Chapter 1. Achieving Conservation

Synopsis

Human Development Video Activity

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You must read each slide, and complete any questions on the slide, in sequence.

preoperational thought

Piaget's term for a stage of development between ages 2 and 6 when children still demonstrate egocentric thinking and are likely to fail the conservation experiment because they tend to equate change in appearance with change in identity. While they may not be able to apply logic, they begin to engage in role-playing and symbolic play.

concrete operational thought

Piaget's term for the ability to solve problems using logic but not abstract or hypothetical concepts. Concrete operational thinkers can use inductive logic, which is the ability to make general assumptions based on specific experience, and reversibility.

mental operations

According to Piaget, mental operations are the mental abilities to imagine the process and potential outcome of something happening without it actually having to happen in the physical world (i.e. doing math in one’s head). Piaget uses the nature of a child’s mental operations to define the different stages of mental development.

identity

In terms of an object, the concept that an object remains the same even if certain characteristics about it change. In terms of a person, the consistent collection of physical and mental characteristics that define an individual as unique.

reversibility

A mental operation defined by the understanding that numbers or objects can be changed and then sometimes changed back to their original state by reversing the steps of the initial change process. Reversibility also works in the relationship between mental categories (i.e. My cat is a pet. My pet is a cat.)

reciprocity

The idea that two objects, quantities, or actions can be mutually related such that a change in one can be compensated for by a corresponding or opposite change in another.

conservation

A mental operation defined by the understanding of what changes and what remains the same after a person or an object undergoes a change in appearance.

centration

The preoperational tendency to focus on one aspect of an object, situation, or problem and to the exclusion of other potentially important aspects.

decentration

A mental operation defined by the ability to pay attention to and to process different aspects of an object, situation, or problem.

Achieving Conservation

Author

A preoperational age girl studying two evenly filled glasses of milk

Thomas E. Ludwig, Hope College

Synopsis

This activity focuses on the changes in thinking that make it possible for older children to pass the Piagetian conservation of liquid task. You will watch video clips of older and younger children performing this conservation task and explaining their reasoning.

REFERENCES

Aredolo, C. (1982). Conservation-nonconservation: Alternative explanations. In C. J. Brainerd (Ed.), Children’s logical and mathematical cognition: Progress in cognitive development research. New York: Springer-Verlag, 1–31.

Anderson, D. R., & Clark, A. T. (1979). Recognition of correct justifications for conservation by conservers and partial conservers. Psychological Reports, 44, 1098.

Bruner, J. S. (1968). On the conservation of liquids. In J. S. Bruner, R. S. Olver, & P. M. Greenfield (Eds.), Studies in cognitive growth. New York: Wiley, 183–207.

Miller, P. H. (1973). Attention to stimulus dimensions in the conservation of liquid quantities. Child Development, 44, 129–136.

Piaget, J. (1971). The theory of stages in cognitive development. In D. Green, M. Ford, & G. Flamer (Eds.), Measurement and Piaget. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1–11.

Piaget, J. (2000). Piaget’s theory. In K. Lee (Ed.), Childhood cognitive development: The essential readings. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 33–47.

Siegler, R. S., & Liebert, R. M. (1972). Effects of presenting relevant rules and complete feedback on the conservation of liquid quantity task. Developmental Psychology, 7, 133–138.

Wadsworth, B. J. (1996). Piaget’s theory of cognitive and affective development (5th ed.). New York: Longman.

Understanding the Principle of Conservation

Jean Piaget, one of the most influential researchers in the study of cognitive development, believed that children’s thinking changes in important ways as they move from the preschool years into middle childhood. This transition from preoperational thought to concrete operational thought involves the development of what Piaget called mental operations, which are logical principles of reasoning.

Piaget’s most well-known task for measuring this transition is the liquid quantity problem. In this task, a child is shown two identical glasses, each with identical amounts of liquid in them. After the child agrees that the amount of liquid in the two glasses is equivalent, the researcher pours the liquid from one of the glasses into a tall, narrow glass. Because the level of the liquid in the tall glass is now higher than the liquid level in the original glass, most young children in the preoperational stage say that the tall glass has “more.”

Play the video to view the response of a typical preoperational child.

As you can see, young children fail to conserve the equivalence of the two amounts of liquid. They focus on the change in appearance, and they do not realize that the amount of liquid in the two different shaped glasses remains the same.

Achieving Conservation: Types of Reasoning

As children move into the concrete operational stage of thinking, they begin to realize that the transformation in the appearance of the liquid does not change the amount of liquid. In other words, they demonstrate an understanding of conservation.

What has changed in their thinking? Piaget believed that the child could correctly solve the liquid quantity problem by applying any one of three logical operations to the situation:

1. Identity: Since nothing has been added and nothing has been taken away, the amount must still be the same and identical to the amount in the original glass.

2. Reversibility: Although pouring the liquid into the tall, thin glass changes the appearance of the liquid, the child can imagine the liquid being poured back into the normal glass.

3. Reciprocity: The level of liquid is higher in the tall glass, but the glass is narrower. The increase in height is compensated by a reciprocal decrease in width so the amount must still be the same.

Play the video to observe the response of a concrete operational child. Can you determine which reasoning she is using?

Decentration

A teenage boy studying a beaker filled with blue liquid.

Piaget argued that the failure of a young child to demonstrate conservation could be explained as a problem of centration, the focusing on one dimension of the problem and the ignoring of the other dimensions. In this case, the young child centers or focuses on the height of the water in the glass and fails to consider the width of the glass.

Therefore, an older child who can pass this task and demonstrates an understanding of conservation is moving toward decentration. Piaget believed that decentration is an important part of cognitive development from middle childhood through adolescence as it allows children to gradually develop the mental operations that will enable them to take more and more aspects of the situation into account when solving a problem. Viewed in this way, decentration is good preparation for the complexities of adult life!

Assessment: Check Your Understanding

Question 1.1

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false

Assessment: Check Your Understanding

Question 1.2

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Correct! This statement is false. According to Piaget, the transition from early childhood to middle childhood involves the development of mental operations that lead older children to reason in qualitatively different ways than younger children do.

Sorry. This statement is false. According to Piaget, the transition from early childhood to middle childhood involves the development of mental operations that lead older children to reason in qualitatively different ways than younger children do.

Assessment: Check Your Understanding

A preoperational age girl watching as an adult pours the same amount of milk into a taller, thinner glass.

Question 1.3

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Correct! This statement is true. To demonstrate that the child understands conservation, the researcher must first establish the equivalence of the two amounts of liquid before making any transformations in the liquid’s appearance.

Sorry. This statement is true. To demonstrate that the child understands conservation, the researcher must first establish the equivalence of the two amounts of liquid before making any transformations in the liquid’s appearance.

Assessment: Check Your Understanding

A preoperational age girl watches an adult pour the same amount of milk into a taller, thinner glass

Question 1.4

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Correct! This statement is true. Preoperational children lack the decentration that allows them to take both the height and the width into consideration thereby passing this task.

Sorry. This statement is true. Preoperational children lack the decentration that allows them to take both the height and the width into consideration thereby passing this task.

Assessment: Check Your Understanding

Question 1.5

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Yes! Zoli uses the reciprocity operation to explain his reasoning.

Sorry. Zoli uses the reciprocity operation to explain his reasoning.

Assessment: Check Your Understanding

A preoperational age girl studying two different shaped glass filled with the same amount of liquid. Because they are different shapes, the girl is pointing to to the taller, thinner one because it appears to have more liquid.

Question 1.6

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Older children who understand conservation would be less likely to be distracted by changes in the appearance of an object. Some typical examples: (1) Older children realize that breaking a cookie in half does not increase the amount of cookie available to eat; (2) Older children realize that pouring a bad-tasting liquid medicine into a wider glass does not decrease the amount that they need to drink; (3) Older children realize that spreading pieces of candy over a larger area does not increase the amount of candy.

Congratulations! You have completed this activity.Total Score: x out of x points (x%) You have received a provisional score for your essay answers, which have been submitted to your instructor.