Discuss Piaget's stages of developmental psychology.
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Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist known for his theory of cognitive development in children. According to Piaget, children progress through four stages of cognitive development, each characterized by distinct ways of thinking and understanding the world. These stages are:
1. Sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years): During this stage, infants learn about the world through their senses and actions. They develop object permanence, the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they are out of sight. They also begin to understand cause and effect relationships.
2. Preoperational stage (2 to 7 years): In this stage, children begin to use language and symbols to represent objects and ideas. They also develop egocentrism, the tendency to see things only from their own perspective. They have difficulty understanding conservation, the idea that certain properties of objects remain the same even when their appearance changes.
3. Concrete operational stage (7 to 11 years): Children in this stage begin to think more logically and systematically. They can understand conservation and can perform simple mental operations, such as addition and subtraction. They also begin to understand concepts like classification and seriation.
4. Formal operational stage (11 years and older): In this final stage, individuals develop the ability to think abstractly and hypothetically. They can solve complex problems and think about multiple possibilities. They also develop the ability to think about their own thinking, known as metacognition.
It is important to note that not all children progress through these stages at the same rate, and some may skip stages altogether. Piaget's theory has been influential in the field of developmental psychology and has helped researchers understand how children's thinking evolves over time.