According to Piaget,magical thinking is common during the preschool years because young children __________.
A) fail to distinguish others' symbolic viewpoints from their own
B) egocentrically assign human purposes to physical events
C) cannot mentally go through a series of steps in a problem and then reverse direction
D) believe that physical characteristics of objects remain the same, even when their outward appearance changes

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Piaget believed that during the preschool years, children are in the preoperational stage of cognitive development, characterized by egocentrism and magical thinking. Egocentrism refers to the tendency to assign human purposes and characteristics to physical events, while magical thinking is the belief that one's thoughts, wishes, or actions can cause events to occur in the external world. Therefore, option B correctly describes the characteristic of magical thinking during the preschool years. Option A refers to the lack of understanding of symbolic viewpoints, which is characteristic of the preoperational stage but not specifically related to magical thinking. Option C refers to the concept of reversibility, which is also associated with the preoperational stage but again, not specific to magical thinking. Option D describes the concept of conservation, which is characteristic of the concrete operational stage of development, beyond the preschool years.

According to Piaget,magical Thinking Is Common During the Preschool Years