Jean Piaget biography

Jean William Fritz Piaget (August 9, 1896 – September 16, 1980) epistemologist, psychologist, and biologist. He was born in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. Jean Piaget, as he is better known, is considered the father of genetic epistemology, his contributions to the study of childhood are remarkable. He is the creator of the constructivist theory of the development of knowledge. His father, Arthur Piaget, professor of medieval literature at the University of Neuchâtel, and his mother Rebecca Jackson lived on the profits of the first steel crucible factory in France, this was created by his father.

Since childhood, he was very curious and developed an early interest in biology and the natural world, especially in the marine world. At age 11, he wrote a study on a species of albino sparrow and then wrote a treatise on malacology some years later. After graduating from high school, he completed a bachelor’s degree and then a doctorate in natural sciences at the University of Neuchâtel in 1918, with a thesis on mollusks in the canton of Valais. Before going to Paris in 1919 he worked at the University of Zurich, where he published two papers on Psychology.

From that moment his interest in psychoanalysis was born, he was a follower of figures such as Sigmund Freud and Carl Gustav Jung. And while he was in a Psychoanalysis Congress in Berlin in 1922 he was analyzed by Sabina Spielrein. Later he had the opportunity to meet Freud. He was a collaborator of Alfred Binet in several psychological institutions of Zurich and Paris, simultaneously began the development of his theory on the nature of knowledge. Since he became a father, he decided to study the growth of his children, to build a theory of sensorimotor intelligence.

From these observations emerged several studies on child psychology, based primarily on the spontaneous development of practical intelligence. Piaget said that the principles of logic begin to develop before the language and are generated by the sensory and motor actions of the baby while interacting with the environment. Piaget formulated a series of stages that give the development of intelligence: sensory-motor intelligence or practice, intuitive intelligence, concrete intellectual operations, and finally abstract intellectual operations. Piaget established, for each of these stages, the corresponding ages. But later studies showed that it is not necessary to make such delimitations rigidly.

Piaget was criticized, but also admired because he ruled out biological maturation or mere environmental influence as the only conditioning factors of such development. Its conception tries to harmonize in a coherent theory the neurobiological growth and the influence of the social and cultural life with the development of the intelligence, affirming that such phenomena are in a state of interrelation. He moved away from several ideas of Sigmund Freud and psychoanalysis, focused on the sexual development of the child and their affective relationships with parents as key factors in the formation of personality, also moved away from some conceptions of the behaviorism of John B. Watson or BF Skinner.

Piaget also studied the moral development of the child, affirming that moral autonomy is acquired around seven years. He explained that later, the child is subjected to so-called pressure relationships by adults, who impose their rules and mandates with the threat of punishment; It is the moral call of obligation. After this stage comes, the stage of moral reciprocity: the imposed duty is supplanted by the acceptance of norms that are recognized as good; then the sense of good and responsibility emerges.

The many studies of Piaget were reflected in a huge written production that includes a large number of articles and books. We will mention some of his works: Language and thought in the child (1923), The representation of the world in the child (1926), The birth of intelligence in the child (1936), The psychology of intelligence (1947), Treaty of logic (1949), Introduction to genetic epistemology (1950), Six studies of psychology (1964), Memory and intelligence (1968) and The development of thought (1975).

Jean Piaget was one of the most important and influential psychologists in the advancement of this discipline. He has an important position in contemporary psychology and, without a doubt, also in the field of child psychology; He has been one of the intellectuals who has rigorously detailed the maturational process that takes place between birth and adolescence. Clearly, his studies and analysis influenced figures of child psychology such as Henri Wallon, and even psychoanalytic theorists such as Erik Erikson. His studies opened the focus to new orientations in evolutionary psychology and the pedagogy. For example, Jerome Bruner’s learning models, David Ausubel’s theory of meaningful learning and Albert Bandura’s theory of social learning.

His contributions were recognized at the universities of Harvard, Paris, Brussels and Rio de Janeiro, which awarded him the title of doctor honoris causa. However, at the University of Lausanne, he was also honored, he was a professor and editor of renowned scientific publications, he was director of the International Office of Education, an international organization that in 1969 would become part of UNESCO. He was also General Secretary of the International Union of Psychological Science. Until the day of his death, September 16, 1980, he was the director of the International Center for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva, founded by him in 1955.