Socio-Economic Bias in Piaget’s Theory and Its Implications for Cross-Culture Studies

摘要

The existence of a ‘time lag’ discovered in the cross-cultural application of Piaget tests may result from a socio-economic bias in Piaget’s theory. Abstract, formal cognition may reflect a particular social structure, embodying the principles of exchange value, reification, and alienation which govern production and exchange in the industrialized West. This objective variable, together with the subjective variable of conscious participation in the abstract levels of the social structure, can account for cross-cultural disparities in Piaget test performance. Specific implications for research and for policy are disc