To validate an explanation of observational learning of conservation in terms of a cognitive conflict between the nonconserver's and the conserving model's answers, five degrees of conflict were defined according to the activity interpolated between the experimenter's question and the model's answer. The five situations were as follows: the intervening activity was unrelated to conservation, no specific activity was suggested during observation, children were asked to answer either covertly or overtly the experimenter's question, and children were requested to speak their expectation of the model's answer. In the control situation observation was not interrupted. The adult model correctly performed a brief task on conservation of quantity. In all situations except the one involving the irrelevant task, substantial and comparable acquisition and generalization were obtained on immediate and 7-wk. delayed posttests. During observation subjects assigned to situations requiring overt answers rapidly adopted the conservation response. The validity of the concept of conflict was questioned, and generalization was attributed to the cognitive reorganization induced by covert or overt application of modeled conservation.

To establish whether data on the social learning of conservation are compatible with Piaget's position, it is important to determine if the observationally acquired conservation meets Piagetian generalization and stability criteria. During a single brief observation period, first-grade children observed the correct performance of an adult model on an easy quantity conservation task. Children were then submitted to a series of generalization tasks on immediate, 1-week, and 3-month delayed posttests. On the whole, the experimental group generalized conservation to several tasks. One category of children behaved as rote learners and maintained conservation only for tasks closely similar to the modeled task and on immediate and 1-week delayed posttests; a second group of genuine conservers progressively generalized the conservation rule to more difficult tasks. A control (no observation) group remained nonconserving throughout. Results were explained with reference to the Piagetian concept of sequential equilibration. The social experience of observation appeared to activate a cognitive restructuring of the children's mental operations.

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