Pierre R. Dasen

Cross-Cultural Piagetian Research: A Summary

The large number of studies which have been published recently on the cross-cultural implications of Piagets theory are extremely heterogeneous. This summary attempts to classify them into descriptive and quasi-experimental studies; the former are seen as attempting to verify Piagets stages in non-Western cultures. They are further subdivided according to three interpretations of Piagets stages: 1) the three global stages (sensori-motor, concrete operational and formal); 2) horizontal decalages; 3) sub-stages on particular tests. Whereas the qualitative aspects of Piagets theory (the stages and individual reactions to the tasks) are verified in most cases, the rate of operational development is affected by cultural factors, sometimes to the extent that the concrete operational stage is not reached by large proportions of non-Western samples. A great deal of further quasi-experimental research is needed in order to link these findings to specific cultural factors.

The Cross-Cultural Study of Intelligence: Piaget and the Baoule

Abstract There are two aspects of Piagets theory that can be at least partly distinguished: (1) the stage theory, or the development of particular concepts through a series of hierarchical stages; (2) the metatheory, or the interactionist model of adaptation (assimilation and accommodation) that explains the mechanisms of cognitive development. Most cross-cultural research has been based on the first of these aspects, using and adapting “Piagetian tasks” in various conceptual areas. Some findings of this line of enquiry, and the methodological problems encountered, are briefly reviewed. It is argued that no specific task, nor a combination of them, can be taken to measure a general cognitive level; the tasks measure the attainment of particular concepts rather than “intelligence”. New evidence is presented on the reliability and validity of Piagetian tasks used in a cross-cultural setting. In the second model, intelligence is broadly defined as adaptation to the environment; in this conception it would b...

Rapid Social Change and the Turmoil of Adolescence: A Cross-Cultural Perspective

This article is a selective literature review, viewing adolescence in a cross-cultural perspective. Starting with the Mead/Freeman controversy, it centers on the following question: Which are the cultural contexts that best ensure a smooth transition from childhood to adulthood? The review covers some of the ethnographic research, both case studies and work using the hologeistic method (those using the Human Relations Area Files), and some of the research in cross-cultural and developmental psychology, but neither cross-national comparisons nor studies with migrants in multicultural societies. It is found that social adolescence is a universal life stage, but that it takes very different forms in different societies. Its extension into a youthperiod occurred in societies with an age-grade system, and is nowadays linked to urbanization, industrialization, and formal education. Adolescence does not need to be a period of storm and stress, and the generation gap and problem behaviors considered a “normal” part of adolescence are in fact culturally produced. In many situations, these problematic aspects of adolescence are linked to rapid social change or acculturation, most often in the form of westernization. Societies that manage to keep some continuity, cultural identity, and basic values such as family solidarity, often also manage to avoid importing the problems of adolescence despite social change. Of importance are the tolerance and flexibility of adults, close contact between generations, appropriate role-learning and acceptance into the adult community, including in the economic sphere.

Ecology, language, and performance on spatial cognitive tasks

The study of the orientation systems that people use in different cultures to describe the location of objects in space has drawn some interest of researchers in the fields of anthropology, psycholinguistics, and cognitive psychology. There has been a rethinking of the “linguistic relativity hypothesis,” and some empirical studies tend to support the notion that language is the major determinant of encoding and cognitive performance on spatial tasks. This paper reports a crosscultural study carried out with 545 children aged 4 to 14 years, both schooled and unschooled, in India and Nepal. The field sites were selected taking into consideration how reference to spatial locations is organized in the language as well as in the local cultural practices. In a village near Varanansi in India, people organize spatial locations mainly with reference to cardinal directions, but in the city of Varanasi, relative references are also used, although people in both the locations speak the same language (i.e., Hindi). I...

Cross-cultural views on human development in the third millennium

The authors examine the prospects of a cross-cultural approach for research in human development. They first examine the apparent conflict between the positivistic and the constructionist paradigms, and examine their methodological implications. They argue for a midline position, seeing the seemingly opposed paradigms as complementary rather than antithetical. The major part of the paper lists the further developments needed in the field, in particular taking new theories to the cross-cultural test more quickly, and working out culturally appropriate applications to social issues. Shorter sections are devoted to the choice of appropriate theoretical frameworks, to the development of “indigenous psychologies” and to the working conditions of researchers in different contexts. The authors conclude that the situation of a cross-cultural approach to human development has improved significantly in the last two decades, but that there is still a lot to be done to completely disengage developmental psychology from its inherent ethnocentrism by “taking culture seriously”.

NEO‐PIAGETIAN THEORIES: CROSS‐CULTURAL AND DIFFERENTIAL PERSPECTIVES

Abstract The neo-Piagetian theories represented in this special issue are examined from the cross-cultural and differential perspectives. The goals, methods and achievements of these two approaches are briefly reviewed, and the similarities and differences between the two are pointed out. Six criteria are proposed that psychological theories should meet from the point of view of these perspectives. After a review of the few existing empirical cross-cultural and differential studies inspired by neo-Piagetian theories, the latter are matched to the six criteria, and the potential advantages of these new models over classical structuralist approaches are spelled out.

LA PERCEPTION DES RELATIONS SPATIALES DANS LE DESSIN ET LE DEVELOPPEMENT DES OPERATIONS CONCRETES

Abstract Pictorial perception entails complex cognitive skills. Piaget and Inhelder (1948) have shown that the understanding of spatial relations follows a path that leads from topological to Euclidean concepts. We hypothesize that there is a strong correlation between the performance on Piagetian spatial tasks and pictorial perception. The three-dimensional reconstruction of drawings is a good measure of pictorial perception. The study shows that pictorial perception is correlated significantly (p < 1%) with the performance on Piagetian spatial tasks, and also, to a lesser degree, on tasks of elementary logic. The spontaneous understanding of the meaning of the pictures (in this case sanitary messages) is related to the understanding of spatial relations, while the relationship is less strong with the recall of the messages.

“Hot” and “Cold”: Classification and Sorting Among the Yupno of Papua New Guinea

Abstract The authors advocate a combination of ethnographic and psychological methods: Cognitive processes and the social distribution of knowledge are to be studied not only through the collective representations derived from interviews with key informants, but through behaviour observations in everyday settings, as well as specifically designed tasks, in order to observe problem solving more directly. The collaboration between an anthropologist and a psychologist is illustrated in a study of classification among the Yupno of Papua New Guinea. Their world-view classifies everything into three states: “hot”, “cold”, and “cool”. Only experts (sorcerers) can manipulate these states. After an ethnographic description of this classification system, a sorting task was given to six samples of Yupno subjects. Only the sorcerers used the abstract category of “hotkold” explicitly; the other older adults used it implicitly through function, whereas schooling induced sorting by colour. These findings call into quest...

Linguistic Relativity and Spatial Concept Development in Nepal

Reports the results of a study done in a mountainous region of Nepal on a sample of 144, 6–14 year old boys and girls, schooled and unschooled. A variety of tasks was selected for the analysis of language children use for describing space and for the assessment of spatial encoding and cognitive performance on spatial developmental tasks. The results confirm that the language people use to describe spatial arrays is linked to the way in which they orient themselves in the environment. The age trends in language development indicate a change from intrinsic and projective to geocentric references, with almost no use of egocentric terms, while the encoding of spatial arrays is predominantly absolute (age changes being task specific). Overall, spatial cognitive development is quite independent of spatial encoding, but shows some statistically significant relations to the use of geocentric language.

Geocentric Dead Reckoning in Sanskrit- and Hindi-Medium School Children:

A linguistic and cognitive process that has received scant attention in mainstream developmental psychology is the use of a geocentric frame of spatial reference, which amounts to using a large-scale orientation system (such as cardinal directions) in describing and encoding the location of objects on table space, inside a room. As part of a larger cross-cultural study of the development of this process, in India, Indonesia and Nepal, we present here a study on the possible implications of using a geocentric frame of reference in developing an accurate dead-reckoning skill. Children aged 11 to 15 years in two types of schools in Varanasi, India, who were known from a pretest to use a geocentric frame in language and cognition, were blindfolded, spun around and led blindfolded to a second room. A majority of them were able to keep track of cardinal directions despite these disorienting procedures. They were interviewed about the processes and sources of their skill.