Lesson 3.1.3.2.3

3.1.3.2.3 Reduction of egocentricity and development of conservation Quiz: AQA Psychology, Unit 3

20 questions

Written by Revision Ninja · Last reviewed 11 October 2026

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Lesson 3.1.3.2.3, Reduction of egocentricity and development of conservation: 20 multiple choice questions for the AQA GCSE Psychology (8182), Unit 3: Development, written with Revision Ninja.

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The 20 questions

  1. What does egocentrism mean in Piaget's theory?

    • Believing that everyone thinks exactly the same way
    • Seeing the world from the viewpoint of a parent
    • Seeing the world only from one's own viewpoint
    • Having no interest in objects that are close by

  2. In a three mountains task, what would a pre-operational child typically describe when asked what a doll sees?

    • A view that combines every position at once
    • The view from the position the doll is sitting in
    • The view from their own position across the table
    • A view that is always the same from every angle

  3. Which term describes a child's ability to take another person's perspective?

    • Conservation
    • Centration
    • Egocentrism
    • Decentration

  4. Which concept describes the understanding that a quantity stays the same when its appearance changes?

    • Centration
    • Conservation
    • Egocentrism
    • Assimilation

  5. Which concept describes a child focusing on one feature of a situation and ignoring others?

    • Centration
    • Conservation
    • Reversibility
    • Decentration

  6. A child who understands that a row of counters still has the same number after being spread out has grasped which idea?

    • Reversibility of time
    • Egocentrism of number
    • Conservation of number
    • Centration of distance

  7. Which of these shows a reduction in egocentricity as a child grows?

    • A child describes only what they can personally see from their chair at the table
    • A child insists that a friend must see the picture exactly as they do from their own seat
    • A child begins to describe how a friend sees a picture from the friend's side of the table
    • A child refuses to consider any view except their own and says so to the friend

  8. Why does the development of conservation matter in Piaget's theory?

    • It proves that children never think logically about quantity
    • It shows that conservation is entirely learned from adults
    • It shows a move from logical reasoning back to perception-based thinking
    • It shows a move from perception-based thinking towards logical reasoning

  9. A 6-year-old says there is more liquid in a tall jar after it is poured from a short wide jar. What does this suggest?

    • The child is not yet conserving quantity and is focusing on height
    • The child is using formal operational reasoning to work out the volume from the jar shapes
    • The child is showing reversibility of thought by pouring the liquid back into the first jar
    • The child is conserving quantity perfectly and says the liquid is the same in both jars

  10. Which statement about conservation is most accurate?

    • It is present from birth and never develops any further with experience
    • It usually appears at different ages for number, liquid and mass
    • It appears only in adolescence after formal reasoning starts to develop
    • It appears at the same age for all kinds of quantity and material

  11. Which of these tasks would test conservation of mass?

    • Asking a child to name the colours of several blocks laid out on a table in a row, one at a time, from left to right
    • Asking a child to count a row of toy cars placed on the floor in a straight line and then say the total aloud
    • Showing a child two equal balls of clay, reshaping one into a long snake, and asking if they still weigh the same
    • Asking a child to describe a picture of a busy park from a different side of the table and say what they see

  12. Which Piagetian idea does a child show when they realise that a change in position does not change the number of items?

    • Conservation of number
    • Egocentrism, shown when a child only sees the row from their own side of the table
    • Symbolic play, shown when a child uses a block to stand in for a toy telephone
    • Assimilation, shown when a child fits a new toy into an existing category they know

  13. Which description best matches decentration?

    • Repeating a physical action over and over again to produce the same visible result
    • Taking several features of a situation into account at once
    • Seeing the world from one's own viewpoint only and not considering other viewpoints
    • Focusing on one feature of a situation and ignoring all of the others around it

  14. A child in the pre-operational stage fails to conserve liquid. Which two concepts most directly explain this?

    • Centration and egocentrism
    • Conservation and reversibility
    • Accommodation and assimilation
    • Decentration and formal reasoning

  15. Which reason helps explain why conservation develops in the concrete operational stage?

    • Children can now use reversibility to mentally undo a transformation
    • Children stop using any mental operations at this age and rely on memorised rules
    • Children have finished forming schemas for objects and no longer change them with age
    • Children can only judge quantity by how it looks and cannot reason beyond appearance

  16. Which statement is a sensible criticism of Piaget's conservation tasks?

    • Children may do better when the task is set in a familiar, meaningful context
    • Children never respond to changes in quantity at any age or in any setting
    • Children's answers show that conservation is impossible to test in any reliable way
    • Children always answer conservation tasks correctly regardless of the context used

  17. A 7-year-old realises that rolling clay back into a ball returns it to its original shape. Which idea is this?

    • Egocentrism
    • Reversibility
    • Centration
    • Object permanence

  18. Which best describes what happens to egocentrism over the course of childhood?

    • It disappears as soon as a child is old enough to speak in sentences
    • It gradually reduces as children learn to consider other viewpoints
    • It increases steadily from infancy through to adulthood and beyond
    • It stays the same throughout childhood and adolescence without much change

  19. Which everyday example shows a child using decentration?

    • A child considers both the height and width of a container before judging which holds more
    • A child judges a container only by its height and ignores its width when comparing two
    • A child insists a container holds the same as before the liquid was poured out of it
    • A child refuses to compare two containers at all and says it is impossible to tell which

  20. Which claim about conservation is best supported by Piaget's stage theory?

    • Children gain conservation only after adolescence when they reach the formal operational stage fully
    • Children never gain conservation because it is innate and cannot be learned through any experience
    • Children gain conservation through the sensorimotor stage in the first months before birth and infancy
    • Children gain conservation through the concrete operational stage rather than the pre-operational stage

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