Category: Piaget

Ever wonder why a toddler calls every four-legged animal a dog, or insists a zebra is just a stripy horse? Piaget had an answer, and it comes down to two processes that sit at the center of assimilation vs accommodation: how children either stretch their existing mental categories to fit new information, or rebuild those categories when the old ones...

A toddler who covers their eyes and shouts “You can’t see me!” is showing a mild form of egocentrism — and so is the teenager who spends an hour agonizing over a photo, convinced the whole school will notice every detail. Neither one is being selfish. What looks like self-centeredness is actually a cognitive stage tied to how the developing...

Object permanence typically develops around 4-8 months of age, with full mastery emerging around 18-24 months as babies progress through Piaget’s sensorimotor stage. Before achieving object permanence, infants behave as though hidden objects cease to exist entirely—when a toy disappears under a blanket or a caregiver leaves the room, these things vanish from the baby’s mental world. This developmental achievement...