Christelle is a 6-month-old playing with an interesting toy that flashes lights and makes sounds. When her mother takes the toy and places it under a blanket, Christelle simply looks at her mother and makes no attempt to uncover the toy. How would Piaget explain Christelle's behavior?

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Question restatement: Christelle, a 6-month-old, plays with a toy that lights up and makes sounds. When her mother hides the toy under a blanket, Christelle just looks at her mother and makes no move to uncover the toy. How would Piaget explain Christelle's behavior?

Option analysis:
Option 1: 'She lacks object permanence.' This aligns with Piaget’s sensorimotor stage, where infants under about 8 months typically do not search for hidden objects because they have not yet developed object permanence—the understanding that objects continue to exist even when hidden from view. Christelle’s lack of searching behavior when the toy is concealed is a classic demonstration of this concept.

Option 2: 'She lacks conservation.' Conservation is a Piagetian concept that emerges later in the concrete operational stage, roughly around ages 7 to 11, and involves understanding that quantity or amount remains the same despite a change in appearance. A 6-month-old is far from this level, and the behavior described is not about transformations of quantity or state, so this option misapplies conservation to a much younger stage.

Option 3: 'She hasn't learned to assimilate her schema.' Assimilation is a process by which new information is incorporated into existing schemas. At 6 months, the core issue described is not about fitting new information into a current schema, but about the existence of object permanence itself. The scenario does not illustrate a failure to assimilate in the sense Piaget used it; rather, it illustrates the absence of a fundamental concept.

Option 4: 'She hasn't learned how to accommodate her schema.' Accommodation involves changing or creating new schemas in response to new information. Again, the scenario highlights a more basic developmental milestone—object permanence—rather than the more advanced process of altering schemas in response to the environment. The issue here is not that she cannot accommodate, but that she has not yet developed the underlying concept.

Putting it together, the behavior described is best accounted for by the absence of object permanence at this developmental stage, which is characteristic of Piaget’s sensorimotor period before the child begins to search for hidden objects. The other options reference later-developing Piagetian concepts (conservation) or misinterpret the processes of assimilation and accommodation in a context where object permanence is the central issue. The nuanced distinctions among these ideas help explain why the object permanence explanation fits the observed behavior more closely than the alternatives.

PSY 1001 (001) Exam 3

Christelle is a 6-month-old playing with an interesting toy that flashes lights and makes sounds. When her mother takes the toy and places it under a blanket, Christelle simply looks at her mother and makes no attempt to uncover the toy. How would Piaget explain Christelle's behavior?

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