Mental Categorization and Development :: Psychology Jean Piaget Essays

Mental Categorization and Development Missing Works Cited Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, explained cognitive development in a way that may be useful in understanding the story of our story of evolution. He explained that in order to understand and function in our world, we organize thoughts and behaviors into systems, and are in a continual process of adapting our mental systems to better make sense of our surroundings. He calls these systems schemes and defines them as the basic building blocks of thinking, or tools for being able to mentally represent objects and events. They can be very simple like a scheme for throwing a ball, and get more complex like a scheme for playing baseball. Throughout development, new schemes arise and they become more organized to better make sense of the environment. Schemes become more complex and better organized through adaptation, which Piaget explains is a mixture of two different processes: assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation occurs when one makes sense of something in the environment by fitting it into an already established scheme. This may or may not work. For example, most things of similar body shape that swim in the water can be understood and fit into a fish scheme. However, when one encounters a whale, it may not fit into one ¡Ã‚ ¦s previous schemes, or what one understands to be a fish or a mammal. In that case, one has to accommodate, or change their schemes in order to make sense of new information. These processes most often don ¡Ã‚ ¦t occur in isolation, but are done together constantly to make sense of the world. In some situations, when the information we are getting from the environment is too complex, the information is left out entirely. As our understanding of the world expands, Piaget explains, it also divid es into categories. Expansion and fragmentation also seems to be a universal natural biological principal. Liquids and gases spread out to the boundaries of their containers, animals disperse on land, and humans have managed to explore even the uninhabitable territory of space. Animals often divide themselves into herds or flocks, while humans divide themselves into cultures, societies, and families. Expansion and division seem to be inherent and interconnected in other realms as well. The human constructs of religion and literature expand through time as they build on past stories. The more the wealth of knowledge, beliefs, and history expands, the more categories we define to separate them.