Cognitive Development: Piaget's Concrete Operational Stage

Cognitive development, as I'm going to discuss here is based on the work of the leading pioneer in the field, Jean Piaget. It's for those of you with perhaps a more analytical mindset in your quest for personal and spiritual growth. For those of you who are serious about it, here is a little known, but very important secret about life...

You are always immersed in your current perspective of how you see yourself and the world around you ( your stage of cognitive development). Because you are right in the thick of it, you can't see it and are unaware of it. And until you are able to see it, you will not be able to grow past it.

The "it" can be such things as your emotions, your religion, concepts and beliefs, your perceived role in your family, peer group, or work environment or something else. No matter what "it" is, when you're immersed in something you have no control over it and consequently it controls you. This in turn often causes outcomes you didn't want or expect, and consequences to which you did not intend.

The trick then is to gain control and awareness over what you've been immersed in and thereby empowering yourself to take control over your life. Once you've been able to broaden your perspective enough, you then "own" it instead of being owned by it and then you can start turning your life around for the better.

By seeing things in a broader perspective or from "higher up on that perch" that is your current vantage point, you will soon find that things, situations, and outcomes that you didn't desire will become less and less frequent. As your perspective and cognitive development progresses even further, life becomes less and less about you, and becomes more about all of us and how to uplift the entire world.

So Why Should I Care??

Piaget’s theory is sometimes described as ‘genetic epistemology.’ ‘Genetic’ because he believed that the stages we progress through and the structures and processes we use, are inbuilt and true for all of us regardless of culture. ‘Epistemology’ (not a word to be uttered when in the state suggested by the word) actually means the study of knowledge. Basically Piaget believed that the way in which we learn about and adapt to our World is constant across all cultures and races, and proceeds as a set sequence in all.

In shifting to a newer perspective we step out of this unconsciousness and now are able to see it as an object we can operate instead of the blind spot it once was which in turn accelerates your personal growth. Holosync expands awareness and makes this process much easier and accelerates the transition of what you were immersed in to a new and higher level of cognitive development. It's, IMHO, the very best personal growth tool out there. Even if everything you've tried before hasn't worked... this will! It's more expensive than other programs but it is a complete personal growth system and I've had tremendous results with it.

For the sake of brevity, I will concentrate on Piaget's last two stages of cognitive development called concrete operational and formal operational stages as most adults, (especially in the West), live their entire lives in one of these two stages.

As a child, you didn't have the skills needed to navigate and make sense of the adult world. In this new concrete stage, abstract thinking is not yet possible, but logic is and is used to create symbols, generalizations, and methods needed to be applied to concrete situations. In this stage adults are capable of mastering great concrete operations such as building rockets, mastering differential equations, flying airplanes and other complex concrete operational tasks. One experiences the world through the mind and transcends oneself from the previous stage of development.

The vertical shift in cognitive development from pre-operational to this concrete operational stage involves a shift in perspective from a purely egocentric to a sociocentric or group point of view. It shifts from it's all about "me" to it's all about "us".

You exchange your previous immersion in "me" for the collective inclusion and security of the group. In this stage one identifies his or herself within a group role. Whether that's the group of a family, work title, society or even one's nation. The new immersion is in the "us" of the group with it's customs, beliefs, and values.

Decentering is a new concrete tool at this stage allowing you to see multiple points of view.. or placing the shoe on the other foot so to speak. This allows you to deal with increasingly complicated concrete situations. At this stage things are seen as "this or that", "black or white", "right or wrong", and truth is only that which can be seen. There are no internal or abstract ideas or principles yet. Just concrete tools to manipulate concrete situations with concrete outcomes.

Because one's identity IS one's role, different pathologies can develop. "I'm not good enough, I'm a looser, I'm no good, I'm a rotten person, No one loves me etc" These are negative or unresourceful beliefs about one's standing or ones self worth within society. These most likely happened in the pre-operational phase of development where one felt powerless and viewed their parents assessment of them as accurate.

Remember the key to each shift in development is the ability to take a broader, more inclusive perspective. To see something that one was previously immersed in and therefore unaware of. The new ability to see the relationship between wholes and parts is a big step in this developmental progression and is where almost 90% of western adults spend their lives. Remember Holosync can greatly accelerate the developmental process for those of you really interested in personal and spiritual growth. Meditation in conjunction with Holosync will have a dramatic effect on your life and will turn some of those trouble spots in your life completely around. It's the most effective way to increase your cognitive development.

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