Top 15 Unknown Facts about Jean Piaget

Top 15 Unknown Facts about Jean Piaget

*Originallly Published by Crispus in August 2022 and Updated by Felix in May 2024

Jean William Fritz Piaget was a 19th-century Swiss psychologist who is well known for his work on child development. He placed great importance on the education of children and is credited for developing the theory of cognitive development.

Piaget was born in 1896 in Neuchâtel, in the Francophone region of Switzerland. He was the oldest son of Arthur Piaget and Rebecca Jackson. He was a precocious child who developed an interest in biology and the natural world, specifically in zoology.

 Here are the top 15 unknown facts about Jean Piaget.

1. He was educated at the University of Neuchâtel

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Piaget’s early interest in zoology earned him a reputation among those in the field after he had published several articles on mollusks by the age of 15.

He developed an interest in epistemology due to his godfather’s urging to study the fields of philosophy and logic. Piaget was educated at the University of Neuchâtel and studied briefly at the University of Zürich.

During this time, he published two philosophical papers that showed the direction of his thinking at the time, which he later dismissed as adolescent thought. He later moved from Switzerland to Paris after his graduation and he taught at the Grange-Aux-Belles Street School for Boys.

2. He Developed the Theory of Cognitive Development

 Piaget developed the theory of cognitive development. it deals with the nature of knowledge itself and how humans gradually come to acquire, construct, and use it.

He believed that children of different ages made different mistakes because of the “quality rather than quantity” of their intelligence. Piaget proposed four stages to describe the development process of children: the sensorimotor stage, pre-operational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage.

Each stage describes a specific age group. In each stage, he described how children develop their cognitive skills. For example, he believed that children experience the world through actions, representing things with words, thinking logically, and using reasoning.

3.  Piaget Revolutionized Research Methods

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Although Piaget started researching with his colleagues using a traditional method of data collection, he was not fully satisfied with the results and wanted to find new ways of researching using a combination of data.

He included naturalistic observation, psychometrics, and psychiatric clinical examination, in order to have a less guided form of research produce more empirically valid results.

The main idea was to observe how children responded and articulated certain situations with their own reasoning, in order to examine their thought processes.

4. He was Awarded the Balzan Prize

In 1979, Piaget was awarded the Balzan Prize for Social and Political Sciences. The prestigious award is awarded by International Balzan Prize Foundation to people or organizations who have made outstanding achievements in the fields of humanities, natural sciences, and culture, as well as for endeavors for peace and the brotherhood of man.

Four prizes have been awarded annually since 1978. The award fields vary each year and can be related to either a specific or an interdisciplinary field.

The prizes go beyond the traditional subjects both in the humanities and in the sciences with an emphasis on innovative research.

5.  Piaget Inspired Transformation of Education

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During the 1970s and 1980s, Piaget’s works also inspired the transformation of European and American education, including both theory and practice, leading to a more child-centered approach.

In Conversations with Jean Piaget, Bringuier says: “Education, for most people, means trying to lead the child to resemble the typical adult of his society … but for me and no one else, education means making creators… You have to make inventors, innovators—not conformists”.

His theory of cognitive development can be used as a tool in the early childhood classroom. According to Piaget, children developed best in a classroom with interaction.

6. His Theories have been Challenged

Some of Piaget’s theories have been criticized and challenged by various scholars around the world. One main figure whose ideas contradicted Piaget’s ideas was the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky.

Lev Vygotsky stressed the importance of a child’s cultural background as an effect on the stages of development.  He challenged Piaget’s theory that the hierarchy of learning development had to develop in succession.

Over the years alternative theories of child development have been put forward, and empirical findings have done a lot to undermine Piaget’s theories. However, some supporters of Piaget counter that his critics’ arguments depend on the misreading of Piaget’s theory

7. Piaget received 17 Honorary Doctorates

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Piaget received 17 honorary doctorates from different universities for his contribution to children’s education.

He received his first honorary doctorate from the University of Harvard in 1936; he went to be honored by Sorbonne University in 1936, the University of Brazil in 1949, Bruxelles in 1949, Chicago University in 1953, Mcgill University in 1954, the University of Manchester in 1959, Oslo University in 1960 and Cambridge University in 1960.

Others are Brandeis University in 1962, Montreal University in 1964, Aix-Marseille University in 1964, Pennsylvania University in 1966, Yale University in 1970, and Temple University in 1971.

8. He influenced Developmental Psychology

Piaget is considered to be the most influential figure in developmental psychology. However, many of aspects of his theories are no longer accepted by mainstream psychologists.

Developmental psychologists today do not view development as taking place in stages and many of his empirical findings have been overturned by subsequent research.

Despite this, developmental psychologists do acknowledge the importance of Jean Piaget’s legacy as the founder of their field. 

9. He was a Physiologist

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Piaget first developed as a psychologist in the 1920s. He investigated the hidden side of children’s minds. Piaget proposed that children moved from a position of egocentrism to sociocentrism.

For this explanation, he combined the use of psychological and clinical methods to create what he called a semi-clinical interview. He began the interview by asking children standardized questions and depending on how they answered, he would ask them a series of nonstandard questions.

10. Piaget was a Father of three children

In 1923, Piaget married Valentine Châtenay the couple had three children, whom he studied from infancy.

He died in 1980, three years before his wife and he was buried with his family in an unmarked grave in the Cemetery of Kings in Geneva.

11. He was born in Neuchatel, Switzerland

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Many people know about Jean Piaget when he was a grown man making major contributions to psychology, but few know where he was born. Jean Piaget was born on August 9, 1896, in the beautiful town of Neuchatel in Switzerland. This was the perfect place for a curious mind like Piaget’s.

He grew up seeing the natural beauty of the town with its rich cultural heritage and stunning natural beauty. Being surrounded by the wonders of the world including a mountain played a role in raising the young Piaget’s curiosity and later on he ventured into science and psychology.

Despite being born in a small town, Piaget’s genius could not be contained in one place as he arose to make a global contribution to science.

12. His first major work “The Language and Thought of the Child,” was published in 1923.

Jean Piaget published his first major work The Language and Thought of the Child in 1923 when he was in his late twenties. This was a major groundbreaking work that camejust in time to challenge the existing theories about how children developed.

In this work, Piaget explained his meticulous observation of his children as he concluded that young children have difficulty separating their perspective from that of others. He observed that children’s language acquisition and thought process is centered on their experiences but gradually change into logical thoughts when they mature.

His book challenged the existing theory that children were believed to be just the immature version of adults.

13. Professor at the University of Geneva from 1929 to 1971

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Piaget studied at the University of Neuchatel but the best part of his life was at the University of Geneva. He spent over four decades at this university, where he sharpened his knowledge in the field of developmental psychology. His appointment at the university as a professor marked the beginning of a beautiful journey in his academic journey.

He became the leading figure at the University of Geneva in the study of child development and cognitive study. The University of Geneva provided Piaget with the platform to become the great man he was.

14. He founded the International Center for Genetic Epistemology in 1955

To further his study and research in child development and genetic epistemology, Jean Piaget founded the International Center for Genetic Epistemology. This was the place where researchers from all around the world would gather to research to understand the origins and evolution of knowledge in individuals and across different generations.

This is the place where Piaget’s ideas were put into action and findings disseminated across the world influencing education and shaping human understanding of child development.

15. He published his first scientific work at ten

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Jean Piaget was a child prodigy whose curiosity and hunger for knowledge pushed him to achieve exceptional success at a young age. for example, he published his first book when he was just ten years old. His work titledA Malformation in the Albino Sparrow became his first ever publication showcasing his scientific display and keen attention to detail. He would later publish several other works.

While reading about Jean Piaget, I realized that there are a lot of lesser-known facts about the Swiss psychologist that many people do not know. Everyone knows about his contribution to psychology and his theories on cognitive development and constructivism but a few know when he published his first scientific work. The above facts show some of the private aspects of this man that I did not know. Now you know about his early curiosity in science and his contribution to the world.