Piaget is a structuralist who believes stage changes are qualitative.

Piaget is a structuralist who believes stage changes are qualitative.

• A. Behaviorist
• B. Cognitivist
• C. Structuralist
• D. Humanist

Answer: (C)

Piaget’s approach focuses on how thinking is organized into different structures that leap from one form to another at specific points in development. Those leaps are qualitative, meaning the nature of thinking changes in kind, not just in amount. For example, moving from sensorimotor ways of knowing to symbolic thought marks a fundamental reorganization of how the mind works, not simply more knowledge or faster processing. That emphasis on the structure of thought and its abrupt transformations over stages is what makes this a structuralist view. Behaviorism centers on observable behavior and reinforcement, not the internal organization of thinking. Cognitivism looks at mental processes, but many cognitivist accounts describe development as a more continuous buildup of information processing skills rather than sharp, qualitative stage shifts. Humanism emphasizes personal growth and subjective experience rather than the structural changes in cognition.

Piaget’s approach focuses on how thinking is organized into different structures that leap from one form to another at specific points in development. Those leaps are qualitative, meaning the nature of thinking changes in kind, not just in amount. For example, moving from sensorimotor ways of knowing to symbolic thought marks a fundamental reorganization of how the mind works, not simply more knowledge or faster processing. That emphasis on the structure of thought and its abrupt transformations over stages is what makes this a structuralist view.

Behaviorism centers on observable behavior and reinforcement, not the internal organization of thinking. Cognitivism looks at mental processes, but many cognitivist accounts describe development as a more continuous buildup of information processing skills rather than sharp, qualitative stage shifts. Humanism emphasizes personal growth and subjective experience rather than the structural changes in cognition.