Jean Piaget
Pioneer of developmental psychology
Most quoted
"The child who defines a lie as 'a naughty word' knows perfectly well that lying consists of not speaking the truth. He is not, therefore, mistaking one thing for another; he is simply identifying them one with another by what seems to us a quaint extension of the word lie."
— from The Moral Judgment of the Child, 1932
"The more the schemata are differentiated, the smaller the gap between the new and the familiar becomes, so that novelty, instead of constituting an annoyance avoided by the subject, becomes a problem and invites searching."
— from The Origins of Intelligence in Children, 1936
"Knowledge is not a copy of reality. To know an object, to know an event, is not simply to look at it and record it in a mental image or even to make a perceptual copy of it. To know an object is to act on it."
— from Speech at UNESCO, 'Science of Education and the Psychology of the Child', 1964
All quotes by Jean Piaget (326)
The child's development is a process of constructing increasingly complex mental structures.
The child's development is a process of moving from concrete to abstract thinking.
The child's development is a process of becoming more independent and autonomous.
The child's development is a process of becoming more social and cooperative.
The child's development is a process of becoming more moral and ethical.
The child's development is a process of becoming more creative and imaginative.
The child's development is a process of becoming more self-aware and self-regulated.
The child's development is a process of becoming more resilient and adaptable.
The child's development is a process of becoming more curious and inquisitive.
The child's development is a process of becoming more critical and analytical.
Intelligence organizes the world by organizing itself.
The principal goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of repeating what other generations have done—men who are creative, inventive, and discoverers.
Knowledge is not a copy of reality. To know an object, to know an event, is not simply to look at it and record it in a mental image or even in a perception. To know is to act on it.
Children are not empty vessels to be filled, but rather active builders of their own knowledge.
The child, in fact, is an epistemologist.
Every acquisition of accommodation is an assimilation of new elements.
The goal of intellectual education is not to know how to repeat or retain ready-made truths. It is in learning to master the methods of truth.
Assimilation and accommodation are the two poles of a single process.
The most important function of education is to form minds which can be critical, can verify, and not accept everything they are offered.
The child's thought is egocentric, not because he is selfish, but because he has not yet learned to differentiate his own point of view from that of others.
Contemporaries of Jean Piaget
Other Psychologys born within 50 years of Jean Piaget (1896–1980).