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By Bill Harris, Centerpointe Research Institute

In this post we’ll continue our investigation of the developmental process, looking at cognitive development.

Cognitive development is one of the most important, if not the most important, line of development.

Why? Because many theorists and researchers believe it is necessary (though not sufficient) for development in all the other areas.

Unless you can be aware of something (which is what cognition is all about) you can’t be moral about it, feel something about it, create art about it, develop faith around it, organize a self around it, or develop in any other way regarding it.

The great pioneer in cognitive development is Jean Piaget, and I will draw heavily from his work in this post, with additional help from Ken Wilber, and also from Dr. C. George Boeree.

[The image above is from No Boundary: Eastern and Western Approaches to Personal Growth, by Ken Wilber.]

This is a pretty big topic, and I have a lot to share with you, so I’m going to split this into three posts. Part one will cover the first two levels of cognitive development as defined by Piaget.

The second post, which will come a few days later, will cover the next two. Then in another post I’ll cover the current thinking about cognitive development beyond Piaget’s stages. I think you will find this information to be particularly fascinating, so let’s get started…

Cognitive development refers to our ability to perform various types of operations on what we encounter in the world and in our awareness.

To live in the world, accomplish various things, and deal with the challenge of being human, we first learn to ”work with” (deal with, manage, get things done with) our body, then with objects, then with symbols, concepts, and ideas, and – if development continues to the highest transpersonal or transrational levels of development – we eventually add ways of dealing with life that are beyond the realm of ideas.

Always keep in mind that these developmental levels (which, remember, are perspectives) are ways we make sense of what it means to be a human being living in a complex and often paradoxical world. As our environment changes, and as we change, our way of responding to the world and making sense of it changes.

Piaget’s work on development is particularly important because it has been closely scrutinized over three decades of cross-cultural research.

As a result, Piaget’s basic levels of cognitive development (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational) are considered to be universally applicable to all human cultures.

Other researchers have taken Piaget’s work further, describing levels of cognitive development beyond his highest level, formal operational.

We’ll look at these more advanced stages (generally referred to as transrational or transpersonal) after I describe Piaget’s basic levels.

As you’ll see, Piaget’s levels of cognitive development correspond roughly to those I’ve described so far in previous posts (if you haven’t read those posts, it might be helpful if do so).

The stage I’ve described as preconventional roughly corresponds to Piaget’s preoperational level, conventional roughly corresponds to Piaget’s concrete operational, and post-conventional roughly corresponds to formal-operational.

What this really means is that preconventional people use preoperational cognition to deal with the world, conventional level people use concrete operational cognition to deal with the world, and postconventional people use formal operational cognition to deal with the world.

Sensorimotor, Piaget’s first stage (the stage before preoperational), is sometimes referred to as archaic in other naming conventions (in this case, in that of Jean Gebser).

As I said in an earlier post, different naming schemes are used by different scholars and researchers, depending on which line of development (cognitive, moral, ego, emotional, etc.) is being studied.

This is partly because these researchers were often working independently, without knowing much if anything about each other’s work, each creating his or her own terminology.

Ken Wilber, to his credit, has pulled together many of these different developmental approaches and has pointed out the many parallels between them.

Over time we’ll visit a number of different developmental approaches, and hopefully you’ll begin to get a feeling for the different names and how they correspond to each other.

These different naming protocols can be a bit confusing at first (I know it took me a while to sort them all out). I’m hoping that I’ll be able to describe them in a way that makes it easier for you to make sense of them.

Remember that with all these developmental schemes each person begins with the first level and must develop through each level, in order.

This is because each level builds on the previous level–each new level transcends the previous level in certain ways (it creatively introduces new ways of cognizing the world), but also includes key aspects of the previous level.

To use an example from the physical world, atoms represent one level of physical organization. Molecules, the next higher level, include atoms, but also transcend them (molecules can do things atoms cannot do–they operate in the world in way that transcends the way atoms operate in the world, while at the same time including them).

The point I’m making is that atoms had to come into existence before molecules could exist, since atoms are a building block of every molecule.

In the same way, each developmental level (each new perspective) in humans is necessary to the development of the next perspective. This is why everyone must begin at the beginning and go through the levels in order.

Not every person moves through all the levels, however (just as not every person moves from kindergarden all the way through grade school, high school, college, and graduate school).

Some people move through a few developmental levels and then stop, while a smaller number move to the highest levels. This depends on the person, their environment and its demands, the developmental center of gravity of their culture, and other influences.

The higher the level, the fewer people will reach it. For instance, fewer individuals in any culture reach Piaget’s highest level, formal operations, or formop, and even fewer reach the transpersonal levels beyond that.

Having made those introductory remarks, let’s move on. Piaget divided cognitive development into four broad stages: 1) sensorimotor (0-2 years), 2) preoperational, or “preop” (2-7 years), concrete operational, or “conop” (7-11 years), and formal operational, or “formop” (11 years onward).

Each of these can be divided into several substages. The ages are averages, and since a person could stop and remain at any level, you can find many adults at each level (though not many are found at the sensorimotor stage).

In this discussion I’ll also use some of the stage names used by Jean Gebser and Ken Wilber: archaic (similar to sensorimotor), magic (similar to early preoperational), magic-mythic (late preoperational), mythic (early concrete operational), mythic-rational (late concrete operational), and rational (formal operational).

This is just to confuse you, of course.

In the sensorimotor stage, the infant uses senses and motor abilities to understand the world, beginning at first with reflexes and eventually using complex combinations of sensorimotor skills.

At the beginning of this stage, the infant cannot yet distinguish itself from its environment (what some have called an experience of oceanic oneness). This has also been called a state of “primary narcissism,” because the infant is embedded in or undifferentiated from the environment.

[A quick aside: You may remember from previous posts that all development is a process of immersion in something, followed (hopefully) by eventual development of the ability to observe it, i.e., to see it from a wider perspective. We are what we are immersed in; we are so caught in it that we are unconscious of it, unaware of it–like a fish in water. And, because we’re unaware of whatever we’re immersed in, we have no conscious control over it.

Once we develop the ability to step back and observe that which we’ve been immersed in (in other words, once we begin to be aware of it), we shift from being it to having it. Being aware of it, we have more control, more choice. This is the true meaning of expanded spiritual awareness.

Continued on Bill Harris' blog at Centerpointe Research Institute.

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Bill Harris is a Certified Trainer of Neuro Linguistic Programming and is trained in Ericksonian Hypnosis. He is a long time student of contemporary psychology, quantum mechanical physics, the evolution of non-linear systems (chaos theory) and the effects of a wide range of neurotechnologies on human change, evolution and healing.

He is a founding member of the Transformational Leadership Council started by Chicken Soup for the Soul author Jack Canfield, and is founder and director of Centerpointe Research Institute.

Also see more articles by Bill Harris and free online course led by Bill Harris: The Masters of The Secret.

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