Jake's First Haircut: Understanding the Concept of Irreversibility in Child Development

Jake's Experience at the Barber

Jake's father takes him to the barber for his first real haircut. At first, Jake is excited; but as soon as the barber makes the first cut in his hair, Jake becomes very upset and tells his father to make the barber stop. In spite of his father's efforts to assure him that his hair will grow back, Jake is devastated. Jake is exhibiting the characteristic known as irreversibility.

Answer:

Ir-reversibility

Explanation:

Ir-reversibility is a concept that was given by Jean Piaget in his child development theory. This is the inability to understand the action that is being done by a child. The child wants to make the action being undone to come back to the original state. There is another example that Piaget used to describe the phenomenon. Piaget takes two glasses with different shapes and sizes. When water is poured in a glass with a shape with length and then water transfer into another glass short length bur wide. The child makes the action irreversible on the pre-operational stages and pouring water in the same original glass.

Jake is also displaying the feature of reversibility because he is not able to consider that the haircut is not permanent as the hair would grow back again after some time, even though his father tried to make him understand it. He thinks the haircut is a permanent action and cannot be reversed so he became sad.