Jean Piaget (August 9, 1896 - September 16, 1980), a professor of psychology at the University of Geneva from 1929 to 1975, was a francophone Swiss developmental psychologist who is most well known for organizing cognitive development into a series of stages - that is levels of development corresponding to infancy, childhood, and adolesence. Advance through these levels was explained through biology and culture along with a "third factor" called equilibration, working inter-dependently with the other two.

Piaget's model of development has proved influential, notably on the work of Lev Vygotsky. Among others, the philosopher and social theorist Jürgen Habermas has incorporated them into his work, most notably in The Theory of Communicative Action. Piaget also had a considerable impact in the field of computer science. Seymour Papert used Piaget's work while developing the Logo programming language. Alan Kay used Piaget's theories as the basis for the Dynabook programming system concept, which was first discussed within the confines of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center, or Xerox PARC. These discussions led to the development of the Alto prototype, which explored for the first time all the elements of the GUI, or Graphical User Interface, and influenced the creation of user interfaces in the 1980's and beyond.

Major works and Achievements

Single "Best Read":
Bringuier, J-C. (1980). Conservations with Jean Piaget. Chicago: University of Chicago Press

Major Works
Piaget, J. (1983). Piaget's theory. In P. Mussen (ed). Handbook of Child Psychology. 4th edition. Vol. 1. New York: Wiley. Piaget, J. (1995). Sociological Studies. London: Routledge. Piaget, J. (2000). Commentary on Vuygotsky. New Ideas in Psychology, 18, 241-59. Piaget, J. (2001). Studies in Reflecting Abstraction. Hove, UK: Psychology Press. .

PIAGET POSTCARD
A "Piaget Postcard" written by Leslie Smith is available on:

http://www.piaget.org/aboutPiaget.html

with a fuller summary of Piaget's work and achievements. Anyone who - like Oliver Twist - still wants more is welcome to read:

Smith, L. (1997). Jean Piaget. In N. Sheehy, A. Chapman. W.Conroy (eds). Biographical dictionary of psychology. London: Routledge.

Smith, L. (2001). Jean Piaget. In J. A. Palmer (ed) 50 Modern thinkers on education: from Piaget to the present. London: Routledge

External Links

• Piaget Biography and Theories (http://brainmeta.com/personality/piaget.php)

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