According to Piaget, the central core of the development of the psyche is the intellect. The child develops and forms an increasingly adequate scheme of the situation – and thus, actively interacting with the environment, adapts to it. During this process, the child gradually begins to understand some of the laws that operate in the world of things and people (Cherry, 2021). According to Piaget, there are several characteristics of children’s thinking.
Animism is defined as the attribution of animation to inanimate objects. An example of the manifestation of this characteristic can be an elementary game that a child is passionate about. Thus, my niece is very sensitive about her dolls, very upset if one of them fell or someone else took it. Obviously, for her, dolls are more than just plastic or a toy; they are tiny creatures with their own world and feelings, which the child protects.
Egocentrism as the main feature of children’s thinking consists of judging the world exclusively from their own direct point of view, “fragmentary and personal,” and the inability to take into account someone else’s. Hence, in Piaget’s experiment, a child is shown a toy landscape (mountain, trees, animals) and asked to list what he sees. The child honestly describes what is in front of his eyes. However, when asked to describe what the other person sitting opposite sees, the child is not able to put himself in the place of another, to imagine himself not being the “center of the world” (Cherry, 2021). In general, it is common for a child to see the world only through the prism of his own perception.
In the end, artificialism is an understanding of natural phenomena by analogy with human activity; everything that exists is seen as created by man, by his will or for man. An example is the definitions given by children by a purpose: “What is a chair? What are they sitting on? — What is the sun? “To give us light.” Thus, artificialism is inherent in children in their cognition of the world through the prism of personal experience.
Reference
Cherry, K. (2021). Preoperational stage of cognitive development in young children. Verywell Mind. Web.