15.1: Piaget’s Preoperational Intelligence

Learning Objectives

1. Identify the key features of Piaget’s preoperational stage and its typical age range.
2. Explain how symbolic thought is expressed through play, language, and drawing.
3. Describe intuitive thought and how it shapes young children’s reasoning.
4. Define egocentrism.
5. Recognize examples of syncretism and animism in early thinking.
6. Explain why classification errors occur in young children.
7. Describe conservation and centration, and how they affect problem-solving.
8. Differentiate between assimilation and accommodation in cognitive development.

Piaget’s stage that coincides with early childhood is the preoperational stage. The word operational means logical, so these children were thought to be illogical. However, preoperational thought consists of two key features: the development of symbolic and intuitive thought. Let’s examine some of Piaget’s assertions about children’s cognitive abilities at this age.

Use of Symbols

A defining characteristic of the preoperational stage is the ability to use symbols to represent objects, people, and events. Symbolic thought enables children to engage in pretend play, use language, and create drawings that reflect their understanding of the world.

• Play: Children use objects to represent other things, such as using a block as a telephone or pretending a doll is a real baby. "Some young children even create an imaginary friend, who is so real to them that they must have a seat and be served at the dinner table" (Levine & Munsch, 2024, p. 287).
• Language: The rapid expansion of vocabulary during early childhood is supported by the development of symbolic thought. Words become representations of objects and ideas, allowing children to communicate more effectively. For example, if we say the word "car", we no longer have to be in or next to the car to understand it exists.
• Drawings: Young children’s artwork progresses from simple scribbles to more recognizable shapes, demonstrating their ability to use symbols to depict their environment and experiences. They also demonstrate the understanding that the picture is representative- because they do not try to eat a picture of an apple, but instead understand the picture represents a real apple (Preissler & Bloom, 2007).

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\). A young girl is playing doctor with her teacher. Image by Yan Krukau is licensed by Pexels.

Intuitive Thought

As children continue developing cognitively, they enter the intuitive thought substage (approximately ages 4 to 7). During this phase, children become more curious about their surroundings and begin to ask many “why” and “how” questions. However, their reasoning is often based on personal intuition rather than logical analysis.

Egocentrism

Egocentrism is a hallmark of Piaget’s preoperational stage, referring to a child’s inability to take another person’s perspective. During early childhood, children struggle to recognize that others may have different viewpoints or emotions. This does not mean they are selfish but rather that their cognitive development has not yet reached the stage where they can fully separate their own experiences from those of others (Piaget, 1951).

One of the classic studies illustrating egocentrism is Piaget’s “Three Mountains Task,” where children were asked to describe what a doll placed at a different vantage point could see. Preoperational children typically described the doll’s view as identical to their own, demonstrating an egocentric perspective (Flavell, 1999). However, more recent research has questioned the rigidity of this concept. Studies using more familiar or relatable tasks have found that children as young as 3 or 4 years old can take another’s perspective under certain conditions, suggesting that egocentrism may not be as absolute as Piaget initially proposed (Rubio-Fernández & Geurts, 2013).

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): Piaget’s egocentrism experiment. Image by Rosenfeld Media is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Egocentric thinking can lead to difficulties in social interactions, as young children may not naturally understand how their actions impact others. For example, a child may grab a toy from a peer without realizing that the other child also has feelings about the toy. Because of this, it is crucial for caregivers and educators to establish clear boundaries and provide effective guidance. Modeling perspective-taking and encouraging children to consider others' emotions can help them gradually move beyond egocentrism (Brownell et al., 2013). Structured social experiences, such as cooperative play and storytelling, can also promote empathy and perspective-taking (Gleason, 2017).

Syncretism

Syncretism refers to the tendency to think that if two events occur simultaneously, one caused the other. An example of this is a child putting on their bathing suit to make it summertime.

Animism

Attributing lifelike qualities to objects is referred to as animism. The cup is alive, the chair that falls down and hits the child’s ankle is mean, and the toys need to stay home because they are tired. Cartoons often depict objects that appear alive and possess lifelike qualities. Young children often seem to think that objects that move may be alive, but after the age of 3, they seldom refer to objects as being alive (Berk, 2007).

Classification Errors

Preoperational children have difficulty understanding that an object can be classified in more than one way. For example, if shown three white buttons and four black buttons and asked whether there are more black buttons or buttons, the child is likely to respond that there are more black buttons. As the child’s vocabulary improves and more schemes are developed, the ability to classify objects improves. ⁶

Conservation Errors

Conservation refers to the ability to recognize that moving or rearranging matter does not change the quantity. Let’s look at an example. A father gave a slice of pizza to 10-year-old Keiko and another slice to 3-year-old Kenny. Kenny’s pizza slice was cut into five pieces, so Kenny told his sister that he got more pizza than she did. Kenny did not understand that cutting the pizza into smaller pieces did not increase the overall amount of pizza. This was because Kenny exhibited centration, or focused on only one characteristic of an object to the exclusion of others.

Kenny focused on the five pieces of pizza compared to his sister’s one piece, even though the total amount was the same. Keiko was able to consider several characteristics of an object rather than just one. Because children have not developed this understanding of conservation, they cannot perform mental operations.

The classic Piagetian experiment associated with conservation involves liquid (Crain, 2005). As shown below, the child is presented with two glasses (as depicted in a), which are filled to the same level, and asked if they contain the same amount. Usually, the child agrees they have the same amount. The researcher then pours the liquid from one glass into a taller and thinner glass (as shown in b). The child is again asked if the two glasses have the same amount of liquid. The preoperational child will typically say the taller glass now has more liquid because it is taller. The child has concentrated on the height of the glass and fails to conserve. ⁷ The same holds true for conservation of mass and number.

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\)a: Piagetian liquid conservation experiments. Image by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\)b: Piagetian conservation of mass. Image by Heather Carter (via Canva) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\)c: Piagetian conservation of numbers. Image by Heather Carter is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Working memory, or the ability to hold and manipulate information over short periods, also plays a role in conservation. Young children may grasp a concept momentarily but struggle to retain that understanding as they process new information. This limited working memory capacity makes it difficult for them to recall that the amount of water remained constant despite changes in appearance (Diamond, 2013).

As children grow, they develop the ability to decenter, meaning they can consider multiple aspects of a situation at once. Decentering enables more flexible thinking and is a crucial step in overcoming cognitive biases. Around the age of 6 or 7, children begin to succeed in conservation tasks as their cognitive abilities mature, allowing them to process multiple pieces of information simultaneously (Gelman, 2006).

Cognitive Schemas

As introduced in the first chapter, Piaget believed that in a quest for cognitive equilibrium, we use schemas (categories of knowledge) to make sense of the world. And when new experiences fit into existing schemas, we use assimilation to add that new knowledge to the schema. However, when new experiences do not align with an existing schema, we use accommodation to incorporate a new schema. During early childhood, children often use accommodation as they build their understanding of the world around them.

References, Contributors and Attributions

6. Lifespan Development - Module 5: Early Childhood by Lumen Learning references Psyc 200 Lifespan Psychology by Laura Overstreet, licensed under CC BY 4.0

7. Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

Brownell, C. A., Svetlova, M., & Nichols, S. R. (2013). To share or not to share: When do toddlers respond to another’s needs? Infancy, 18(1), 91-119. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1532-7078.2012.00154.x

Diamond, A. (2013). Executive functions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 135-168. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-113011-143750

Flavell, J. H. (1999). Cognitive development: Children's knowledge about the mind. Annual Review of Psychology, 50, 21-45. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.psych.50.1.21

Gelman, R. (2006). Young children and number: Their world and how they respond to it. Harvard University Press.

Gleason, T. R. (2017). Imaginary companions and peer relationships. Social Development, 26(1), 35-49. https://doi.org/10.1111/sode.12190

Levine, L.E. & Munsch, J. (2024). (3rd eds.). The developing children from birth to adolescence: An active learning approach. Sage Publishing.

Piaget, J. (1951). Play, dreams, and imitation in childhood. Norton.

Preissler, M. A., & Bloom, P. (2007). Two-year-olds appreciate the dual nature of pictures. Psychological Science, 18(1), 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2007.01837.x

Rubio-Fernández, P., & Geurts, B. (2013). How to pass the false-belief task before your fourth birthday. Psychological Science, 24(1), 27-33. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797612447819