Jean Piaget Books

At the beginning of life, intelligence reveals itself in its most primitive form: the reflex. The newborn who sucks instinctively when something touches the lips is not choosing but responding, yet this reflexive act is already adaptive. It connects the organism with its environment in a meaningful ...

From The Origins of Intelligence in Children

As the infant repeats its reflex acts, a profound transformation occurs. The repetition itself becomes purposeful. In sucking or grasping, the child no longer acts only when stimulated but begins to seek the act, to reproduce it. This is what I call the stage of primary circular reactions — cycles o...

From The Origins of Intelligence in Children

Adaptation is the cornerstone of my view of intelligence. Borrowed from biology but transformed by psychology, it expresses the active relationship between the organism and its environment. When we speak of adaptation in cognitive terms, we refer to how mind and world enter into a reciprocal transfo...

From The Psychology of Intelligence

Assimilation is the mind’s effort to incorporate new experiences into existing structures of understanding. When a child first grasps an object, she interprets it through what she already knows; when she suckles or handles, she assimilates new sensations into familiar schemes. Every act, every perce...

From The Psychology of Intelligence