著者

日下 正一

出版者

心理科学研究会

雑誌

心理科学 (ISSN:03883299)

巻号頁・発行日

vol.6, no.2, pp.1-14, 1983-03-30 (Released:2017-09-10)

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J.Piaget's concept of "parallelism" concerning the development of affectivity and intelligence is very important for the evaluation of his psychology as theory of human development. This concept, however, is difficult to understand for many psychologists. The purpose of this article is to contribute to understanding it from the point of view of Piget's developmental psychology. We have three points for understanding of the parallelism. First of all, Piaget's parallelism is based upon the idea of affectivity and intelligence as two aspects of actions ; affectivity is the energetic aspect and intelligence (cognition) is the structural aspect of actions. They are inseparable and complementary, but are of different nature and irreduciable to each other. Secondly, one of the most important concepts in this theory is that of cognitive "structure, " and cognitive development implies the transformation or change of this structure. He insists that affectivity explains the acceleration or retardation, but is not the cause, of structural transformation i.e. intellectual development, nor is intelligence the cause of development of affectivity. According to Piaget's analysis, there is a relation of correspondence, not of causality, between affective and intellectual developments. The developments of affectivity and intelligence, therefore, must be parallel (see Piaget's parallel table of stages of intellectural and affective development). In a sense, it is natural that he should think of this parallelism, because he thinks that actions must always contain both affective and intellectual elements which correspond to each other. Thirdly, another problem, however, remains unsolved ; what is the cause of developments of affectivity and intelligence? The developmental factors for intelligence in Piaget's theory is, as everybody knows, hereditary maturation, experience, social transmission and equilibration. In regard to affectivity, he says that affectivity and intelligence have common factors for their developments ; above-mentioned four factors give rise to the development of affectivity. Consequently affectivity doesn't have to be the cause of cognitive or intellectual development, and vice versa.