Summary of Skinner and Piaget Articles
Summary of Skinner and Piaget Articles
B.F. Skinner
The article on Skinner discusses (2008) his theories about verbal behavior. He refutes other theories of language acquisition and verbal communications, making the case that all verbal communication is a behavioral response to environmental stimuli. Over time, a human being develops patterns from repeated responses to a similar stimulus and the result is a collection verbal behaviors that appear to characterize that individual’s personality (as cited in Diessner, 2008). But, says Skinner (2008), the verbal behavior is not driven by any internal personality or character of that person, only by external stimuli.
Skinner (2008) says that verbal behavior in response to a command or cue is not actually a response to language—words, sentences, concepts, etc.— but a response to a set of contingencies—real-word, concrete realities—that have been learned by a person (as cited in Diessner, 2008). Behavior is driven by a person’s history of experience relative to external circumstances that are associated with particular words or groups of words (as cited in Diessner, 2008)..
meaning a person attributes to language results from that person’s participation in a verbal community, which is a group of humans who collectively attribute certain associations to certain words (as cited in Diessner, 2008). Words themselves do not communicate meaning. They stimulate the brain to produce meaning and that meaning is constructed from common behaviors within a person’s social group (as cited in Diessner, 2008).
Skinner (2008) seems to believe that each child is born as a clean slate, without any inherent character or personality (Diessner, 2008, p. 138). Ultimately, we are the result of a series of reinforcements, as in operant conditioning. These lines from Skinner’s article (2008) say it all: “[T]he human species did not evolve because of an inbuilt design: it evolved through selection under contingencies of survival, as the child’s verbal behavior evolves under the selective action of contingencies or reinforcement. The origin of behavior is not unlike the origin of species” (as cited in Diessner, 2008, p, 138).
Jean Piaget
Piaget (2008) studied the moral development of children. By observing how children learn and apply the rules of a game, in Piaget’s case marbles (2008), he deduced four stages of rule acquisition and three, overlapping stages of the process by which a child becomes conscious of the deeper meaning of rules and an understanding how they are applied in various situations (as cited by Diessner, 2008).
The four stages of rule acquisition are cited in Diessner (2008):
Stage 1 — Motor/Individual. A child participates in life (in this case, using marbles) according to his own desires and habits, not according to any externally imposed rules. This is roughly equivalent to age two years and earlier.
Stage 2 — Egocentric. This takes place between ages 2 and 5. The child dimly realizes that there are external rules because he sees some behavior modeled for him and imitates it. But he doesn’t apply those rules in any organized way. He plays solo or along side of other kids, but does not engage with others according to a set of external rules.
Stage 3 — Cooperative. Around 7 or 8 years old, the child begins to play with others (cooperate) and to apply rules in an informal way so as to try to make himself a winner. He does not fully understand the rules, however, and usually can’t explain them to someone else in a consistent way.
Stage 4 — Codification of Rules. This fourth and final stage occurs at around 11 or 12 years of age and is when a child has come to understand and apply rules in a consistent way and others do the same. Piaget points out that these stages are not hard and fast, nor do all children advance through them in a typical way. They lie on a continuum, with great variation in expression from person to person.
Piaget (2008) also delineated three stages of development in the way children become conscious of rules. These stages overlap the four acquisition stages previously discussed. Stage 1 begins at the same point as the first stage of acquisition, when rule-related behaviors are up to each individual and the child is not consciously aware that the rules are obligatory (Diessner, 2008). It may extend into the Egocentric stage, but then gives way to stage two of rule consciousness, which overlaps with and extends through the acquisition stage of cooperation.
Stage two of the consciousness of rules is characterized by a child’s view of rules as absolutely binding, handed down by adults and in force for all time. This stage lasts through the first half of the cooperating stage (as cited by Diessner, 2008). The final stage of rule consciousness begins at the second half of the cooperation stage and lasts through the last stage of rule acquisition, the codification stage. In the final stage of rule consciousness, the child understands rules as more mutable, depending on the agreement of all involved parties. Rules are still important, but they may be changed by mutual consent to fit a particular set of circumstances (as cited in Diessner, 2008). For example, if a group of children are playing a game of marbles, they might all agree to assign more points to red marbles than to marbles of other colors. While this rule is not universally accepted in all games of marbles, it can be accepted in this particular game because all participants have agreed to it.
These consciousness stages, like the rule acquisition stages, lie on a continuum and are useful as a lens through which to analyze and better understand the process of a child’s moral development. There is not firm a physical basis for these stages.
Once a child has reached the final stage of rule consciousness, he has internalized the rules, rather than viewing them as rigid, external requirements. Now that the rules are, in a sense, his own, he can bring his individual judgment and conscience to bear on the way that those rules are practiced (as cited in Diessner, 2008). This more mature sense of judgment is what links the two sets of stages together.
References
Diessner, R. (ed.) (2008). Classic edition sources: Human development (3rd ed.). Dubuque, IA: McGraw-Hill.
