Play,Dreams and Imitation in Childhood by Jean Piaget

Variously described as enhancing sentience, supporting professional identity, providing insight and introducing the resident to covert group processes, the experiential group has been a part of residency education for over 25 years. This article specifically focuses on and identifies the potential areas for learning about group process in such an experience. These areas are organized around the contribution of individual psychological, social-psychological, and group-as-a-whole issues in the group. Actualization of the learning depends on the psychological state and level of emotional preparedness of the individual member, the consultant's orientation and style, the composition and development of the group, and its relationship to the organization in which it takes place. An example is provided to highlight the areas of potential learning, and there is a discussion of some applications to the patient role and the practice of group psychotherapy.     

Jean Piaget,the Child's Conception of Physical Causality (Victoria Hazlitt)

Abstract

Jean Piaget. The Child's Conception of Physical Causality. (Trans. by M. Gabain.) London: Kegan Paul; New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1930. Pp. viii+309.     

The Hawthorne experiments and the introduction of Jean Piaget in American industrial psychology, 1929-1932

The Hawthorne interview program between 1929 and 1932 was one of the most significant industrial studies in the United States. The Hawthorne researchers applied Jean Piaget's clinical method in their extensive interviews with tens of thousands of workers. Chiefly responsible for the program's methodology was Elton Mayo, an Australian who saw interviewing as a means to promote social cooperation. Previous discussions of the Hawthorne experiments have ignored the influence of Piaget in the social sciences. This article provides an account of Mayo's and the Hawthorne researchers' efforts to fuse Piaget's innovation with burgeoning American industrial psychology. The endeavor was not an isolated event but rather drew on the theories and practice of Janet-Piaget psychology, on the support of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial Foundation, and on the discourse among social scientists about Piaget's work.     

Piaget and Levy-Bruhl

Levy-Bruhl exerted a powerful influence, seldom considered, on Piaget. The Levy-Bruhlian thesis of a "pre-logical mentality" characterized by "mystical participation" is outlined, together with its initial reception. The first evidence of Piaget's interest in it dates from 1920, and when he began his studies of children's thinking he compared it with that of 'primitives," also adopting Levy-Bruhl's concept of "participation." By 1928 Piaget had elaborated a theory of the social foundations of different types of thought, which he regarded as also explaining the alleged similarity between the thinking of primitives and children. Both are subject to constraint, primitives by elders and children by parents and teachers. Logical as opposed to pre-logical thought was said to depend on cooperation in free social interaction. Piaget continued to maintain essentially the same views long after Levy-Bruhl himself had renounced the notion of pre-logicality.     

La Biologie de Jean Piaget: (1896–1980) — Cohérence et Marginalité

Sans résumé     

Artificial life and Piaget

Artificial life provides important theoretical and methodological tools for the investigation of Piaget's developmental theory. This new method uses artificial neural networks to simulate living phenomena in a computer. A recent study by Parisi and Schlesinger suggests that artificial life might reinvigorate the Piagetian framework. We contrast artificial life with traditional cognitivist approaches, discuss the role of innateness in development, and examine the relation between physiological and psychological explanations of intelligent behaviour.