Hi Everyone,
I noticed the suggestion that Freud and Piaget are comparable in
their lack of scientific rigor; in the last few years I noticed
several list-members make similar claims about Piaget in other
contexts. Four related concerns that I would like to challenge have
been raised about Piaget: (1) poor methods, (2) wrong conclusions,
(3) wrong underlying perspective, and (3) unscientific theorizing.
The biggest complaint about PIaget's methods is that he studied his
three children (hardly a representative sample). In "Origins of
Intellegence" every observation he reported to build his sub-stages
of infancy was with his children. Our methodology standards (e.g.,
selecting samples) keep getting more rigorous; look at most classic
studies and I believe you will find similar 'flaws' (e.g., early
memory studies run on one-self). Despite flaws, most of Piaget's
findings are still replicable today (if done the same way he did
them). How many of us have so many replicable findings? Moreover,
his findings from conservation tasks to magical thinking interviews
were done with many other children. Though most of his books focus
on giving many qualitative examples from many children, he also
summarized data like we do today. For example, see page 121 of
Inhelder & Piaget's "Early Growth of Logic in the Child" for a table
of data summarizing when children understand class membership with 44
children in 3 age-groups on two versions of a task (yes, an
experimental manipulation, to test a hypothesis!).
Some suggest Piaget came to the wrong conclusions. There are newer
interpretations of many of his results; his object permanence
findings are a focal point of debate. Diamond (from an information
processing approach) suggests it's really memory and inhibition.
Based on looking-time measures, Baillergeon (from a core knowledge
approach) suggests younger infants have object permanence. Consider,
though, how Piaget's object permanence results fit parsimoniously
with the origins of separation anxiety. If Baillergeon is right, how
come children do not experience separation anxiety by 5 months of
age? Even if Piaget came to incorrect conclusions, that does not
make his work any less scientific. Bohr was a brillant physicist
even if his model of the atom was wrong; he did his best to explain
all the evidence with the best concepts available to him. Piaget did
the same.
Some question Piaget's underlying perspective: the individual child
who actively constructs an understanding. We each bring our
perspective to our research and it's hard to switch perspectives. I
personally feel Piaget made some remarkably thought-provoking claims
about distinguishing development from learning (e.g., when you master
your multiplication tables, have you really "developed?"). But I
also see the virtue in more precise theories even when they conflate
our intuitions of learning and developing (e.g., Information
Processing). Though Piaget clearly did not consider the social
environment like Vygotsky did, the criticism of Piaget failing to
consider the social environment seems over-blown. He thought about
schools as a social context for development (see Piaget's "Science
Education and the Psychology of the Child). Ironically, consider
Gilligan's criticism of Piaget for interpreting boy's play as more
likely than girl's play to lead to moral development. Can we name a
Developmental Psychologist, alive or dead, who studied as many
different domains (e.g., moral, number learning, folk biology) and
considered them from as many perspectives (e.g., physical body,
adaptation, internal motivation, peers, schools)?
Finally, Piaget is criticized for making an unscientific theory.
Piaget made a falsifiable theory and he gathered evidence by
observing children (not adult's providing retrospective accounts) in
carefully set up situations (which he felt would best illuminate
children's thinking, just like Baillergeon today feels looking-time
measures get closer to infants' true thoughts). Piaget put together
what he saw as the most parsimonious, simple, and complete
explanation of development. He was keenly aware of scientific
standards and sought to meet them. For example, he was very
concerned that by proposing a stage theory, people might create
unscientific teleological mechanisms to drive people through these
stages (as though the final stage was the 'goal' of the others)
rather than accounting for stages with scientific mechanistic
causality. In case you're not 'in' to philosophy of science, here's
an example of Pseudo- versus real science. Larmarkian Evolution and
Intelligent Design use unscientific teleological mechanisms because
they assume a future purpose that species change is directed towards
whereas Darwin's Evolutionary Theory uses natural selection, a
scientific mechanistic causality that explains species adaptations
from only *prior* events. Piaget wrestled with how to answer the big
questions of development and he never lost sight of doing that in a
scientific way (see, for example, Piaget's "Insights and Illusions of
Philosophy").
Piaget used impressive methods for his time. Like all developmental
psychologists, he had a perspective, yet his was relatively broad.
Whatever his flaws, Piaget was dedicated to the scientific
explanation of development, and I do not feel it is appropriate to
equate him with pseudo-science.
Kevin
http://www.DevPsy.org/
PS: I hope to meet some of at the Society for Research in Child
Development conference and the Teaching Institute pre-conference in
about a week and a half!
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