Psychology 9-1 GCSE - 

1.2.1 - Piaget and Inhelder (1956) Three mountains task:

Aims - 

To see at what age children are no longer egocentric.

Procedures - 

A child sits at a table with a model of three mountains - one big, two smaller ones. The child can sit either in front of the model or at another angle. The researcher then places a doll in different positions in the model. Then, the child is shown 10 pictures of the mountains taken at different positions and asked to pick the picture that shows what the doll would see. If the child chose the correct picture Piaget would assume they were not egocentric.

Findings - 

Found that 4 year olds always chose the picture that showed what they could see. But at 7 children pointed out the dolls point of view.

Conclusion - 

At around 7 years old, the child is no longer egocentric in where they can see more than their own perspectives.

Strengths - 

• This test was revolutionary.
• Many other similar studies have been done since.

Weaknesses - 

• It has often been proven that children are non egocentric sooner than this study suggests.
• Not a complex study design.