities and attitudes during curriculum planning. Educators allow learners' insights to alter the curriculum. They nourish and support learners' curiosity. They also involve learners' emotions and create a learning environment in which students feel safe.

There are two differences between the preoperational and concrete operational stages that apply to education. These differences are reversibility and decentration. At times, reversibility and decentration occur at the same time. When students think about the steps to complete a task without using a particular logical, sequential order, they are using reversibility. Decentration allows them to concentrate on multiple components of a problematic task at a time. Students use both reversibility and decentration to function throughout the school day, follow directions, and complete assignments.

An example of a student using reversibility is when learning new vocabulary. The student creates a list of unfamiliar words from a literary text. Then, he researches the definition of those words before asking classmate to test him. His teacher has given a set of particular instructions that he must follow in a particular order: he must write the word before defining it, and complete these two steps repeatedly. A child in the preoperational stage gets confused during this process and needs assistance from the teacher to stay on task. The teacher refers him back to his text in order to notate the next word before he can define it. A child in the preoperational stage does not understand the organization required to complete this assignment. However, a child in the concrete operational stage understands the organization, and he can recall the steps in any order while being able to follow the order given. Using decentration, the child has the two activities on his mind: identify words and find them in the dictionary.

A sample of decentration is a preschooler may use a toy banana as a pretend telephone. The child knows the difference between the fruit and a phone. However, in this form of play, he is operating on two levels at once. In an older child at the concrete operational level, decentration allows him to complete subtraction of two-digit numbers and indicate which of the problems also involved borrowing from the other column. The student simultaneously does both. Using reversibility, the student has to move mentally between two subtasks.

Regarding the giving of praise by teachers, praise is a reinforcer for students. Adolescents undergo social-emotional development such that they seek rapport with peers. Thus, teacher praise is not as powerful for students who see teachers as authority figures. They give no value to praise provided by adults, or they have no respect for the individual who is giving praise.

Education

During the 1970s and 1980s, Piaget's works also inspired the transformation of European and American education, including both theory and practice, leading to a more 'child-centered' approach. In Conversations with Jean Piaget, Bringuier says: "Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society ... but for me and no one else, education means making creators... You have to make inventors, innovators—not conformists" (Bringuier, 1980, p. 132).

His theory of cognitive development can be used as a tool in the early childhood classroom. According to Piaget, children developed best in a classroom with interaction.

Piaget defined knowledge as the ability to modify, transform, and "operate on" an object or idea, such that it is understood by the operator through the process of transformation. Learning, then, occurs as a result of experience, both physical and logical, with the objects themselves and how they are acted upon. Thus, knowledge must be assimilated in an active process by a learner with matured mental capacity, so that knowledge can build in complexity by scaffolded understanding. Understanding is scaffolded by the learner through the process of equilibration, whereby the learner balances new knowledge with previous understanding, thereby compensating for "transformation" of knowledge.

Learning, then, can also be supported by instructors in an educational setting. Piaget specified that knowledge cannot truly be formed until the learner has matured the mental structures to which that learning is specific, and thereby development constrains learning. Nevertheless, knowledge can also be "built" by building on simpler operations and structures that have already been formed. Basing operations of an advanced structure on those of simpler structures thus scaffolds learning to build on operational abilities as they develop. Good teaching, then, is built around the operational abilities of the students such that they can excel in their operational stage and build on preexisting structures and abilities and thereby "build" learning.

Evidence of the effectiveness of a contemporary curricular design building on Piaget's theories of developmental progression and the support of maturing mental structures can be seen in Griffin and Case's "Number Worlds" curriculum. The curriculum works toward building a "central conceptual structure" of number sense in young children by building on five instructional processes, including aligning curriculum to the developmental sequencing of acquisition of specific skills. By outlining the developmental sequence of number sense, a conceptual structure is built and aligned to individual children as they develop.

Morality

Piaget believed in two basic principles relating to character education: that children develop moral ideas in stages and that children create their conceptions of the world. According to Piaget, "the child is someone who constructs his own moral world view, who forms ideas about right and wrong, and fair and unfair, that are not the direct product of adult teaching and that are often maintained in the face of adult wishes to the contrary" (Gallagher, 1978, p. 26). Piaget believed that children made moral judgments based on their own observations of the world.

Piaget's theory of morality was radical when his book The Moral Judgment of the Child was published in 1932 for two reasons: his use of philosophical criteria to define morality (as universalizable, generalizable, and obligatory) and his rejection of equating cultural norms with moral norms. Piaget, drawing on Kantian theory, proposed that morality developed out of peer interaction and that it was autonomous from authority mandates. Peers, not parents, were a key source of moral concepts such as equality, reciprocity, and justice.

Piaget attributed different types of psychosocial processes to different forms of social relationships, introducing a fundamental distinction between different types of said relationships. Where there is constraint because one participant holds more power than the other the relationship is asymmetrical, and, importantly, the knowledge that can be acquired by the dominated participant takes on a fixed and inflexible form. Piaget refers to this process as one of social transmission, illustrating it through reference to the way in which the elders of a tribe initiate younger members into the patterns of beliefs and practices of the group. Similarly, where adults exercise a dominating influence over the growing child, it is through social transmission that children can acquire knowledge. By contrast, in cooperative relations, power is more evenly distributed between participants so that a more symmetrical relationship emerges. Under these conditions, authentic forms of intellectual exchange become possible; each partner has the freedom to project his or her own thoughts, consider the positions of others, and defend his or her own point of view. In such circumstances, where children's thinking is not limited by a dominant influence, Piaget believed "the reconstruction of knowledge", or favorable conditions for the emergence of constructive solutions to problems, exists. Here the knowledge that emerges is open, flexible and regulated by the logic of argument rather than being determined by an external authority.

In short, cooperative relations provide the arena for the emergence of operations, which for Piaget requires the absence of any constraining influence, and is most often illustrated by the relations that form between peers (for more on the importance of this distinction see Duveen & Psaltis, 2008; Psaltis & Duveen, 2006, 2007). This is thus how, according to Piaget, children learn moral judgement as opposed to cultural norms (or maybe ideological norms).

Piaget's research on morality was highly influential in subsequent work on moral development, particularly in the case of Lawrence Kohlberg's highly influential stage theory of moral development which dominated moral psychology research until the end of the twentieth century.

Historical studies of thought and cognition

Historical changes of thought have been modeled in Piagetian terms. Broadly speaking these models have mapped changes in morality, intellectual life and cognitive levels against historical changes (typically in the complexity of social systems).

Notable examples include:

• Michael Horace Barnes' study of the co-evolution of religious and scientific thinking
• Peter Damerow's theory of prehistoric and archaic thought
• Kieran Egan's stages of understanding
• James W. Fowler's stages of faith development
• Suzi Gablik's stages of art history
• Christopher Hallpike's studies of changes in cognition and moral judgment in pre-historical, archaic and classical periods ... (Hallpike 1979, 2004)
• Lawrence Kohlberg's stages of moral development
• Don Lepan's theory of the origins of modern thought and drama
• Charles Radding's theory of the medieval intellectual development
• Jürgen Habermas's reworking of historical materialism.

Non-human development

Neo-Piagetian stages have been applied to the maximum stage attained by various animals. For example, spiders attain the circular sensory motor stage, coordinating actions and perceptions. Pigeons attain the sensory motor stage, forming concepts.

Origins

The origins of human intelligence have also been studied in Piagetian terms. Wynn (1979, 1981) analysed Acheulian and Oldowan tools in terms of the insight into spatial relationships required to create each kind. On a more general level, Robinson's Birth of Reason (2005) suggests a large-scale model for the emergence of a Piagetian intelligence.

Primatology

Piaget's models of cognition have also been applied outside the human sphere, and some primatologists assess the development and abilities of primates in terms of Piaget's model.

Philosophy

Philosophers have used Piaget's work. For example, the philosopher and social theorist Jürgen Habermas has incorporated Piaget into his work, most notably in The Theory of Communicative Action. The philosopher Thomas Kuhn credited Piaget's work with helping him to understand the transition between modes of thought which characterized his theory of paradigm shifts. Yet, that said, it is also noted that the implications of his later work do indeed remain largely unexamined. Shortly before his death (September 1980), Piaget was involved in a debate about the relationships between innate and acquired features of language, at the Centre Royaumont pour une Science de l'Homme, where he discussed his point of view with the linguist Noam Chomsky as well as Hilary Putnam and Stephen Toulmin.

Artificial intelligence

Piaget also had a considerable effect in the field of computer science and artificial intelligence. Seymour Papert used Piaget's work while developing the Logo programming language. Alan Kay used Piaget's theories as the basis for the Dynabook programming system concept, which was first discussed within the confines of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (Xerox PARC). These discussions led to the development of the Alto prototype, which explored for the first time all the elements of the graphical user interface (GUI), and influenced the creation of user interfaces in the 1980s and beyond.

Challenges

Piaget's theory, however vital in understanding child psychology, did not go without scrutiny. A main figure whose ideas contradicted Piaget's ideas was the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky. Vygotsky stressed the importance of a child's cultural background as an effect to the stages of development. Because different cultures stress different social interactions, this challenged Piaget's theory that the hierarchy of learning development had to develop in succession. Vygotsky introduced the term Zone of proximal development as an overall task a child would have to develop that would be too difficult to develop alone.

Also, the so-called neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development maintained that Piaget's theory does not do justice either to the underlying mechanisms of information processing that explain transition from stage to stage or individual differences in cognitive development. According to these theories, changes in information processing mechanisms, such as speed of processing and working memory, are responsible for ascension from stage to stage. Moreover, differences between individuals in these processes explain why some individuals develop faster than other individuals (Demetriou, 1998).

Over time, alternative theories of Child Development have been put forward, and empirical findings have done a lot to undermine Piaget's theories. For example, Esther Thelen and colleagues found that babies would not make the A-not-B error if they had small weights added to their arms during the first phase of the experiment that were then removed before the second phase of the experiment. This minor change should not impact babies' understanding of object permanence, so the difference that this makes to babies' performance on the A-not-B task cannot be explained by Piagetian theory. Thelen and colleagues also found that various other factors also influenced performance on the A-not-B task (including strength of memory trace, salience of targets, waiting time and stance), and proposed that this could be better explained using a dynamic systems theory approach than using Piagetian theory. Alison Gopnik and Betty Repacholi found that babies as young as 18 months old can understand that other people have desires, and that these desires could be very different from their own desires. This strongly contradicts Piaget's view that children are very egocentric at this age. In reaction to these challenges, it has been argued that their criticisms depend on a fundamental misreading of Piaget's theory.

See also Brian Rotman's Jean Piaget: Psychologist of the Real, an exposition and critique of Piaget's ideas, and Jonathan Tudge and Barbara Rogoff's "Peer influences on cognitive development: Piagetian and Vygotskian perspectives".

Quotations

• "Intelligence organizes the world by organizing itself."

List of major achievements

Appointments

• 1921–25 Research Director (Chef des travaux), Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Geneva
• 1925–29 Professor of Psychology, Sociology and the Philosophy of Science, University of Neuchatel
• 1929–39 Professeur extraordinaire of the History of Scientific Thought, University of Geneva
• 1929–67 Director, International Bureau of Education, Geneva
• 1932–71 Director, Institute of Educational Sciences, University of Geneva
• 1938–51 Professor of Experimental Psychology and Sociology, University of Lausanne
• 1939–51 Professor of Sociology, University of Geneva
• 1940–71 Professeur ordinaire of Experimental Psychology, University of Geneva
• 1952–64 Professor of Genetic Psychology, Sorbonne, Paris
• 1954–57 President, International Union of Scientific Psychology
• 1955–80 Director, International Centre for Genetic Epistemology, Geneva
• 1971–80 Emeritus Professor, University of Geneva

Honorary doctorates

• 1936 Harvard
• 1946 Sorbonne
• 1949 University of Brazil
• 1949 Bruxelles
• 1953 Chicago
• 1954 McGill
• 1958 Warsaw
• 1959 Manchester
• 1960 Oslo
• 1960 Cambridge
• 1962 Brandeis
• 1964 Montreal
• 1964 Aix-Marseille
• 1966 Pennsylvania
• 1966? Barcelona
• 1970 Yale

List of major works

The following groupings are based on the number of citations in Google Scholar.

Classics

• The Language and Thought of the Child (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1926) [Le Langage et la pensée chez l'enfant (1923)]
• The Child's Conception of the World (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1928) [La Représentation du monde chez l'enfant (1926, orig. pub. as an article, 1925)]
• The Moral Judgment of the Child (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner and Co., 1932) [Le jugement moral chez l'enfant (1932)]
• The Origins of Intelligence in Children (New York: International University Press, 1952) [La naissance de l'intelligence chez l'enfant (1936), also translated as The Origin of Intelligence in the Child (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1953)].
• Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood (New York: Norton, 1962) [La formation du symbole chez l'enfant; imitation, jeu et reve, image et représentation (1945)].
• The Psychology of Intelligence (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1950) [La psychologie de l'intelligence (1947)].
• The construction of reality in the child (New York: Basic Books, 1954) [La construction du réel chez l'enfant (1950), also translated as The Child's Construction of Reality (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1955)].
• With Inhelder, B., The Growth of Logical Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence (New York: Basic Books, 1958) [De la logique de l'enfant à la logique de l'adolescent (1955)].
• With Inhelder, B., The Psychology of the Child (New York: Basic Books, 1962) [La psychologie de l'enfant (1966, orig. pub. as an article, 1950)].

Major works

• The early growth of logic in the child (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1964) [La genèse des structures logiques elementaires (1959)].
• With Inhelder, B., The Child's Conception of Space (New York: W.W. Norton, 1967).
• "Piaget's theory" in P. Mussen (ed.), Handbook of Child Psychology, Vol. 1. (4th ed., New York: Wiley, 1983).
• The Child's Conception of Number (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1952) [La genèse du nombre chez l'enfant (1941)].
• Structuralism (New York: Harper & Row, 1970) [Le Structuralisme (1968)].
• Genetic epistemology (New York: W.W. Norton, 1971, ISBN 978-0-393-00596-7).

Significant works

• The child's conception of physical causality (London: Kegan Paul, 1930) [La causalite physique chez l'enfant (1927)]
• Child's Conception of Geometry (New York, Basic Books, 1960) [La Géométrie spontanée de l'enfant (1948)].
• The Principles of Genetic Epistemology (New York: Basic Books, 1972, ISBN 978-0-393-00596-7) [L'épistémologie génétique (1950)].
• To understand is to invent: The future of education (New York: Grossman Publishers, 1973) [tr. of Ou va l'education (1971) and Le droit a l'education dans le monde actuel (1948)].
• Six psychological studies (New York: Random House, 1967) [Six études de psychologie (1964)].
• Biology and Knowledge (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1971) [Biologie et connaissance; essai sur les relations entre les régulations organiques et les processus cognitifs (1967)]
• Science of education and the psychology of the child (New York: Orion Press, 1970) [Psychologie et pédagogie (1969)].
• Intellectual evolution from adolescence to adulthood (Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1977) [L'evolution intellectuelle entre l'adolescence et l'age adulte (1970)].
• The Equilibration of Cognitive Structures: The Central Problem of Intellectual Development (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985) [L'equilibration des structures cognitives (1975), previously translated as The development of thought: Equilibration of cognitive structures (1977)].
• Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini (ed.), Language and learning: the debate between Jean Piaget and Noam Chomsky (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1980) [Theories du language, theories de l'apprentissage (1979)].
• Development and learning.

Notable works

• The Grasp of Consciousness: Action and concept in the young child (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977) [La prise de conscience (1974)].
• The Mechanisms of Perception (New York: Basic Books, 1969) [Les mécanismes perceptifs: modèles probabilistes, analyse génétique, relations avec l'intelligence (1961)].
• Psychology and Epistemology: Towards a Theory of Knowledge (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972) [Psychologie et epistémologie (1970).
• The Child's Conception of Time (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1969) [Le développement de la notion de temps chez l'enfant (1946)]
• Logic and Psychology (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1953).
• Memory and intelligence (New York: Basic Books, 1973) [Memoire et intelligence (1968)]
• The Origin of the Idea of Chance in Children (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1975) [La genèse de l'idée de hasard chez l'enfant (1951)].
• Mental imagery in the child: a study of the development of imaginal representation (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1971) [L'image mentale chez l'enfant : études sur le développement des représentations imaginées (1966)].
• Intelligence and Affectivity. Their Relationship during Child Development (Palo Alto: Annual Reviews, 1981) [Les relations entre l'intelligence et l'affectivité dans le développement de l'enfant (1954)].
• With Garcia, R. Psychogenesis and the History of Science (New York: Columbia University Press, 1989) Psychogenèse et histoire des sciences (1983).
• With Beth, E. W.,Mathematical Epistemology and Psychology (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, 1966) [Épistémologie mathématique et psychologie: Essai sur les relations entre la logique formelle et la pensée réelle] (1961).

New translations

• Piaget, J. (1995). Sociological Studies. London: Routledge.
• Piaget, J. Commentary on Vygotsky. New Ideas in Psychology. 2000, 18 (2–3): 241–59. doi:10.1016/S0732-118X(00)00012-X. 
• Piaget, J. (2001). Studies in Reflecting Abstraction. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

See also

• Active learning
• Cognitive acceleration
• Cognitivism (learning theory)
• Constructivist epistemology
• Developmental psychology
• Fluid and crystallized intelligence
• Guðmundur Finnbogason
• Horizontal and vertical décalage
• Inquiry-based learning
• Kohlberg's stages of moral development
• Psychosocial development
• Religious development
• Water-level task

Collaborators

• Edith Ackermann
• Leo Apostel
• Edgar Ascher
• Evert Beth
• Magali Bovet
• Guy Cellérier
• Paul Fraisse
• Rolando García
• Pierre Gréco
• Jean-Blaise Grize
• Gil Henriques
• Bärbel Inhelder
• Benoit Mandelbrot
• Albert Morf
• Pierre Oléron
• Seymour Papert
• Maurice Reuchlin
• Hermina Sinclair de-Zwart
• Alina Szeminska
• Huê Vinh-Bang

Translators

• Eleanor Duckworth
• Wolfe Mays

References

• Aqueci, F. (2003). Ordine e trasformazione: morale, mente, discorso in Piaget. Acireale-Roma: Bonanno. ISBN 88-7796-148-1.
• Amann-Gainotti, M.; Ducret, J.-J. Jean Piaget, disciple of Pierre Janet: Influence of behavior psychology and relations with psychoanalysis. Information Psychiatrique. 1992, 68: 598–606. 
• Beilin, H. Piaget's enduring contribution to developmental psychology. Developmental Psychology. 1992, 28 (2): 191–204. S2CID 14459165. doi:10.1037/0012-1649.28.2.191. 
• Beilin, H. (1994). Jean Piaget's enduring contribution to developmental psychology. A century of developmental psychology (pp. 257–290). Washington, DC US: American Psychological Association.
• Bringuier, J.-C. (1980). Conversations with Jean Piaget (B.M. Gulati, Trans.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Original work published 1977) ISBN 0-226-07503-6.
• Chapman, M. (1988). Constructive evolution: Origins and development of Piaget's thought. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-36712-3.
• Demetriou, A. (1998). Cognitive development. In A. Demetriou, W. Doise, K. F. M. van Lieshout (Eds.), Life-span developmental psychology (pp. 179–269). London: Wiley.
• Demetriou, A., Mouyi, A., & Spanoudis, G. (2010). The development of mental processing. Nesselroade, J. R. (2010). Methods in the study of life-span human development: Issues and answers. In W. F. Overton (Ed.), Biology, cognition and methods across the life-span. Volume 1 of the Handbook of life-span development (pp. 36–55), Editor-in-chief: R. M. Lerner. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.
• Duveen, G. & Psaltis, C. (2008). The constructive role of asymmetries in social interaction. In U. Mueller, J. I. M. Carpendale, N. Budwig & B. Sokol (Eds.), Social life and social knowledge: Toward a process account of development. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
• Flavell, J. (1967). The developmental psychology of Jean Piaget. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company. ISBN 0-442-02413-4.
• Fowler, J. W. (1981). Stages of faith: The psychology of human development and the quest for meaning. San Francisco: Harper & Row. ISBN 0-06-062866-9.
• Gattico, E. (2001). Jean Piaget. Milano: Bruno Mondadori. ISBN 88-424-9741-X.
• Hallpike, C.R. (1979). The foundations of primitive thought. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-823196-2.
• Ivey, A. (1986). Developmental therapy. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. ISBN 1-55542-022-2.
• Kamii, C. (1985). Young children reinvent arithmetic: Implications of Piaget's theory. New York: Teachers College Press.
• Kesselring, T. (1999). Jean Piaget. München: Beck. ISBN 3-406-44512-8.
• Kassotakis, M. & Flouris, G. (2006) Μάθηση & Διδασκαλία, Αthens.
• Kitchener, R. (1986). Piaget's theory of knowledge: Genetic epistemology & scientific reason. New Haven: Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-03579-9.
• Kose, G. A philosopher's conception of Piaget: Piagetian theory reconsidered. Theoretical & Philosophical Psychology. 1987, 7 (1): 52–57. doi:10.1037/h0091442. 

CUNY pdf

• Mayer, S. The early evolution of Jean Piaget's clinical method. History of Psychology. 2005, 8 (4): 362–382. PMID 17152748. doi:10.1037/1093-4510.8.4.362. 
• Messerly, J.G. (1992). Piaget's conception of evolution: Beyond Darwin and Lamarck. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. ISBN 0-8476-8243-9.
• Psaltis, C.; Duveen, G. Social relations and cognitive development: The influence of conversation type and representations of gender. European Journal of Social Psychology. 2006, 36 (3): 407–430. doi:10.1002/ejsp.308. 
• Psaltis, C.; Duveen, G. Conversation types and conservation: Forms of recognition and cognitive development. British Journal of Developmental Psychology. 2007, 25 (1): 79–102. doi:10.1348/026151005X91415. 
• Robinson, R.J. (2005). The birth of reason. Prometheus Research Group. (Available online at prometheus.org.uk)
• Smith, L. (Ed.) (1992). Jean Piaget: Critical assessments (4 Vols.). London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-04408-1.
• Smith, L. (1993). Necessary knowledge: Piagetian perspectives on constructivism. Hove, UK: Lawrence Erlbaum. ISBN 0-86377-270-6.
• Smith, L. (Ed.) (1996). Critical readings on Piaget. London: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-13317-3.
• Smith, L. (2001). Jean Piaget. In J. A. Palmer (Ed.), 50 modern thinkers on education: From Piaget to the present. London: Routledge.
• Traill, R.R. (2000) Physics and Philosophy of the Mind. Melbourne: Ondwelle. ISBN 0-9577737-1-4
• Traill, R.R. (2005a) ........ . Melbourne: Ondwelle. ondwelle.com
• Traill, R.R. (2005b / 2008) Thinking by Molecule, Synapse, or both? – From Piaget's Schema, to the Selecting/Editing of ncRNA. Melbourne: Ondwelle. ondwelle.com [Also in French: ondwelle.com
• Vidal, F. (1994). Piaget before Piaget. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-66716-6.
• Vonèche, J.J. (1985). Genetic epistemology: Piaget's theory. In T. Husén & T.N. Postlethwaite (Eds.-in-chief), International encyclopedia of education (Vol. 4). Oxford: Pergamon.
• Wynn, T. The intelligence of later Acheulean hominids. Man. New Series. 1979, 14 (3): 371–391. JSTOR 2801865. doi:10.2307/2801865. 
• Wynn, T. The intelligence of Oldowan hominids. Journal of Human Evolution. 1981, 10 (7): 529–541. doi:10.1016/S0047-2484(81)80046-2. 

Further reading

Piaget inspired innumerable studies and even new areas of inquiry. The following is a list of critiques and commentaries, organized using the same citation-based method as the list of his own major works (above). These represent the significant and influential post-Piagetian writings in their respective sub-disciplines.

Exemplars

• Vygotsky, L. (1963). Thought and language. [12630 citations]

Classics

• Papert, S. (1980). Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas. [4089]
• Minsky, M. (1988). The society of mind. [3950]
• Kohlberg, L. (1969). Stage And Sequence: The Cognitive-Developmental Approach To Socialization. [3118]
• Flavell, J. (1963). The developmental psychology of Jean Piaget. [2333] [The development of the project that became this book, and its impact, is discussed in detail by Müller, U.; Burman, J. T.; Hutchison, S. M. The developmental psychology of Jean Piaget: A quinquagenary retrospective. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. 2013, 34 (1): 52–55. ISSN 0193-3973. doi:10.1016/j.appdev.2012.10.001. ]
• Gibson, E. J. (1973). Principles of perceptual learning and development. [1903]
• Hunt, J. McV. (1961). Intelligence and Experience. [617+395+384+111+167+32=1706]
• Meltzoff, A. N. & Moore, M. K. (1977). Imitation of facial and manual gestures by human neonates. [1497]
• Case, R. (1985). Intellectual development: Birth to adulthood. [1456]
• Fischer, K. W. (1980). A theory of cognitive development: The control and construction of hierarchies of skills. [1001]

Major works

• Bates, E. (1976). Language and context: The acquisition of pragmatics. [959]
• Ginsburg, H. P. & Opper, S. (1969). Piaget's theory of intellectual development. [931]
• Singley, M. K. & Anderson, J. R. (1989). The transfer of cognitive skill. [836]
• Duckworth, E. (1973). The having of wonderful ideas. [775]
• Youniss, J. (1982). Parents and peers in social development: A Sullivan-Piaget perspective. [763]
• Pascual-Leone, J. (1970). A mathematical model for the transition rule in Piaget's developmental stages. [563]
• Schaffer, H. R. & Emerson, P. E. (1964). The development of social attachments in infancy. [535]

Works of significance

• Shatz, M.; Gelman, R. The Development of Communication Skills: Modifications in the Speech of Young Children as a Function of Listener. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development. 1973, 38 (5): 1–37. JSTOR 1165783. PMID 4764473. doi:10.2307/1165783.  [470]
• Broke, H. Interpersonal perception of young children: Egocentrism or Empathy?. Developmental Psychology. 1971, 5 (2): 263–269. doi:10.1037/h0031267.  [469]
• Wadsworth, B. J. (1989). Piaget's theory of cognitive and affective development [421]
• Karmiloff-Smith, A. (1992). Beyond Modularity. [419]
• Bodner, G. M. (1986). Constructivism: A theory of knowledge. [403]
• Shantz, C. U. (1975). The Development of Social Cognition. [387]
• Diamond, A.; Goldman-Rakic, P. S. Comparison of human infants and rhesus monkeys on Piaget's AB task: evidence for dependence on dorsolateral prefrontal cortex. Experimental Brain Research. 1989, 74 (1): 24–40. PMID 2924839. S2CID 2310409. doi:10.1007/bf00248277.  [370]
• Gruber, H. & Voneche, H. (1982). The Essential Piaget. [348]
• Walkerdine, V. (1984). Developmental psychology and the child-centred pedagogy: The insertion of Piaget into early education. [338]
• Kamii, C. & DeClark, G. (1985). Young children reinvent arithmetic: Implications of Piaget's theory [335]
• Riegel, K. F. (1973). Dialectic operations: The final period of cognitive development [316]
• Bandura, A.; McDonald, F. J. Influence of social reinforcement and the behavior of models in shaping children's moral judgment. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 1963, 67 (3): 274–281. PMID 14054361. doi:10.1037/h0044714.  [314]
• Karplus, R. (1980). Teaching for the development of reasoning. [312]
• Brainerd, C. (1978). The stage question in cognitive-developmental theory. [311]
• Brainerd, C. (1978). Piaget's theory of intelligence. [292]
• Gilligan, C. (1997). Moral orientation and moral development [285]
• Diamond, A. (1991). Neuropsychological insights into the meaning of object concept development [284]
• Braine, M. D. S., & Rumain, B. (1983). Logical reasoning. [276]
• John-Steiner, V. (2000). Creative collaboration. [266]
• Pascual-Leone, J. (1987). Organismic processes for neo-Piagetian theories: A dialectical causal account of cognitive development. [261]
• Hallpike, C. R. (1979). The foundations of primitive thought [261]
• Furth, H. (1969). Piaget and Knowledge [261]
• Gelman, R. & Baillargeon, R. (1983). A review of some Piagetian concepts. [260]
• O'Loughlin, M. (1992). Rethinking science education: Beyond piagetian constructivism. Toward a sociocultural model of teaching and learning. [252]
• Messerly, John G. (1996). "Psychogenesis and the History of Science: Piaget and the Problem of Scientific Change", The Modern Schoolman LXXIII, 295–307.

External links

• Template:Helveticat

• Jean Piaget Society, society for the study of knowledge and development.
• The Jean Piaget Archives, with full bibliography.
• Interview with Jean Piaget and Bärbel Inhelder by Elizabeth Hall (1970).
• Jean Piaget @ Teaching & Learning Developmental Psychology, Piaget as a scientist with resources for classes.
• Jean Piaget's Genetic Epistemology: Appreciation and Critique by Robert Campbell (2002), extensive summary of work and biography.
• Piaget's The Language and Thought of the Child (1926) – a brief introduction
• The Moral Judgment of the Child by Jean Piaget (1932)
• The Construction of Reality in the Child by Jean Piaget (1955)
• Piaget's role in the International Bureau of Education and the International Conference on Education
• Genetic Epistemology by Jean Piaget (1968)
• Comments on Vygotsky by Jean Piaget (1962)
• YouTube上的Piaget's Developmental Theory: An Overview – Part 1, a 27-minute documentary film used primarily in higher education.
• YouTube上的Piaget's Developmental Theory: An Overview – Part 2, a 27-minute documentary film used primarily in higher education.
• Foundation Jean Piaget for research in psychology and epistemology – French version only – diffuse to the world community writings and talks of the Swiss scientist.
• Human Nervous System model in accordance with Piaget's Learning Theory – French version only
• Jean Piaget and Neuchâtel The site is maintained by the Institute of Psychology and Education, Neuchâtel University
• Jean Piaget's 1931 essay "The Spirit of Solidarity in Children and International Cooperation" (re-published in the Spring 2011 issue of Schools: Studies in Education)
• Jean Piaget: A Most Outrageous Deception by Webster R. Callaway

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