Eight-month old Jonathan was left by his mother at the baby-sitter's place. The minute his mother left and he could not see her, Jonathan started to cry. According to Piaget's theory of cognitive development which concept would explain Jonathan's behavior?

Answers:

a.

Egocentrism

b.

Conservation

c.

Object permanence

d.

Transformation

c

c) Object permanence

Explanation:

Jean Piaget developed a theory about cognitive development according to which people go through different stages on learning since the day they are born and until adulthood.

Piaget's states that cognitive development goes through different stages and in each one of them the brain acquires new abilities and capacities.

Object permanence refers to the ability to understand that objects still exist even if they are no longer visible. At first, little kids don't understand this and they think that when an object is out of sight it doesn't exist anymore (and also that's why they love to play peek-a-boo for example), however, as they grow older they understand that objects continue existing even when they are not in sight.

In this example, Jonathan is eight-months-old and he is left by his mother at the baby-sitter's place. The minute he could not see her, he started to cry. Because of Jonathan's age and his reaction we can say that he hasn't developed the concept of "object permanence" yet and he's crying because he thinks his mom just disappeared.

Thus, the concept that would explain Jonathan's behavior would be "object permanence"