328 CHAPTER 8
mother couldn’t see her. Egocentrism is not the same as being egotistical or selfish—it
would also be egocentric, but completely unselfish, if 4-year-old Jamal wants to give his
grandmother an action figure for her birthday because that’s what he would want.
Remember that children in this stage are also overwhelmed by appearances. A child
who complains that his piece of pie is smaller than his brother’s may be quite happy once his
original piece is cut into two pieces—now he thinks he has “more” than his brother. He has
focused only on the number of pieces, not the actual amount of the pie. Focusing only on one
feature of some object rather than taking all features into consideration is called centration.
In the coin example in Figure 8. 7 , children of this stage will focus (or center) on the length of
the top line of coins only and ignore the number of coins. Centration is one of the reasons that
children in this stage often fail to understand that changing the way something looks does not
change its substance. The ability to understand that altering the appearance of something does
not change its amount (as in the coin example), its volume, or its mass is called conservation.
Preoperational children fail at conservation not only because they centrate (focus on
just one feature, such as the number of pieces of pie) but also because they are unable to
“mentally reverse” actions. This feature of preoperational thinking is called irreversibility.
For example, if a preoperational child sees liquid poured from a short, wide glass into a
tall, thin glass, the child will assume that the second glass holds more liquid. This failure toFigure 8.7 Conservation Experiment
In this conservation task, pennies are laid out in two equal lines. When the pennies in the top line are spaced out, the child who cannot yet
conserve will centrate on the top line and assume that there are actually more pennies in that line.CCWatch the Video Piaget’s Concept of Conservation
conservation
in 2iagetos theory the aDility to
understand that simRly changing
the aRRearance of an oDLect does not
change the oDLectos nature.
centration
in 2iagetos theory the tendency of a
young child to focus only on one fea-
ture of an oDLect while ignoring other
relevant features.
irreversibility
in 2iagetos theory the inaDility
of the young child to mentally reverse
an action.