Kathleen Stassen Berger

Part VI

Chapter Eighteen

Emerging Adulthood: Cognitive Development

Postformal Thought Morals and Religion Cognitive Growth and Higher

Education
Prepared by Madeleine Lacefield Tattoon, M.A.
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Cognitive Development in Emerging Adulthood

Cognitive development can be described as the
stage approach
evaluates whether a new stage or level is reached postformal stage of thinking and reasoning in adulthood

psychometric approach
analyzes intelligence by means of IQ tests and other measures

information-processing approach
studies how the brain encodes, stores, and retrieves information

Postformal Thought
The Practical and the Personal: A Fifth Stage?
Postformal thought
a proposed adult stage of cognitive development following Piagets fourth, a stage that goes beyond adolescent thinking by being more practical, more flexible, and more dialectical more capable of combing contradictory elements into a comprehensive whole

Postformal Thought
The Practical and the Personal: A Fifth Stage?
Really a Stage?
Piaget considered formal operations to be the final cognitive stage brain researchers report that the prefrontal cortex is finally developed by age 20 non-western cultures describe adult though as qualitatively different from adolescent thought
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Postformal Thought
The Practical and the Personal: A Fifth Stage?
Really a Stage?
in Hinduism a stage of social embeddedness (similar to problem finding) lasts through middle age, then a new stage appears at which people are expected to be less engaged in immediate social concerns

Postformal Thought
The Practical and the Personal: A Fifth Stage?
Really a Stage?
stages that are neurologically based do not appear in adulthood many scholars find a qualitative and quantitative change in cognitive functioning through the adult life span

may be a misnomer
a new cognitive level reached if adult life circumstances allow it adults think different than adolescents

Postformal Thought
The Fifth Stage
self-protectivehigh in self-involvement, low in self-doubt complexvaluing openness and independence above all dysregulatedfragmented, overwhelmed by emotions or problems integratedable to regulate emotions and logic
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Postformal Thought
Combining Subjective and Objective Thought
subjective thought
rises from the personal experiences and perceptions of an individual

objective thought
devalues subjective feelings, personal faith, and emotional experience while overvaluing objective, logical thinking
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Postformal Thought
Consolidating Emotions and Logic
complex problem solving is the crucial intellectual accomplishment of adulthood
combining affect (emotion) and logic (cognition)

Postformal Thought
Cognitive Flexibility
the ability
to be practical to predict to plan to combine objective and subjective mental processes

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Postformal Thought
Cognitive Flexibility
plans can go awry:
corporate restructuring failure of birth control parents illness

adults with cognitive flexibility avoid retreating into either emotions or intellect
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Postformal Thought
Working Together
cognitive flexibility
problem-solving talking through problems with others changing your mind once you made a mistake behavioral changes

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Postformal Thought
Working Together
cognitive flexibility
adults are more likely than children to imagine several solutions for every problem and then choose the best one research on problem-solving abilities concludes that emerging adults are better problem solvers than both adolescents and the oldest adults
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Postformal Thought
Countering Stereotypes
cognitive flexibility
to change ones childhood assumptions younger adults hold less gender-stereotyped views

stereotype threat
the possibility that ones appearance or behavior will be misread to confirm another persons oversimplified prejudiced attitudes
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Postformal Thought
Dialectical Thought
a most advanced cognitive process, characterized by the ability to consider a thesis and its antithesis simultaneously and thus to arrive at a synthesis makes possible an ongoing awareness of pros and cons, advantages and disadvantages, possibilities and limitations

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Postformal Thought
Dialectical Thought
thesis
a proposition or statement of belief; the first stage of the process of dialectical thinking

antithesis

a proposition or statement of belief that opposes the thesis; the second stage of the process of dialectical thinking
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Postformal Thought
Dialectical Thought
synthesis
a new idea that integrates the thesis and its antithesis, thus representing a new and more comprehensive level of truth; the third stage of the process of dialectical thinking

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Postformal Thought
A Broken Love Affair
nondialectical thinker
likely to believe that each person has stable, independent traits concludes that one partner is at fault a mistake from the beginning bad match

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Postformal Thought
A Broken Love Affair
dialectical thinkers:
see people and relationships as constantly evolving partners are changed by time as well as by their interaction

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Postformal Thought
Culture and Dialectics
researchers believe that background affects cognitive processes
Greek philosophy led Europeans to use analytic absolution logic
to take sides in a battle between right and wrong, good and evil

Confucianism and Taoism led the Chinese to seek compromise - Middle Way
to think holistically, the whole rather than the parts

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Postformal Thought
Culture and Dialectics
Respond to the following;
Mary, Phoebe, and Julie all have daughters. Each mother has held a set of values that has guided her efforts to raise her daughter. Now the daughters have grown up, and each of them is rejecting many of her mother's values. How did it happen and what should they do?

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Postformal Thought
Culture and Dialectics
Respond to the following;
Suppose you are the police officer in charge of a case involving a graduate student who murdered a professor As a police officer, you must establish motive.

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Postformal Thought
Culture and Dialectics
dialectical thought affects priorities and values researchers agree that notable differences in culture are the result of nature, not nurture cognitive differences have ecological, historical, and sociological origins"
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Morals and Religion

adult responsibilities, experiences, and education affect moral reasoning and religious beliefs. maturation of values appears first in emerging adulthood and continues through middle age.

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Morals and Religion

one stimulus for young adults in moral reasoning is college education
discussions of moral issues or required subtle ethical decisions (i.e., law and medicine)

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Morals and Religion

Which Era? What Place?
morals and culture
morals
affected by circumstance, including national background, culture, and era

culture
determines whether a particular practice is a moral issue

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Morals and Religion

Which Era? What Place?
the power of culture makes if difficult to assess whether adults morality changes with age moral thinking improves with age

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Morals and Religion

Dilemmas for Emerging Adults
sex sexuality reproduction relationships contraception abortion drugs education vocation

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Morals and Religion

Measuring Moral Growth
shifts were seen as young adults incorporated human social concernsyoung adults became dialectical, reaching a new level
(Kohlberg,Chapter 23Labouvie-Vief, 2006)

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Morals and Religion

Measuring Moral Growth
Defining Issues Test (DIT)
a series of questions developed by James Rest and designed to asses respondents level of moral development by having them rank possible solutions to moral dilemmas

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Morals and Religion

Stages of Faith James Fowler
Stage 1: Intuitive projective faith Stage 2: Mythic-literal faith Stage 3: Synthetic-conventional faith Stage 4: Individual-reflective faith Stage 5: Conjunctive faith Stage 6: Universalizing faith
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Morals and Religion

Stages of Faith James Fowler
faith progresses from a simple, selfcentered, one-sided perspective to a more complex, altruistic (unselfish) and many-sided view. faith is one way people combat stress, overcome adversity, and analyze challenges.

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Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

college graduates seem to be not only healthier and wealthier as well as deeper and more flexible thinkers. scientists view these conclusions with suspicion.

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Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

The Effects of College
students attend college
to secure better jobs, learn specific skills general education

college correlates with

better health less smoking better eating more exercise longer life
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Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

Changes in the College Context
the fact that colleges and universities are designed to foster cognitive growth does not necessarily mean that they succeed

Changes in the Student

students and social structures change over time

Changes in the Institutions

current colleges offer more career programs and hire more part-time faculty
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Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

Evaluating the Changes
what do todays students get out of attending college?
colleges no longer produce the great intellectual flexibility that earlier research found

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Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

Evaluating the Changes
Diversity and Enrollment
evidence on cognition suggests that interactions with people of different backgrounds and various views lead to intellectual challenges and deeper thought
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Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

Evaluating the Changes
Graduates and Dropouts
if postformal thinkingthe ability to cope with the complexities of personal emotions and logical decision making is the result of higher educationthen are the college students who dropout leaving before reaching this level of cognition?
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Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

Evaluating the Changes
Graduates and Dropouts
many young students lack the cultural knowledge or cognitive maturity to acquire the social know-how needed to navigate through college some adapt to complexities better as they proceed through college
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