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Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Foreword: Making a Creative Difference = Person × Environment
- Preface
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Biological Bases of Psychology: Genes, Brain, and Beyond
- Part III Cognition: Getting Information from the World and Dealing with It
- Part IV Development: How We Change Over Time
- Section A Cognitive Development
- 40 Building a Unique Network of Scientific Enterprises
- 41 Research on Children's Recollections: What a Difference a Phone Call Made
- 42 Development of Children's Knowledge About the Mind
- 43 Real Representations in Two Dimensions
- 44 Language and the Social Brain: The Power of Surprise in Science
- 45 The Importance of Developmental Plasticity
- 46 Levels of Analysis in Cognitive Aging
- 47 The Longitudinal Study of Adult Cognitive Development
- 48 How Does Change Occur?
- 49 Cognitive Abilities of Infants
- Section B Social/Personality Development
- Part V Motivation and Emotion: How We Feel and What We Do
- Part VI Social and Personality Processes: Who We Are and How We Interact
- Part VII Clinical and Health Psychology: Making Lives Better
- Part VIII Conclusion
- Afterword: Doing Psychology 24×7 and Why It Matters
- Index
- References
48 - How Does Change Occur?
from Section A - Cognitive Development
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Foreword: Making a Creative Difference = Person × Environment
- Preface
- Part I Introduction
- Part II Biological Bases of Psychology: Genes, Brain, and Beyond
- Part III Cognition: Getting Information from the World and Dealing with It
- Part IV Development: How We Change Over Time
- Section A Cognitive Development
- 40 Building a Unique Network of Scientific Enterprises
- 41 Research on Children's Recollections: What a Difference a Phone Call Made
- 42 Development of Children's Knowledge About the Mind
- 43 Real Representations in Two Dimensions
- 44 Language and the Social Brain: The Power of Surprise in Science
- 45 The Importance of Developmental Plasticity
- 46 Levels of Analysis in Cognitive Aging
- 47 The Longitudinal Study of Adult Cognitive Development
- 48 How Does Change Occur?
- 49 Cognitive Abilities of Infants
- Section B Social/Personality Development
- Part V Motivation and Emotion: How We Feel and What We Do
- Part VI Social and Personality Processes: Who We Are and How We Interact
- Part VII Clinical and Health Psychology: Making Lives Better
- Part VIII Conclusion
- Afterword: Doing Psychology 24×7 and Why It Matters
- Index
- References
Summary
For as long as I can remember, I've been fascinated by change. How does an infant turn into a toddler, and then a preschooler, a child, an adolescent, an adult, and, eventually, a senior? What leads to changes in people's character, their intellect, their relationships with other people? What, if anything, unites evolutionary processes, regardless of whether they involve the evolution of species, the evolution of businesses, the evolution of national policies, or the evolution of a person's thinking about a specific topic?
This fascination with change led me to study the development of learning and problem-solving during childhood. Within the human lifetime, many of the greatest changes are seen from birth through adolescence; indeed, childhood can be defined as the period of life in which positive change is most dramatic.
Most of my research on learning and problem-solving during childhood has focused on the development of mathematical thinking. This interest began in childhood, when I became intrigued by the statistics on the backs of baseball cards: batting averages, hits, home runs, win-loss percentages, earned run averages, and so on. I spent innumerable hours engrossed in identifying from these statistics the best player at each position and which teams were most likely to win the World Series.
A variety of factors led to my pursuing this early interest in my research. When I began to do research, Piaget's theory, which was built in large part from observations of mathematical and scientific thinking, was the dominant approach to cognitive development. My early research was intended to show that Piaget had underestimated children's capacity for problem-solving and learning in these areas. Although the results of my early research supported this hypothesis, observing how tenaciously young children clung to their misconceptions about scientific and mathematical concepts led me to an enduring appreciation for Piaget's genius in designing revealing tasks, where answers and explanations on a single trial could lead to insights about children's thinking.
My appreciation for this aspect of Piaget's genius led to the discovery that I consider to be my most fundamental – fundamental in the sense that it provided the foundation for numerous subsequent discoveries.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Scientists Making a DifferenceOne Hundred Eminent Behavioral and Brain Scientists Talk about Their Most Important Contributions, pp. 223 - 227Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2016
References
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