STAGES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT CONTENTS

Ann. Rev. Psychol. 1985.36:613-48Copyright © 1985 by Annual Reviews Inc. All rights reserved

STAGES AND INDIVIDUALDIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVEDEVELOPMENT

Kurt W. FischerDepartment of Psychology, University of Denver, Denver, Colorado 80208

Louise Silvern

Department of Psychology, University of Colorado, Boulder, Colorado 80302

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................... 614CONTEXT FOR RESOLUTION OF THE CONTROVERSY ................................ 615

Developmental Plasticity ........................................................................ 615Lifespan Study ..................................................................................... 616

CONCEPTUAL OBSTACLES IN BASIC ASSUMPTIONS .................................. 617Organismic-Structural Approaches and Universal Stages ................................. 618Mechanistic-Functional Approaches and Individual Differences ......................... 621Overcoming the Conceptual Dichotomy ...................................................... 624

EVIDENCE FOR STAGES ......................................................................... 626Empirical Criteria ................................................................................ 626Consensus on Levels ............................................................................. 633

EVIDENCE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AND ORGANISMIC FACTORSAFFECTING LEVELS ...................................................................... 636

Environment ....................................................................................... 636Organism ........................................................................................... 638

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN DEVELOPMENTAL SEQUENCESAND OUTCOMES .......................................................................... 640

CONCLUSIONS: BUILDING AN INTEGRATED APPROACH ............................ 642

A dilemma that has obstructed the pursuit of satisfactory explanations of human behavior isthat, on the one hand, there appears to be sufficient constancy of behavior across variableenvironmental conditions to warrant the inference that explanation requires the introductionof dispositional concepts (e.g. schemes, operations, structures, rules); on the other hand,

613

0066-43 08/85/0201-0613502.00

www.annualreviews.org/aronlineAnnual Reviews

http://www.annualreviews.org/aronline

614 FISCHER & SILVERN

behavior is also variable among individuals to the point that explanation requires thespecification of environmental determinants. Frequently, investigators have sought to re-solve the dilemma by denying or trivializing one or the other of its components (Overton Newman 1982, p. 217).

INTRODUCTION

Does cognitive development occur in universal, discontinuous stages, structur-al reorganizations that are common to all people everywhere and that character-ize all domains of development? Or is cognitive development continuous anddiscrete, with all people showing different developmental patterns as a functionof their learning histories and with no uniform sequence of stages acrossdomains? Unfortunately, the debate about stages and individual differences incognitive development is typically cast in dichotomous terms similar to these.We have phrased the arguments baldly, of course, but many of the debates inthe literature fit this characterization. Hundreds of studies have been designedto demonstrate stages, with little or no attempt to assess individual differencesor environmental effects. Hundreds have been designed to demonstrate en-vironmental effects or to examine individual differences without any assess-ment of stages. Of course, there have always been a few exceptions to theisolation of research on stages from that on individual differences and environ-mental effects, but it has generally held.

Developmental scientists have begun to express dissatisfaction with thistraditional dichotomization and with the concomitant isolation of researchtraditions (e.g. Baltes et al 1980, Feldman 1980, McCall 1981, Block 1982,Higgins & Eccles 1983, Kesscn & Scott 1983, Rest 1983, Cole et al 1984,Fischer & Bullock 1984, Gollin 1984a, Silvern 1984; R. J. Lerner & M. B.Kauffman, unpublished manuscript).

The data demonstrate that both positions are valid. Cognitive developmentshows evidence of stage-like change and of consistency across domains; at thesame time, environmental effects and individual differences abound. Aframework is needed that explains how both types of developmental patternscan occur. Because the evidence is strong for both arguments, the fault must liein the dichotomous nature of the arguments.

Several intellectual threads in present-day life sciences virtually necessitateabandonment of such dichotomous ways of thinking. These threads are particu-larly evident in the biology of developmental plasticity and in the psychology oflifespan development, and so those will be reviewed briefly. Transcending thedichotomization of stages and individual differences also requires understand-ing its foundations in certain basic assumptions about the nature of develop-ment, as encapsulated in organismic and mechanistic models, and these toowill be reviewed briefly.

With this background, presentation of the findings on the nature of cognitivedevelopment will be straightforward. What is the evidence for stages? What is



STAGES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES 615

the evidence for variability in stage as a result of environmental or organismicinfluences? What is the evidence for individual differences in cognitive de-velopment?

Resolution of the controversy, we argue, requires a framework that conjoinsorganism and environment by building transactional or collaborational modelsof stages and individual differences. That is, the child’s development is seen asarising from a combination of organismic and environmental variables, andmajor explanatory constructs are recast in these explicitly conjoint terms.

Finally, a word is necessary about the scope of this chapter. We have chosento review stages and individual differences in cognitive development, notcognitive development more generally. Still our topic is broad, and we havehad to omit many appropriate research areas, theories, and articles. Apologiesto our colleagues whom we have been unable to cite.

CONTEXT FOR RESOLUTION OF THE CONTROVERSY

Developmental plasticity and lifespan development provide particularly clearexamples of the sources of current dissatisfaction with the traditional dichoto-my. In these areas, scholars have concluded that development both occurs instages and shows great individual diversity, and so they have frequentlyappealed for integration of stages and individual differences.

Developmental PlasticityDefinitions of developmental plasticity all share a theme: that developmentvaries in response to environmental variation (Gollin 1984b, Lerner 1984). Thephenomena of what is often called "maturation" show remarkable diversity,and at the same time, the diversity is constrained by the organization ofdevelopmental stages. Consequently, the concept of maturation itself is beingrecast to reflect findings that stages and individual differences occur together.

The roots of the concept of developmental plasticity lie in behavioral biolo-gy, ethology, and embryology (Gottlieb 1973, 1983, Gould 1977, Movshon Van Sluyters 1981). Those literatures illustrate that members of the samespecies developing in different contexts may vary dramatically not only in suchstrongly canalized behaviors as those of aggression and sex (Harding & Strum1976, Moore 1984) but also in gross morphology and physiology (Gould1977). Human beings who develop at very high elevations, for example,develop physiologically in ways that would cause death in other settings (Gould& Lewontin 1979).

Such enormous variability in developmental course and outcome brings intoquestion the very meaning of "species typical" developmental path. Matura-tional status does constrain the possible effects of the environment on furtherdevelopment (Gollin 1981, Lerner 1984), but the concept of organic maturation




itself has changed. A useful construct for maturation is probabilistic epigenesis(Gottlieb 1973, 1983). Developmental norms reflect not what must happen development but what is typical (i.e. probable) under the usual environmentaland organismic conditions. Inevitably there will be variations.

In probabilistic epigenesis, individuals function differently in different con-texts, and that functioning influences subsequent structures, which in turninfluence subsequent functioning, and so on. Thus, given differing contexts,the same initial structural conditions will produce different developmentalsequences and outcomes.

So many factors at so many different levels jointly affect an organism’scondition (e.g. genetics, neuroanatomy, physiology, behavior, environmentalcontext, social group organization, and for people, cultural organization). Thenature of the factors and the relations among them change during development.Variations at each level condition the impact of any one variant upon furtherdevelopment (Gollin 1981, Scarr & McCartney 1983). The sheer number variable factors and relations among factors determines that within a species thecourse of development will be probabilistic.

Species differ in the plasticity of their development, and human beings arepresumed to be unusually plastic (Gould 1977). It is not surprising, then, thatarguments from the developmental plasticity literature have begun to appear indiscussions of human development (e.g. Kagan 1982, Thomas 1982, Chess Thomas 1983, Silvern 1984).

The remainder of this review rests not on an analogy with other biobehavior-al processes but on analyses of cognitive developmental data and theories. Thepoint of discussing the plasticity literature is that contemporary conceptions ofmaturation strongly support the effort to eliminate dichotomous thinking aboutstages and individual differences. The literature on the biology of developmen-tal plasticity calls into question the root metaphor (Reese & Overton 1970) usedin traditional structural models of stage development--that the organism un-folds along a predetermined course (Overton 1984) or through a predeterminedepigenesis (Gottlieb 1973, 1983). Developmentalists should not assume thatpredetermined epigenesis is based upon good biological evidence. If, forexample, the functions and morphology of sexual reproduction manifest dra-matically different developmental courses in differing contexts (Gould 1977),then human cognitive development may also show such individual differences.At every stage, maturing structure provides opportunities for individual differ-ences as well as constraints upon them (Gollin 1981, Scarr & McCartney1983).

Lifespan StudyThe portrait of development in the biological literature is similar to that in theliterature on psychological development across the lifespan. Maturation shows




a common overall pattern and at the same time progresses in importantlydifferent ways for different individuals in different contexts (Chess & Thomas1983, Lerner 1984). Within the lifespan orientation, the psychological differ-ences between widely different age groups highlight the stage-like aspects ofdevelopment. On the other hand, the consistent differences in the developmentof individuals over long periods and the relations of those differences topersonal and socie_tal history accentuate the importance of individual diversity.

In general, research on development over long periods in children and adultsdemonstrates big differences between age groups as well as substantial differ-ences between individuals within age groups (Horn 1976, McCall et al 1977,Vaillant 1977, Mussen et al 1980). Both sets of differences are significant. It ismisleading to speak in terms of stages without also noting the wide range ofindividual differences in development, and it is misleading to speak in terms ofindividual differences without noting the commonalities that occur acrossindividuals.

Scholars taking a lifespan perspective have often objected to the emphasis intraditional stage theories on a uniform developmental sequence. Their observa-tions seem to demand a view that development proceeds through diversesequences (Lerner 1984). Factors that affect the diversity they observe cognition include not only age-related abilities but also cohort differences(Baltes et al 1980), domains of interest and expertise (Crosson & Robertson-Tchabo 1983), and other historical and experiential differences. Furthermore,the lifespan literature suggests that the salience of individual differencesgenerally waxes with age after early childhood, while that of stage-relateduniformities wanes (Cairns ct al 1980, McCall 1981, Chess & Thomas 1983,Scarr & McCartney 1983, Lerner 1984). After early childhood, individualsfunction in ever more diverse contexts, and they also show increasing diversityin how they select and manage those contexts.

CONCEPTUAL OBSTACLES IN BASIC ASSUMPTIONS

"Development does not lurk directly in the population(s) studied but resides fun-damentally in the perspective used" (Kaplan 1983, p. 196).

"Observation of phenomena that look coherent, similar, or unitary to one observer maylook differential, unrelated, or specific to another, largely because of what each means bysame o~" different .... " (Selman 1980, p. 19).

The research literatures on developmental plasticity and lifespan developmentboth hold that diversity in developmental sequences coexists with a maturation-al course that conditions the possibilities for that diversity. What is still needed,however, is a formal analytic model of this coexistence--a conceptual integra-tion of stages and individual differences.




A crucial barrier to such an integration is that traditional frameworks forstudying development have effectively defined either stages or individualdifferences as irrelevant (Toulmin 1981, Kaplan 1983, Overton 1984; R. J.Lerner & M. B. Kauffman, unpublished manuscript). Inevitably, a prioriassumptions and definitions have influenced the methods of study and the typesof evidence taken as bearing upon questions of universality or diversity.Consequently, researchers in one tradition have found evidence for universalstages, with individual differences occurring only in the rate of progressthrough the stages. Researchers in the other tradition have found a plethora ofenvironmental influences and individual differences, with no stages in evi-dence except for limited developmental orderings within particular task do-mains..

Two models have engendered these incompatible approaches to develop-ment (Reese & Overton 1970): the organism model, emphasizing structure, andthe mechanism model, focusing on function (Fischer & Bullock 1984). Schol-ars working in the organismic-structural tradition find that development occursin universal stages, which reflect the structure of thought that lies behind thediversity of manifest behavior. Scholars working in the mechanistic-functionaltradition find development (or more commonly, learning) in manifest behavior,which varies widely across diverse environments and functions. Observationsmade by the methods of the one approach are easily discounted as irrelevant byproponents of the other.

An integration of stages and individual differences requires a conceptualliberation of the observations from the two sets of incompatible and exclusion-ary a priori assumptions about the nature of development. What is needed is aview fully grounded in the fact that cognitive development appears diverseunder some observational conditions and universal under others. We argue herethat all cognitive assessments depend on both a context and a particularstage-related cognitive structure. The methods prescribed by organismic andmechanistic approaches simply hold constant the context or structure, respec-tively, or they ignore it. With a framework that integrates stages and individualdifferences, it will be possible to specify (a) conditions that will producestage-like development with few individual differences and (b) conditions thatwill produce diverse behaviors with no evidence of stages. Before we canelaborate an alternative, however, we must consider more fully recent discus-sions of the two approaches.

Organismic-Structural Approaches and Universal Stages

The organismic approach takes the growing biological organism as its rootmetaphor (Reese & Overton 1970). Growth unfolds toward its species-specificadult form, and development is the necessary sequence from initial to adultform. Identifying a developmental sequence therefore requires an initial deter-



mination of an end point for the sequence and then a rational analysis of thechanges that are necessary for development from the beginning to the end point(Kaplan 1983, R. Kitchener 1983, Kohlberg et al 1983).

Within this tradition, end points are defined broadly, with observed varia-tions treated as developmentally equivalent. By analogy, an acorn normallydevelops into an oak tree; differences in the shape of the branches, thedistribution of the leaves, or the brittleness of the wood are unimportant. Anyoak-like form is taken to be the end point, and any developmental sequencesthat result in that form are considered equivalent. The goal is the explanation ofspecies-wide progression, which is thought to require a level of analysisdifferent from the explanation of diversity among individuals.

Typically, organismic approaches have taken as their end point the structureof adult thought, such as Piaget’s (1970) formal operations. According Overton (1984), a structure is a relatively stable, organized configuration principles or rules revealed by rfftional analysis to account for relatively stableways of functioning. To be useful, a structural analysis must account for a widediversity of behaviors with relatively few rules. Consequently, the end point isdefined in terms of similarity across overtly diverse behaviors, and the diversityis usually not analyzed.

A developmental sequence involves a series of progressive structures culmi-nating in the structure of the end point, as in Piaget’s sequence of sensorimotor,preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages. Thestructural sequence, it is argued, is logically necessary for the specified endpoint, just as it is necessary that an oak grow in sequence from acorn to saplingto adult tree, and not the reverse. An earlier developmental state constitutes aprior stage only when it must precede some later stage. When alternative states

can occur at a given point in the sequence, they are considered equivalentvariants of the same stage. Such manifest altematives are not considered truechanges in the stage sequence itself. Indeed, Kaplan (1983) warned againstseeking confirmation for universal stage models in empirical observation,because, he said, sequences are ideal, rational constructions based upon thedefinition of the end point.

When Piaget (1957) hypothesized that each stage is a structured whole(structure d’ensemble), he took to its extreme the assumption that uniformstructures underlie manifest diversity. According to his hypothesis, the struc-ture that characterizes a stage has a gestalt-like quality that rapidly takes overthe mind, as if it were a pervasive catalyst producing change in diverse schemesthroughout the mind (Fischer & Bullock 1981). Consequently, differences the domain or context of a behavior should be irrelevant to assessment ofstructured wholes. The child should show what Kohlberg and his colleagues(1983) call "hard stages."

Furthermore, potential sources of differences between or within individuals




cannot count as causes of developmental sequence or structure. Material causessuch as physiological variation and efficient causes such as context and taskinfluences cannot induce the characteristics of a developmental sequence butcan only affect the speed of development through the sequence (Gollin 1981,Lerner 1984, Overton 1984).

Within this framework, the only accepted cause of cognitive stages is theform or structure of thought. As part of the dismissal of varying material andefficient causes in favor of universal structural (formal) causes, Piaget (1952[1936]) distinguished between development and learning. Development in-volved the structuring of true knowledge, and learning involved behavioralchange arising from material or efficient causes. Learning, he concluded, wasequivalent to the acquisition of circus tricks by animals or children: Childrenare not altered developmentally when they are trained to recite the Declarationof Independence. B roughton (1981) concluded that Piaget’s theory is logicallycompelled to disallow any impact of organismic or environmental variations, asis any other theory that explains thought by its structure. Variable factors, suchas mother-infant attachment, defensive style, and motive, are consigned toexplaining only nondevelopmental variations, including individual differ-ences. Piaget (1971, 1975) himself eventually came close to acknowledging thelimitations of this position when he said that his theory only dealt with theepistemic subject, the ideal philosopher-child who was not influenced byfactors such as context or motive. The psychological subject remained forothers to explain.

According to this approach, then, the possibility of diverse sequences isruled out a priori. The observations that most cogently argue for individualdifferences in kind of developmental sequence (rather than merely in rate ofprogress or stage of fixation) are considered irrelevant. The possibility ofdiverse end points is ruled out by the a priori stipulation of a single end point,which is described sufficiently abstractly to subsume diversity. Diverse se-quences are ruled out by the structured-whole formulation and the propositionthat the sequence itself is logically necessary. These assumptions, which areoften implicit, inform research designs and methods that effectively precludethe detection of individual differences or environmental influences. For exam-ple, measures are used that assess only one developmental sequence andconsequently cannot uncover any diversity in sequence; or the ages of thechildren tested are varied, but there are no variations in the testing conditions.

In the face of the need to explain development only in terms of universalstructures, context-sensitive variations have often been acknowledged by iden-tifying performance as the site of individual differences and contrasting it withcompetence, which is presumed to develop through structural stages (Chomsky1965, Flavell & Wohlwill 1969, Overton & Newman 1982). Despite theenormous variations evident in performance, competence does not vary. True




development is maintained as a closed structure within the organism. One ofthe origins of this approach is the literature on intelligence testing, wherecompetence is defined as the best score a child can obtain, whereas perform-ance involves variations below that score arising from motivational and contex-tual factors. In the competence/performance models, however, the distinctionis no longer merely practical but theoretical. Competence is identified withstructure, and it is competence alone that shows true stage-like development. Aperson’s competence at a single point on the developmental scale defines astage. Apparent variations in stage are said to be produced by performancefactors, which do not involve structures. For competence to be evident inperformance, it must somehow be activated or primed. The concept of activa-tion is necessary because of the conceptual isolation of structures from variableperformance and must be taken on faith. Indeed, a general criticism of perform-ance-competence models is that, like the organismic and mechanisticapproaches combined in them, they ultimately maintain the conceptual isola-tion of universally developing structures from immediate organismic andenvironmental variations (Bullock 1981).

Scholars recently have expressed dissatisfaction with stage theory’s ultimateneglect of almost all interesting developmental differences among individualsor cultures (Baltes et al 1980, Feldman 1980, Toulmin 1981, Gilligan 1982,Thomas 1982, Higgins & Eccles 1983, Snarey et al 1983, Cole et al 1984,Fischer & Bullock 1984, Gollin 1984a, Leruer 1984, Silvern 1984). Thecentral complaints boil down to two: (a) The approach rules out considerationof too much observable developmental variation. (b) The approach is too greatlyconstrained by the values inherent in a specified, out-of-context developmental endpoint. When outcomes that are effective in their own contexts do not fit the specificend point, their effectiveness is ignored and they are categorized as immature. Ingeneral, intelligence is presented as a virtually closed system that can be assessedwithout consideration of contextual influences.

On the other hand, the payoffs of the approach are the converse of thecomplaints. A universal developmental sequence provides a criterion for find-ing similarities and a basis for comparing development across contexts andcultures (Edwards 1983, Silveru 1984). It also preserves a meaningful criterionfor development amid the diversity of behavior (Kaplan 1983). Most fun-damentally, the organismic-structural approach emphasizes that not all thingsare possible in development, that certain cognitive changes must precedeothers, and that only some environmental variables are capable of affectingcognition at a particular point in development.

Mechanistic-Functional Approaches and Individual Differences

The root metaphor of the mechanistic perspective is the machine (Reese Overton 1970). Developmental change cannot occur without impact from the




environment--i.e, from efficient causes. Development is caused and variablyshaped by environmental factors. Lawfulness resides in the principles thatassociate independent variables (efficient causes, primarily) with dependentvariables, not in the internal structural consistency of the organism (Catania1973, Kessen & Scott 1983). With its emphasis on the variable nature ofenvironmental influences, the mechanistic approach readily explains indi-vidual differences.

In contrast to the organismic definition of development in terms of structure,mechanistic approaches are concerned primarily with learning or problemsolving, not with development. The principles of conditioning provide one ofthe central mechanistic explanations for changes in behavior (Skinner 1969).All such principles explain behavioral change in terms of particular functionsthat are served by the change, such as the achievement of specific events orstates sought by the organism. A number of information processing theories fitthe mechanistic-functional framework, specifying, for example, how a childbuilds a production system to achieve a particular goal---e.g, to solve a problemor obtain a desired object (Klahr & Wallace 1976).

Individual differences are a central focus of mechanistic-functionalapproaches. Such perspectives hold that context affects behavior via the princi-ples of learning or problem solving and that behavioral change (i.e. develop-ment) is as variable as its context. Development is assessed in terms of manifestbehavior in particular tasks within specific contexts. Few organismic con-straints on development are acknowledged explicitly, although researchershave come to recognize that species characteristics do constrain what can belearned (Schwartz 1983).

According to this perspective, there is no structural end point that defines thecourse of development, and there is no straightforward criterion by which tojudge developmental status as more or less mature (Kaplan 1983, Snarey et al1983). Instead, the primary criterion for learning or development is achieve-ment of a specific function or purpose in a particular context. For example,does the 2-year-old boy succeed in feeding himself? Does the 8-year-old girlobtain sufficient peer recognition for her accomplishments at school? If thespecified function is effectively served by the behavior, then learning ordevelopment has been successful.

Investigators using this framework do not search for developmental changeas construed by the structuralists. Children are not described as moving throughgeneral stages across domains. The closest thing to development is the descrip-tion of a sequence of skills within a domain (Gagne 1970); but such a sequenceis considered a relatively arbitrary consequence of the particular environmentalcircumstances experienced by the child, including the nature of the task and thepattern of environmental contingencies. A sequence of steps in learning tocount, for example, is a result of such environmental factors as the specific




problems encountered and the teaching methods used. Consequently, develop-mental sequences are specific to domains and experiences, potentially infinitein their diversity.

Behaviors can become more complex over time, and certain behaviors areprerequisites to others. Children must learn to count before they can add, andthey must be able to add before they can do algebra. These orderings are calledhabit-family hierarchies or production-system hierarchies and are held to beentirely specific to particular domains (Keil 1981).

According to the mechanistic view, different children seem to developcertain skills at the same age primarily because (a) complex behaviors takelonger to learn than simple ones do and (b) the social environment teaches skillsat certain ages (Higgins & Eccles 1983). Similarly, developmental synchronyacross domains can be explained in nonstructural terms (Flavell 1982). Just Piaget could analyze learning as analogous to the mastery of circus tricks,Skinner (1969) or Klahr & Wallace (1976) can treat development as an illusionbased on cumulative learning.

Mechanistic methodologies presume the importance of observing learning orproblem solving in various contexts and among people with various histories.The resulting research designs and methods can readily detect environmentaleffects and individual differences in performance but cannot uncover stage-likeuniformities. For example, tasks or testing conditions are manipulated todemonstrate the variability of behavior in different contexts, or problem-solving strategies are assessed to demonstrate the variability of behavior acrossindividuals. However, no analyses are done to detect consistencies in behavioracross tasks for a particular age group or consistent differences between agegroups.

In order to acknowledge the relevance of cognitive structures to intelligence,a few investigators have developed a mechanistic-functional version of thecompetence/performance approach (Chomsky 1965, Gelman & Baillargeon1983). They posit that at birth (or some other early point in development)infants have the competence for all human cognition--i.e, they possess a set ofuniversal logical structures. Behavioral change occurs not in this competencebut in performance, which is affected by diverse environmental and organismicfactors. This approach denies a progression of general stages but acceptslogical structures present early in life. As with the organismic-structural modelsof competence and performance, the structures are isolated from behaviorand from immediate environmental and organismic influences (Bullock1981).

The mechanistic-functional approach is strong exactly where the organis-mic-structural one is wcak. Cognitive differences across cultures and indi-viduals can be compared in terms of their context-specific functions; theirmaturity in other terms need not be ranked (Snarey et al 1983, Silvern 1984).




Developmental differences can be attributed to the observed influence ofenvironmental variations (Fischer 1980, Biggs & Collis 1982). The plentifulevidence of individual differences and unevenness in development [what Piaget(1971) called d~calage] can be taken seriously.

On the other hand, the mechanistic perspective provides no basis for iden-tifying developmental universals or constraints upon the nature of environmen-tal impact at a particular age (R. J. Lerner & M. B. Kauffman, unpublishedmanuscript; Silvern 1984). The fundamental commitment to diversity discour-ages consideration of the suggestion that context is effective only when anorganism can understand and respond. The search for consistency and univer-sals is effectively ruled out by the prescribed level of analysis and the methodsof observation.

Overcoming the Conceptual Dichotomy

The attempt to integrate hypotheses involving stages with those involvingindividual differences is an effort to incorporate the advantages of both organis-mic and mechanistic approaches. Finding a point of integration requires obviat-ing the profound separation between organism and environment presumed bythe two approaches. Both frameworks have isolated the organism theoreticallyfrom the environment (Chandler 1977). The organismic-structural frameworkhas located the impetus for knowledge in structures inside the person, separablefrom context and function. The mechanistic-functional framework has locatedthe impetus for knowledge in environments that affect the individual (Fischer Bullock 1984). Competence/performance models have attempted to reconcilethe opposing frameworks by giving each one responsibility for a differentaspect of behavior. Competence reflects the structure of the organism’s mind;performance derives from the variability in function arising from environmen-tal and organismic influences.

In contrast, many scholars have recently attempted to describe developmentas residing in a relation between organism and environment--in a transaction(Gollin 1981, 1984b, Sameroff et al 1982), collaboration (Fischer & Bullock1984), fit (Chess & Thomas 1983, Leruer 1984, Silvern 1984), interaction(Cole & Traupman 1981), or convergence (Bullock 1983). These contempo-rary efforts to introduce a level of analysis that conjoins organismic structureand environmental variation differ from traditional studies of the interactionbetween two discrete factors. In the conjoint analyses, the factors are notindependent; instead, the relevance of each for development involves that ofthe other (Fischer 1980, Silvern 1984). Characteristics of the individual, suchas structures, are said to have meaning only in particular contexts, whilevariable contexts have meaning for development only in light of the indi--vidual’s developmental status.




Instead of identifying a closed developmental sequence of structures, theinvestigator seeks to specify how structures show stabilities and changes indifferent contexts for people of different ages. Instead of identifying theregularity of environmental impacts, the investigator seeks to specify howenvironments have similar and differing effects as a function of human struc-tures and motivations. No cognitive assessment can ever be free of context orfree of the effect of age-related changes in cognitive organization. Thus the

" findings of both the organismic and the mechanistic viewpoints remain rele-vant, and the prescription for new research is to combine the methods of the twoviewpoints.

Cole & Traupman (1981) provided a memorable illustration of the benefitsof viewing cognition as a person-environment collaboration. They presentedthe cases of two boys, one of whom had a serious learning disability. Instandard intelligence testing, the disabled boy showed his disability, and theother boy tested as normal; but for the activity of baking bread in a class setting,the outcome was reversed, even though this activity required reading and otherskills assessed in the intelligence test. In this setting, the disabled boy activelyworked to get around his deficits, using the skills he had; the relative lack ofconstraint in the class facilitated his construction of the situation to fit hisabilities. The normal boy responded to the lack of constraint by becomingdistractable and disorganized---characteristics not evident in the more con-straiv.ed situation of intelligence testing. Intellectual adequacy was a functionof the fit between person and context.

Efforts to build a conjoint framework require concepts for characterizing thecollaboration of person and environment. Vygotsky’ s (1978) work has proved fertile source of such concepts. Adequate cognitive progression requires aprocess of scaffolding, in which adults provide children with the specificenvironmental support they need for acccomplishing a task that would other-wise be beyond them (Wood 1980, Bruner 1982, Kaye 1982). The childrenprovide whatever components they can for the task and with the adults’guidance gradually reinvent the solution that the adults already know (Fischer& Bullock 1984). Adequate scaffolding requires that the adults carefullymonitor each child’s current structure, interest, and goal (Westerman & Fisch-man-Havstad 1982). In interactions between adults, similar scaffolding pro-cesses occur, with each adult supporting certain kinds of behaviors in the other.

This framework is not only a description of how the social environmentcontributes to the person’s cognitive structure. It also has implications for howthis structure in context is evaluated. A person’s cognitive status cannot beidentified independently of the degree of scaffolding or other environmentalsupport he or she is experiencing during the assessment. A person has no singleability but a "zone of proximal development" that is accessed differently under




different support conditions (Vygotsky 1978). At the same time, the influenceof context on cognition cannot be assessed independently from the responsive-ness of the particular person to that context. Person and environment alwayscollaborate to produce any behavior.

With concepts like environmental support and zone of proximal develop-ment, the issues of stages and individual differences can be integrated. Indeed,under certain conditions of observation and degrees of abstraction, universalstages of cognitive organization can be observed; under others, importantindividual differences in developmental sequences occur.

EVIDENCE FOR STAGES

The concept of stage has long been a center of controversy in developmentalpsychology (Wohlwill 1973). Part of the basis for the controversy lies in thefundamental differences between the priori assumptions of the organismic andmechanistic approaches. In addition, organismic-structural investigators havefrequently been vague about the empirical criteria that define a stage.

What patterns of developmental data can be used to index a stage? A numberof criteria have been proposed or implied by stage theorists, and data areavailable to test them all. When the strongest empirical criteria for stage areused, the evidence for stages is notably weak. But with a less stringent set ofcriteria, there is good evidence that development shows stages under someconditions.

Empirical Criteria

Piaget (1957, 1975), Kohlberg and colleagues (1983), and others have posed a long list of characteristics that stages must have to be consistent withthe structural framework. For example, each stage must be a structured whole,and all later stages must subsume the structures of earlier ones. As~part of oureffort to move beyond the definitional restrictions of the organismic-structuralframework, however, we focus on empirical criteria---the patterns of datarequired or implied by structural hypotheses.

Fischer & Bullock (1981) argue that all proposed characteristics of stagesinvolve three general patterns of data: developmental sequences, synchroniesin developmental steps across sequences, and constraints on the possiblesequences and synchronies that are predicted to occur. Developmental sequ-ences have been the only one of these three patterns of data to be routinelyobserved and replicated (Wohlwil11973, Flavell 1982); and sequences alone not evidence stages, because a sequence may, for example, characterize only aparticular domain and show no synchronies or other relations across domains.Unless synchronies or constraints also obtain, developmental stages cannot bedemonstrated.




STRUCTURED WHOLE: UNIVERSALITY AND SYNCHRONY Piaget’s (1957)structured-whole hypothesis specifies at least two patterns of sequence, syn-chrony, and constraint (Broughton 1981, Fischer & Bullock 1981, Flavell1982). First, knowledge should develop through one universal developmentalsequence in diverse domains, the same sequence for all people in all cultures(Kohlberg et al 1983). Second, each child should demonstrate high synchronyin the sequence across domains, at least at each age when a new structuredwhole emerges. The most important structured wholes are (a) sensorimotor andrepresentational groups, which are achieved at the end of the sensorimotorperiod; (b) concrete operations; and (c) formal operations (Piaget 1970).Preoperational thought does not manifest a structured whole (Piaget et al 1968).

For example, according to the synchrony criterion, when individual childrendevelop concrete operations in one type of conservation (e.g. amount of water)they should simultaneously develop concrete operations in others (e.g. lengthof a string). Strictly speaking, the structured-whole should even induce con-crete-operational structures simultaneously in tasks involving schemes otherthan conservation, such as classification, seriation, and number (Inhelder Piaget 1964 [1959]). According to the most literal interpretation of the struc-tured-whole hypothesis, children should develop concrete operations in alldomains at virtually the same point in time, thereby showing what is calledpoint synchrony (Fischer & Bullock 1981). However, point synchrony acrossdomains has never been found. To the contrary, children manifest high uneven-ness or drcalage (Feldman 1980, Biggs & Collis 1982, Flavell 1982). Piagetacknowledged this unevenness but never explained it; late in his life he assertedthat it could not be explained (Piaget 1971). Within the structuralist tradition, is difficult if not impossible to explain such variation (Broughton 1981).

In the same way, research has not confirmed any strong form of the univer-sal-sequence hypothesis. Although the data suggest that virtually all childrenshow the sensorimotor and preoperational stages (Dasen et al 1978), manyadolescents and adults in non-Western cultures do not demonstrate Piagetianformal operations or even concrete operations (Dasen 1977, Cole et al 1984).However, this apparent failure of the hypothesis may be due to the fact that testsfor universality have used Piaget’s tasks, which were devised for WesternEuropean children. A few studies have used tasks devised for a specificnon-Western culture, such as navigation tasks for a culture where peopleregularly navigate boats between distant islands (Gladwin 1970). With suchculturally appropriate, familiar tasks, all people do seem to show concrete andformal operations (Greenfield 1976, Super 1980, Cole et al 1984).

These cross-cultural findings illustrate a general pattern that holds for syn-chrony, universality, and virtually every other criterion for stage: When en-vironmental factors are disregarded, the data do not support stage theory; whenenvironmental factors are taken into account, the evidence for stages becomes




much stronger. Only under certain environmental conditions do people developin a stage-like manner. This pattern supports a perspective that conjoinsorganism and environment.

RELATION OF PERFORMANCE WITH AGE Although synchronous onset anduniversal sequence have been the stated criteria for stages, most researchconducted by Piaget and others within the organismic-structural tradition hasbeen designed to test a weaker criterion: On tasks designed to assess a givenstage, success should be age-dependent.

By this criterion, the concept of stage has received overwhelming support. Inscores of studies using the tasks originally designed to assess conservation,most children in industrialized countries have demonstrated concrete opera-tions between 6 and 10 years of age, and the same is true for concreteoperational tasks in other domains (Inhelder & Piaget 1964 [1959], Wohlwill1973, Halford 1982, Case 1984).

For all of Piaget’s four main stages, most children in industrialized cultureshave succeeded at his tasks at about the ages he described (Dasen 1977, McCallet al 1977, Dasen et al 1978). With the original tasks and testing conditions,Piaget’s findings are highly replicable. Indeed, on a host of tasks devised byother investigators (e.g. Watson 1981, Case 1984), age is the most potent,easily measurable predictor of stage of performance. The form of cognitivegrowth seems to be highly similar on the average for children from industrial-ized cultures. Of course, when tasks or testing conditions are changed, or whenchildren are tested on tasks never encountered in their culture, the age pre-dictions do not hold (Feldman 1980, Fischer 1980, Biggs & Collis 1982,Flavell 1982). Few studies have used tasks appropriate to nonindustrial cul-tures.

A common criticism from mechanistic-functional investigators is that thesefindings can be explained away by environmental factors that are correlatedwith age (Higgins & Eccles 1983). However, while environmental factors correlate with age, it is not clear that they produce the cognitive changes inchildren. Adults gear a child’s social environment to the level of the child’sdeveloping capacities (Vygotsky 1978, Cairns et al 1980, Kaye 1982), Thecriticism thus provides no alternative explanation. Teasing apart contributionsintrinsic to the child from those of the social environment will require theconstruction of specific models of the collaboration between child and environ-ment.

Although the relation between average performance and age is a highlyreplicable result, it remains an unsatisfactory criterion for stage. First, therelation is imprecise, with the data showing substantial divergences from theaverage age for certain tasks, testing conditions, and children. Second, the ageresults alone provide no criteria for demarcating transitions between stages or




specifying how developmental progressions are stage-like. Upon what basiscan we assert that a certain accomplishment marks a new stage?

QUALITATIVE CHANGE Some investigators have focused on qualitativechange as a more specific criterion for stage transition. In general, qualitativechanges involve the organization rather than the amount of a behavior orcapacity. For example, consider a 5-year-old boy who can understand varia-tions in the height of the water in two containers (correctly specifying whichcontainer has higher water) but cannot deal with variations in the total quantityof water (conservation). A year or two later, when that boy comes to understandthe relation of height and width and so constructs an understanding of conserva-tion, he will have demonstrated a qualitative change in his knowledge. Conse-quently, he will be said to have entered a new stage. The qualitative-changecriterion has been used explicitly in a number of neo-structural theories(McCall et al 1977, Bickhard 1978, Biggs & Collis 1982, Halford 1982,Commons et al 1984) and implicitly by many other researchers in the Piagetiantradition.

Research on cognitive development demonstrates a large number of qualita-tive changes associated with Piagetian stages, but which of these changessignals transition to a new stage? When a girl learns to button her shirt or awoman learns to walk on showshoes, her behavior has undergone a qualitativechange. With qualitative change as the criterion, every increment of learningwould mark a new stage (Fischer et al 1984).

In practice, most researchers have sidestepped this problem by using anintuitive sense of what counts as an important qualitative change. For generaltheories of cognitive development, such as those of Biggs & Collis (1982),Case (1984), Halford (1982), and of course Piaget (1970), structural definitionssuch as that for conservation have been provided to specify important changes.

Within a given theory, such definitions indicate which qualitative changesmark transitions to new stages or levels, but problems arise when theories arecompared. Biggs & Collis (1982), for example, define one level on the basis an adolescent’s ability to construct a number of independent, abstract conceptsabout a topic (e.g. to suggest several reasons why it is rainy on the coastal sideof a mountain range). Fischer (1980) and Case (1984) describe a level at the same age but define it as involving the construction of a relation betweentwo abstract concepts. Inhelder & Piaget (1958 [1955]) specify no major stageat the same point but only a substage elaborating formal operations. Which ofthe several posited qualitative changes provides the better evidence for a stage?A criterion is needed that allows determination of which qualitative changesmerit designation as a stage.

In summary, the criterion of age can be measured precisely and reliably, butit lacks specificity in that by itself (without a theoretical framework) it provides




no definition of what age-related changes are sufficient to define stage transi-tions. The criterion of qualitative change provides ways of defining a stage, butas it has been used, it has not been possible to bring data to bear upon alternativeclaims about the qualitative changes that count as stages.

DISCONTINUITY One of the traditional criteria for stage transitions, discon-tinuity, has been generally neglected in cognitive developmental research(Werner 1948, Globerson 1985): When a new stage emerges, the change behavior in a given domain should be large and rapid. Of course, the term"discontinuity" has many other meanings as well, including qualitative change;but large, rapid change seems to be the most straightforward.

With any continuous or approximately continuous developmental scale, it ispossible to detect discontinuities by using procedures that independently assesseach important step, such as scalogram techniques and longitudinal assess-ments (Uzgiris & Hunt 1975, Seibert et al 1984). A discontinuity occurswhenever development along this scale changes abruptly (spurts or drops). Thequestion of whether a specific qualitative change is important enough to countas a new stage is not an issue; the magnitude of the discontinuity with respect tothe rest of the developmental curve speaks for itself. Several methods areavailable for finding and analyzing this kind of discontinuity (Fischer et al1984). In general, most of them provide ways of detecting either (a) that largenumbers of subjects cluster at certain points on a developmental scale or (b) thatindividual subjects spend long periods at certain points on a scale before theydevelop to higher points.

The discontinuity criterion has not often been used in developmental re-search. However, several investigators who have used it in studies of develop-ment in the first two years of life have found a cluster of spurts and other rapiddevelopmental changes at specific ages (Emde et al 1976, Kagan 1982, Corri-gan 1983, Zelazo & Leonard 1983, Seibert et al 1984). In one of the mostelegant studies, McCall and his colleagues (1977) found a series of four rapiddrops in the stability of the first unrotated factor on infant intelligence tests,along with major changes in the kinds of items that loaded on that factor. Anumber of recent studies of stages in infancy have found four similar stages orlevels (Fischer 1982).

For childhood and adolescence, the few investigators who have used thediscontinuity criterion have also obtained promising findings (Jaques et al1978, Tabor & Kendler 1981, Kenny 1983). Only one such set of results iswidely known, however, and its significance has been misinterpreted. Epstein(1974, 1980) found evidence of several growth spurts in head circumferenceand brain-wave patterns in childhood and adolescence. The ages of the spurtscorrelated generally with the ages of emergence of Piagetian stages as de-scribed in Piaget’s original research. However, the few behavioral data in




Epstein’s reports left these correlations unconvincing. Despite the limitationsof these data, major conclusions were drawn about learning capacities, includ-ing claims that children can learn new skills only at the ages when they showbrain-growth spurts (Epstein 1978). Recent direct tests of this learning hypo-thesis have not supported it (McCall et al 1983; A. C. Petersen & S. M.Kavrell, unpublished data). In addition, it seems that some of the data analysesof the physical-growth variables were done carelessly (McQueen 1982).

From these several studies, the discontinuity criterion seems particularlypromising as a straightforward index of stage. We suspect, however, thatunless investigators adopt a collaborational perspective, they will encounterserious problems in using this criterion, just as they have with others. Discon-tinuities will come and go as a function of not only the child but also theenvironment, they will be evident in some tasks and under some testingconditions (Fischer & Bullock 1984).

UPPER LIMIT Another traditional criterion for stage that has been neglected tosome degree is stage-specific learning capacity. If a stage is characterized by anupper limit on cognitive capacity, then what can be learned at that stage shouldbe predictable from that capacity: Children at that stage should (a) be able learn tasks requiring the characteristic capacity, and (b) be unable to learn tasksthat require the capacity of later stages, even when adults provide learningprocedures that are successful for children at those next stages. Several studieshave demonstrated both stage-specific learning capacity and stage-specificfailure to learn (Jaques et al 1978, O’Brien & Overton 1982, Case 1984,Fischer et al 1984).

Many mechanistic-functional studies have demonstrated that changes intasks or testing conditions can alter the child’s performance on some class oftasks (Gelman 1978, Flavell 1982). These results have often been taken mean that children do not show stage-specific learning capacity or stage-specific failure to learn. For example, on Piaget’s tasks children cannot usuallydemonstrate conservation of number until the kindergarten or elementary-school years, but with simplified tasks they can show something like conserva-tion as early as 2 or 3 years of age. Although such results do create problems forthe organismic-structural conception of stage, they do not preclude a lessextreme conception. Indeed, they are expected within a collaborationist pers-pective, because its adherents hold that environmental conditions such as taskcomplexity contribute to stage of performance. Learning capacities will comeand go as a function of both the condition of the child and the condition of theenvironment. If stages exist, the coming and going will not be disorderly. Itwill follow specific collaborational principles that can be used to predict whenchildren will and will not demonstrate task-specific learning capacity andtask-specific failure to learn.




PUTTING THE CRITERIA IN A COLLABORATIONAL FRAMEWORK For eachcriterion for stage, the portrait painted by research is similar. Under somecircumstances, the data support the existence of stages, but under other cir-cumstances they do not. The only exception to this generalization seems to bethe structured-whole hypothesis, which the data do not support for any testingcircumstances. Yet even the structured-whole hypothesis can be decomposedinto its principal empirical criteria, universality and synchrony, which, whenconsidered separately from the hypothesis, share the fate of the others. Asalready mentioned, people develop through something like Piaget’s sequenceof four universal stages so long as the assessments of their development useculturally appropriate, familiar tasks (Greenfield 1976, Dasen 1977, Super1980, Cole et al 1984).

The sequence of stages is therefore neither a characteristic of the entirehuman mind unaffected by context, as structuralists would have it, nor theproduct of context-bound performance on particular tasks, as functionalistswould have it. Instead, the sequence reflects the development of certainintellectual functions under a limited class of environmental conditions. Thespecific tasks mastered are not universal. Individual and cultural differencesoccur routinely in the specifics of sequences. Predicting which tasks will reflectthe universal stages for given cultures or individuals requires intimate knowl-edge of both the contexts familiar to those people and the goals they arepursuing (Cole et al 1984). The sequence holds only when performance andassessment conditions are described in highly abstract terms, not when par-ticular behaviors, tasks, or procedures are specified.

Similarly for synchrony, environmental conditions must be introduced intothe analysis. Many studies have found some degree of synchrony across anumber of tasks designed to measure the same stage (Feldman 1980, McCall etal 1983, Case 1984, Seibert et a11984); many others have found little or no suchsynchrony (Rubin 1973, Biggs & Collis 1982, Flavell 1982, Rest 1983,Sternberg & Powell 1983). The studies finding evidence for synchrony typical-ly have employed modest criteria--general statistical relations requiring onlymoderate degrees of synchrony in large samples of children performing manydifferent tasks.

Using a research design in which familiarity, practice, priming, and so forthcombined to provide environmental support for high-level functioning, a fewstudies have demonstrated high synchrony with fewer tasks and smaller sam-ples (Corrigan 1983, Kenny 1983). These results suggest a collaborationalhypothesis: High synchrony will occur when the environment, providing strongsupport for high-level functioning, enables the subject to operate at his or herhighest level in the several assessed domains (Fischer et al 1984).

Because the data do not support the traditional concept of stage while they doprovide evidence for some weaker form of stage-like change, many develop-



mental scholars now avoid "stage" in favor of some more modest term. One of

the most common replacement terms is "level," which we shall use for the rest

of this chapter to refer to neo-Piagetian concepts of stage.

Consensus on LevelsThe collaborational approach may eventually produce a workable frameworkfor predicting when behavior shows stage-like change. In the meantime,however, guidelines are needed about where to look for developmental levels.Happily, a consensus is developing about the main levels (or transitions orreorganizations) that occur in infancy and childhood. In general, neostructural

theorists searching for developmental changes in the organization of behavior

have inferred similar levels at similar ages. Of course, any particular theoristdoes not necessarily posit all the levels suggested by other theorists.

In this chapter, we consider a level to exist when (a) neostructural theoriesshow substantial consensus about it and (b) evidence supports at least four the six empirical criteria discussed above. By these criteria, at least eightdevelopmental levels mark the period between birth and early adulthood (seeTable 1).

Table 1 Eight developmental levels supported by research and by theoretical consensus

Modal age ofLevel Documented characteristics emergencea

Sensorimotor actions Single actions and perceptions, first social re- 2-4 monthssponsiveness

Differentiation and coordination of means and 7-8 monthsend, attachment relation to caretaker

Location of characteristics in objects and peo- 11-13 monthspie, single words

Symbolization of people and objects, vocabu- 18-24 monthslary spurt, multiword utterances

Coordination of categories in a simple relation, 4-5 yearssolution of simplified concrete operationstasks

Coordination of several complex categories,solution of Piagetian concrete operationstasks

Abstractions, hypothetical ideas, solution ofeasiest Piagetian formal operations tasks,concepts of personality traits

Coordination of abstractions, solution of mostPiagetian formal operations tasks, conceptsof personality dynamics

Sensorimotor relations ofa few actions

Sensorimotor systems ofseveral actions

Representations

Relations of a few repre-sentations

Concrete operations 6--8 years

Beginning formal opera- 10-12 yearstions

Relations of abstract 14-16 yearsgeneralizations

aThese ages indicate the period when a level first appears according to research on middle-class Westernchildren.




In every case, the evidence for these levels exterids beyond traditionalcognitive tasks. Along with the cognitive changes come changes in personalityand social behavior (Sroufe 1979, Selman 1980, Harter 1983, Seibert et al1984, Fischer & Elmendorf 1985), changes in perceptual abilities (Vurpillot1976 [1972], Fischer 1982, Strauss & Curtis 1984), and changes in biologicalor physical variables such as brain waves or sleep cycles (White 1970, Epstein1974, 1980, Emde et al 1976, Kagan 1982, Fischer & Bullock 1984).

The extent of consensus about infancy is remarkable. Repeatedly, investiga-tors have hypothesized four major levels or reorganizations of sensorimotorintelligence during the first two years of life, in contrast to the six stages thatPiaget (1952 [ 1936]) described. The emergence of each of these levels appearsto be closely associated with age, at least for middle-class children in Westerncultures. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to cite the many relevant articles,but several general reviews have been published (Uzgiris 1976, Sroufe 1979,Fischer 1982, Harris 1983, Case 1984). Below we cite only additional articlesespecially central to each developmental level.

The first sensorimotor level, which emerges between 2 and 4 months of age,involves the capacity for intelligent adaptation of a single action, such aslooking at a face or grasping a rattle. Following Piaget (1952[ 1936]), this levelis often hypothesized to mark the beginning of intelligent, voluntary adaptationof actions. The second sensorimotor level, which begins at 7 to 8 months ofage, produces the capacity to construct a simple relation of actions. Forexample, infants can differentiate a means from an end, as when they use whatthey see to guide how they crawl across a platform (Campos et al 1978). At thethird sensorimotor level, appearing between 11 and 13 months, infants canconstruct a complex relation of actions that includes multiple sensorimotorcomponents in a single cognitive system (Zelazo & Leonard 1983). Onehallmark of such a system is that children can understand that an object, event,or person has some constant property, such as that a rattle makes a certain typeof sound no matter what action is used to shake it.

An especially significant change appears to occur in the second year with theemergence of the fourth level, representation--the symbolization of objects,events, or people independently of any particular action of the child. [Note thatthe term "representation" here follows Piaget’s (1952 [1936]) usage, whichdiffers from that common in mechanistic-functional information-processingmodels (Kiahr & Wallace 1976).] Speech surges forward, with a burst of newvocabulary and the beginning of multiword utterances; and pretend playchanges dramatically, increasing in frequency and showing the onset of sym-bolization of people and objects as acting on their own (Corrigan 1983).Virtually all neostructural theories agree that the emergence of a new cognitiveunit, representation, marks an especially large change (Piaget 1952 [1936]).The representations that emerge at this fourth level lay the basis for the




understanding of increasingly complex relations among representations at thenext several levels.

For childhood and adolescence, the consensus among neostructural theoristsis also remarkable, though here a few more disagreements are evident thanamong infancy researchers. In general, at least four major levels or reorganiza-tions are posited beyond the levels of infancy (Jaques et al 1978, Fischer 1980,Biggs & Collis 1982, Halford 1982, Case 1984, Commons et al 1984).

Virtually every neostructural theorist has hypothesized a level developing atapproximately 4 years of age, even though Piaget (Piaget et al 1968) did notpostulate a structured whole at this point (theories cited above plus Pascual-Leone 1970, Wallon 1970, Bickhard 1978, Siegler 1981). Children develop thecapacity to build a simple relation of representations, coordinating two or moreideas in a single skill. For example, they can do simple perspective-taking tasksin which they relate their own perspective to that of someone else in order tounderstand how the two differ; they can also perform simplified versions ofmany of Piaget’s concrete operations tasks, such as conservation and transitiv-ity (Gelman 1978).

The sixth level, concrete operations, emerges at 6 or 7 years. There is strongresearch evidence to indicate a major change in capacity at this age that fits allsix empirical criteria (Inhelder & Piaget 1964 [1959], White 1970, Siegler1981, Tabor & Kendler 1981, Watson 1981). Children become able to combinemultiple representations to form a complex construct, so that they can under-stand many of the complexities of characteristics of concrete objects andevents. In conservation, for example, they can relate the height and width ofwater in one container to the height and width of water in another container.Despite the consensus about this level among most neostructural theorists, afew hypothesize that concrete operations is not a separate level but a continua-tion and elaboration of the level of relations of representations (Pascual-Leone1970, Case 1984).

The seventh level, formal operations (Inhelder & Piaget 1958 [ 1955]), marksanother especially significant transformation: At 10 to 12 years, childrendevelop the capacity to generalize across concrete instances so as to constructabstract generalizations or hypothetical ideas, such as conformity, justice,possibility, and personality (Gruber & Von6che 1976, Selman 1980, Harter1983). Neostructuralists agree that this level is not the endpoint of cognitivedevelopment but the beginning of a new type of understanding, involvingabstract ideas. This new capability underlies further developmental levels,much as the fourth level, representation, lays the basis for the fifth and sixthlevels.

The number of levels beyond formal operations is not yet clear, but theoryand research suggest at least one additional level emerging at approximately 14to 16 years. Adolescents become able to relate abstractions or hypothetical




ideas, so that they can deal with relational concepts such as liberal andconservative, generate new hypotheses instead of merely testing old ones, andsolve the majority of Piaget’s formal operations tasks (Martarano 1977, Com-mons et al 1984). Cognitive growth clearly continues beyond 16 years of age,as individuals become able to deal with complex relations among abstractions(K. Kitchener 1982), but we do not yet know whether these changes meet thecriteria of further developmental levels.

Besides the additional levels hypothesized for adolescence and early adult-hood, several theorists have hypothesized additional levels at two other pointsin development. Fischer (1980) has suggested that three levels occur in rapidsuccession in the first four months of life, before the first sensorimotor level ofsingle actions. Case (1984) and Biggs & Collis (1982) have postulated threeadditional levels in the early preschool years, between the levels of representa-tions and simple relations of representations.

In summary, under some conditions behavioral development fits all the mainempirical criteria for stage. Neostructural theories agree that humans movethrough at least eight levels between birth and 18 years of age. The sixempirical criteria and the eight levels provide guidelines for how and where tolook for levels in doing research within a collaborationist framework. Anothercentral need is for guidelines about how and where to investigate variations instage or level arising from environmental and organismic factors.

EVIDENCE FOR ENVIRONMENTAL AND ORGANISMICFACTORS AFFECTING LEVELS

One of the best documented facts in developmental research is that people showwide variations in level as a function of both environmental and organismicfactors (Feldman 1980, Fischer 1980, Biggs & Collis 1982, Flavell 1982).Unevenness in level, or drcalage, is clearly the norm in development. Much ofthe research documenting unevenness has derived from the mechanistic-functional tradition and has been designed to demonstrate that stages do notexist.

Developmental unevenness, however, does not demonstrate that levels donot exist. Instead, it demonstrates that level varies as a function of many factorsbesides a stable competence in the organismic-structural sense. A fruitfulapproach is to seek order in the variation: what factors affect level, and how canthey be characterized?

Environment

All the factors traditionally studied within the mechanistic-functional orienta-tion influence developmental level: practice, stimulus, testing procedure, task,and so forth (Gelman 1978, Odom 1978, Fischer & Bullock 1981, Stemberg




Powell 1983). For example, Jackson and colleagues (1978) used traditionalobject-permanence tasks to assess the ability of 8-to 12-month-old infants tofind a hidden object. The researchers varied practice, type of task, and nature ofthe object being hidden. All three factors produced significant changes alongthe developmental scale; for practice and task, the variation amounted to onefull sensorimotor level (from the second to the third level in Table 1).

Task difficulty affects performance in a straightforward way. Simplificationof tasks on which age norms were initially established allows success atyounger ages (Gelman 1978, Flavell 1982). Although claims have sometimesbeen made that such findings disprove stage theories, they fit easily within aneostructural framework. It can be argued, for example, that variations in thedifficulty of a task change the complexity of the skills it requires and thereforechange the developmental level it indexes. A simple task for conservation ofnumber can be performed earlier than a more complex one because the twotasks assess different steps in a developmental sequence for conservation ofnumber. Developmental levels arise from the collaboration of the child with thetask.

Differences in task content also affect cognitive level. Even when tasks havebeen designed to assess the same structural accomplishment (e.g. perspective-taking), tasks with different content frequently produce different levels ofperformance (Ford 1979, Rubin 1973, Higgins & Eccles 1983). For example, task that assesses how well a subject understands the perspective of someonelooking at one side of a complex display is likely to produce a differentdevelopmental pattern from one that assesses understanding the perspective ofsomeone in the midst of a social interaction. What seem to be minor differencesin content can even influence the order of steps in a developmental sequence. Inone study, a task involving circular motion revealed one developmental se-quence, while for a task involving linear motion the sequence was reversed(Levin 1985).

There is order in the variations arising from different types of tasks. Theindividual’s particular abilities collaborate with the content and complexity ofthe task to produce performance. Within the psychometric testing tradition,many models of intelligence represent this collaboration in terms of classes oftasks that produce similar patterns of individual differences (Horn 1976,Sternberg & Powell 1983). In fact, some scholars have argued that differentclasses of tasks may tap entirely different types of intelligence, which showdistinct and independent developmental patterns (Turiel 1977, Keil 1981,Gardner 1983).

Seemingly minor variations in procedure can also substantially affect de-termination of level. Many of these variations concern the degree of environ-mental support for high-level performance (Vygotsky 1978, Gollin & Garrison1980, Fischer & Pipp 1984). For example, in several studies assessing chil-



dren’s understanding of social interaction in pretend play, two slightly differentprocedures produced vastly different levels of performance (Watson & Fischer1980, Hand 1981 ). The procedures differed in degree of support but not in taskor content. Under the high-support procedure, children heard a sample story foreach step assessed in the developmental sequence. Under the low-supportprocedure, they were asked to make up stories of their own similar to the onesthey had acted out under the high-support procedure.

Elementary-school children were typically able to act out a concrete-operational story in the high-support condition. That is, they could make twodolls simultaneously occupy two intersecting social categories, such as niceand mean. In the low-support procedure, they acted out much less advancedstories. Nine-year-olds typically dropped from the level of concrete operationsto the level of simple relations of representations--their performance compara-ble to that of 4- or 5-year-olds under the high-support procedure.

The potent effect of environmental support on developmental level does notmean that there are no maturational constraints on children’s performance. Tothe contrary, these studies found consistent age differences for each of the twosupport conditions and for the degree of discrepancy between the two condi-tions. In another series of studies, Gollin and his colleagues (Gollin & Garrison1980, and unpublished manuscripts) have found predictable age differences inthe effects of environmental supports on preschool children, with specific typesof support having an effect only at a specific age. The characteristics of thechild collaborate with those of the environment to produce level of perfor-mance.

Most of the studies illustrating the effects of task difficulty, content, andenvironmental support used a developmental scale to represent the variations inlevel. When studies are designed to include assessment of the variations along adevelopmental scale, different conditions often move performance forward orbackward on the scale (Wolff 1966, Feldman 1980, Prechtl & O’Brien 1982).Such scales are important tools for research within a collaborationalframework, because they provide a common means of ordering the effects ofboth organismic and environmental variations.

Organism

Although environmental influences have received much of the attention indiscussions of developmental unevenness, organismic influences appear to beequally important. Factors that characterize individuals have potent effects ondevelopmental level, moving performance up or down a developmental scale inthe same way that environmental factors do. Some such individual characteris-tics, such as arousal state, vary over short periods, while others, such asinternalization, ability, and attribution bias, are relatively stable.

In general, organismic and environmental factors interact to produce be-



havior. Virtually any factor that is classified as organismic from one perspec-tive can be classified as environmental from another, and vice versa. Arousalstate, for example, is typically classified as an organismic factor, but arousal isnot understandable aside from an arousing context, and the arousing aspects ofa context cannot be identified independently of knowledge about the indi-vidual. When children encounter a situation that affects them emotionally, theirarousal level changes. The arousal level is actually a characteristic of thechild-in-a-context. In turn, arousal has an effect on the child’s cognitive level inthat context, and the cognitive adequacy of his or her understanding influencesthe experienced nature of the context. In a developmental version of theYerkes-Dodson law, degree of arousal appears to have a curvilinear relation todevelopmental level. Children manifest their highest level at an intermediatedegree of arousal and lower levels as arousal increases or decreases from thatpoint (Fischer & Elmendorf 1985). This phenomenon has been thoroughlydocumented for young infants (Wolff 1966, Prechtl & O’Brien 1982), butfurther investigation is required for children of other ages.

Individual characteristics that are relatively stable also function in collabora-tion with the environment. In internalization, for example, people subsumeinformation from the environment into their own skills. Mechanistic-functionalanalyses of internalization often emphasize the environmental information andforget that internalization is a characteristic of a person. People provideenvironmental support or scaffolding for themselves. Individuals differ both inthe degree to which they have internalized a particular task and the degree towhich they are skilled at internalization in general (Vygotsky 1978). Withgreater internalization, people show a smaller gap in level of performancebetween high- and low-support situations (Belsky et al 1984, Fischer & Pipp1984).

Skill at internalization is an instance of a more general class of organismicfactors that affect development--ability. IQ as measured by standardized testswas originally intended to index the rate of an individual’s intellectual develop-ment in relation to age-group norms. Much of the variation in ability, then,involves variation along a developmental scale. The extensive research onintelligence tests indicates that individuals vary enormously in both theirgeneral facility for test problems and their specific facilities for particularproblem types, such as spatial puzzles or verbal analogies (Horn 1976, Stern-berg & Powell 1983). Once again, characteristics of the individual worktogether with characteristics of the environment to produce performance.

A wide range of personality factors influence cognitive level--e.g, motives,anxiety, defenses, emotions, and interpersonal attributions. These factorsappear to influence level in contexts such as moral reasoning (Rest 1983),interpersonal understanding (Selman 1980, Fischer & Pipp 1984), and generalintellectual functioning (Block 1982). As an example of the importance of




personality variable, children are differently affected by negative evaluationsof their intellectual performance. Children in one category called "helpless" byanalogy to learned helplessness, do worse after negative evaluations; theireffort, expectation of success, and maturity of problem solving all decline(Dweck & Goetz 1978, Boggiano & Ruble 1984). Other children do notmanifest this pattern. This difference between children seems to arise from thehelpless children’s attributions of the failure to their own supposedly poorability. Thus evaluation, an environmental variable, influences cognitive levelmore for some children than for others, while helplessness, a personal charac-teristic, is influential in some situations (those of negative evaluation) but not others. The fit between child and situation is crucial. Moreover, the nature ofthis fit can extend beyond immediate effects to produce long-term domain-specific individual differences in cognitive achievement (Dweck & Goetz1978).

Organismic variables, however, do more than raise or lower cognitive level.Both theory and data force consideration of the possibility that organismicfactors, especially emotion and motivation, have potent, differential effects ondevelopmental patterns. By affecting how individuals characteristically think,these factors organize the sequences through which those individuals develop.

INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN DEVELOPMENTALSEQUENCES AND OUTCOMES

A direct implication of the evidence for variations in developmental level is thatdifferent individuals should show different developmental patterns. If a host ofenvironmental factors produce cognitive variations, then individuals mustdiffer developmentally whenever they encounter systematically diverse en-vironments. Likewise, if a host of organismic factors produce variations, thenindividuals must differ developmentally whenever they manifest systematicdiversity in their organismic characteristics. Environmental and organismicfactors are not merely the conditions of performance (as opposed to compe-tence); they are the conditions of development itself.

However, most stage-based research on individual differences asks only twoquestions, both dictated by organismic-structural epistemology: (a) Do indi-viduals differ in maturity, i.e. do they occupy different stages along a singledevelopmental sequence? (b) Do they differ in the speed of their passagethrough that sequence? In practice, most studies concern only the first of thesequestions; manifest differences in cognitive functioning are categorized intoprescribed higher or lower stages. The sequence itself is seldom directly testedto determine if the stages indeed develop in the predicted order. Consequently,it is not possible to determine whether individuals move through the sequence




at different speeds, or indeed whether they move through it at all (Wohlwill1973, Feldman 1980, Fischer & Bullock 1981). In a few studies, the sequenceis directly tested with methods that provide independent assessments of thevarious stages or levels (Fischer et al 1984). These methods allow directmeasurement of variation in the rate of stage progression. Nevertheless, eventhen the organismic-structural perspective simply rules out the possibility thatmanifest differences reflect movement along alternative sequences, and somethods are used that preclude detection of such alternatives.

A framework that conjoins organism and environment holds that peoplemove through different developmental sequences, different series of specificskills. There is neither a fixed organism nor a fixed environment to produce asingle, fixed developmental sequence.

It is important to recognize that the concepts of individual differences anduniversality in developmental sequences are not mutually exclusive (Fischer Bullock 1984). When behavior is analyzed in highly abstract terms, such as thecriteria outlined above for the eight developmental levels, all people may beseen to develop through the same sequence. On the other hand, when behavioris analyzed in terms concrete enough to subsume environmental context andorganismic state (without being limited to particular behaviors), then peoplecan be seen to differ in both the content and the number of steps in theirdevelopmental sequences.

Few studies have assessed development in a way that allows the directdetection of individual differences. Nevertheless, there is some clear evidenceof individual differences in sequences. In the study in which McCall and hiscolleagues (1977) demonstrated four developmental levels in infant test per-formance, they also found individual differences in more specific sequences.For example, if a 12-month-old girl was obedient, cooperative, and not highlyactive, she would most likely show high verbal skills at 24 months; thissequence was not prominent in boys. Individual differences in developmentalsequences have also been found repeatedly in language development (Bloom etal 1975). For instance, some children seem to develop their first single wordsand global sentences at the same time, whereas others develop sentences onlyafter single words (Peters 1977).

The study of such differences requires methods that enable the detection ofdifferent sequences. In one of the most powerful and straightforward methods,children are assessed on multiple tasks that can be ordered in different ways.Then scalogram analyses are used to determine empirically what sequencesobtain (Krus 1977). To demonstrate a scalogram sequence, children’s perfor-mances on a series of tasks must fall in an order such that all tasks are passed to acertain point and all are failed beyond that point. One study using this method toassess the development of early reading skills found that a child could show any




of three different sequences (Knight 1982). Children who manifested the mostcommon sequence had no serious reading difficulties, but in the other twosequences children demonstrated difficulties in spelling or rhyming.

Literature concerning the roles of emotion and motivation in developmentprovides powerful evidence that development can proceed along diverse paths(Vaillant 1977, Selman 1980, Block 1982, Silvern 1984). A large body research indicates, for example, that the patterns of emotion in interactionsbetween parent and infant can have potent effects on the course of the child’scognitive development (Sroufe 1979). Abuse of the child by the parents mayhave an especially potent effect, as suggested by recent research on the raresyndrome of multiple personality, in which the person constructs distinct,mutually incompatible personalities that control consciousness at differenttimes (Bliss 1980, Fischer & Pipp 1984; F. Putnam et al, unpublished data). seems that most individuals with multiple personality suffered especially se-vere abuse at an early age. As a result, they developed along a sequence forconstructing the self that was very different from the normal self sequence,even though it seems to fit the same developmental levels in the highly abstractterms of neostructural theories.

Studies of psychopathology provide many illustrations that emotional andmotivational influences induce important differences in developmental sequ-ences. Sometimes these differences involve variations in relative maturityalong a single dimension, as in retardation; but in many cases pathologyinvolves developing differently rather than failing to develop (Block 1982,Fischer & Pipp 1984, Silvern 1984). For example, one popular hypothesis hasbeen that childhood psychopathology, and particularly aggressiveness, arisesfrom general structural immaturities in social perspective-taking or problem-solving. In contrast, collaborational formulations have emphasized that appar-ent immaturities are specific to contexts in which aggressive or socially isolatedchildren have unusual emotional reactions or atypical goals, or in which theymake unusual hostile attributions about others’ intentions (Selman 1980,Waterman et al 1981, Dodge 1984). These disturbed children frequentlymanifest age-appropriate social cognition in situations that do not provoke theirpeculiar context sensitivity. The crucial developmental questions about thesechildren cannot be answered with a traditional structural analysis that rules outindividual differences in context sensitivity.

CONCLUSIONS: BUILDING AN INTEGRATEDAPPROACH

The research evidence is clear: Many studies have documented that cognitivedevelopment demonstrates some stage-like properties and some consistencyacross domains. Human beings seem to move through at least eight develop-



mental levels between birth and 18 years of age. At the same time, research alsoshows that environmental and organismic factors have powerful effects onlevels, and individual differences in development seem to be common. Differ-ent children show different developmental patterns as a function of bothenvironmental and organismic factors. Our conclusion is that both stages andindividual differences exist.

Any incompatibility between stages and individual differences arises notfrom nature but from two incompatible viewpoints--the organismic-structuralapproach and the mechanistic-functional approach. These approaches place theprimary locus of explanation of behavioral change either in the organism or inthe environment, although there is some acknowledgment of the importance ofboth. The major theoretical constructs and the most common research designsfocus on variation in either the organism or the environment, not in both.

Many scholars have recognized the difficulty with these incompatibleapproaches. One of the main attempts to resolve the incompatibility has been todistinguish competence from performance and to hypothesize that stages areassociated with the former and individual differences with the latter. Whileclearly a helpful step toward integrating organism and environment, compeztence/performance approaches in general suffer from a common shortcoming:They continue to isolate the stages of organismic structure (competence) fromdirectly observable and variable ordinary functioning (performance).

An approach is needed that conjoins organism and environment in its centralmethods and explanatory constructs. Our favorite metaphors for that conjoin-. ing are transaction and collaboration. People transact with their environment orcollaborate with it; they work with and affect it, and it works with and affectsthem.

To move toward such an approach, research designs should routinely in-corporate variations in both important organismic variables, such as age,ability, and emotional state, and important environmental variables, such astask, practice, and environmental support. Only such comparative research canreveal the full range of plasticity and constraint arising from cognitive levelsand environmental contexts. Also, assessment techniques should be used thatallow the detection of individual differences in developmental sequences.Assessment must be sensitive to the possibility that people reason differently,not just more or less maturely.

Theories should build explanatory constructs that simultaneously incorpo-rate organismic and environmental factors. For example, the evidence suggeststhat behavior in a domain varies along a developmental scale as a result not onlyof developing capacities but also of other factors, such as environmentalsupport and arousal state. Competence does not seem to be a point but a rangeor zone on a developmental scale, with both environmental and organismicinfluences affecting movement within that zone.




With the construction of a collaborational approach, we predict that re-

searchers will finally be able to prove both the organismic-structural approachand the mechanistic-functional one. Under one specified set of assessment

conditions, all people will develop through the same set of distinct levels and

show high synchrony in the level they manifest across domains. Under another

set of assess~nent conditions, people will develop separate skills in different

domains, showing high unevenness across domains, substantial individual

differences in their developmental patterns, and no evidence of stage-like

change. Of course, the approach that specifies the conditions for these patterns

of data will also treat them as merely two patterns from a wide range thatincludes both levels and individual differences in cognitive development.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to thank Carol Bach, Ann Boggiano, Daniel Bullock, RichardCanfield, and Michael Westerman for their contributions to this article. Prepa-

ration of the article was supported by grants from the Carnegie Corporation of

New York, the Spencer Foundation, and the University of Colorado Council onResearch and Creative Work. The statements made and views expressed are

solely the responsibility of the authors.

Literature Cited

Baltes, P. B., Reese, H. W., Lipsitt, L. P.1980. Life-span developmental psychology.Ann Rev. Psychol, 31:65-110

Belsky, J., Rovine, M., Taylor, D. G. 1984.The Pennsylvania Infant and Family De-velopment Project III. The origins of indi-vidual differences in infant-mother attach-ment: Maternal and infant contributions.Child Dev. 55:718-28

Bickhard, M. H. 1978. The nature of develop-mental stages. Hum. Dev. 21:217-233

Biggs, J. B., Collis, K. F. 1982. Evaluating theQuality of Learning. New York: Academic

Bliss, E. L. 1980. Multiple personalities. Arch.Gen. Psychiatry 37:1388-97

Block, J. 1982. Assimilation, accommodation,and the dynamics of personality develop-ment. Child Dev. 53:281-95

Bloom, L., Lightbown, P., Hood, L. 1975.Structure and variation in child language.Monogr. Soc. Res. Child Dev. 40(2, Ser.No. 160). 97 pp.

Boggiano, A. K., Ruble, D. N. 1984. Chil-dren’s reactions to evaluative feedback. InThe Self in Anxiety, Stress, and Depression,ed. R. Schwarzer. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.In press

Broughton, J. M. 1981. Piaget’s structural de-velopmental psychology. V. Ideology-critique and the possibility of a critical de-velopmental theory. Hum. Dev. 24:382-411

Bruner, J. S. 1982. The organization of actionand the nature of adult-infant transaction. InThe Analysis of Action, ed. M. Cranach, R.Harre, pp. 313-27. New York: CambridgeUniv. Press

Bullock, D. 1981. On the current and potentialscope of generative theories of cognitivedevelopment. New Dir. Child Dev. 12:93-109

Bullock, D. 1983. Seeking relations betweencognitive and social-interactive transitions.New Dir. Child Dev. 21:97-108

Cairns, R. B., Green, J. A., MacCombie, D. J.1980. The dynamics of social development.In Early Experiences and Early Behavior,ed. E. C. Simmel, pp. 79-106. New York:Academic

Campos, J. J., Hiatt, S., Ramsay, D., Hender-son, C., Svcjda, M. 1978. The emergence offear on the visual cliff. In The Origins ofAffect, ed. M. Lewis, L. Rosenblum, pp.14~82. New York: Wiley

Case, R. 1984. Intellectual Development: ASystematic Reinterpretation. New York:Academic. In press

Catania, A. C. 1973. The psychologies ofstructure, function, and development. Am.Psychol. 28:434--43

Chandler, M. J. 1977. Social cognition: Aselective review of current research. InKnowledge and Development, ed. W. F.




Overton, J. M. Gallagher, 1:93-147. NewYork: Plenum

Chess, S., Thomas, A. 1983. Dynamics ofindividual behavioral development. SeeLevine et al 1983, pp. 158-75

Chomsky, N. 1965. Aspects of the Theory ofSyntax. Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press

Cole, M., Hood, L., McDermott, R. 1984.Ecological Invalidity as an Axiom of Ex-perimental Cognitive Psychology. Cam-bridge, Mass: Harvard Univ. Press. In press

Cole, M., Traupman, K. 1981. Comparativecognitive research: Learning from a learningdisabled child. Minn. Symp. Child Psychol.14:125-54

Commons, M. L., Richards, F. A., Armon, C.eds. 1984. Beyo~idFormal Operations. NewYork: Praeger

Corrigan, R. 1983. The development of repre-sentational skills. New Dir. Child Dev.21:51-64

Crosson, C. W., Robertson-Tchabo, E. A.1983. Age and preference for complexityamong manifestly creative women. Hum.Dev. 26:149-55

Dasen, P. ed. 1977. Piagetian Psychology:Cross-cultural contributions. New York:Gardner

Dasen, P., Inhelder, B., Lavallee, M., Rets-chitzki, J. 1978. Naissance de l’Intelligencechez I’Enfant Baould de COte d’lvoire.Berne: Hans Huber

Dodge, K. A. 1984. Attributional bias inaggressive children. In Advances in Cogni-tive-Behavioral Research and Therapy, ed.P. Kendall, Vol. 4. New York: Academic. Inpress

Dweck, C., Goetz, T. E. 1978. Attributionsand learned helplessness. In New Directionsin Attribution Research, ed. J. H. Harvey,W. Ickes, R. F. Kidd, pp. 157-79. Hillsdale,NJ: Erlbaum

Edwards, C. P. 1983. Moral development incomparative cultural perspective. In Cultur-al Perspectives on Child Development, ed.D. A. Wagner, H. W. Stevenson, pp. 248-79. San Francisco: Freeman

Emde, R., Gaensbauer, T., Harmon, R. 1976.Emotional expression in infancy: A biobehav-ioral study. Psychol. Issues 10(37). 198 pp.

Epstein, H. T. 1974. Phrenoblysis: Specialbrain and mind growth periods. Dev.Psychobiol. 7:207-24

Epstein, H. T. 1978. Growth spurts duringbrain development: Implications for educa-tional policy and practice. In Education andtheBrain, ed. J. S. Chall, A. F. Mirsky, pp.343-70. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press

Epstein, H. T. 1980. EEG developmentalstages. Dev. Psychobiol. 13:629-31

Feldman, D. H. 1980. Beyond Universals inCognitive Development. Norwood, NJ:Ablex

Fischer, K. W. 1980. A theory of cognitivedevelopment: The control and constructionof hierarchies of skills. Psychol. Rev.87:477-531

Fischer, K. W. 1982. Human cognitive de-velopment in the first four years. Behav.Brain Sci. 5:282-83

Fischer, K. W., Bullock, D. 1981. Patterns ofdata: Sequence, synchrony, and constraint incognitive development. New Dir. Child Dev.12:1-20

Fischer, K. W., Bullock, D. 1984. Cognitivedevelopment in school-age children: Conclu-sions and new directions. In The ElementarySchool Years: Understanding Developmentduring Middle Childhood, ed. W. A. Col-lins, pp. 70-146. Washington DC: Natl.Acad. Press

Fischer, K. W., Elmendorf, D. M. 1985. Be-coming a different person: Transformationsin personality and social behavior. Minn.Symp. Child Dev. 18:In press

Fischer, K. W., Pipp, S. L. 1984. Develop-ment of the structures of unconsciousthought. In The Unconscious Reconsidered,ed. K. Bowers, D. Meichenbaum, pp. 88-148. New York: Wiley

Fischer, K. W., Pipp, S. L., Bullock, D. 1984.Detecting discontinuities in development:Method and measurement. In Continuitiesand Discontinuities in Development, ed. R.N. Emde, R. Harmon, pp. 95-121. Nor-wood, NJ: Ablex

Flavell,J. H. 1982. On cognitive development.Child Dev. 53:1-10

Flavell, J. H., Markman, E. M., eds. 1983.Cognitive Development, Vol. 3, Handbookof Child Psychology, ed. P. H. Mussen. NewYork: Wiley

Flavell, J. H., Wohlwill, J. F. 1969. Formaland functional aspects of cognitive develop-ment. In Studies in Cognitive Development,ed. D. Elkind, J. H. Flavell, pp. 67-120.London: Oxford Univ. Press

Ford, M. E. 1979. The construct validity ofegocentrism. Psychol. Bull. 86:1169-88

Gagne, R. M. 1970. The Conditions of Learn-ing. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston

Gardner, H. 1983. Frames of Mind: TheTheory of Multiple Intelligences. New York:Basic

Gelman, R. 1978. Cognitive development.Ann. Rev. Psychol. 29:297-332

Gelman, R., Baillargeon, R. 1983. A review ofsome Piagetian concepts. See Flavell &Markman 1983, pp. 167-230

Gilligan, C. 1982. New maps of development:New visions of maturity. Am. J. Orthopsy-chiatry 52:199-212

Gladwin, T. 1970. East Is a Big Bird: Naviga-tion and Logic in l~uluwat A toll. Cambridge,Mass: Harvard Univ. Press

Globerson, T. 1985. When do structural




changes underlie stage changes: The case ofmental-capacity growth. See I. Levin, Iapress

Gollin, E. S., ed. 1981a. DevelopmentalPlas-ticity: Behavioral and Biological Aspects ofVariations in Development. New York:Academic

Gollin, E. S. 1981 b. Development and plastic-ity. See Gollin 1981a, pp. 231-51

Gollin, E. S. 1984a. Developmental malfunc-tions: Issues and problems. See Gollin1984c, pp. 1-25

Gollin, E. S. 1984b. Early experience and de-velopmental plasticity. Ann. Child Dev.1:239--61

Gollin, E. S., ed. 1984c. Malformations ofDevelopment. New York: Academic

Gollin, E. S., Garrison, A. 1980. Relationshipsbetween perceptual and conceptualmediational systems in young children. J.Exp. Child Psychol. 30:325-35

Gottlieb, G. 1973. The roles of experience inthe development of behavior and the nervoussystem. In Neuronal and Behavioral Speci-ficity, ed. G. Gottlieb. New York: Academ-ic

Gottlieb, G. 1983. The psychobiologicalapproach to developmental issues. See Haith& Campos 1983, pp. 1-26

Gould, S. J. 1977. Ontogeny and Phylogeny.Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univ. Press

Gould, S. J., Lewontin, R. C. 1979. The span-drels of San Marco and the Panglossian para-digm: A critique of the adaptationist pro-gramme. In The Evolution of Adaptation byNatural Selection, ed. J. Maynard Smith, R.Halliday, pp. 581-98. London: Roy. Soc.London

Greenfield, P. M. 1976. Cross-cultural re-search and Piagetian theory: Paradox andprogress. In The Developing Individual ina Changing World, ed. K. F. Riegel, J.A. Meacharn, 1:322-33. The Hague: Mou-ton

Gmber, H., Voneche, J. 1976. Rrflexions surles oprrations formelles de la pensre. Arch.Psychol. 64(171):45-56

Haith, M. M., Campos, J. J., eds. 1983. Hand-book of Child Psychology, Vol. 2, Biologyand Infancy, ed. P. H. Mussen. New York:Wiley

Halford, G. S. 1982. The Development ofThought. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum

Hand, H. H. 1981. The development of con-cepts of social interaction: Children’s under-standing of nice and mean. PhD thesis.Univ. Denver, Denver, Colo. 208 pp.

Harding, R. S., Strum, S. C. 1976. The preda-tory baboons of Kekosey. Nat. Hist.85(3):46-53

Harris, P. L. 1983. Infant cognition. See Haith& Campos 1983, pp. 689-782

Hatter, S. 1983. Developmental perspectives

on the self-system. In Handbook of ChildPsychology, ed. P. H. Mussen. Vol. 4,Socialization, Personality, and Social De-velopment, ed. E. M. Hetherington, pp.275-385. New York: Wiley

Higgins, E. T., Eccles, J. E. 1983. Socialcognition and the social life of the child:Stages in subcultures. In Social Cognitionand Social Behavior, ed. E. T. Higgins, D.N. Ruble, W. W. Hartup. pp. 15-62. NewYork: Cambridge Univ. Press

Horn, J. L. 1976. Human abilities: A review ofresearch and theory in the early 1970s. Ann.Rev. Psychol. 27:437-86

Inhelder, B., Piaget, J. 1958 [1955]. TheGrowth of Logical Thinking from Childhoodto Adolescence, transl. A. Parsons, S. Sea-grim. New York: Basic Books

Inhelder, B., Piaget, J. 1964 [1959]. TheEarlyGrowth of Logic in the Child, transl. G. A.Lunzer, D. Papert. New York: Harper &Row

Jackson, E., Campos, J. J., Fischer, K. W.1978. The question of decalage between ob-ject permanence and person permanence.Dev. Psychol. 14:1-10

Jaques, E., Gibson, R. O., Issac, D. J. 1978.Levels of Abstraction in Logic and HumanAction. London: Heinemann

Kagan, J. 1982. Psychological Research on theHuman Infant: An Evaluative Summary.New York: Grant Found.

Kaplan, B. 1983. A trio of trials. In Develop-mental Psychology: Historical and Philo-sophical Perspectives, ed. R. J. Lerner, pp.185-227. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum

Kaye, K. 1982. The Social and Mental Life OfBabies. Chicago: Univ. Chicago Press

Keil, F. 1981. Constraints on knowledge andcognitive development. Psychol. Rev.88:197-227

Kenny, S. L. 1983. Developmental discon-tinuities in childhood and adolescence. NewDir. Child Dev. 21:81-96

Kessen, W., Scott, D. 1983. The developmentof behavior: Problems, theories, and find-ings. See Levine et al 1983, pp. 27--49

Kitchener, K. S. 1983. Human developmentand the college campus: Sequences andtasks. New Dir. Stud. Serv. 20:17-45

Kitchener, R. 1982. Developmental explana-tions. Rev. Metaphys. 36:791-817

Klahr, D., Wallace, J. G. 1976. Cognitive De-velopment: An Information ProcessingView. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbanm

Knight, C. C. 1982. Hierarchical relationshipsamong components of reading abilities ofbeginning readers. PhD thesis. ArizonaState Univ., Tempe. 192 pp.

Kohlberg, L., Levine, C., Hewer, A. 1983.Moral Stages: A Current Formulation and aResponse to Critics. New York: Karger

Krus, D. J. 1977. Order analysis: An inferential




model of dimensional analysis and scaling.Educ. Psychol. Meas. 37:587~501

Lerner, R. M. 1984. On the Nature of HumanPlasticity. New York: Cambridge Univ.Press

Levin, I., ed. 1985. Stage and Structure inCognitive Development. Norwood, NJ:Ablex. In press

Martarano, S. C. 1977. A developmentalanalysis of performance on Piaget’s formaloperations tasks. Dev. Psychol. 13:666-72

McCall, R. 1981. Nature-nurture and the tworealms of development. Child Dev. 52:1-12

McCall, R. B., Eichom, D. H., Hogarty, P. S.1977.Transitions in early mental develop-ment. Monogr. Soc. Res. Child Dev. 42(3,Ser. No. 171). 108 pp.

McCall, R. B., Meyers, E. D. Jr., I-lartman, J.,Roche, A. F. 1983. Developmental changesin head-circumference and mental-performance growth rates: A test of Epstein’sphrenoblysis hypothesis. Dev. Psychobiol.16:457--68

McQueen, R. 1982. Brain Growth Periodiza-tion: Analysis of the Epstein Spurt-PlateauFindings. Portland, Ore: Multnomah CountyEduc. Serv. Dist. Educ. Assoc.

Moore, C. L. 1984. Development of mamma-lian sexuality. In The Comparative Develop-ment of Adaptive Skills: Evolutionary Im-plications, ed. E. S. Gollin. New York:Academic. In press

Movshon, J. A., Van Sluyters, R. C. 1981.Visual neural development. Ann. Rev.Psychol. 32:477-522

Mussen, P. H., Eichorn, D. H., Honzik, M. P.,Bieber, S. L., Meredith, W. H. 1980. Con-tinuity and change in women’s characteris-tics over four decades. Int. J. Behav. Dev.3:333-48

O’Brien, D. P., Overton, W. F. 1982. Con-ditional reasoning and the competence-performance issue: A developmental analy-sis of a training task. J. Exp. Child Psychol.34:274-90

Odom, R. D. 1978. A perceptual-salienceaccount of decalage relations and develop-mental change. In Alternatives to Piaget, ed.L. S. Siegel, C. J. Brainerd, pp. 111-30.New York: Academic

Overton, W. F. 1984. World views and theirinfluence on psychological theory and re-search: Kuhn-Lakatos-Laudan. In Advancesin Child Development and Behavior, ed.H. W. Reese. New York: Academic. Inpress

Overton, W. F., Newman, J. L. 1982. Cogni-tive development: A competence-activation/utilization approach. In Review of HumanDevelopment, ed. T. M. Field, A. Huston, J.C. Quay, L. Troll, G. E. Finley, pp. 217-41.New York: Wiley

Pascual-Leone, J. 1970. A mathematical model

for the transition rule in Piaget’s develop-mental stages. Acta Psychol. 32:301-45

Peters, A. M. 1977. Language learningstrategies: Does the whole equal the sum ofthe parts? Language 53:560-73

Piaget, J. 1952 [1936]. The Origins oflntelli-gence in Children, transl. M. Cook. NewYork: Int. Univ. Press

Piaget, J. 1957. Logique et 6.quilib.re dans lescomportements du sujet. Etud. Epist. G~n.2:27-118

Piaget, J. t970. Piaget’s theory. In Car-michael’s Manual of Child Psychology, ed.P. H. Mussen, 1:703-32. New York: Wiley

Piaget, J. 1971. The theory of stages in cogni-tive development. In Measurement andPiaget, ed. D. R. Green, M. P. Ford, G. B.Flamer, pp. 1-11. New York: McGraw-Hill

Piaget, J. 1975. L’rquilibration des structurescognitiv, es: Prpbl~me central du drveloppe-ment. Etud. Epist. G~n. 33. 188 pp.

Piaget, J., Grize, J. B., Szeminska, A., VinhBang. 1968. Epistem, ologie et psychologiede la fonction. Etud. Epist. Gdn. 23. 238 pp.

Prechtl, H. F. R., O’Brien, M. J. 1982. Be-havioral states of the full-term newborn: Theemergence of a concept. In Psychobiology ofthe Human Newborn, ed. P. Stratton, pp.53-73. New York: Wiley

Reese, H. W., Overton, W. F. 1970. Models ofdevelopment and theories of development.In Life-span Developmental Psychology: Re-search and Theory, ed. L. R. Goulet, P. B.Baltes, pp. 115-45. New York: Academic

Rest, J. R. 1983. Morality. See Flavell &Markman 1983, pp. 556-629

Rubin, K. H. 1973. Egocentrism in childhood:A unitary construct? Child Dev. 44:102-10

Sameroff, A. J., Seller, R., Zax, M. 1982.Early development of children at risk foremotional disorder. Monogr. Soc. Res.Child Dev. 47(7, Ser. No. 199). 82 pp.

Scarr, S., McCartney, K. 1983. How peoplemake their own environments: A theory ofgenotype-environment effects. Child Dev.54:424-35

Schwartz, B. 1983. Psychology of Learningand Behavior. New York: Norton

Seibert, J. M., Hogan, A. E., Mundy, P. C.1984. Mental age and cognitive stage inyoung handicapped and at-risk children. In-telligence 8:11-29

Selman, R. L. 1980. The Growth of Interper-sonal Understanding. New York: Academic

Siegler, R. S. 1981. Developmental sequenceswithin and between concepts. Monogr. Soc.Res. ChildDev. 46(2, Ser. No. 189). 84 pp.

Silveru, L. E. 1984. Emotional-behavioral dis-orders: A failure of system functions. SeeGollin 1984c, pp. 95-152

Skinner, B. F. 1969. Contingencies of Rein-forcement. New York: Appleton-Century-Croft




Snarey, J., Kohlberg, L., Noam, G. 1983. Egodevelopment in perspective: Structuralstage, functional phase, and cultural age-period models. Dev. Rev. 3:303-38

Sroufe, L. A. 1979. Socioemotional develop-ment. In Handbook of Infant Development,ed. J. D. Osofsky, pp. 462-5t6. New York:Wiley

Sternberg, R. J., Powell, J. S. 1983. The de-velopment of intelligence. See Flavell &Markman 1983, pp. 341-419

Strauss, M. S., Curtis, L. E. 1984. Develop-ment of numerical concepts in infancy. InThe Origins of Cognitive Skills, ed. C.Sophian, pp. 131-55. Hillsdale, NJ:Erlbaum

Super, C. M. 1980. Cognitive development:Looking across at growing up. New Dir.Child Dev. 8:59-69

Tabor, L. E., Kendler, T. S. 1981. Testing fordevelopmental continuity or discontinuity:Class inclusion and reversal shifts. Dev. Rev.1:330-43

Thomas, A. 1982. Current trends of develop-mental theory. Ann. Prog. Child PsychiatryChild Dev. 1982:7-45

Toulmin, S. 1981. Epistemology and develop-mental psychology. See Gollin 1981a, pp.253-67

Turiel, E. 1977. Distinct conceptual and de-velopmental domains: Social convention andmorality. Neb. Symp. Motiv. 25:77-116

Uzgiris, I. C. 1976. Organization of sensor-imotor intelligence. In Origins of Intelli-gence: Infancy and Early Childhood, ed. M.Lewis, pp. 123-64. New York: Plenum

Uzgiris, I. C., Hunt, J. McV. 1975. Assess-ment in Infancy: Ordinal Scales of Psycho-logical Development. Urbana: Univ. I11.Press

Vaillant, G E. 1977. Adaptation to Life. Bos-ton: Little, Brown

Vurpillot, E. 1976 [1972]. The Visual Worldofthe Child, transl. W. E. C. Gillham. NewYork: Int. Univ. Press

Vygotsky, L. S. 1978. Mind in Society: TheDevelopment of Higher Psychological Pro-cesses. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Univ.Press

Wallon, H. 1970. De l’Acte a la Pens~e. Paris:Flammarion

Waterman, J., Sobesky, W., Silvern, L., Aoki,B., McCauley, M. 1981. Social perspectivetaking in emotionally disturbed, learning dis-abled, and normal children. J. Abnorm.Child Psychol. 9:133-48

Watson, M. W. 1981. The development ofsocial roles: A sequence of social-cognitivedevelopment. New Dir. Child Dev. 12:33-42

Watson, M. W., Fischer, K. W. 1980. De-velopment of social roles in elicited andspontaneous behavior during the preschoolyears. Dev. Psychol. 16:483-94

Wemer, H. 1948. Comparative Psychology ofMental Development. New York: ScienceEditions

Westerman, M. A., Fischman-Havstad, L.1982. A pattern-oriented model of caretaker-child interaction, psychopathology, and con-trol. In Children’s Language, ed. K. E. Nel-son, 3:204-46. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum

White, S. H. 1970. Some general outlines ol~

the matrix of developmental changes be-tween five and seven years. Bull. Orton Soc.20:41-57

Wohlwill, J. F. 1973. The Study of BehavioralDevelopment. New York: Academic

Wolff, P. H. 1966. The causes, controls, andorganization of behavior in the neonate.Psychol. Issues 5(17)

Wood, D. J. 1980. Teaching the young child:Some relationships between social interac-tion, language, and thought. In The SocialFoundations of Language and Thought, ed.D. R. Olson, pp. 280-96. New York: Norton

Zelazo, P. R., Leonard, E. L. 1983. The dawnof active thought. New Dir. Child Dev.21:37-50



STAGES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT CONTENTS

Documents

Transcript of STAGES AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT CONTENTS