In Search of a Metatheory for Cognitive Development (Or, Piaget Is Dead and I Don't Feel So

Good Myself)
Author(s): David F. Bjorklund
Source: Child Development, Vol. 68, No. 1 (Feb., 1997), pp. 144-148
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Child Development, February 1997, Volume 68, Number 1, Pages 144-148

In Search of a Metatheory for Cognitive Development (or, Piaget Is Dead

and I Don't Feel So Good Myself)
David F. Bjorklund
With the waning of influenceof Piaget'stheory and the shortcomingsof information-processingperspectives
of cognitive growth, cognitive developmentalistslack a common set of broad, overarchingprinciples and
assumptions-a metatheory-to guide their research.Developmentalbiology is suggested as metatheoryfor
cognitive development. Although it is importantfor developmentaliststo understandproximal biological
causes (e.g., brain development),most importantfor such a metatheoryis an evolutionaryperspective.Some
basicprinciplesof evolutionarypsychologyareintroduced,and examplesof contemporaryresearchand theory
consistentwith these ideas are provided.

INTRODUCTION

also lost a common set of assumptions or principles

about
cognitive development; we have lost a metaThe cognitive revolution changed the face of acatheory.By metatheory,I do not mean a "theoryabout
demic psychology, with developmental psychology
theories."
Rather,I use the term much as Brainerd
being no exception. Success, however, had its cost.
did
in describing and evaluating Piagetian
(1978)
As Bruner (1990) pointed out, there was a focus to
psychology to referto some broad, overarchingprinthe cognitive revolution, and that was "meaning,"a
reactionto the mentalisticallyvoid behaviorismthat ciples and assumptions-which may or may not be
had had a stranglehold on American psychology subject to experimentalconfirmation-that serve as
a backgroundfor a host of more specific theories.
over most of the century.This focus has been lost in
Piaget's metatheorywas a great one. Researchers
contemporarycognitive development. "Meaning"is
now studied primarilyby people interestedin meta- could heartilydisagree about the specifics,but at the
heartof developmentwere still the functionalinvaricognition (e.g., Flavell, Green, & Flavell, 1995), the
effects of cultural context on thinking (e.g., Rogoff, ants of organizationand adaptation,the knowledge
that developmentwas a constructiveprocess,and the
1990),or by social developmentalistsfollowing variof epigenesis. With the waning of Piaget's
principle
ants of Bandura's(1986)social-cognitivetheory,neoa new metatheorytook hold based on the astheory,
Piagetian theory, or social information-processing
of information-processingperspectives
approaches (e.g., Liben & Signorella, 1993; Stipek, sumptions
limited
(e.g.,
capacity, serial processing of symbols,
Recchia,& McClintic,1992). For psychologists such
a series of memory stores).Now,
processing
through
as these who study "meaning,"to reduce cognitive
even
this
is crumblingin the face of evidevelopment much below this level of analysis re- dence thatmetatheory
calls
into
questionsome of the centraltensults in an overabundanceof details about children's
ets
of
the
mind-as-a-computermetaphor (e.g., the
performanceon trivial tasks in unreal situations.
Other cognitive developmentalists have con- possibility of parallel processing, modularity of resources, rejectionof strategicapproachesto problem
cluded that discerning meaning is not as simple as
solving; see, for examples, Brainerd& Reyna, 1990;
psychologistswho study metacognitionor social cogStanovich,
1990). The result is a diversity of apnition believe, but involves a host of more elemento
the study of thinking and its developtary,or basicprocesses,most of which are unconscious proaches
and
this
is a plus. Like all modern sciences,
ment,
(e.g., Dempster, 1993;Reyna & Brainerd,1995).From
means
maturity
diversity and specialization.The cost
this perspective, asking "bigger" questions may be
of
this
specialization,however, has been the loss of
inherentlypleasing, but not scientificallyfruitful.For the
ability to communicate with others who call
example,inquiringaboutmetacognitionor the role of
themselves
cognitive developmentalists,and this is
self-awarenessis seen as providing only interesting
unfortunate.
descriptionsof consciousness and leaves us with the
Whatwe need to bringus togetheragainis a single
feeling that the "ghost in the machine" is still in
charge.
@ 1997 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc.
In addition to losing our common focus, we have
All rights reserved. 0009-3920/ 97 / 6801-0003$01.00

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David F. Bjorklund

focus, or metatheory.It is apparent,however, thatthe

metatheoriesof the past will not work. A new metatheory is needed that makes sense in terms of what
psychologists are doing today and what we will
likely be doing during the next 20 years. Although I
do not have a true metatheoryto propose, I do have
a focus that I think most contemporarytheoristsand
researchers of cognitive development should consider, and that is developmentalbiology, particularly
as it relates to the new field of evolutionary psychology.
DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY AS A
METATHEORY FOR COGNITIVE
DEVELOPMENT

I use the term "developmentalbiology" broadly. As

cognitive developmentalists,we should consider the
development of the nervous system, the evolution of
intelligence in the species, and the species-typical
contexts in which cognition evolved and develops.
This should be easy for developmentalists, for our
entirediscipline is implicitlybased in biology. Development is a biological concept.Unlike other areas of
experimental psychology that have their roots in
physics, developmentalpsychology has its origins in
turn-of-the-century embryology and evolutionary
theory (Cairns,1983).
ProximalBiologicalCausation
A knowledge of the developmental relation between brain and behavior has important implications, not only for theoriesof cognitive development,
but also for societal practices.How pliable is human
intelligence? When, in development, can children
most benefit from certaineducationalexperiences?Is
earlier always better, or are there sensitive periods
for particularexperiencesdistributedthroughoutthe
course of development?
Evidenceis accumulatingshowing greaterplasticity of the mammalianbrainthanhad been previously
thought. This work, coupled with increasingknowledge of the course of human brain growth, has important implications for evaluating the role of experience on behavior and cognition (e.g., Greenough,
Black, & Wallace, 1987). For example, Greenough and
his associates (1987) pointed out how the nervous
system of an animal is prepared for some experiences
that all members of its species can expect, while other
sets of neurons appear to await the idiosyncratic experiences that will vary from individual to individual. Such a distinction can be useful to the study of

145

human development,particularlyissues of plasticity

and the types of experiencesthat are apt to be important in infancy and early childhood.
In a similarvein, having a knowledge of brain development should help us predict and understand
what typeof cognition should develop at what times.
For example,knowing that the frontallobe is associated with planfulnessand the inhibitionof prepotent
responses (Diamond, 1991)clues us to when certain
cognitive abilitieswill appear and mature.For stage
theorists,knowledge of how the brain develops can
be correlatedwith qualitative changes in cognitive
abilities, giving the hypothesized discontinuities
some basis in physical reality (e.g., Case, 1992).
Distal BiologicalCausation
As importantas a knowledge of proximatebiological causationis to understandingcognitive development, I doubt that this perspectivealone could unite
the diversityof people who today study cognitivedevelopment. A more likely candidate for this role is
evolutionary theory. Evolution is the cornerstoneof
modern biology and could serve as the basis for a
metatheorythatunifies developmentalpsychologists
of all ilk. Developmental psychology was begun by
scholars interested in evolutionary concepts. Baldwin, Hall, and Piaget were among the more notable
of our developmental forefatherswho entered the
field, in part, to get a better picture of human evolution. (Baldwin, in fact, has his name attached to an
importantevolutionaryprincipleof preadaptationthe Baldwin effect.)
Morerecently,it has been suggested that cognitive
psychology may be the "missing link" in the evolution of human behavior.Cosmides and Tooby (1987;
Tooby & Cosmides, 1992)have proposed that it was
information-processingmechanisms that evolved,
and "these mechanismsin interactionwith environmental input, generatemanifestbehavior.The causal
link between evolution and behavior is made
through psychological mechanisms" (Cosmides &
Tooby, 1987, p. 277). According to Cosmides and
Tooby, adaptive behavior is predicated on adaptive
thought. Natural selection operates on the cognitive
level-information-processing
programs evolved to
solve real-world problems. From this viewpoint, it
becomes fruitful to ask what kind of cognitive opera-

tions an organism must have "if it is to extractand

process information about its environment in a way

that will lead to adaptive behavior" (Cosmides &
Tooby, 1987, p. 285). Also, evolutionary theory suggests that most cognitive programs evolved to ac-

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146

Child Development

complish adaptive functions, what Cosmides and

Tooby refer to as "Darwinianalgorithms,"and are
domain-specific(i.e., modular) in nature.
Taking such an approachcauses us to look at our
data differently and to ask slightly different questions. For example, much research has focused on
children's cognition on school-related tasks, often
with the explicit aim of generalizingfindings to education.Slightlydifferentinterpretationsand prescriptions to educatorsmay be made, however, by realizing that formal schooling is "unnatural" (e.g.,
Pellegrini & Bjorklund,in press). Children's cognitions evolved in environments where reading and
math seat-work did not exist, and children's difficulty with such tasks should be viewed as the norm
and not the exception.Similarly,evolutionarytheory
holds that some abilities may have evolved to deal
with problemsthat the organismfaced in specificenvironments at a particulartime in development (ontogenetic adaptations;see Oppenheim, 1981).When
we ask, "How are children's cognitions adapted for
the cultural contexts in which they find themselves
ratherthan the contexts experiencedby adults?"we
may find differentanswers to frequentlyasked questions. Fromthis perspective,not all aspectsof infancy
and early childhood are preparationsfor later development (e.g., Bjorklund,1995; Bjorklund& Green,
1992;Turkewitz& Kenny, 1982)but exist to serve the
child at that specific point in time only.
Evolutionarytheoryalso places an emphasison individual differences.Variation among individuals
within a population is the stuff upon which natural
selection works. Developmentalists,concerned with
universals, often treat variabilityonly as error.Individual variation is not error, however, but is real;
these differences are important to society and may
have differentcauses than developmentaluniversals
(Plomin & Ho, 1991). Moreover, some substantial
portion of individual differenceshave theiroriginsin
genetics and others in prenatalor postnatalhormone
exposure. Much individual variabilityis also caused
by general experiential factors, of course, but one
must have a biological theory, such as found in contemporary behavioral genetics (Plomin, 1989) or the
developmental-systems
approach (e.g., Gottlieb,
1991) to know which is which, which characteristics
are more pliable, and which are resistant to change.
CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH
AND THEORY
The number of examples of theory and research that
are taking the view I am proposing has increased

sharply over the past decade. Several examples include:

Gardner's(1983)popular theory of multiple intelligences that considers intelligence and its development in terms of evolutionarytheory, cross-cultural
data, and neuropsychologicalevidence, particularly
cases of brain damage;
Currentresearchand theory relatingdevelopment
of the frontal lobes with cognitive accomplishments
over infancy (e.g., Diamond, 1991) and childhood
(e.g., Dempster, 1993; Harnishfeger & Bjorklund,
1993);
Siegler's (1995, 1996) recent adoption of the Darwinian metaphor of variation and selection to account for the development of children's strategies
and as a general model of cognitive development;
and
A proposal by Geary (1995) classifies cognitive
abilities into two categories: biologicallyprimary,
which includes those abilitiesthat have been selected
for in evolution, and biologically
secondary,which are
abilities that have not been selected for in evolution
but rather are culturally instilled practices. Geary
provides examples of the two types of abilities from
his own areaof research,children'smathematics,but
the classificationcan be applied to any set of cognitive abilitiesand has importantimplicationsnot only
for understandingthe developmentof differentskills
but also for their educability.
I am not advocatingthat cognitive developmental
psychologists retool to become developmentalbiologists. Developing a theory of the brain is important,
of course,but that is not our job, and it is not enough.
Having a theoryof the braindoes not obviatehaving
a theory of the mind. Cognitivepsychology is not just
something to do until the biologists get betterat their
trade. What I am arguing is not a blind acceptance
of all that biologists have to tell us, but merely that
we be mindful of the proximal and distal biological
causes of cognitive development and formulateour
theories and design our experiments accordingly.
Thus, for example, researchersconcerned with the
development of socialperspectivetakingor of the origins of self-concept should be aware of the social
context in which human intelligence develops and
with theories that postulate social forces as providing
a strong impetus for the evolution of human intelligence (e.g., Byrne & Whiten, 1988; Humphrey, 1976;
see Tomasello, Kruger, & Ratner, 1993, for a recent
theory that does this). Similarly, researchers concerned with the development of basic processes
should consider the evolutionary pressures that may
have produced these particular processes as well as

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David F. Bjorklund

the neurological systems that underlie them (e.g.,

Bjorklund& Harnishfeger,1995;Geary, 1996).

147

perhaps getting us to communicatewith one another

again.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CLOSING REMARKS

I realize that we could be criticized for getting into

something that is none of our business. We are psychologists, and without furthertrainingwe are apt to
come up with naive theoriesbased on oversimplified
conceptions of the brain and evolution (see Morss,
1990).This is a criticismspecialists in all fields make
to interlopers;but I believe the errorswe make will
be worth the effort. By adopting a metatheory that
views cognitive development as a natural consequence of species-typicalbehavior in a species-typical environment that has evolved to solve certain
problems,we will make progress.We will ask better
questions and collect better data.
I take this last point seriously. Having a "big picture" of cognitive development will mean that our
questions will be posed not only to answer certain
narrowly defined hypotheses, but to make sense in
termsof our metatheory.Muchdata collectedby contemporary cognitive developmentalists may be
methodologicallysolid and yield "good" data,in that
they nicely support or refute a hypothesis. But when
the theory that generated the experiment dies, the
data often are forgotten,and appropriatelyso. This is
less apt to happen when thereis a largerfocus behind
one's specific theory. Piaget'swork is a case in point.
Piaget's theory has been soundly criticized, to the
point that much of it is regarded as flat-out wrong.
Yet the data he collectedremainimportant-they are
significantindependent of the theory-and this I believe is due, at least in part, to the broad,biologically
based ideas that served as underpinningsof his theory. Much of what Piaget was concerned with involved children's developing understanding of the
physical world-the permanenceof objects,the conservation of physical quantities, the knowledge of
numbers. Piaget studied cognitive problems that all
members of our species face, and would have faced
in our environment of evolutionary adaptiveness.
Our own questions need not always share this universality, but they should address problems couched
in a theory that is likely to be viewed as valid generations hence. Evolutionary theory, I believe, is such a
theory.
Believing in biology will not make us into modemday Piagets. Genius requires more than just a set of
principles to follow. But it will, I believe, result in our
collecting more important and long-lasting data, and

An earlierversion of this articlewas presentedat the

meetings of the Society for Researchin Child Development, April 1991, Seattle, WA. I would like to
thank BarbaraR. Bjorklund,Katherine Kipp, and
Rhonda Douglas for comments on drafts of the
manuscript.This essay was completed while the author was supportedby National Science Foundation
researchaward SBR-9422177.
ADDRESS AND AFFILIATION

Correspondingauthor:David F. Bjorklund,Florida
AtlanticUniversity,Departmentof Psychology,Boca
Raton,FL 33431;e-mail:BJORKLDF@FAU.EDU.
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