62 111: Concrete Operations Period (2-11 Years)
Why should a transformation performed entirely within his visual field and with his
full attention produce such a result? The reason is that the child’s thinking cannot reserve
it self back to the point of origin. He does not “see” that since nothing has been either added
or removed, the sauge could be made ack into the original ball.
Another example very similar to the plasticine problem consists of comparing two
equal numbers of wooden beads in containers of different shape. Let us assume that beads
are used.
The child is given a pile of beads; he is then asked to pick up one in each hand.
to put the one in the left hand into Container A,
to put the one in the right hand into Container B, and
to continue until there are no more pairs to pick up.
But Containers A and B are differently shaped, as shown in Figure 3.3
CONTAINER A
CONTAINER B
Figure 3.3
And when the subject is asked,”Which has the larger number of beads,
Container A or
Container B; or
do they bothe contain the same amount?”
his aswer is,” They are more in this one,” and he points
usually to B, but
sometimes to A.
The young child makes what to us are startling errors in thingking,
16
This makes it a test of conservation of number rather of number rather than of quantity.
I shall nevertheless refer henceforth to both of these problems (beads and liquid) together
as “the water-level problem.” See The Child’s Conception of Number, 1952, pp. 25 ff.
Preoperational Subperiod 11 63
even about transpositions that occur within his field of vision. He does so mainly because
his thingking is not reversible.
Egocentrism
Just as the sensimotor child was “egocentric” in his overt actoins, so the
preoperational child is egocentric in his representations.
The term “egocentric” is used, not in a pejorative sense, but descriptively to refer to
his inability to take another person’s point of view. He will speak to you using words that
have idiosyncratic, referents and using associations unrelated to any discernible logical
structure; and then he’ll be very much surprised when he fails to communicate. He is
surprised because he cannot understand how you can see it any way but his way.
The ability to take the view of the other (without losing his own) and the
corresponding social norm of logical consistency are acquired gradually, through repeated
social interactions in which the child is compelled again and again to take account of the
viewpoint of others. This social feedback is extremely important in developing the capacity
to think about his own thinking, whitout which logic is impossible.
Centering
Related to all the preceding characteristics is the one called” centering” or “
centration.” It refers to the child’s tendency to center his attention on one detail of an event
and, in fact, to his inability is characteristics of the preoperational child, and it has a
disturbing effect on his thinking, as you may well imagine.
In the water-level problem, for example, he will center on either the height of the
container (and say that the tall one is larger) or the width (and say that the wide one is
larger). If it were possible for him to decenter in his problem, he could take into account
both the height and the width, which would then allow him to relate the chages in one of
these dimensions to compensatory changes in the other.
But the preoperational child can not decenter, and-at least partly for this reason-
cannot solve the problem.
17
See also the entitled “Egocentricity in Representation of Objects” and “Egocentricity in Social
Relations,” pp. 83-84.
64 111: Concrete Operations Period (2-11 Years)
States Versus Transformations
Also related to development of attentions is the preoperational child’s tendency to
focus on the successive states of a display rather than on the transformations by which one
state is changed into another. Looking at the water-level problem with this tendency in
mind, it is easy to see how it might hinder the child’s thinking. After all, it is the
transformation it self that would give an adult the feeling of certainty that the water poured
from one beaker to another is the same water. It is as though the child were viewing a series
of still pictures instead of the movie that the adult sees.
A dramatic illustration of this comes from an experiment in which the subject’s task
was “to depict (by actual drawings or by multiple-choice selection of drawings) the
successive movements of a bar that falls from a vertical, upright position to a horizontal
one. A correct sequence would look something like that shown in figure 3.4. That sequence
is of course to an adult, but the young child commonly fails to draw the intermediate
positions of the stick-or even to recognize them when they are shown to him.
Figure 3.4
Preoperational children have much difficulty with his simple-and, to an adult, obvious-
actions sequence. They are unable to integrate a series of state or conditions into a coherent
whole-namely, a transformation.
Transductive Reasoning
During the Sensimotor period we noted the gradual development of a conception
of causality. Transitional between this and the reasoning of the adult is what Piaget calls
“preconceptual” or “transductve” reasoning. Since Piaget is a logician as well as a
psychologist,
18
Reported by Piaget in Bull. Psychol., Paris, 1959, and cited by Flavell in his The Developmental
Psychology of Jean Piaget, 1963, p. 158. The words are Flavell’s.
Preoperational Subperiod 11 65
I prefer not to argue with him when he calls “reasoning” but it certainly doesn’t follow the
familiar rules we know as reason. Instead of proceeding from the particular (deduction),
the preoperational child proceeds from particular to particular (transductive reasoning).
The result is sometimes a correct conclusion, as it was when Jacqueline, at thirty
months, twenty-seven days said:
“ Daddy’s getting hot water, so he’s going to shave.” But sometimes it is rather
strange:
Obsevation 111:
At two years, fourteen days, Jacqueline wanted a doll-dress that was upstairs: she
said “Dress,” and when herefused mother refused to get it, “Daddy get dress.” As I also
refused, she wanted to go herself “To mommy’s room.” After several repetition of this she
was told that it was too cold there. There was a long silence, and then:” Not too cold.” [I
asked] “Where?” “In the room.” “ Why isn’t it too cold?” “ Get dress.”
The reader may object that this is merely common childish insistence on getting
what he wants. That many be true, but it is just this common childish behavior that Piaget
is trying to explain-or at least to classify. The fact is that childish insistence is qualitatively
different from adult insistence.
In one of the above examples, the child’s so called “reasoning” led to a correct
conclusion; in the other, it did not. But in either case, the same plan was followed, namely:
A cause B, therefore
B cause A.
“Daddy’s shave requires hot water” is not different from
“Hot water requires Daddy’s shave.”
“A warm room makes possible the fetching of a dress” is not different from
“The fetching of the dress makes the room warm.”
Another, somewhat different, pattern that is also called “transductive reasoning”
concerns the child’s lack of a hierarchy of categories.
19
Play, Dreams and Imitation in Childhood, 1951, pp. 230-231
Ibid., pp. 230-231