Mental Categorization and Development :: Psychology Jean Piaget Essays

Mental Categorization and DevelopmentMissing Works Cited jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, explained cognitive development in a elbow room that may be useful in understanding the tommyrot of our story of evolution. He explained that in order to understand and function in our world, we form thoughts and behaviors into systems, and are in a continual process of adapting our mental systems to split up make scent protrude of our surroundings. He calls these systems schemes and defines them as the basic building blocks of thinking, or tools for being able to mentally represent objects and events. They can be precise simple like a scheme for throwing a ball, and get to a greater extent complex like a scheme for playing baseball. Through out(p) development, bran-new schemes arise and they become more organized to better make sand of the environment. Schemes become more complex and better organized through adaptation, which Piaget explains is a mixture of two different processes a ssimilation and accommodation. Assimilation occurs when one makes sense of something in the environment by delayting it into an already established scheme. This may or may not work. For example, most things of similar body variety that swim in the water can be understood and raiment into a fish scheme. However, when one encounters a whale, it may not fit into ones previous schemes, or what one understands to be a fish or a mammal. In that case, one has to accommodate, or flip their schemes in order to make sense of new nurture. These processes most very much dont occur in isolation, but are through together constantly to make sense of the world. In some situations, when the information we are getting from the environment is too complex, the information is left out entirely. As our understanding of the world expands, Piaget explains, it excessively start outs into categories. Expansion and fragmentation also seems to be a universal natural biological principal. Liquids and ga ses spread out to the boundaries of their containers, animals disperse on land, and humans have managed to explore even the unlivable territory of space. Animals often divide themselves into herds or flocks, while humans divide themselves into cultures, societies, and families. Expansion and division seem to be inherent and interconnected in other realms as well. The human constructs of religion and literature expand through time as they build on past stories. The more the wealth of knowledge, beliefs, and history expands, the more categories we define to separate them.