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Who Is Jean Piaget

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In 1896, Jean Piaget was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland and would grow up to be one of the most influential researchers in developmental psychology. While Piaget was surrounded by rather scholarly family members throughout his childhood, he was also effected by his mother heavily. His mother had a strong neurotic temperament which made home life challenging at times, and consequently created a young Piaget's wanting to understand his mother's erratic behavior- the spark of his intense interest in psychology. As time passed, Piaget received his PhD at twenty two years old and continued to work in the field of psychology, particularly in regards to children. It was in the 1920s when working at the Binet Institute though when Piaget found something that truly fascinated him, enough so that he would dedicate years of research and theorizing towards it.
Piaget was interested in …show more content…

As Piaget introduced the concept of schemas into his research, he was able to pair certain schemas with stages of development, such as object permanence in the sensorimotor stage or conservation of mass in the operational stage. Piaget even thought that infants were born with innate schemas, which would remain dormant until being awakened by certain experiences the child would have as it grew. Schemas also would experience an equilibrium in which they would react steadily to new stimuli and situations, known as assimilation. Though in retrospect, when preexisting schemas could not be applied to new situations, the process of accommodation would occur and allow for new schemas. Regardless of accommodation throwing off one's equilibrium of schema, it allows for more concepts and reactions to stimuli to develop and be used for future

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