Passing the tests... mostly

My 4 year old brother, Alex, can be useful at times it seems especially when I need to perform psychological experiments. After discussing Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development, I was especially intrigued with the preoperational stage (2-6/7 years old) since I live with someone who is currently in this stage. I wondered if Alex would be able to pass three seemingly simple tests I saw children in this stage fail but that he should be able to accomplish before leaving the Preoperational Stage.

1. Theory of Mind
Theory of mind is the ability to understand what others see/are thinking. To test this, I set up a divider between us and put a crayon and a car on his side and a book on my side. I asked him what he saw and he obviously said, "a crayon and a car." Then we switched sides and when asked the same question, he correctly said he saw a book. Then I asked the million dollar question, "What do I see from where I'm sitting?" to which he responded, "a crayon and a car."
Theory of Mind test - pass

2. Is this Fair?
The next psychological experiment I gave to Alex was a fairness test. I told him we were going to share these three chips fairly. I gave him one and took two for myself. When I asked him if this was fair, he gave me a frown and whinily said, "No! You have two and I only have one." Then I proceeded to break his chip in half so we each had two pieces. He was quick to point out this was still not fair because he really only had one chip.
Fairness test - pass

3. Conservation
After he passed all three tests, I was feeling discouraged. He's a smart kid but what can I say, I wanted to fool him. I poured equal amounts of water into two short wide cups and asked if these had the same amount. He said yes. Then I poured one of the glasses of water into a taller skinnier glass. I asked which glass had more water or if they had the same amount. He pointed to the taller glass and said it had more water. When asked why, he said it was because the water level was higher.
Conservation test - fail

I was expecting him to fail all of the tests, so the results surprised me at first. After thinking about it for a while, the outcomes made more sense. He is 4 - almost 5 as he is quick to tell everyone - which puts him in the middle of this stage meaning he should be able to complete some of the behaviors. Actually performing the experiments made the milestones more clear to me because children obviously develop differently and achieve different things at different times within the same stage...And should I really get this much satifaction from tricking a four year old... if you knew Alex you would say yes!