A second reason that Piaget’s research program had only minimal influence at first was his unconventional research methodology. Piaget used what he called the clinical method; He gave children a variety of tasks and problems, asking a series of questions about each one. He tailored his interviews to the particulay responses children gave, with follow-up questions varying from one child to the nest. Such a procedure was radically different from the standardized, tightly controlled conditions typical of behaviorist animal research and was thus unacceptable to many of Piaget’s contemporaries in North a America.