PEOPLE

NORMAL ABNORMAL

INHERITED CONGENITAL DISEASE LACK OF LACK OF OTHER

DEFECTS DEFECTS NUTRITION LEARNING
OPPORTUNITES

REVERSIBLE NOT
EFFECTS REVERSIBLE

IMPROVED NOT IMPROVED

Figure 3.5
Adults can comprehend, for example, a hierarchy like the one depicted in figure 3.5
But here is Jacqueline, dealing with a similar hierarchy:
Observation 112:
At twenty-five month, thirteen days, jacqueline wanted to see a little hunchbacked
neighbor whom she used to meet on her walks. Afew days ealier she had asked why he had a
hump, and after I had explained she said: “poorboy, he’s ill, he has a hump.” The day before,
jacqueline had also wanted togo to see him, but he had influenza, which jacqueline called
being”ill in bed”. We started out for our walk and on the way jacqueline said: “is hestill inbed?”
“no, I saw him this morning,he isn’t in bed now”. “he hasn’t a big hump now!”
Figure 3.6 shows the hierarchical pattern thatmustbe built up in a person’s mind before he can
deal effectively with this type of problem. Jacqueline blithely transfers “recovery” in A to
recovery in B, because her thinking lacks this hierarchical structure.
 CHILDREN

NORMAL ABNORMAL

FLU(A) HUNCHBACK (B) OTHER

CURRENT RECOVERED
CURRENT RECOVERED

FIGURE 3.6
The reasoning is by simile:
A is like B in some way; therefore
A is like B in every way.
It represents a kind of coarseness and rigidity- a lack of refinement and mobility-in the child’s
thinking.the child’s limited hierarcical pattern includes only the normal andabnormal (“ill”),and
individuals who are in one of those categories share all of its attributes.

Concrete Operations Subperiod (7-11 years)

I: Intruduction
Having analyzed the Preoperational Subperiod in terms of the kinds of cognitive
processes that differentiate it from tehe developmental units that precede and follow it, let us
now do the same thing for the Concreate Operations Subperiod,but by comparing it with other
periods in each of several differential kind of problem:
Conservation of numerical correspondence
Conservationof quantity, weight and volume
Composition of classes
Numbering
Eqocentricity in representation of onjects
Eqocentricity in sosial relations
Estimating waterlines
Time, movement and velocity
The various qualities of thought that I have discussed, and some that I have not, will manifest
themselves in the solutions to these problems.
Before beginning, however,it might be useful to provide an additional framework for this
discussion by pointing out that with the Concrete Operations Subperiod, Piaget’s emphasis shifts
to examining the relations between thinking and symbolic logic,andby sketching briefly the
properties of the “groupings” of “concreate operations that characterixe this period of
development. The rules of mathematics and logic are widely used by psychologists to govern
their own behavior as scientist, but Piaget, in additions to this, uses them as models of the mental
funtioning of children. Heis convinced that the rules of logic have developed out of the
interaction of humans, both philogenetically and othogenetically,with the exigencies of livingin a
lawfuluniverse. The actions that we originally overt, and then internalized,now begin to form
tightly organized systems of actions. Any internal act that forms an integral parts of these
systems Piaget calls an “operation.” “Preoperational”, and “formal operational” describe
differents levels of mathematical symbols listed below are all examples of operations.
+ combining
- Separating
× repeating
÷ dividing
> Placing in order
= possible substitution
These have their counterparts in logic : e.g.,”and” representsthe action if combining;
“except” represents the action of seperating. Thus the structures of logic may be used to
represent the structures of thought; the one serves as a model of the other.
This does notmean that people always think this way, but Piaget believes that any subject
who ever thinks this way has a cognitive structure that can be represented in logicalterms, and he
describes other kinds of thinking as a failure either to use this developed structure or to develop
the structure in the first place.
Concrete Operations Subperiod (7-11 years)
I: Properties of Groups and Groupings
In the Subperiod of concrete operations, structure often take the form that Piaget calls
“groupings”. A grouping combines the attributes of both the group and the lattice.

The Group
A group is a system that consists of a set of elements and an operation on these elements
such that the following principles apply:
Composition. The result of every operation (remember that an operation is an action that
is part of a system of actions) is itself a part of the system. For example, if
A × B = C,
C is a part of the system as well as A and B.
Associativity: when the operation is performed within the system,
A × (B×C) is the same as
(A×B) × C;
Combining A with the result of combining B and C is the same as combining C with the result of
combining A and B.
Identity : In every system there is one element that, when combined with other elements
in the system,leaves the result unchanged. It is called the identity element.
A × 1 = A, and
1 × A = A,
Where 1 is the identity element.