A total of 136 children from 5 to 8 years of age were presented with standard conservation of length and liquid tasks as well as story versions of those tasks. Half of the children were read stories in which the views of two non-conservers came into conflict, and the other half were read "conflict free" stories. Although the length conflict story was found to be significantly easier than the lenght task, the nonconflict story was not. In addition, the length conflict story was significantly easier than the length nonconflict story for the younger children (5-6 year-olds). However no significant differences were found among the liquid conditions. The results suggest that, for length, children's conservation performance was benefitted by cognitive conflict rather than merely the narrative format of the story problem and that children's reasoning can be affected by mere exposure to "socio-cognitive conflict". These results lend support to the controversial claim that symmetrical incorrect conflict is sufficient for stimulating cognitive development. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

The purpose of this research project was to investigate the effects of a short-term teaching experiment on the learning of decimal numbers by primary students. The literature describes this area of mathematics as highly problematic for students. The content first covered student understanding of decimal symbols, and how this impacted upon their ability to order decimal numbers and carry out additive operations. It was then extended to cover the density of number property, and the application of multiplicative operations to situations involving decimals. In doing so, three areas of cognitive conflict were encountered by students, the belief that longer decimal numbers are larger than shorter ones (irrespective of the actual digits), that multiplication always makes numbers bigger, and that division always makes numbers smaller. The use of a microgenetic approach yielded data was able to be presented that provides details of the environment surrounding the moments where new learning was constructed. The characteristics of this environment include the use of physical artifacts and situational contexts involving measurement that precipitate student discussion and reflection. The methodology allowed for the collection of evidence regarding the highly complex nature of the learning, with evidence of 'folding back' to earlier schema and the co-existence of competing schema. The discussion presents reasons as to why the pedagogical approach that was employed facilitated learning. One of the main findings was that the use of challenging problems situated in measurement contexts that involved direct student participation promoted the extension and/or re-organization of student schema with regard to decimal numbers. The study has important implications for teachers at the upper primary level wanting to support student learning about the decimal numbers system.

ABSTRACT Trigged with the democratic movements, Taiwan¡¦s society had evolved in the past 15 years that citizen had more opportunities to participate in public policy decisions. As different objects, values and ideologies existing between stakeholders, conflict of the cognitive nature besides interests (i.e. difference in goals) becomes popular in many local development issues. How to analyze and aid such decision-makings then becomes an important public affairs management topic of study. The study uses the cable car issue in Kaohsiung as the task and local stakeholders like citizens, government officers, councils and environment protect group are interviewed and surveyed using the Social Judgment Theory (SJT) as the guiding methodology. Social judgment theory mainly plumbs the issue of ¡§understanding¡¨ which generated from the discrepancy between decision maker¡¦s subjective cognition and objective environment, and the issue of ¡§conflict¡¨ which resulted from the discrepancy of every decision maker¡¦s subjective cognition, as well as seeks for what causes the cognitive conflict in public policy decisions and explores the method to reduce the cognitive conflict. To survey the conflicts¡¦ degree in every decision maker and provide suggestions to government for consultation to draw up relative policies while facing similar controversial issue is what the study for. Key words¡Gcognitive conflict, public policy disputes, social judgment theory¡]SJT¡^

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Previous research has shown that there are several components involved in how we perceive pain, e.g. social and psychological factors such as expectations of pain. A cold pressor experiment was conducted to investigate the impact of negative/positive information on pain perception. We also investigated if a cognitive conflict created by disconfirming information of a pain expectation influences the pain experience. 106 participants (49 men and 57 women) got to hold their hand in 5°C water for 1 minute. The main outcome variable was self-reported pain during the cold pressor test. The results show that participants receiving negative information perceived more pain than the group receiving positive information. There was no significant difference in pain perception between those who were confirmed or disconfirmed in an expectation, nor was there a difference in cognitive conflict between the two groups. This is a first attempt to explore pain and cognitive conflict and can work as an inspiration for further investigation. / Tidigare forskning har visat att det är flera komponenter involverade i en smärtupplevelse, bland annat sociala och psykologiska faktorer så som förväntningar. Ett kallvattenexperiment utfördes för att undersöka positiv/negativ information och dess påverkan på upplevelsen av smärta. Vi undersökte även om smärta påverkas av en kognitiv konflikt skapad av en disconfirmation av en smärtförväntning. 106 deltagare (49 män och 57 kvinnor) fick hålla sin hand i 5°C vatten i en minut. Vårt mätinstrument var själv-rapporterad smärta vid kallvattentestet. Resultatet visade att deltagare som fick negativ information upplevde mer smärta än de som fick positiv information. Det fanns ingen signifikant skillnad mellan de som blev disconfirmed och confirmed i sin förväntan och inte heller någon skillnad mellan grupperna i upplevd kognitiv konflikt. Detta första försök att undersöka smärta och kognitiv konflikt kan bli till en inspiration för vidare undersökningar.

Shadow economy is affecting economic behavior of human beings in almost the same mode as mainstream economy, yet it is difficult to evaluate in same economic mode and it has heavy impact on the regulation of a government. Gaming is one of the most possible shadow economic activities. The regulation of government over gaming is in one way in paternalism, telling its subjects that gaming is not a good behavior and gambling is forbidden. But on the other way, in the name of social welfare, the government is playing as banker and make it public to promote. The conflict and contradiction are generated in different systems. Taking the overseas successful development of the gaming policy and studying and discussing the provisions governing the gaming and entertainment of tourist casinos, the government has gone through years of debates. Although it allows the off-shore areas to develop gaming industry, the gaming industry areas will be allowed to run only on condition that they pass the referendum. However, there are a lot of counties and cities in Taiwan also bent on gaining the benefit of gaming industry and actively striving to set up tourist casinos. Bound by the institution and the subjective values of different stakeholders, resulting in differences in cognition and leading to conflict, the government is still wavering between regulation and deregulation. This study combines th institutional analysis and development with the cross-border analysis of the public affairs management framework, exploring and analyzing the institution and condition of gaming governance. Besides, from the angle of cognition, take the regulation and deregulation of tourist casinos of Kaohsiung city to question a number of people as a variable, also to explore the government employees, policemen and city people of different interests, asking them what they think about the benefit and cost of different gaming policies, including their information, cognitive algebra confirmation and the social welfare standard of the system. Moreover, use three strategic decisions such as economic industry, social culture, and the facilities of environment as reference to explore the cognitive conflicts of different interest groups. The results of this study are as follows: I. Cognitive algebra confirmation. i. With regard to the regulated tourist casinos situation, the city government employees use equal-weight averaging model to integrate benefit and cost information in whole analysis, and with regard to the deregulated tourist casinos situation, they use different-weight averaging model to integrate information in whole analysis. ii. With regard to the regulated and deregulated tourist casinos situation, policemen use unequal right and weight average model to integrate benefit and cost information in whole analysis. iii. With regard to the regulated and deregulated tourist casinos situation, city people use equal right and weight average model to integrate information. iv. When city government employees compare the right and weight of the deregulated tourist casinos situation, the right and weight of benefit are greater than those of cost. v. When policemen compare the right and weight of the regulated and deregulated tourist casinos situation, the right and weight of benefit are greater than those of cost. II. Social welfare standard. i. With regard to the social welfare standard of the regulated tourist casinos situation, city people have the highestr social benefit standard, then city government employees, and policemen are the lowest. There are noticeable differences between policemen and city people. ii. With regard to the social welfare standard of the deregulated tourist casinos situation, policemen have the highest social welfare standard, then the city government employees, and city people are the lowest. However, there is little noticeable difference among the three groups. iii. With regard to the social welfare standard of the deregulated tourist casinos situation, the three groups have higher standard than that of the regulated one. III. Clarification of cognitive conflict. i. Three variables such as economic industry, social culture, and the facilities of environment are useful variables for exploring the effective strategic decisions of the regulated or deregulated tourist casinos situation ii. In the judgment in the regulated tourist casinos situation, the priority order of the relative right and weight of three variables such as economic industry, social culture, and the facilities of environment is as follows: with city government employees: the highest is social culture; then comes the economic industry, the lowest is the facilities of environment; with policemen, the highest is social culture, then economic industry, and the lowest is the facilities of environment; with city people, the highest is economic industry, then social culture, and the lowest is the facilities of environment. iii. In the judgment in the deregulated tourist casinos situation, the priority order of the relative right and weight of three variables such as economic industry, social culture and the facilities of environment is as follows: with city government employees , the highest is economic industry, then social culture, and the lowest is the facilities of environment: with policemen, the highest is social culture, then economic industry and the lowest is the facilities of environment: with city people, the highest is economic industry, then social culture, and the lowest is the facilities of environment. iv. Three variables as reference for strategic decisions such as economic industry, social culture, and the facilities of environment are all related to the acceptable judgment of the regulated or deregulated tourist casinos situation.

Conflict Management in Pluralistic Societies: Aspect of Judgment Analysis. Abstract Interpersonal Conflict in pluralistic societies has been analyzed into¡§Fact Conflict¡¨(mutual interference in beliefs) and¡§Value Conflict¡¨ (mutual interference in preferences ), The interpersonal conflict can be caused by purely cognitive factors, that¡¦s to say, the fact conflict and value conflict can be treated together under the general rubric of¡§Cognitive Conflict¡¨. The growing of locally environmental disputes concerning large scale publicdecision-makings, such as the cases of constructions of Fifth Naphtha Cracking Plant,Fourth Nuclear Power Plant, and Meinung Dam etc., have raised enormous socialcost in recent years. One of the main causes of above mentioned disputes is cognitiveconflict. Among various efforts against problem of cognitive conflict, The Social JudgmentTheory, SJT, and the Cognitive Conflict Paradigm, CCP, have been confirmed to beone of the effective approaches to settle the problem of cognitive conflict. Social Judgment Theory is a descriptive and normative approach to judgment and decision making developed by Kenneth Hammond (1965,1975,1996) on the basis of Lens Model. Social Judgment Theory has been applied to the analysis of multiple cue probability learning, interpersonal conflict, interpersonal learning, and social policy decisions. It has also produced the policy decision aid. Moreover, Social Judgment Theory emphasizes that the¡§Judgment¡¨is generally more effective (reaches a higher achievement level), and more efficient(reaches a given achievement level more quickly) by utilizing of cognitive feedback while making decision. Cognitive Conflict Paradigm is to provide a scenario to uncover information concerning cognitive conflict. It¡¦s an experimental laboratory method that involves two stages: (1)Training stage in which two subjects are trained in such a way that each learns to think differently about a common set of problems, and(2)Conflict stage in which the two subjects are brought together and attempt to arrive at a joint decisions concerning the problems. Through Cognitive Conflict Paradigm, the investigator can observe two persons offering conflicting answers, efforts to cope with differences and arrive at a joint decision, in fact, observe the effect of the experience on their cognitive change and the efforts to solve subsequent problems. In this study, a series of simulated decision making task about Meinung Dam construction and the Social Judgment Theory & Cognitive Conflict Paradigm have been employed and tested by way of a laboratory quasi-experiment. The research fingings of this study include: 1. Dual cognitive feedback is more effective than outcome feedback in regard to the improvement of individual decision quality. 2. Single cognitive feedback is more effective than outcome feedback in regard to the improvement of individual decision quality. 3. Single cognitive feedback is as insignificant as outcome feedback in regard to the improvement of joint decision quality. 4. Dual cognitive feedback is more effective than outcome feedback in regard to the elimination of cognitive conflict. 5. Single cognitive feedback is as insignificant as outcome feedback in regard to the elimination of cognitive conflict. 6. The most constructive result obtained in this study was that we had presented a conceptual framework, research paradigm, and conflict management procedure generated from the application of Social Judgment Theory & Cognitive Conflict Paradigm to analyze and solve the conflict problems in pluralistic societies. These framework, paradigm, and procedure should be useful to subsequent cognitive conflict researchers and practical public decision making. Keywords¡GPluralistic Societies, Judgment Analysis ,Lens Model, Social Judgment Theory, Cognitive Conflict Paradigm, Outcome Feedback, Cognitive Feedback.

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Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Education, 1999. / In opposition to the historically accepted view that Piaget failed to theorise the ‘social’ in his theory of cognitive development this research report shows that the ‘social’ is central to his genetic epistemology and that his conceptualisation of the ‘social’ has interesting implications for educational thinking. Specifically, the report shows that not only did Piaget include the social dimension in his genetic epistemology but that his understanding of the role of the ‘social’ in the development of cognition raises interesting possibilities for future psychological and educational research.

The aim of this study is to compare the effects of the instructions based on cognitive bridging and cognitive conflict approaches and gender on 9th grade students&lsquo / conceptual understanding of force and motion, self-efficacy, and epistemological beliefs. The study was conducted with a sample of 206 students in two different schools. The instructional method (traditional, cognitive conflict, and cognitive bridging) and students&lsquo / gender were used as independent variables in a 3x2 factorial design. Within this design, three treatment groups were constructed, one was control group with no researcher intervention and the other two were used as experimental groups. In one of the experimental groups, students received cognitive bridging instruction and students in the other group received cognitive conflict instruction. Pretests and posttests were administered to assess students&lsquo / conceptual understanding of force and motion, self-efficacy, and epistemological beliefs. Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) was used to explore the main effects of teaching methods and gender, and possible interactions between them. The results showed that teaching method had a significant effect on students&lsquo / conceptual understanding of force and motion in favor of experimental groups. Nevertheless, no significant difference was detected between the effects of cognitive conflict and cognitive bridging. There was no significant difference between male and female students either on the dependent variables of conceptual understandings of force and motion, self-efficacy, and epistemological beliefs. Finally, the present study couldn&lsquo / t capture any significant interaction between teaching method and gender on the combined dependent variables.