Static Thoughts

Static Thought (also known as static reasoning) is a term used in Developmental Psychology to describe a child's belief that the world is unchanging. They believe that how things are in the present is how they always have been and how they always will be.

An example would be a child who is surprised to learn that his teacher is the child of someone else - the child can only comprehend them in their role as his teacher. If things do change children perceive it to be sudden and immediate. For example, a child may think that they will wake up and be tall one day - they don't understand that it will be a gradual process. Static thought is called this because when something is static it stays the same and doesn't move. According to the psychologist Piaget children between the ages of 2-6 are in the preoperational stage of childhood. This phase is marked by a lack of logical reasoning and abstract thought patterns. Static thought is a main characteristic of the preoperational phase and hinders children from heavily using logic and reason in their thought patterns.