Extinction of conservation and transitivity of weight

Abstract

This study attempted to determine whether children will relinquish their belief in Piagetian concepts upon presentation of disconfirming evidence. Two age groups were tested: third- and fourth-grade, and sixth-grade. Conservation of weight and transitivity of weight were the concepts examined; the discrepant feedback consisted of three trials with either non-conservation or nontransitivity outcomes. Resistance or extinction was inferred from the subject's explanations for the outcomes, his responses on subsequent trials, and his performance on a one-month delayed posttest. Conservation subjects showed only moderate resistance by any of these measures; furthermore, there was no evidence of a developmental increase in resistance. Transitivity subjects, in contrast, were much less likely than conservers to change their judgments on either the initial or the delayed test; they also showed the expected developmental increase in resistance to extinction. The results are interpreted as indicating that Piagetian concepts may vary in the extent to which they entail feelings of logical necessity.