GENETIC PSYCHOLOGY: BACKGROUND, WHAT IT STUDIES AND POSTULATES - PSYCHOLOGY - 2025

The genetic psychology is the field of study that investigates about the thought processes, their training and their characteristics. It was developed mainly thanks to the works of Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist of great importance during the 20th century.

Despite the name of this field of study, genetic psychology is not responsible for studying the influence of genes on our behavior. On the contrary, it refers to the study of the genesis of people's thoughts: how they are formed and why, as well as what external elements influence them.

Jean Piaget's works are considered the basis of genetic psychology

Piaget defended a current of psychology called "constructivism." This way of understanding the human mind postulates that our thought processes and our characteristics are formed throughout our lives based on the external influences that we receive.

Background and development

Piaget (1896 - 1980) was a Swiss researcher who, after obtaining a doctorate in Biology, began studying psychology under the tutelage of Carl Jung and Eugen Breuler.

Later, when he began working as a teacher in a French school, he began to study the process of developing cognitive skills in children.

His main interest was the understanding of the genesis of thought processes in human beings, although he mainly studied the changes that occurred in childhood.

His theories were very little recognized at the time, but from the 1960s they began to gain great importance in the field of developmental psychology.

The main question that Piaget wanted to answer was how knowledge is formed, and more specifically, how does one go from one knowledge to a more complex one.

Although at first it was based on the empiricist and rationalist currents, later it ended up adopting an interactionist position.

Empiricism, rationalism and interactionism

Since the rise of behavioral psychology, the vast majority of researchers on the human mind have defended a theory called empiricism.

This vision of the human mind defends that when we are born we are like a "blank slate", and that external stimuli are shaping our personality and mental capacities.

Piaget partially shared the empiricist vision of the human mind, but at the same time he took elements from another current called rationalism.

This theory states that the source of knowledge is our own reason, which allows us to interpret what happens to us and in this way learn new things.

Taking elements of both currents, Piaget investigated the cognitive development in childhood from an interactionist position.

The main idea behind this current is that our environment is the main cause of our intellectual development, but at the same time our own interaction with the environment makes us create new knowledge.

Development

One of Piaget's goals was to revolutionize the world of developmental psychology research. Although he started using the usual data collection method at first, he was not satisfied with the results achieved; therefore, he created his own way of investigating with children.

His method of data collection included elements of methodologies such as naturalistic observation, examination of clinical cases, and psychometry.

At first he also used techniques drawn from psychoanalysis, but later rejected them, as he thought that it was not empirical enough.

As he used his new methods to research genetic psychology, he wrote a book called Language and Thought in Children. In this she tried to capture her discoveries about the best way to investigate child development.

Armed with these new research methods, Piaget used them in his position as director of the JJ Rousseau Institute in Geneva, where he collected most of the data with which he later formed his theories on the genesis of thought in children.

What does genetic psychology study?

The main objective of genetic psychology is to study the validity of knowledge with respect to the model by which it is built. To do this, it aims to show that the way in which knowledge has been acquired influences how true it is.

On the other hand, genetic psychology is also in charge of understanding how the cognitive development of people works throughout their lives. According to Piaget, our way of thinking goes through four main stages:

- Sensorimotor stage (from birth to two years).

- Preoperational stage (from 2 to 7 years old).

- Operational logical stage (from 7 to 11).

- Formal logical stage (from 11 years old).

Piaget wanted to discover how a person advances from one stage to the next, and the mental processes that he uses to modify his knowledge of the world.

Finally, he also studied the types of knowledge that a person can create and divided them into three types: physical, logical / mathematical, and social.

Basic postulates

In addition to his theory about the different stages that a person goes through in relation to the way in which knowledge is formed, Piaget also studied the mental processes that are used to generate it from direct experience with the world.

According to the theory of genetic psychology, the person carries out continuous exchanges with the environment in which he lives, acting and receiving information about what is happening through his senses.

This information collides with the mental schemas that they have formed, so that in the face of too great a contradiction, the person has to modify them.

Intelligence is understood in this model as a process of adaptation to the new information received from the environment.

As more experience is gained, mental schemas are modified in response to the outside world, mainly through two processes: assimilation and accommodation.

Assimilation

Assimilation is the first process that is activated in children when they encounter information that was not integrated into their mental schemes.

Through this, children are able to include new data in what they already knew about the world, without having to change their way of thinking.

Accommodation

On the contrary, when a child encounters information that cannot fit into his previous mental schemata, he makes use of accommodation. Through this process, our knowledge structures are modified and become more complex.

References

1. "Summary on Genetic Psychology and Piaget" in: Altillo. Retrieved on: April 9, 2018 from Altillo: altillo.com.
2. "Research in Genetic Psychology" in: Presences. Retrieved on: April 9, 2018 from Presences: presences.net.
3. "Genetic epistemology" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: April 9, 2018 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.
4. "Genetic psychology" in: Abc. Retrieved on: April 6, 2018 from Abc: abc.com.py.
5. "Genetic Psychology" in: La Guía. Retrieved on: April 6, 2018 from La Guía: psicologia.laguia2000.com.