{"id":23748,"date":"2023-04-23T16:40:51","date_gmt":"2023-04-23T16:40:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/helpfulprofessor.com\/?p=23748"},"modified":"2024-01-03T21:29:46","modified_gmt":"2024-01-03T21:29:46","slug":"conservation-piaget-psychology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helpfulprofessor.com\/conservation-piaget-psychology\/","title":{"rendered":"Conservation (Piaget\u2019s Psychology): Definition and Examples"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Piaget\u2019s concept of conservation refers to the child\u2019s understanding that the properties of objects, such as quantity, volume, or mass, remain the same even when their appearance changes, so long as no additional objects are added or removed.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For example, people who have mastered the skill of conservation will recognize that pouring a liter of water from a thin glass to a wide glass does not change the amount of water we have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But children who haven\u2019t mastered conservation may feel like there is now less water in the wide glass because the water doesn\u2019t go as high up the glass:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"a
In this image, the volume of water in both glasses is the same. A child who lacks conservation skills will think the tall, thin glass has more water in it.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Conservation: Age and Stage of Development<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Piaget believed that children develop an understanding of conservation in the concrete operational stage of development (ages 7-11 years old) of his theory of child development.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The concrete operational stage (ages 7-11 years old) is the third stage<\/a> in Piaget\u2019s stages of cognitive development<\/a>. The stage is characterized by increasingly advanced reasoning and problem-solving skills<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thinking becomes better organized and more methodical. Children are able to think logically regarding certain types of problems as they apply to physical objects, and representing those objects mentally becomes much easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The child is no longer limited to making judgments solely based on the perceptual properties of stimuli, but can instead use logic and perform purely mental operations to make inferences<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Children in the concrete operational stage also begin to overcome the limitations of egocentrism<\/em>. The ability to look at a situation from the point of view of others, which is the foundation for social skills and emotional intelligence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, children still struggle with abstract reasoning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conservation is connected to the development of other cognitive abilities in the concrete operational stage, such as reversibility<\/em>, centration<\/em>, and transitivity<\/em>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n