■■ Are the ages that Piaget associated with each stage of development the same in all cultures? Studies have found surprising cultural variations in the ages at which children in different societies typically reach the third and fourth Piagetian stages. In some cases, the difference may be as much as five or six years. However, research also shows that children may have the potential to solve tasks sooner than their answers would indicate. For example, children in the concrete operations stage will typically give the first answer that comes to mind during a test. If children are from a culture in which they have had practice performing the task in question, this answer is likely to be correct.

However, children who have never thought about the concept before may well utter the wrong answer and only later realize the mistake. When researchers checked for this possibility by repeating tests a second time at the end of testing sessions, they found that many children corrected their previous answers on the second attempt (Dasen, Lavallee, & Retschitzki, 1979; Dasen, Ngini, &

Lavallee, 1979). Thus, it is important to remember that performance on a task may not reveal actual cognitive competence or ability.