Final answer:
The key difference between Piaget and Vygotsky's theories is that Vygotsky placed much more emphasis on the influence of social and cultural factors on cognitive development, in contrast to Piaget's stage-based, biologically oriented model.
Step-by-step explanation:
An important difference between the cognitive development theories of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky is that Vygotsky emphasized the role of social and cultural influences on cognitive development. Unlike Piaget, who highlighted stages of development that were largely biologically driven, Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of development proposed that development is a product of social interactions and culture. Vygotsky saw the child's learning as being profoundly shaped by their cultural context, with language acquisition and the tools used by the culture playing essential roles in shaping thought processes.
Vygotsky's work diverges significantly from operant conditioning, which is a concept associated with behaviorism and theorists like B.F. Skinner. Where operant conditioning involves learning through rewards and punishments, Vygotsky’s theory is more concerned with how children's cognitive skills develop through social interactions and the scaffolding provided by more knowledgeable others. Vygotsky did not minimize the role of individuals in their own development but saw them as active agents within a broader social context that profoundly affects their learning.
The cognitive theory of development of Piaget, on the other hand, focused on how children's thinking evolves in stages with each stage representing a qualitative change in cognitive abilities. While Piaget acknowledged the role of the environment to some extent, he placed a stronger emphasis on the child's active construction of knowledge and ability to reach these stages independently, at their own pace.