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The Development of Hierarchically Complex Equivalence Classes

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Abstract

Piaget postulated that one of the fundamental actions of people was to classify objects and actions. These classifications could be grouped together on the basis of the number of times these actions coordinate precursor actions. We call this number the order of hierarchical complexity when it refers to task demands and the stage when it refers to performance. Fourteen orders of such complexity have been analyzed. This paper introduces the notion that equivalence classes can be ordered according to their hierarchical complexity. Here, an adult task shows how the identity relations at each stage are used to define equivalence classes of the next stage. Results showed that some adults with postgraduate education detect metasystematic (12th order) equivalence classes.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts Mental Health Center, 74 Fenwood Road, Boston, MA, 02115-6196, USA

    Michael L. Commons

  2. Harvard University, USA

    Joseph Anthony Rodriguez

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  1. Michael L. Commons
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This work is dedicated to Lawrence Kohlberg. His tireless effort to systematize and refine his model of social relations was one of the impetuses for this present effort. Portions of this work are part of the doctoral dissertation of the second author. The chair of that committee, Robert Selman, has, along with Kohlberg, developed the stages out of which this effort grew. We thank Robert Selman, John Willett, and David Perkins for their critical comments, support, and encouragement. David Perkins’ probing questions led to the equivalence class argument presented here. John A. Nevin, Robert Rosenthal, and Donald B. Rubin commented on the signal detection analysis.

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Commons, M.L., Rodriguez, J.A. The Development of Hierarchically Complex Equivalence Classes. Psychol Rec 43, 667–695 (1993). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03395906

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