Notes · PsychologyUK · A-Levels

Cognition and development

This optional topic examines how thinking develops through childhood. It compares Piaget's stage theory and Vygotsky's social account of cognitive development, Baillargeon's evidence for surprisingly early infant abilities, and the development of social cognition - perspective-taking, theory of mind and the mirror neuron system. It is one of the three choices in the first option block of Paper 3.

5 sections~16 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Standard 1 · Advanced 4

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Exam profile

AO1 · Describe Piaget's and Vygotsky's theories, Baillargeon's account, and the development of social cognitionAO2 · Apply the theories to novel examples of children's thinkingAO3 · Evaluate the theories and the supporting studies, including methodological critique

Operators:describeexplainapplyevaluatediscuss

basic level

This is a full A-Level (A2) optional topic, not part of AS; on Paper 3 students study one topic from this option block (Relationships, Gender or Cognition and development).

higher level

The full A-Level requires description, application and evaluation of both theories of cognitive development and of the development of social cognition.

Depth

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Contents · 5 sections

Cognition and development

Piaget's theory: schemas and the mechanisms of development#

AdvancedAQA 7182 3.3.4DfE GCE Psychology - Piaget's theory of cognitive development

Piaget's mechanism of development

Fig. 1New information that will not fit produces disequilibrium; accommodation restores balance (equilibration), building a more advanced schema.

Piaget saw the child as a 'little scientist' who actively constructs their understanding of the world, and he explained cognitive development in terms of schemas and the processes that change them. A schema is a mental structure containing knowledge about an object or action; babies are born with a few innate schemas (such as sucking) and build many more through experience.

Two processes change schemas. Assimilation is fitting new information into an existing schema without changing it (a child who knows 'dog' calling a cat a 'dog'). Accommodation is changing an existing schema, or creating a new one, because the new information does not fit (learning that a cat is a different kind of animal). Accommodation is the more powerful process, producing genuinely new understanding.

The driving force is the child's need for cognitive balance. When a child encounters something that cannot be assimilated into existing schemas, they experience disequilibrium - an uncomfortable state of imbalance. This motivates them to adapt (through accommodation) until balance is restored, a process Piaget called equilibration. Learning therefore happens when the child meets information that does not fit and is driven to reorganise their schemas to make sense of it.

Piaget's mechanisms are evaluated as influential but incomplete. Their strength is that they capture the active, constructive nature of learning and have shaped education (discovery learning, readiness). Their weaknesses are that Piaget underestimated the role of other people and language in development (Vygotsky's emphasis), that the concept of disequilibrium is hard to measure, and that his own clinical-interview methods with children may have led him to underestimate children's abilities. Nonetheless, assimilation, accommodation and equilibration remain a widely accepted account of how individual understanding changes.

Worked example

Tracing a schema change

A toddler with a 'bird = flies' schema sees an aeroplane and calls it a bird, then is told it is a plane. Analyse the sequence using Piaget's mechanisms.

Assimilation
The toddler first assimilates the aeroplane into the existing 'bird = flies' schema, calling it a bird.
Disequilibrium
Being told it is a plane creates information that does not fit the schema, producing disequilibrium.
Accommodation and equilibration
The toddler accommodates by forming a new 'aeroplane' schema; balance (equilibration) is restored with a more advanced understanding.

Result: Assimilation, then disequilibrium, then accommodation and equilibration - Piaget's cycle of schema change.

Typical mistakes

Confusing assimilation (fitting new information into an existing schema) with accommodation (changing the schema).
Treating equilibrium as the driver of change - it is disequilibrium that motivates adaptation.

Active revision

A child who calls all four-legged animals 'dog' learns the word 'horse'. Explain the change in schemas using Piaget's processes.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for psychology (Department for Education) · AQA A-level Psychology 7182 specification (AQA)

Piaget's stages: object permanence, conservation and egocentrism#

AdvancedAQA 7182 3.3.4DfE GCE Psychology - stages of intellectual development

Piaget's four stages

Fig. 2Four universal stages in a fixed order, each marked by a qualitatively different kind of thinking.

Piaget proposed that children pass through four universal stages of intellectual development in a fixed order, each marked by qualitatively different thinking. In the sensorimotor stage (0-2 years) the infant learns through the senses and movement, and the key achievement is object permanence - understanding that objects continue to exist when out of sight, which Piaget claimed developed at around eight months (before which a hidden object is 'out of mind').

In the preoperational stage (2-7 years) the child can use symbols and language but their thinking has characteristic limitations. It is egocentric - the child sees the world only from their own viewpoint, as Piaget's 'three mountains' task showed (young children could not select the view seen by a doll on the other side). The child also lacks conservation - the understanding that quantity stays the same despite a change in appearance - so when liquid is poured from a short wide glass into a tall thin one, the child says there is now 'more'. The child also struggles with class inclusion (understanding that a class can be part of a larger class - that there are more animals than dogs).

In the concrete operational stage (7-11 years) the child masters conservation, class inclusion and other logical operations, but can apply this reasoning only to concrete, physically present situations, not to abstract or hypothetical problems. In the formal operational stage (from about 11 years) the child can reason abstractly and systematically, testing hypotheses and thinking about possibilities - the kind of thinking needed for advanced science and mathematics.

Piaget's stage theory is evaluated as a landmark that is partly wrong in its detail. Its enduring strength is the identification of qualitative shifts in children's reasoning, supported by the striking conservation and egocentrism demonstrations, and its huge influence on education. However, later research (using simpler, more child-friendly tasks) has repeatedly shown that Piaget underestimated children: object permanence, conservation and perspective-taking often appear earlier than he claimed when the task is made less confusing (for example, Hughes's 'policeman' task showed much younger children could take another's perspective). His stages may therefore be too rigid, and development more continuous than his account suggests.

Worked example

Diagnosing a stage from behaviour

A six-year-old says a tall glass has more juice than a short wide one, even after watching the same juice being poured across. Identify the stage, the missing ability, and what a later study suggests.

Identify the missing ability
Judging quantity by appearance shows the child lacks conservation of liquid.
Assign the stage
Lacking conservation places the child in the preoperational stage (2-7), consistent with age six.
Add the critical note
Later research (e.g. McGarrigle and Donaldson's 'naughty teddy') found children conserve earlier when the change looks accidental, suggesting Piaget's task underestimated the ability.

Result: Preoperational stage, lacking conservation - though modified tasks suggest the ability appears earlier than Piaget claimed.

Typical mistakes

Placing conservation in the preoperational stage - the child there lacks conservation; it is achieved in the concrete operational stage.
Confusing egocentrism (own viewpoint) with class inclusion (part-whole relations).

Active revision

A child agrees that a row of counters spread out has 'more' than the same number bunched together. Identify the stage and the ability the child lacks.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for psychology (Department for Education) · AQA A-level Psychology 7182 specification (AQA)

Vygotsky's theory: the zone of proximal development and scaffolding#

AdvancedAQA 7182 3.3.4DfE GCE Psychology - Vygotsky's theory

The zone of proximal development

Fig. 3Learning happens in the zone of proximal development - the middle ring - where a child can succeed with a more knowledgeable other's scaffolding.

Vygotsky agreed with Piaget that children actively construct knowledge, but argued that cognitive development is fundamentally social: children learn through interaction with more knowledgeable others (parents, teachers, more able peers), and culture and language are the tools that drive development. Where Piaget saw the individual child discovering the world, Vygotsky saw learning as inherently a social, collaborative process.

The central concept is the zone of proximal development (ZPD): the gap between what a child can already do alone (their current level of development) and what they can do with the guidance of a more knowledgeable other (their potential level). Learning takes place within this zone - the region of tasks the child cannot yet do independently but can achieve with help - so effective teaching aims just ahead of the child's current ability.

Scaffolding is the support a more knowledgeable other provides to help the child move through the ZPD. Just as scaffolding supports a building until it can stand alone, the helper provides more support at first (demonstrating, prompting, breaking the task down) and gradually withdraws it as the child becomes able to perform the task independently. Language plays a key role: children use the language of others and, over time, internalise it as inner speech that guides their own thinking.

Vygotsky's theory is evaluated as a valuable complement to Piaget. Its strengths are strong support for the ZPD and scaffolding (children taught within their ZPD make more progress) and clear, positive applications to education (peer tutoring, guided group work). Its limitations are that it may overemphasise the social at the expense of the individual and biological factors that Piaget stressed, that key concepts such as the ZPD are somewhat vague and hard to measure precisely, and that Vygotsky's early death left the theory less fully developed and tested than Piaget's. Comparing the two theories - individual construction versus social construction - is a common exam requirement.

Worked example

Applying the ZPD to teaching

A child can add two-digit numbers alone but cannot yet do long multiplication. Describe how a teacher would use the ZPD and scaffolding.

Locate the ZPD
Long multiplication lies just beyond what the child can do alone but within reach with help - it is in the child's zone of proximal development.
Provide scaffolding
The teacher initially models each step and prompts heavily, then gradually reduces the support as the child takes over more of the process.
Withdraw support
As the child becomes competent, the teacher removes the scaffolding, and internalised inner speech guides the child to perform long multiplication independently.

Result: Teaching within the ZPD with gradually withdrawn scaffolding moves the child to independent competence.

Typical mistakes

Describing the ZPD as what a child can do alone - it is the gap between that and what they can do with help.
Presenting scaffolding as constant support - the support is gradually withdrawn as competence grows.

Active revision

Explain how a teacher could use the zone of proximal development and scaffolding to help a child learn long division.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for psychology (Department for Education) · AQA A-level Psychology 7182 specification (AQA)

Baillargeon and early infant abilities#

StandardAQA 7182 3.3.4DfE GCE Psychology - Baillargeon's explanation of early infant abilities

Baillargeon challenged Piaget's claim that object permanence develops only at around eight months, arguing that Piaget's method (whether the baby searches for a hidden object) confused what babies know with what they can physically do. Her alternative approach was the violation-of-expectation (VOE) method, which measures how long babies look at events, on the assumption that babies look longer at events that surprise them - that is, events that violate their expectations.

In a typical study, babies are first familiarised with a possible event and then shown either a possible or an 'impossible' event (for example, a tall object apparently passing through a solid barrier). Baillargeon found that infants as young as a few months looked reliably longer at the impossible events, which she argued shows they had an expectation about how objects should behave - and therefore some understanding of object permanence and of the physical world - far earlier than Piaget claimed.

Baillargeon proposed that infants have an innate physical reasoning system - a basic, hard-wired understanding of the physical world that becomes more refined with experience. This built-in starting knowledge, she argued, explains why object permanence appears so early: babies do not have to construct it from scratch, but are born with the beginnings of it.

Baillargeon's work is evaluated as methodologically strong but open to interpretation. Its strengths are that the VOE method removes the confound of the baby's limited motor ability (so it may reveal knowledge Piaget's search task missed) and that the findings are robust and replicable. Its main limitation is that looking longer at an 'impossible' event does not unambiguously prove the infant understands object permanence - the baby may simply be responding to the novelty or oddness of the display - so we are inferring quite sophisticated knowledge from a single behavioural measure. The idea of an innate physical reasoning system is also difficult to test directly.

Worked example

Interpreting a violation-of-expectation result

Three-month-old infants look for 15 seconds at an impossible event but only 8 seconds at a matched possible event. Explain what Baillargeon would conclude and one limitation.

State the finding
The infants looked much longer at the impossible event (15 s) than the possible one (8 s).
Draw Baillargeon's conclusion
Longer looking at the impossible event suggests the infants expected objects to behave in the physical way, implying an early understanding of object permanence - earlier than Piaget claimed.
Note a limitation
Longer looking might reflect the sheer novelty or strangeness of the impossible display rather than genuine physical knowledge, so the interpretation is not certain.

Result: The longer looking suggests early physical knowledge, but the inference from looking time to understanding is not conclusive.

Typical mistakes

Saying VOE measures searching - it measures looking time at possible versus impossible events.
Treating longer looking as certain proof of understanding - it may reflect novelty rather than knowledge.

Active revision

Explain how the violation-of-expectation method could be used to test whether infants understand that solid objects cannot pass through each other.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for psychology (Department for Education) · AQA A-level Psychology 7182 specification (AQA)

The development of social cognition: Selman, theory of mind and mirror neurons#

AdvancedAQA 7182 3.3.4DfE GCE Psychology - development of social cognition

Selman's levels of perspective-taking

Fig. 4Selman's five levels of perspective-taking develop with age, from the socially egocentric level 0 to the societal level 4.

Social cognition is how we process, store and use information about other people, and a key part of it is perspective-taking - understanding that other people have their own thoughts and feelings that differ from ours. Selman studied this by presenting children with social dilemmas and asking how the characters felt, and identified five levels of perspective-taking that develop with age: level 0, socially egocentric (about 3-6, cannot distinguish own and others' views); level 1, social-informational (about 6-8, aware others may see things differently but only one perspective at a time); level 2, self-reflective (about 8-10, can step into another's shoes); level 3, mutual (about 10-12, can take a third-person view of a two-person interaction); and level 4, societal (about 12+, understands that perspectives are influenced by broader social and cultural systems).

Theory of mind (ToM) is the ability to attribute mental states - beliefs, desires, intentions - to oneself and others, and to understand that others can hold beliefs that differ from reality (a false belief). It is tested with false-belief tasks such as the Sally-Anne task: Sally hides a marble and leaves, Anne moves it, and the child is asked where Sally will look for it. Children with a developed theory of mind (typically by about age four) say Sally will look where she left it (her false belief), understanding that Sally does not know it has moved.

Baron-Cohen used the Sally-Anne task to argue that a specific deficit in theory of mind may underlie the social and communication difficulties of autism: in his study, most children with autism failed the false-belief task that most typically developing and Down's-syndrome children passed, suggesting the difficulty was specific to theory of mind rather than to general intelligence. This is one influential explanation of the social features of autism.

The mirror neuron system is proposed as a possible biological basis of social cognition. Mirror neurons are neurons that fire both when we perform an action and when we observe someone else perform the same action; the idea is that they allow us to simulate and thus understand others' actions and intentions, and perhaps to feel empathy. Some researchers have suggested that dysfunction in the mirror neuron system might contribute to the social difficulties in autism (the 'broken mirror' hypothesis). This area is evaluated as promising but tentative: much of the direct mirror-neuron evidence comes from animals, human evidence is largely indirect, and the link to theory of mind and autism remains debated - so conclusions should be cautious.

Worked example

Interpreting a false-belief task

In the Sally-Anne task, a child says Sally will look for the marble in the new location where Anne moved it. What does this answer suggest?

Recall the correct answer
A child with theory of mind should say Sally will look where she left the marble, because Sally holds a false belief and does not know it was moved.
Interpret the child's answer
Answering the new location shows the child cannot separate their own knowledge (where the marble really is) from Sally's false belief.
Draw a conclusion
This suggests the child has not yet developed a theory of mind - typical below about age four, and a pattern Baron-Cohen linked to the social difficulties in autism.

Result: Choosing the new location indicates an undeveloped theory of mind - the child cannot attribute a false belief to Sally.

Typical mistakes

Confusing perspective-taking (Selman) with theory of mind (attributing mental states/false beliefs).
Stating firmly that broken mirror neurons cause autism - the evidence is indirect and the link is debated.

Active revision

Explain how the Sally-Anne task tests theory of mind and what a typical four-year-old's answer shows.

Active recall

Recall the key points — then reveal.

Sources: GCE AS and A level subject content for psychology (Department for Education) · AQA A-level Psychology 7182 specification (AQA)

References & sources

Sources

Department for Education

GCE AS and A level subject content for psychology

AQA

AQA A-level Psychology 7182 specification

Cognition and development

5 sections~16 min reading time3 competenciesLevel Standard 1 · Advanced 4

Cognition and development

Key points

Tracing a schema change

Key points

Diagnosing a stage from behaviour

Key points

Applying the ZPD to teaching

Key points

Interpreting a violation-of-expectation result

Key points

Interpreting a false-belief task

Sources

Cognition and development

Key points

Tracing a schema change

Key points

Diagnosing a stage from behaviour

Key points

Applying the ZPD to teaching

Key points

Interpreting a violation-of-expectation result

Key points

Interpreting a false-belief task

Sources