Compare and contrast two developmental theories of intelligence
Intelligence is a complex psychological construct and promotes fierce debate amongst academics. Many experts maintain that intelligence is the most important aspect of individual differences, whereas other doubt its value as a concept. At one extreme many claim that individual differences in intelligence depend upon genetic factors, and at the other many argue that environmental factors account for it. In this essay I will compare and contrast two developmental theories of intelligence, with the work of Piagets account for developmental intelligence and Mike Andersons theory of developmental intelligence.
Piaget suggested that intelligence is a form of adaptation wherein knowledge is constructed by each individual through the complimentary processes of assimilation and accommodation. Piaget theorised that as children interact with their physical and social environments, they organise information into groups of interrelated ideas called ‘schemes’. When children encounter something new, they must either assimilate it into an existing scheme or create an entirely new scheme to deal with it. It must be noted that Piaget began his studies during a pioneering era; he was free to conceive of intelligence in terms of his unique perspective. (Ginsburg 1969).
A central focus of Piaget’s Epistemology is that increasingly complex intellectual processes are built on the primitive foundations laid in earlier stages of development. An infant’s physical explorations of his environment form the basis for the mental
Representations he develops as a preoperational child, and so on. Another important principle of Piaget’s stage theory is that there are genetic constraints inherent in the human organism – you can challenge a child to confront new ideas but you cannot necessarily ‘teach’ him out of one stage and into another according to Piaget. Moreover, a child cannot build new, increasingly complex schemes without interacting with his environment; nature and nurture are inexorably linked. Piaget maintained that children were mini-scientists, who are active participants within the world, Piaget (1973) discusses:
‘Intelligence does not by any means appear at once deprived from mental
development, like a higher mechanism, and radically distinct from those, which have preceded it. Intelligence presents, on the contrary, a remarkable continuity with the acquired or even inborn processes on which it depends and at the same time makes use of’ (Piaget p21)
Piaget argued that intellectual development occurs quantitatively in four distinct stages such as: the sensori-motor, the preoperational, the concrete Operational and the Formal Operational stages. The sensorimotor stage begins at birth, and lasts until the child is approximately two years old. At this stage, the child cannot form mental representations of objects that are outside his immediate view, so his intelligence develops through his motor interactions with his environment. The Preoperational stage typically lasts until the child is 6 or 7. According to Piaget, this is the stage where true ‘thought’ emerges. Preoperational children are able to make mental representations of unseen objects, but they cannot use deductive reasoning. The Concrete operations stage follows, and lasts until the child is 11 or 12. Concrete operational children are able to use deductive reasoning, demonstrating conservation of number, and can differentiate their perspective from that of other people. Lastly the Formal operations stage is the final stage. Its most salient feature is the ability to think abstractly (Piaget 1963).
Attempts have been made to correlate performance on Piagetian conservation tasks with standardised intelligence test scores, and the results have been mixed. Ultimately, an intelligence test built on a Piagetian framework would have to function very differently from intelligence tests like the Wechsler or the Stanford-Binet. In addition to recording a child’s correct and incorrect responses, the test administrator would also have to ask the child to explain why he answered in a given way. Piaget suggested that one way to reconcile these two approaches would be to adopt a method whereby a traditional intelligence test could serve as the basis for a clinical interview.
Piaget offered various definitions of intelligence, all proposed in general terms, all of which are based upon his biological stance. As quoted in Ginsburg (1969) Piaget suggests that ‘intelligence is a particular instance of biological adaptation’ p32 and furthermore when discussing intelligence Piaget maintains that intelligence ‘is the form of equilibrium toward which all the cognitive structures….tend’ p33. Piaget adopts the term ‘equilibrium’ which thus implies a balance, a balance in this case between an individuals mental actions and their environment.
Piaget's research methods were based primarily on case studies. While some of his ideas have been supported through more correlational and experimental methodologies, others have not. For example, Piaget believed that biological development drives the movement from one cognitive stage to the next. Data from cross-sectional studies of children in a variety of western cultures seem to support this assertion for the stages of sensorimotor, preoperational, and concrete operations. However, data from similar cross-sectional studies of adolescents do not support the assertion that all individuals will automatically move to the next cognitive stage as they biologically mature. For formal operations, it appears that maturation establishes the basis, but a special environment is required for most adolescents and adults to attain this stage.
At first, Piaget was not very enthusiastic about the work. Standardising a test can be very mechanical and tedious process. But then three major events occurred. First, although in intelligence testing, attention is usually focused on the child's ability to produce correct responses, Piaget discovered that the child's incorrect answers were far more fascinating. When questioning the children, Piaget found that the same wrong answers occurred frequently in children of about the same age. Moreover, there were different kinds of common wrong answers at different ages. Piaget puzzled on the meaning of these mistakes. He came to the conclusion that older children were not just 'brighter" than younger ones; instead, the thought of younger children was qualitatively different from that of older ones. In other words, Piaget came to reject a quantitative definition of intelligence based on the number of correct responses on a test. The real problem of intelligence, Piaget felt was to discover the different methods of thinking used by children of various ages. Piaget sought a different method for the study of intelligence. He immediately precluded the standardised test procedure. Such an approach, he felt was too rigid: for example, it might lead to a considerable loss of information if the child did not understand the questions. Consequently, he sought a less structured method, which would give him more freedom to question the child. His solution was to apply to the task his previous experience in abnormal psychology: he adapted the psychiatric method to research into children's thought. The new method was extremely flexible. It involved letting the child's answers (and not some preconceived plan) determine the course of questioning. If the child said something interesting, then it would immediately be pursued, without regard for a standardised procedure. Piaget maintained that the aim of this method was to follow the child's own line of thought, without imposing any direction on it (Ginsburg, 1969). Through his work with abnormal children, Piaget developed a method of having the children manipulate materials, as well as giving verbal descriptions.
Piaget came to study children for the purpose of understanding the development of intelligence. He looked at development in terms of a change in the level of intelligence. His early interests in studying genetic epistemology are from a scientific viewpoint instead of a philosophical one, led him into studies that brought him fame not as a biologist or a philosopher, but as a child psychologist. Piaget's contributions to child psychology should not just focus on his observations, but also on his methodology in studying children. The idea of observing children and following their thought in order to understand it makes much better sense than the current method of developing theories and trying to see if we can get the children to fit the theory.
Piaget acknowledges but disregards individual differences, as he is not particularly interested in this analysis (Ginsberg 1969). Meanwhile Anderson’s theory is set within a general theory of cognitive architecture (see Appendix) presented by Fodor. Anderson suggests that knowledge is acquired through two pathways and that these pathways are linked to the two constructs of intelligence: one relating to the individual differences and one relating to cognitive development. Anderson suggests that a biologically based theory that is able to account for three regularities in the data about intelligence. Firstly measurements of different cognitive abilities increase with development. Second, individual differences in test scores are relatively stable over development: the alert baby becomes the bright school child and the competent adult, although adult and child have a great deal of knowledge and many skills which the baby does not. And thirdly cognitive abilities increase with age at a similar rate and for a similar portion of the development curve. Theories, which centre intelligence on the general speed and efficiency of the individuals’ neurophysiology, can explain these regularities in terms of the neural processing that underlies cognitive activity (Anderson 1992).
Anderson proposes that intelligence tests measure intelligence through assessing knowledge but that knowledge itself is acquired through the two different routes proposed by Fodor. The central theme is that the two different routes are linked to two dimensions of intelligence – one related to individual differences and one to cognitive development. According to Anderson intelligence is made up of a basic processing mechanism which processes modules that also interact with each other, He maintains that there is little or nothing in the way of individual differences in modules, which are either there and processing information in a universal way, or are not there and not processing. This may be because the individual is so immature that they have not ‘come online’, or because the environment has been so abnormal. Anderson uses the term ‘dimension’ that he says is useful when describing a psychological construct (Anderson 1992). Anderson’s theory of the minimal cognitive architecture agues that there are two dimensions to g. G is the symbol for general intelligence, i.e. the load-bearing factor that enables IQ-type testing. g is thus central to the psychology of individual and differences in cognition. Anderson suggests that it is possible to view general and specific abilities as a developmental dimension
Unlike Piaget who disregards individual differences through out development. Anderson maintains that intellectual variations are of central focus within the psychology of intelligence. Both aspects of individual differences and cognitive development have been the source of much research although Anderson suggests that little has been done to link the two aspects to one another. Anderson denotes that individuals of similar ages may differ in their success on intellectual tasks. As Anderson (1992) discusses:
‘These within-age differences among individuals are the source of the concept of ‘IQ’. Second, between birth and adulthood, all individuals’ intellectual abilities increase’ p 161.
Anderson suggests that Piaget’s stance affected the aspect that individual differences and developmental changes both lie on the same dimension. As Piaget focused on a qualitative approach Anderson notes that this allowed for a more intense form of research instead of intensive research. A positive influence was that the data collated from his qualitative work provided in depth information, for example Anderson discusses that it focused upon the child’s reasoning ability and the aspect of errors that they made. This was regarded as strength, as it goes beyond describing intellectual differences on performance between age groups (Anderson 1992).
When considering Savant Syndrome this contests Piaget’s domain general theory of development. A savant is an individual who has exceptional talent and skill within an area for example, musical ability. But they their intellectual capacity and functioning is poor. Piaget rated them extremely poor in most areas of intellect. Meanwhile Anderson discusses that savant individuals are able to extract knowledge about structural rules, which are pertinent to the particular skill domain. Thus Anderson views a domain specific route, accepting that knowledge is divided into domains. (Anderson 1992) discusses:
Savant skills cannot adequately be explained in terms of some unique and rigid, memory-based mechanism, which is domain specific and which directly, translates input into output p 255.
A weakness of Piagets approach according to Anderson is that mostly his qualitative data would not fit in with the modern statistical techniques. Although Anderson suggests Piaget’s qualitative data was positive at progressing theory, he suggests that it may have been less positive as being able to test that theory, as it promoted much theory concerning general factors which may be accountable for age differences in performance within a range of tasks.
More recent studies have cast some doubt on Piaget's theory of homogeneous performance within a given stage. Instead, it is now believed that performance varies greatly within each stage and depends more on the acquisition and development of language, perception, decision rules, and real-world knowledge for any individual child. Children are often inconsistent in solving problems even after demonstrating acquisition of a particular set of operations and they may have underestimated abilities because tasks were too difficult or instructions not given well. Alternative explanations for why children have trouble with "Piagetian" tasks may be that Piaget overlooks effects of child's cultural and social environment.
Finally it is paramount that Piaget’s theory of cognitive development has had a huge and lasting influence within developmental psychology. Again it must be noted that for the time Piaget conducted his research, it was welcomed, accepted and implemented in order to further children’s development. Whereas Andersons view comprises yet highly appreciates Piaget’s theory as a foundation for research. Anderson offers a theory based upon a good central processor that is neurologically efficient, which allows for faster recognition and recall, with an acceptance of g, which will result in faster decision making processes. Both theorists offer a valid and articulate account for the development of intelligence and this is not a unitary construct, as various factors and aspects will continue to challenge and refute the concept of the development of intelligence (Anderson (2001).
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