trait of integrity can face approaching death with a certain amount of acceptance.
There is relative peace of mind because the individual is convinced that his or her
life was spent well, that it had meaning. An older person in a state of despair has a
sense of desperation as life draws to its inevitable end. There is very little peace of
mind because the individual is thinking that he or she needs a second chance, an
opportunity to get life right.
Although the individual has very little control over the first few stages of life,
with adolescence and adulthood there is greater self-consciousness. There is a
growth in the ability to reflect and think. Consequently, the individual bears some
responsibility for the self-fashioning of the later stages.
(a) An adult with the trait of is capable of productive work.
(b) An adult with the trait of is concerned only with his or her own welfare.
(c) An older person with the trait of can face approaching death with a cer-
tain amount of acceptance.
Answers: (a) generativity; (b) self-absorption; (c) integrity.
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development: From Magical
Thinking to Logical Thinking
The section on Erikson’s theory concluded with a comment on the ability to
reflect and think. Jean Piaget (1896–1980), often recognized as the foremost child
psychologist of the twentieth century, made the growth of the child’s ability to
think his particular domain of investigation.
Piaget, working primarily at Geneva University in Switzerland, began his
investigations into the workings of the child’s mind because of an interest in
epistemology. Epistemology,a branch of philosophy, is the study of knowing.
Piaget wanted to discover how we come to know what we know. Or, more
accurately, he wanted to discover how we come to think we know what we
think we know.
The method that Piaget used to study the child’s mind is called the phenom-
enological method. The phenomenological methodis characterized by asking
a child a series of carefully worded questions that direct the child’s attention to
particular details of the child’s immediate world. The child’s responses reveal the
way in which the he or she thinks about the world. Piaget’s investigations suggest
that there are four stages ofcognitive development,the development of the
way in which the child thinks. Informally, cognitive development may be thought
of as the “growth of the mind.”
Developmental Psychology: How Children Become Adults 163
