Use of Negation to Justify Correct Judgments of Conservation by Boys

Abstract

Boys ( N = 70) in Grades 1 and 2 were preselected for verbal ability and given measures of conservation and negation. Of 59 boys who gave at least one logical justification on the conservation tasks, where the probing consisted of one question, only 5 boys used justifications of negation. Users of negation were matched with nonusers and retested using probing with as many as five questions. The users needed significantly fewer questions per task to elicit such justifications than nonusers and each was operational on the negation measure. Negation may be more relevant for the acquisition of conservation by users than by the majority of these children.