6.1. Basic patterns

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) is one of the world's foremost psychologists. We distinguish two periods of his scientific work - early and late. In his early works (up to the mid-1930s), Piaget explains the patterns of the development of thinking in terms of two factors - heredity and environment, due to which they can be classified as two-factor theories. The Swiss researcher argued that society and personality are in a state of antagonism and confrontation. This statement gave rise to the most important concept of his early theory - socialization, which is understood as the process of forcible displacement of the natural and its replacement by the social. In the late period (from the beginning of the 1940s), the scientist considered the activity of the subject as the basis for the development of intelligence, proposing a more complex system of determinants of the development of intelligence.

J. Piaget is a recognized authority in the field of the psychology of thinking. Initially, he studied biology and then moved on to study psychology. In his research, the scientist set the general philosophical task of creating a genetic epistemology. He was interested in the laws of human cognition of the world. In order to understand how cognition of the world occurs, he considered it necessary to turn to the study of how the instrument of such cognition arises in human thinking. The scientist saw the key to solving the problem posed in the study of the development of the child's thinking.

L. S. Vygotsky, evaluating the contribution of J. Piaget to psychology, wrote that the work of the latter constituted an entire era in the study of children's thinking. They fundamentally changed the idea of ​​a child's thinking and development. What is the reason for this? Before Piaget, the thinking of a child was compared to that of an adult. In psychology, the dominant point of view was that the child's thinking is the thinking of “small

Lecture 6. The problem of the development of a child's thinking in the early works of J. Piaget ■ 83

whom the adult is "(adult thinking" with a minus sign "). The starting point for assessing the child's thinking was the thinking of an adult. The merit of the Swiss psychologist, according to Vygotsky, lies in the fact that he began to regard the child's thinking as thinking characterized by a qualitative originality.

Piaget suggested new method the study of thinking - a method of clinical conversation aimed at studying the patterns of development and functioning of thinking, representing a variant of the experiment. Why, then, exactly the conversation became for the scientist the main method of studying the causes of development, thinking? Piaget's initial postulate of the early period was the position that thinking is directly expressed in speech. This provision determined all the difficulties and errors of his early theory. It was this position that became the subject of criticism of L. S. Vygotsky, who defended the thesis of the complex interdependent relations of thinking and speech. It was from the position of the direct connection between thinking and speech that Piaget rejected in his future works.

The conversation made it possible, according to the psychologist, to study the child's thinking, because the child's answers to the adult's questions reveal the living process of thinking to the researcher. Piaget formulated the following requirements for the method of conversation:

■ The questions the adult asks should be far from the child's practical experience. You can not ask questions that are related to knowledge, skills, skills;

■ the conversation should be organized as an experiment. By asking a child a question, the researcher tests a certain hypothesis about factors and reasons for thinking, and, having received an answer, he either confirms or refutes this hypothesis. Because of this, there is no rigid, standard sequence in the questions in the clinical conversation. They flexibly change depending on the child's answers and the corresponding modification of the hypothesis verified by the researcher.

Piaget's early concept is based on three theoreticaltheir sources- the theory of the French sociological school about collective representations; 3. Freud's theory and research of primitive thinking L. Levy-Bruhl.

The first source is the concept of the French sociological school (E. Durkheim) on the development of individual consciousness through the assimilation of collective ideas. According to Durkheim,

84 Age-related psychology... Lecture notes

individual human consciousness is the result of the assimilation of collective ideas in the process of verbal communication. This statement is a fundamental moment for Piaget. He equates individual consciousness with thinking, considers collective representation as models of thinking, which are carried by adults, and verbal communication- as the basis for the development of thinking.

The second source is the theory of 3. Freud, in particular his doctrine of the principle of pleasure, as determining the life of a person from the moment of birth. He was also close to the idea of ​​"two worlds", according to which the relationship between the world and the child is initially hostile and antagonistic, and the idea of ​​repression, which Piaget transferred to the process of thinking.

And finally, the third source is L. Levy-Bruhl's theory of primitive thinking. This theory opposed the opinion of E. Taylor, who asserted that the thinking of a savage is a pale cast of the thinking of a civilized person who does not have the knowledge and experience of the latter. Levy-Bruhl showed the qualitative originality of the thinking of primitive peoples, their logic, which is different from the thinking of a modern European. Piaget transferred this idea to the thinking of the child and saw his task in investigating the qualitative uniqueness of the child's thinking.

So, Starting point for the theory of J. Piaget, the following three provisions became:

1. The development of the child's thinking is carried out through the assimilation of collective ideas (socialized forms of thought) in the course of verbal communication.

2. Initially, thinking is aimed at obtaining pleasure, then this type of thinking is supplanted by society, and other forms of it are imposed on the child, corresponding to the principle of reality.

3. A child's thinking has a qualitative originality.

Development of the child's thinking, according to J. Piaget, it is a change in mental positions, which is characterized by the transition from egocentrism to decentration.

Piaget's greatest discovery is the discovery of the phenomenon egocentrism of children's thinking. Egocentrism is a special cognitive position taken by the subject in relation to the surrounding world, when phenomena and objects are considered only from their own point of view. Egocentrism is

Lecture 6, Problem development thinking baby v early works F, Piaget ■ 85

absolutization of one's own cognitive perspective and the inability to coordinate different points of view on the subject.

The merit of J. Piaget lies in the fact that he not only discovered the phenomenon of egocentrism, but also showed the process of the development of a child's thinking as a transition from egocentrism to decentration. The researcher identified three steps in this process: 1) the identification of the subject and the object, the inability to separate oneself and the world; 2) egocentrism - knowledge of the world based on one's own position, the inability to coordinate different points of view on the subject; 3) decentration - coordination of one's own point of view with other possible views of the object.

J. Piaget identifies the following main directions in the development of a child's thinking. First, the transition from realism to objectivity. By the realism of a child's thinking, the scientist understands the identification of his ideas about things with the things themselves. What the child sees and perceives when interacting with an object, he considers qualitative characteristic the thing itself, without differentiating their perceptions, experiences and the object itself. For a child, "the world exists in my sensations." He identifies the objective existence of things with his own experiences associated with these things. In the process of developing thinking, the child moves from the inseparability of ideas and objects to the separation of what is his idea of ​​the object and what are the characteristics of the object itself. Decentration: "I think this object is green, but in fact it is white because green light is falling on it." Second, the development of thinking from realism and absoluteness to reciprocity and reciprocity. The second line of development involves a change in mental attitude. Its absolutization, as the only possible one, is replaced by reciprocity and reciprocity, which make it possible to consider an object from different points of view and positions. And third, the movement from realism to relativism. Realism involves the perception of individual objects, and relativism is characterized by the perception of relationships between objects.

Thus, the development of a child's thinking is carried out in three interrelated directions. The first is the separation of objective and subjective perception of the world. The second is the development of the mental position - from the absolutization of the subject's mental position to the coordination of a number of possible positions and, accordingly, to reciprocity. The third direction characterizes the development of mice

86 ■ Agepsychology. Abstractlectures

ling as a movement from the perception of individual things to the perception of connections between them.

J. Piaget singled out the characteristics of the child's thinking that make up his qualitative uniqueness:

■ syncretism of thinking - a spontaneous tendency of children to perceive global images without analyzing details, a tendency to connect everything with everything, without proper analysis (“lack of connection”);

■ co-ordination - inability to unite and synthesize (“out of excess communication”);

■ intellectual realism - identifying one's ideas about things of the objective world and real objects. Moral realism is analogous to intellectual;

■ participation - the law of participation (“nothing is accidental”); animism as universal animation;

■ artificalism as an idea of ​​the artificial origin of natural phenomena. For example, a child is asked, "Where do rivers come from?" Answer: “People dug canals and filled them with water”;

■ insensitivity to contradictions;

■ impervious to experience;

■ transduction - the transition from a particular position to another particular, bypassing the general;

■ entrepreneurial spirit - the inability to establish causal relationships. For example, a child is asked to complete a sentence interrupted by the words “because”. The man suddenly fell in the street because ... The child finishes: he was taken to the hospital;

■ weakness of children's introspection (self-observation).

Early stage of scientific creativity

≪Research by J. Piaget constituted a whole era in the development of the doctrine

about the speech and thinking of the child, about his logic and worldviews. They are from-

marked with historical significance≫, wrote L.S. Vygotsky is already about

Piaget's first works 3. The most important thing is that

Piaget abandoned the position that a child is "dumber" than an adult and

the thinking of a child in comparison with the intellect of an adult has a

qualitative "flaws", and for the first time set the task of investigating

qualitative uniqueness of children's thinking.

Young Piaget, working in the laboratory of T. Simon, devoted

the greatest attention to the speech of preschool children, especially his

interested in repeated errors in the answers to test questions

sy. In conditions kindergarten a study was conducted in which

rum, observers systematically recorded all statements and

accompanying actions of children during free activity

(drawing, sculpting or playing). Piaget's analysis showed that children's

statements can be divided into two groups1:

1. Socialized speech- characterized with interest -

in the response of the communication partner, its function is

impact on the interlocutor. Categories of socialized speech -

information, criticism, order, request, threat, question, answer.

2. Egocentric speech. In form, these statements can

be different: repetition (echolalia), monologue, collective

monologue, however, the common thing is that the child communicates what he thinks

in this moment, not interested in whether they listen to him, what is

point of view of the "interlocutor". The function of egocentric speech is rather

expressive - the pleasure of talking≫, accompaniment and

rhythmization of actions.

Having measured the proportion of egocentric speech in free

the child's speech, Piaget established that the coefficient of egocentric

speech is maximum in early age- 75%, gradually decreasing to

six to seven years of age. A dispute that does not constitute a

one hundred clash of statements, and the exchange of points of view, accompanied by

given by the parties' interest in mutual understanding and

explanations, arises only by the age of 7-8.

In the fact of egocentric speech, Piaget saw the most important proof of

the establishment of the qualitative originality of children's thought. Method on-

observation and intellectual testing, according to Piaget, are not

are able to reveal the specifics of children's thought. Test surveys

only the final results of solving the problem were recorded, and

Piaget sought to penetrate the inner structure of thinking

preschoolers. Piaget developed a new method - clinical

(or method of clinical conversation). Clinical interview method

Piaget is a free conversation with a child without restriction of fixation.

with standard questions. The content of the communication is

the commentator and the child concerned natural phenomena, dreams, moral

military norms, etc. The questions were such that the children themselves often

ask adults in Everyday life: ≪Where is the sun in the sky?

Why doesn't the sun go down? How does it hold up? Why does the sun shine

tse? ≫, ≪Why does the wind blow? How does the wind get? ≫, ≪How do people see

Do you have dreams? ≫.

The clinical method is a carefully conducted statement

facts, age section of speech and mental development. Research

the teacher asks a question, listens to the child's reasoning and further

formulates additional questions, each of which depends

from the child's previous answer. He expects to find out that op-

reduces the position of the child and what is the structure of his cognitive

activities. In the course of a clinical conversation, there is always a danger

the ability to misinterpret the child's reaction; get confused

not find the question you need at the moment, or, conversely, suggest

desired answer. Clinical conversation is a kind of research

art, "the art of asking".

Piaget's original hypothesis was that

intermediate form of thinking, egocentric thinking,

which provides a transition from infant autism to realistic

socialized thinking of an adult. Distinguishing autistic

static and socialized thought was borrowed by Piaget

from psychoanalysis. Autistic thought - individualized,

undirected, subconscious, driven by the desire to

satisfaction of desire; comes to light in images. Socialized

naya, reasonable, directed thought is social, pursues conscious

goals, adapts to reality, obeys

the laws of experience and logic, is expressed by speech. Egocentric

thinking is an intermediate form in the development of thinking in the

technical, functional, structural aspects.

Egocentrism as the main feature of children's thinking

consists in judging the world exclusively from its immediate

point of view, `` fragmented and personal '', and in the inability to take into account

someone else's. Self-centeredness is seen by Piaget as a kind of

unconscious systematic illusion of knowledge, as hidden

mental attitude child. However, the egocentric mouse-

indolence is not a simple imprint of the influences of the outside world, it is ac-

cognitive position in its origins, the original

cognitive centering mind.

Piaget sees egocentrism as a root, as a foundation

all other features of children's thinking. Self-centeredness is not

given to direct observation, it is expressed through others

phenomena. Among them are the dominant features of children's thinking:

realism, animism, artificalism.

Realism. At a certain stage of development, the child is

sees objects as given by their immediate

perception (for example, the moon follows the child while walking).

Realism happens intellectual- the wind do the branches de-

reviev; the name of the object is as real as the object itself;

the image of the object is "transparent" and includes everything that the child

knows about the thing. Realism moral manifested in the fact that the child

does not take into account the inner intention in the act and judge it only

apparently the end result (who broke more cups, he and

more to blame - despite the fact that one person tried to

able and accidentally dropped the dishes, and the other got angry and broke the cup

intentionally).

Animism is a universal animation, hope

things (primarily moving independently, such

such as clouds, river, moon, car) consciousness and life,

feelings.

Artificalism is an understanding of natural phenomena by an

logic with human activity, everything that exists is considered

as created by man, by his will or for man (the sun -

"So that we have light", the river - "so that the boats sailed").

Among the list of other highlighted by Piaget features of children's

logic:

Syncretism (global schema and subjectivity of child

sky representations; the tendency to associate everything with everything; perception

details, causes and effects as opposed),

Transduction (transition from the particular to the particular, bypassing the general),

Failure to synthesize and match (lack of communication between

waiting judgments),

Insensitive to contradiction

Inability to observe introspection

Difficulties in realizing

Impermeability to experience (the child is not isolated from external

influence, education, but it assimilates and deforms

All these traits form a complex that determines the logic of the child

ka, and at the heart of the complex is the egocentrism of speech and thinking.

A vivid manifestation of egocentrism is observed when children solve a problem

A. Binet “About three brothers”. So, if there are three brothers in the family (Mitya, Vova, Sasha) and Sasha

ask how many brothers he has, he answers correctly and names two of his

six or seven years old, the child is mistaken: "One, Vova", because for ver-

he needs to mentally change his position (take the position of his brother

Mitya), but he fails.

An illustrative example the egocentric position of the child serves

experiment with a layout of three mountains.

The child sat down at the table, on which was placed a model with three mountains of different

th color and with additional distinctive features(snowy peak, before-

mick, wood). A doll was placed on the other side. The child was asked (in one of the

tasks) to choose from the pictures presented to him the one on which

the view of the mountains is captured as the doll sees them. Children under six to seven years of age

tend to choose a picture depicting what they see for themselves.

Piaget explained this phenomenon as an "egocentric illusion",

lack of understanding of the existence of other points of view and

not relating them to their own.

What are the roots of egocentrism as a cognitive position

tions of a preschooler? Piaget sees them in the peculiar character of children

activities (for example, parental care prevents all

material needs of the child, and he almost does not meet with resistance

the development of things), in the relatively late socialization of children

ka, in adaptation to the social environment no earlier than 7-8 years.

To overcome egocentrism, you need to realize your Self in

as a subject and separate the subject from the object, learn to coordinate

align your point of view with others. Reduced egocentrism

is explained not by the addition of new knowledge, but by the transformation of the

walking position. Relationships with adults are predominantly

wearing coercion, they do not lead to the child's awareness

own subjectivity. The development of knowledge about oneself comes from

social interactions are especially important in this regard

the phenomenon of cooperation of the child with peers, when possible

disputes, discussions. Thus, there is a gradual Ecen-

tradition of knowledge, socialized thought displaces egocentricity

and egocentric speech disappears, dies off.

.Piaget.

;

(from 2 to 7 years old) and (from 7 to 11 years old);

period of formal operations.

Definition of intelligence

Intelligence

The main stages of the development of a child's thinking

Piaget identified the following stages in the development of intelligence.

1) Sensory-motor intelligence (0-2 years)

During the period of sensorimotor intelligence, the organization of perceptual and motor interactions with the outside world gradually develops. This development goes from being limited by innate reflexes to related organization sensorimotor actions in relation to the immediate environment. At this stage, only direct manipulations with things are possible, but not actions with symbols, representations in the inner plane.

Preparation and organization of specific operations (2-11 years)

· Subperiod of preoperative representations (2-7 years)

At the stage of preoperative representations, a transition is made from sensorimotor functions to internal - symbolic, that is, to actions with representations, and not with external objects.

This stage of development of intelligence is characterized by the dominance of preconceptions and transductive reasoning; self-centeredness; centralization on the conspicuous feature of the object and the neglect in reasoning of the rest of its features; focusing attention on the states of a thing and inattention to it transformations.

· Sub-period of specific operations (7-11 years)

At the stage of concrete operations, actions with representations begin to unite, coordinate with each other, forming systems of integrated actions called operations factions(for example, classification

Formal operations (11-15 years old)

The main ability that emerges during the formal operations stage (11 to about 15 years old) is the ability to deal with possible, with hypothetical, and perceive external reality as special case of what is possible, what could be. Cognition becomes hypothetical-deductive... The child acquires the ability to think in sentences and establish formal relationship(inclusion, conjunction, disjunction, etc.) between them. The child at this stage is also able to systematically identify all the variables that are essential for solving the problem, and systematically enumerate all possible combinations these variables.

The main mechanisms of a child's cognitive development

1) the mechanism of assimilation: an individual adapts new information (situation, object) to his existing schemes (structures), without changing them in principle, that is, he includes a new object in his existing schemes of actions or structures.

2) the mechanism of accommodation, when an individual adapts his previously formed reactions to new information (situation, object), that is, he is forced to rebuild (modify) old schemes (structures) in order to adapt them to new information (situation, object).

According to the operational concept of intelligence, the development and functioning of mental phenomena is, on the one hand, assimilation, or assimilation of this material existing schemes behavior, and on the other - the accommodation of these schemes to a certain situation. Piaget considers the adaptation of the organism to the environment as a balancing of the subject and the object. The concepts of assimilation and accommodation play the main role in Piaget's explanation of the genesis of mental functions. In essence, this genesis appears as a sequential change of various stages of balancing assimilation and accommodation. .

Egocentrism of children's thinking. Experimental studies of the phenomenon of egocentrism

Egocentrism of children's thinking- a special cognitive position taken by the subject in relation to the surrounding world, when objects and phenomena of the surrounding world are considered from their own point of view. Egocentrism of thinking determines such features of children's thinking as syncretism, inability to focus on changes in the object, irreversibility of thinking, transduction (from the particular to the particular), insensitivity to contradiction, the combined action of which prevents the formation of logical thinking. Piaget's well-known experiments are an example of this effect. If, in front of the child's eyes, pour equal amounts of water into two identical glasses, the child will confirm the equality of volumes. But if in his presence you pour water from one glass into another, narrower one, then the child will confidently tell you that there is more water in the narrow glass.

There are many variations of such experiments, but they all demonstrated the same thing - the child's inability to concentrate on changes in the object. The latter means that the baby captures well only stable situations in his memory, but at the same time the transformation process eludes him. In the case of glasses, the child sees only the result - two identical glasses of water at the beginning and two different glasses of the same water at the end, but he is not able to catch the moment of change.

Another effect of egocentrism is the irreversibility of thinking, that is, the child's inability to mentally return to the starting point of his reasoning. It is the irreversibility of thinking that does not allow our baby to follow the course of his own reasoning and, returning to their beginning, imagine the glasses in their original position. Lack of reversibility is a direct manifestation of the child's self-centered thinking.

Stage of specific operations

Stage of specific operations(7-11 years old). At the stage of concrete operations, actions with representations begin to unite, coordinate with each other, forming systems of integrated actions called operations... The child develops special cognitive structures called factions(for example, classification), thanks to which the child acquires the ability to perform operations with classes and establish logical relations between classes, combining them in hierarchies, whereas earlier his capabilities were limited to transduction and the establishment of associative links.

The limitation of this stage is that operations can be performed only with specific objects, but not with statements. Operations logically structure the external actions performed, but they cannot yet structure verbal reasoning in the same way.

J. Piaget “Psychology of Intellect. Genesis of the number in a child. Logic and Psychology "

1. The main provisions of the theory of F.Piaget.

In accordance with the theory of intelligence by Jean Piaget, human intelligence goes through several main stages in its development:

Lasts from birth to 2 years period of sensorimotor intelligence;

From 2 to 11 years - the period of preparation and organization of specific operations, in which subperiod of preoperative representations(from 2 to 7 years old) and sub-period of specific operations(from 7 to 11 years old);

From 11 years old to about 15 years old period of formal operations.

The problem of children's thinking was formulated as qualitatively unique, having unique advantages, the activity of the child himself was highlighted, the genesis was traced from "action to thought", the phenomena of children's thinking were discovered and methods of its research were developed.

Definition of intelligence

· Intellect is a global cognitive system, consisting of a number of subsystems (perceptual, mnemonic, mental), the purpose of which is to provide information support for the interaction of a person with the external environment.

Intellect is the totality of all cognitive functions the individual.

• Intelligence is thinking, the highest cognitive process.

Intelligence- flexible at the same time stable structural equilibrium of behavior, which is essentially a system of the most vital and active operations. Being the most perfect of mental adaptation, the intellect serves, so to speak, the most necessary and effective tool in the subject's interactions with the outside world, interactions that are realized in the most complex ways and go far beyond direct and instant contacts in order to achieve predetermined and stable relationships. ...

The overall challenge facing Piaget was aimed at revealing psychological mechanisms integral logical structures, but first he identified and investigated a more particular problem - he studied the latent mental tendencies that give a qualitative originality to children's thinking, and outlined the mechanisms of their emergence and change.

Let us consider the facts established by Piaget using the clinical method in his early studies of the content and form of children's thought. The most important of them: the discovery of the egocentric nature of children's speech, qualitative features children's logic, original in their content, the child's ideas about the world. However, Piaget's main achievement is the discovery of the child's egocentrism. Egocentrism is central feature thinking, hidden mental position. The originality of children's logic, children's speech, children's ideas about the world is only a consequence of this egocentric mental position.

In studies of children's ideas about the world and physical causality, Piaget showed that a child at a certain stage of development in most cases considers objects as they are given by direct perception, that is, he does not see things in their internal relations. The child thinks, for example, that the moon follows him during his walks, stops when he stops, runs after him when he runs away. Piaget called this phenomenon "realism." It is this kind of realism that prevents the child from considering things independently of the subject, in their internal interconnection. The child considers his instant perception to be absolutely true. This happens because children do not separate their I from the world around them, from things.

Piaget emphasizes that this "realistic" position of the child in relation to things must be distinguished from the objective. The main condition for objectivity, in his opinion, is full awareness of the countless intrusions of the I into everyday thought, awareness of many illusions that arise as a result of this intrusion (illusions of feeling, language, point of view, value, etc.). In terms of its content, children's thought, which at first does not completely separate the subject from the object and therefore is "realistic", develops towards objectivity, reciprocity and relativity. Piaget believed that gradual dissociation, the separation of subject and object is carried out as a result of the child's overcoming of his own egocentrism.

So, the first direction of decentering children's thought is from "realism" to objectivity.

First, in the early stages of development, every conception of the world is true for the child; for him, thought and thing hardly differ. In a child, signs begin to exist, being originally a part of things. Gradually, thanks to the activity of the intellect, they are separated from them. Then he begins to consider his idea of ​​things as relative to a given point of view. Children's ideas develop from realism to objectivity, going through a number of stages: participation (participation), animism (general animation), artificalism (understanding natural phenomena by analogy with human activity), in which the egocentric relationship between the self and the world is gradually reduced. Step by step in the development process, the child begins to take a position that allows him to distinguish what comes from the subject and to see the reflection of external reality in subjective representations. A subject who ignores his own I AM, Piaget believes, inevitably puts his prejudices, direct judgments and even perceptions into things. Objective intelligence, mind aware of the subjective I AM, allows the subject to distinguish fact from interpretation. Only through gradual differentiation inner world stands out and contrasts with the external. Differentiation depends on how much the child is aware of his own position among things.

Piaget believed that parallel to the evolution of children's ideas about the world, directed from realism to objectivity, development is underway children's ideas from absoluteness("Realism") to reciprocity (reciprocity). Reciprocity appears when a child discovers the points of view of other people, when he ascribes to them the same meaning as his own, when a correspondence is established between these points of view. From this moment, he begins to see reality not only as directly given to himself, but also as if established, thanks to the coordination of all points of view taken together. During this period, the most important step in the development of children's thinking is carried out, since, according to Piaget, the idea of ​​objective reality is the most common thing in different points view, in which different minds agree with each other.

V experimental research Piaget showed that in the early stages intellectual development objects appear to the child as heavy or light, according to direct perception. The child always considers big things to be heavy, small things to be always light. For a child, these and many other representations are absolute, as long as direct perception seems to be the only possible one. The emergence of other ideas about things, as, for example, in the experiment with floating bodies: a pebble - light for a child, but heavy for water - means that children's ideas begin to lose their absolute meaning and become relative.

The lack of understanding of the principle of conservation of the amount of matter when changing the shape of an object once again confirms that the child can initially reason only on the basis of "absolute" ideas. For him, two plasticine balls of equal weight cease to be equal as soon as one of them takes a different shape, for example, a cup. Already in his early works, Piaget considered this phenomenon as a common feature children's logic. In subsequent studies, he used the emergence of the child's understanding of the principle of conservation as a criterion for the emergence of logical operations and devoted experiments to its genesis related to the formation of concepts of number, movement, speed, space, quantity, etc.

The child's thought also develops in a third direction - from realism to relativism. Initially, children believe in the existence of absolute substances and absolute qualities. They later discover that phenomena are related and that our assessments are relative. The world of independent and spontaneous substances is giving way to a world of relationships. First, the child considers, say, that in every moving object there is a special motor that performs the main role when the object is moving. Further, he considers the movement of an individual body as a function of the actions of external bodies. So, the child already begins to explain the movement of clouds in a different way, for example, by the action of the wind. The words "light" and "heavy" also lose their absolute meaning, which they had during the early stages, and acquire a relative meaning depending on the chosen units of measurement.

Along with the qualitative uniqueness of the content of children's thought, egocentrism determines such features of children's logic as syncretism (the tendency to associate everything with everything), juxtaposition (lack of connection between judgments), transduction (the transition from the particular to the particular, bypassing the general), insensitivity to contradiction, etc. ...

The phenomena discovered by Piaget, of course, do not exhaust the entire content of children's thinking. The significance of the experimental facts obtained in Piaget's studies lies in the fact that thanks to them, the most important psychological phenomenon, which remained for a long time little-known and unrecognized, is revealed - the mental position of the child, which determines his attitude to reality.

Egocentrism shows that the external world does not act directly on the mind of the subject, but our knowledge of the world- it is not a mere imprint of external events. The subject's ideas are partly the product of his own activity. They change and even distort depending on the dominant mental position.

According to Piaget, egocentrism is a consequence of the external circumstances of the subject's life. However, the lack of knowledge is only a secondary factor in the formation of children's egocentrism. The main thing is the spontaneous position of the subject, in accordance with which he refers to the object directly, not considering himself as a thinking being, not realizing the subjectivity of his own point of view.

Piaget emphasized that the decrease in egocentrism is explained not by the addition of knowledge, but by the transformation of the initial position, when the subject correlates his initial point of view with other possible ones. To be free in some respect from egocentrism and its consequences means in this respect to decenter, and not only to acquire new knowledge about things and social group... According to Piaget, freeing yourself from egocentrism means realizing what was perceived subjectively, finding your place in the system of possible points of view, establishing a system of general and mutual relations between things, persons and your own I.

Following the discovery of the egocentrism of children's thinking, J. Piaget described the phenomenon of egocentric speech. Revealing the essence of this phenomenon, it is important to remember that for Piaget, language does not shape thinking, but only reflects it. Piaget sees in him only a manifestation of what he called a "common symbolic function" (for comparison, let us recall the statement of L. S. Vygotsky about the fact that thinking is not "reflected", but "occurs" in the word.

Piaget believed that children's speech is egocentric primarily because the child speaks only "from his own point of view" and, most importantly, he does not try to take the interlocutor's point of view. For him, anyone he meets is an interlocutor. The child only cares about the appearance of interest, although he probably has the illusion that he is heard and understood. He does not feel like influencing the interlocutor and really telling him something. Egocentric speech, expressing the "logic of feelings" and addressed by the child to himself, according to J. Piaget, will gradually die out, giving way to speech addressed to others and performing a communicative function.

The teachings of J. Piaget were criticized by L. S. Vygotsky. He, in particular, showed that egocentric speech is one of the stages in the formation of thinking and speech. That is, during mental development egocentric speech does not disappear, but turns into inner speech. Egocentrism, according to L. S. Vygotsky, is not an initially predetermined state, but only characterizes the characteristics of one of the stages of development of higher mental functions.

L. Kolberg continued the experiments of J. Piaget, in which moral judgments and ethical representations of children were revealed of different ages... The children were asked to evaluate the actions of the heroes of the story and to substantiate their judgments. It turned out that at different age stages, children solve moral problems in different ways. For example, young children find a child who accidentally breaks several cups to be more guilty and more "spoiled" than another who breaks only one cup, but maliciously. Older children, especially after 9-10 years old, assess this situation differently, focusing not only on the result of the action, but also on the motives behind the action.

L. Kolberg used stories containing complex conflicts of a moral order that require resolution. For example: “No medication helps a woman with cancer. She asks her doctor to give her a lethal dose of sleeping pills to relieve her suffering. Should the doctor grant her request? "

Child: “It would be nice to let the woman die to relieve her of the pain. But this could be unpleasant for her husband - after all, this is not something to euthanize an animal, he needs his wife. "

Teenager: “The doctor has no right to do this. He cannot give life and must not destroy it. "

Adult: “The dying person should have free choice. What matters is the quality of life, not the fact itself. If she believes that it is not worth living, having turned into something living, but no longer a person, she has the right to choose death. People should be given the opportunity to decide for themselves what will happen to them. "

From these answers it is clear that the child proceeds from purely practical considerations, without resorting to moral principles. The teenager views the problem from the point of view of one abstract principle - the value of life. The position of an adult is multifaceted.

1. V. Stern's theory of development.

2. The theory of cognitive development by J. Piaget.

7.1. V. Stern's theory of development

V. Stern tried to overcome the one-sidedness of the previous theories of development and formulated the theory of two factors.

ü Development is the result of convergence (rapprochement) of internal, hereditary factors with environmental conditions.

ü Mental development is self-development, self-development of a person's inclinations, directed and determined by the environment in which the child lives.

ü Development is determined by X - units of heredity Y - units of the environment.

Four main principles of V. Stern's theory of development:

1. There are two hereditarily predetermined goals: 1) striving for self-preservation, 2) striving for self-development, including physical growth and spiritual maturation. The tendency towards self-development determines the emergence and development of new, more adaptive and perfect abilities. The tendency towards self-preservation stabilizes development gains.

2. The balance of inclinations and abilities... The inclinations are determined by heredity and set the upper limit for the development of human abilities. The environment inhibits or promotes the development of inclinations. But even under unfavorable conditions, "talent will always make its way."

3. The rate of mental development is determined by heredity... But neglect of upbringing significantly slows down the pace of development, leading to the fact that the upper limit of the development of abilities, determined by the inclinations, is not reached.

4. The sequence and content of developmental stages are determined by heredity.

In the concept of V. Stern, the leading role is played by the factor of heredity, and the environment only contributes to the manifestation of inclinations as potential development opportunities.

The mechanism of mental development - introception- the connection by the child of his internal goals with the goals of the environment. The child grows old to take from the environment everything that corresponds to his potential abilities, putting a barrier in the way of that which contradicts them.

Usage twin method to test the theory of convergence of two factors. Comparison of the development of twins with identical (monozygous) and different (dizygotic) heredity, brought up in the same and different (separated twins) environmental conditions. conclusions: 1) it is necessary to expand the determinants that determine the laws of the child's mental development, 2) the influence of the environment is not direct, but mediated by the active effective position of the child himself.

7.2. Piaget's theory of cognitive development

Intelligence has an adaptive nature and performs the function of balancing the body with the external environment.

Development mechanisms: 1) assimilation – inclusion of the object in the existing schemes of action, 2) accommodation- changing the scheme of action in accordance with the characteristics of the object... Assimilation provides stabilization and conservation. Accommodation - growth and change. Balancing assimilation and accommodation results in the adaptation of the organism to the environment.

Development is determined complex system determinant: heredity, environment and activity of the subject.

Development is an active construction process in which children build increasingly differentiated and comprehensive cognitive structures or schemas.

Scheme- any pattern (drawing, sample) of action that provides contact with the environment.

Intelligence development- sequential change of stages, reflecting various logical structures of thinking, ways of processing information. The ultimate goal of the development of thinking is the formation of formal logical operations.

Children's thinking is formed through learning organized by adults (environmental factor), which is based on the level of development achieved by the child (heredity factors). At the same time, children interact with the environment, building their own cognitive structures (activity factors).

Stages of the child's intellectual development:

Periods	Stages	The content of the stages
I. Sensory intelligence (0-24 months)	1.Exercise reflexes (0-1 months).	Launching innate patterns of action - unconditioned reflexes
2. Elementary skills, primary circular reactions (1-4 months).	Coordination of parts of his body by a child, coordination of individual movements into a single scheme of action
3. Secondary circular reactions (4-10 months).	Reproduction of movements outside of your body, "prolongation of interesting shows"
4. The beginning of practical intelligence (10-12 months).	Coordination of two independent schemes of actions to achieve a result
5. Tertiary circular reactions (12-18 months).	Experimenting with actions, observing the results of experimentation
6. Beginning of internalization of schemes (18-24 months).	Assimilation of methods of action with objects, preservation in memory of images of objects and methods of action
II. Representative intelligence and specific operations (2-11 years old)	1. Preoperative intelligence (2-7 years).	Thinking based on symbols, images, which has an illogical, non-systemic nature. Egocentric thinking of the child.
2. Specific operations (7-11 years old).	Manifestation of systematic thinking in a situation of operating with specific objects.
III. Formal operations (11-15 years old)		Formation of formal-logical structures, abstract thinking, hypothetical-deductive logic.

Piaget's greatest discovery is the discovery of the phenomenon of egocentrism in children's thinking.

ü Egocentrism- a special cognitive position taken by the subject in relation to the surrounding world, when phenomena and objects are considered by him only from his own point of view.

ü Egocentrism- a set of pre-critical, pre-objective positions in the knowledge of things of other people, oneself.

ü Egocentrism- this is the absolutization of one's own cognitive perspective and the inability to coordinate different points of view on the subject.

Characteristics of a child's egocentric thinking:

1. Syncretism(fusion) of children's thinking - the perception of an image without analyzing the details, the tendency to connect everything with everything.

2. Location- the tendency to associate everything with everything.

3. Intellectual realism- identification of their ideas about things with real objects.

4. Animism- general animation.

5. Artificalism- an idea of ​​the artificial origin of natural phenomena.

6. Insensitive to contradictions.

7. Impenetrable to experience.

8. Transduction- the transition from the particular to the particular, bypassing the general.

9. Entrepreneurship- inability to establish causal relationships.

10. Weakness of introspection(self-observation).