Jean Piaget Biography

Biologist, Psychologist, Scientist (18961980)

Synopsis
Jean Piaget was born on August 9, 1896, in Neuchtel, Switzerland. Over the course of
his career in child psychology, he identified four stages of mental development, called
schema. He also developed new fields of scientific study, including cognitive theory
and developmental psychology. Piaget received the Erasmus Prize in 1972 and the
Balzan Prize in 1978. He died on September 16, 1980, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Early Life
Biologist and psychologist Jean Piaget was born on August 9, 1896, in Neuchtel,
Switzerland. He was his parents first child. Piagets mother, Rebecca Jackson,
attributed his intense early interest in the sciences to his own neurotic tendencies. Yet
Piagets father, a medieval literature professor named Arthur, modeled a passionate
dedication to his studiesa trait that Jean Piaget began to emulate from an early age.
At just 10 years old, Piagets fascination with mollusks drew him to the local museum of
natural history, where he stared at specimens for hours on end. When he was 11 and
attending Neuchtel Latin High School, Piaget wrote a short scientific paper on the
albino sparrow. By the time he was a teen, his papers on mollusks were being widely
published. Piagets readers were unaware of his age and considered him an expert on
the topic.
After high school, Piaget went on to study zoology at the University of Neuchtel,
receiving his Ph.D. in the natural sciences in 1918. In 1918, Piaget spent a semester
studying psychology under Carl Jung and Paul Eugen Bleuler at the University of
Zrich, where Piaget developed a deeper interest in psychoanalysis. Over the course of
the next year, he studied abnormal psychology at the Sorbonne in Paris.
Psychological Studies
In 1920, working in collaboration with Thodore Simon at the Alfred Binet Laboratory in
Paris, Piaget evaluated the results of standardized reasoning tests that Simon had
designed. The tests were meant to measure child intelligence and draw connections
between a childs age and the nature of his errors. For Piaget it raised new questions
about the way that children learn. Piaget ultimately decided that the test was too rigid. In
a revised version, he allowed children to explain the logic of their "incorrect" answers. In
reading the childrens explanations, he realized that childrens power of reasoning was
not flawed after all. In areas where children lacked life experience as a point of
reference, they logically used their imagination to compensate. He additionally
concluded that factual knowledge should not be equated with intelligence or
understanding.

Over the course of his six-decade career in child psychology, Piaget also identified four
stages of mental development, called Schema. The first is the "sensorimotor stage,"
which involves learning through motor actions, and takes place when children are 02
years old. During the "preoperation stage," children aged 37 develop intelligence by
using their natural intuition. During the "concrete operational stage," children 811
develop cognitively through the use of logic that is based on concrete evidence. "Formal
operations," the fourth and final stage, involves 12-to-15-year-olds forming the ability to
think abstractly. Piaget called his collective theories on child development "Piagets
Genetic Epistemology."
Death and Legacy
Jean Piaget died of unknown causes on September 16, 1980, in Geneva, Switzerland.
He was 84 years old. His body rests at the Cimetire des Plainpalais.
Piaget is responsible for developing entirely new fields of scientific study, including
cognitive theory and developmental psychology. The recipient of the prestigious
Erasmus (1972) and Balzan (1978) prizes, he summed up his passion for the ongoing
pursuit of scientific knowledge with these words: "The current state of knowledge is a
moment in history, changing just as rapidly as the state of knowledge in the past has
ever changed and, in many instances, more rapidly."