Inside Piaget's Mind: Stages, Schemas, and Childhood Thinking

Professor Peterson’s Psychology Classroom · Oct 9, 2026 · 32m · transcript

This episode explores Jean Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory, outlining his four stages from sensorimotor to formal operations. It explains key concepts such as schemas, assimilation and accommodation, and object permanence, and illustrates tests like conservation and the three-mountain task.

The lecture uses examples—like learning words, distinguishing dogs and cats, and a moral dilemma about a stolen life-saving drug—to show how children move from concrete, egocentric thinking to abstract moral reasoning. The episode ends by inviting listeners to consider whether Piaget’s stages apply…