Which statement about Piaget is true?

Which statement about Piaget is true?

• A. Piaget is a structuralist who believes stage changes are qualitative.
• B. Piaget is a cognitive psychologist who believes stages are continuous.
• C. Piaget is a behavioralist who believes stage changes are quantitative.
• D. Piaget is a functionalist who believes stages are random.

Answer: (A)

Piaget’s view centers on how thinking becomes organized into underlying structures or schemas, and how those structures change as children grow. He argued that development is not just a slow, step-by-step accumulation of skills but involves distinct reorganizations of thinking at certain points. Those reorganizations mark qualitative changes in how problems are approached and solved, which is why stage transitions are described as qualitative shifts in cognitive structure. That emphasis on changing mental organization aligns with calling his approach structuralist, since it focuses on the architecture of thought rather than just outward behavior or function. It’s also why the statement is the best fit: Piaget isn’t portraying development as continuous or random, and he isn’t grounded in behaviorism or functionalism. An example is the move from the preoperational to the concrete operational stage, where children begin to conserve quantity and apply logical rules to problems—changes that reflect a new, more organized way of thinking.

Piaget’s view centers on how thinking becomes organized into underlying structures or schemas, and how those structures change as children grow. He argued that development is not just a slow, step-by-step accumulation of skills but involves distinct reorganizations of thinking at certain points. Those reorganizations mark qualitative changes in how problems are approached and solved, which is why stage transitions are described as qualitative shifts in cognitive structure.

That emphasis on changing mental organization aligns with calling his approach structuralist, since it focuses on the architecture of thought rather than just outward behavior or function. It’s also why the statement is the best fit: Piaget isn’t portraying development as continuous or random, and he isn’t grounded in behaviorism or functionalism. An example is the move from the preoperational to the concrete operational stage, where children begin to conserve quantity and apply logical rules to problems—changes that reflect a new, more organized way of thinking.