Developmental psychology

Cognitive development

Tests of egocentrism
You are learning how to…
• Compare and evaluate methods for investigating children’s thinking.

In the context of… o Piaget’s pre-operational stage and tests of egocentrism. The ‘three mountains’ task (Piaget & Inhelder, 1956)
In Piaget’s original test of egocentrism the child is shown a three dimensional model of three mountains. They are different sizes and colours and have different features (e.g. a cross, a house, some snow). After the child has had an opportunity to explore the model, a doll is introduced. The doll is placed so that it is ‘looking’ at the model from a different position from the child’s. The child is asked what the doll can see, and indicates its answer by choosing one from a range of pictures, each showing the mountains from a different point of view.
Piaget and Inhelder (1956) found that four year-olds almost always chose a picture that represented what they could see and showed no awareness that the doll’s view would be different from this. Six year-olds frequently chose a picture different from their own view but rarely chose the correct picture for the doll’s point of view. Only at seven or eight years old did children consistently choose the picture that matched the doll’s viewpoint.
The ‘turntable’ task (Borke, 1975)
In Borke’s test of egocentrism the child is given two identical models of a three-dimensional scene
(several different scenes were used including different arrangements of toy people and animals and a mountain model similar to Piaget and Inhelder’s). One of the models is mounted on a turntable so it can easily be turned by the child. After a practice session where the child is familiarized with the materials and the idea of looking at things from another person’s point of view, a doll is introduced
(in Borke’s study it was