Egocentrism, Conservation, and development

The number one topic that people think about when they imagine psychology, is child development. It is one of those topics that mothers of all ages worry about and ask themselves "is my child growing up in the proper pace?" "Does my child have a learning disability?" "How come my child is doing that?" Developmental psychologists have come up with different theories and stages to classify children in as they grow. One of the most and simple set of stages is Piaget's Cognitive Development model. This model starts out with the sensorimotor stage, which is when a child starts to learn about himself and others through personal experiences and through actions. This stage lasts until the child is about 2 years old. In this stage, the child develops object permanence, which is the "knowing" that an object continues to exist even when it cannot be seen. In the pre operational stage, egocentrism is widely seen in the child as he/she tries to understand the world. Many tests and experiments have been done on children to classify egocentrism; It is when a child fails to perceive the world from another viewpoint. In the concrete operational stage, which happens from about 7 to 11 years, a child shows inductive logic. At this stage, conservation, or the knowing that the amount of something stays constant regarding its shape or size. The last phase, the formal operational stage, advanced logic and abstract is seen in a person. Out of the other theories of development, there is Erik Erikson theory of personality that describes children's personalities as being divided into stages that contain crisis situations, such as autonomy vs. shame and doubt. Kohlberg also has theories on moral development, which divide morality into 3 basic stages called pre-conventional stage, conventional stage, and post-conventional stage. The first stage deals with a child thinking "how can i avoid punishment" when they are making moral judgments. The second stage deals with what is socially acceptable and what is seen in a better way. The last stage deals with what is actually right and ethical. Aside from the listed theories of development, there is also stages from other psychologists; from them, including Sigmund Freud, who came up with the stages of psychosexual development. If child development is something that is bothering you, it will not take you long to research development theories before you find a good number of accepted development theories.