Stage of concrete operations: what is it and what are its characteristics?

A summary about what is the stage of concrete operations according to Jean Piaget.

The stage of concrete operations is the third stage of development proposed by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piagetin his well-known Theory of Cognitive Development.

During this stage children acquire a better ability to perform operations related to mass, number, length and weight of objects. They are also able to better order objects, as well as to establish categories and organize them hierarchically.

Next we will see more in depth this stage, in addition to see the each one of the abilities that are acquired in this period and the criticisms that have been made to the findings of Piaget.

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What is the stage of concrete operations?

The stage of concrete operations is a developmental period proposed by the Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget in his Theory of Cognitive Development.

This stage begins at about age 7 and ends at age 11, being the third stage in the theory, coming after the preoperational stage and before theIt is the third stage in the theory, coming after the pre-operational stage and before the formal operations stage. It is during these years that children acquire a greater capacity to organize their ideas, developing a better rational, logical and operative thinking.

At this age, children acquire the ability to discover things they did not understand before and to solve problems through language. They are able to present arguments without ties, reflecting a higher level of intelligence and operability compared to the two-year-olds. and operability compared to the two previous developmental periods, the sensorimotor and preoperational stages.

The main characteristic of this period is the ability to be able to use logical thinking or operations. This implies being able to use the rules of thought, having a less fanciful vision of real objects, in the sense that he understands that the changes that may occur in their number, area, volume and orientation do not necessarily mean that there are more or less. Despite this breakthrough, children can only apply their logic to physical objects, not to abstract and hypothetical ideas.This is why we speak of a stage of concrete, non-formal operations.

Main characteristics of this stage of development

There are five main characteristics that can be identified in this stage proposed by Jean Piaget.

Conservation

Conservation is the child's ability to understand that an object remains the same in quantity even if its appearance changes. That is to say, no matter what type of redistribution of matter is made, its mass, number, length or volume need not be affected.. For example, it is at this age that children understand that if we take a medium-sized ball of plastelina and divide it into three smaller balls, we still have the same amount of plastelina.

Another example, very recurrent, is the conservation of liquids. It is from the age of 7 that most children can understand that if we put water in a short, wide glass and change it to a thin, tall glass, we still have the same amount of liquid.

This same example is not true for 5-year-olds, according to Piaget. At this age, if we do the same exercise of changing the liquid from one glass to another with a different shape, children believe that we have more water.

To check how they were able to see the conservation of the number of elements Piaget conducted an experiment with tokens. He gave the children a number of these tokens and asked them to make a line equal to the one the experimenter had made.

Piaget would then take his row and separate the tokens slightly, asking the children if they thought there were more tokens. Most of the 7-year-olds were able to answer correctly.Piaget concluded that it was at that age that the notion of numerical conservation was achieved.

But he also saw that the idea of conservation for all aspects, i.e., number, mass, length and volume was not understood homogeneously. Some children first learned one of one kind without understanding another.. Based on this Piaget concluded that in this ability there was a horizontal lag, that is, that there were certain inconsistencies in the development.

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Classification

The classification is the ability to identify the properties of things and categorize them on the basis of those properties, relate classes to each other, and use that information to solve problems.The basic component of this skill is the ability to group objects according to a common characteristic and to organize the categories into hierarchies.

The basic component of this ability is the ability to group objects according to a common characteristic and to organize categories into hierarchies, that is, categories within categories.

Piaget devised three basic options that would help to understand how children develop the ability to classify objects and relate them to each other. Thus, he speaks of class inclusion, simple classification and multiple classification.

1. Class inclusion

This refers to the different ways that people have to communicate, including ideas and concepts within various categories, seeing how they are related or related to each other.Seeing how they relate to or include each other.

2. Simple classification

It is about grouping a series of objects that will be joined together to be used for the same purpose. For example, organize geometric figures with different shapes and colors.

3. Multiple classification

It involves grouping a series of objects working on two dimensions or features.

Seriation

Seriation is the ability to mentally order the elements along a quantifiable dimension, such as weight, height, size... For this reason, according to PiagetIt is for this reason that, according to Piaget, children of this age know how to order objects better.

Piaget proved this ability through an experiment with a sample of children of different ages. In this experiment he presented them with tubes of different sizes, giving them the task of arranging them in order from largest to smallest size..

The children from three to four years old had problems to order them, while as they got older, they had some ability to do so. At the age of 5, certain skills were noticeable, while by the age of 7 he already seemed to know how to do his homework.

Decentering

Decentering is a prosocial skill, which implies that the individual has the ability to consider aspects of serious situations or conflicts in order to seek a solution. the ability to consider aspects of serious situations or conflicts in order to seek a solution..

In children in late kindergarten and early elementary school this skill can be found partially, since many have an overbearing and defiant attitude towards their peers. However, between the ages of 7 and 11 many already know how to control and address these issues.

Transitivity

Regarding the concept of transitivity, this is characterized by finding the relationship between two elements. The knowledge that children acquire at this age, both at school and at home, has a lot to do with this ability, since it is what allows them to relate ideas.

For example, they are able to relate that a ball, the field, the goal and the sports clothes are related to the sport of soccer.

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Criticisms of Piaget

Several psychologists after Piaget were critical of the findings made by the Swiss psychologist. These criticisms have focused, above all, on his assertions about the age at which the capacity for conservation was acquired.. Among these we can highlight the following:

Rose and Blank's research (1974).

One of the main criticisms of the conservation proposed by Piaget is related to how the researcher asked his subjects whether they saw differences or not after presenting them with changes in the objects.

Rose and Blank, in 1974 argued that at 5 years of age it is not difficult to accidentally confuse children by asking them twice the same question. If the question is repeated to them they may think that the first answer they gave to the researcher was incorrect and that the adult is repeating the question to them suggesting that the first thing they said was wrong and that they should give another answer.

According to Rose and Blank, this is a procedural error, and Piaget, in fact, made it. The Swiss asked the children twice, before and after the transformation. Because the question was closed-ended (is there more liquid now? yes/no), there was a 50% chance of getting it right, and because the 5-year-olds thought they might be wrong when they answered the first time, they changed their answer.

Rose and Blank replicated this experiment, but asked the question only once, after passing the liquid from a thicker container to a thinner one. They found that many children between the ages of 5 and 6 gave the correct answer anyway. This shows that children can understand the idea of conservation at an earlier age than Piaget proposed..

McGarrigle and Donaldson Study (1974)

Researchers McGarrigle and Donaldson in 1974 devised a study on conservation, in which the number of the disturbance was accidental.

They placed two identical rows of candy in front of their experimental subject children, aged 4 to 6 years, and reported that they saw that both were the same. Suddenly, however, an element appeared that altered the rows, a stuffed animal that we will call the naughty Teddy. The teddy bear would mess up the order of one of the candy rows and go back to his box to hide.. After that, the children were asked if there were the same number of candies and the 4 to 6 year olds gave the correct answer more than half of the time.

This experiment suggested, once again, that Piaget's idea that conservation was a notion acquired with more than 7 years of age was not true. It seems that this ability was manifested by children at an earlier age, with its onset at 4 years of age.

Dasen's study (1994)

Dasen demonstrated in 1994 that children from different cultures achieve the skills proposed for the stage of concrete operations at different ages, depending on their cultural context.depending on their cultural context.

His sample consisted of Aboriginal children from remote parts of the central Australian desert, aged 8-14 years.

He had them perform the tasks of liquid conservation and spatial awareness, finding that in this culture conservation skills occurred later, between the ages of 10 and 13. Interestingly, spatial awareness skills developed earlier in Aboriginal children than in Swiss children. Thus, this study demonstrated that cognitive development was not purely maturation-dependent. cognitive development was not purely dependent on maturation, but was also influenced by cultural factors.but was also influenced by cultural factors.

In the case of spatial awareness, it seems that this was an early acquired skill among nomadic peoples, since for them the ability to orient themselves in physical space was fundamental. In the Swiss context, the acquisition of conservation between the ages of 5 and 7 seems to be caused by schooling.

Bibliographical references:

• Dasen, P. (1994). Culture and cognitive development from a Piagetian perspective. In W.J. Lonner & R.S. Malpass (Eds.), Psychology and culture. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
• Greenfield, P. M. (1966). On culture and conservation. Studies in cognitive growth, 225-256.
• McGarrigle, J., & Donaldson, M. (1974). Conservation accidents. Cognition, 3, 341-350.
• Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of reality in the child. (M. Cook, Trans.).
• Piaget, J. (1954). The child’s conception of number. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 18(1), 76.
• Piaget, J. (1968). Quantification, conservation, and nativism. Science, 162, 976-979.
• Rose, S. A., & Blank, M. (1974). The potency of context in children’s cognition: An illustration through conservation. Child development, 499-502.