The Developmental Nature of Cognition

According to constructivism and cognitive theorists, cognition is defined as the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through perception, reasoning, judgment, thought, and experience (Mora, 2007). The stage of cognitive development has a lot of influence on the educational environment. Educators must understand the developmental stage to promote student learning processes from preschool to graduate students. In this paper, we explore the developmental nature of cognition from the viewpoint of stage and social learning theory.

Piaget's cognitive development theory is a comprehensive theory about the nature and development of human intelligence. It was originally created by Swiss development psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980). This theory includes the nature of knowledge itself and how humans acquire, build and use knowledge. The theory of Piaget is mainly called the theory of development stage. For Piaget, cognitive development is a gradual reorganization of psychological processes caused by biological maturity and environmental experience. He believes that the children build the understanding of the world around them, experience the differences between what they already know and what they find in the environment, and adjust their ideas accordingly I will. In addition, Piaget argues that cognitive development is the core of human life forms, language depends on knowledge and understanding gained through cognitive development.

Evolutionary developmental psychology is a research paradigm that applies basic principles of evolution of Darwin, especially natural selection, to understand human behavior and cognitive development. It involves genetic and environmental mechanisms for the development of social and cognitive abilities and studies of epigenetic (gene-environment interaction) processes that adapt these capabilities to local conditions. EDP ​​considers the reliable development of personal development in terms of evolutionary perspective, typical characteristics of species (developmental adaptation), and differences in behavior of individuals.