intellectual development in adolescence problem solving

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Cognitive Development in the Teen Years

What is cognitive development.

Cognitive development means the growth of a child’s ability to think and reason. This growth happens differently from ages 6 to 12, and from ages 12 to 18.

Children ages 6 to 12 years old develop the ability to think in concrete ways. These are called concrete operations. These things are called concrete because they’re done around objects and events. This includes knowing how to:

Combine (add)

Separate (subtract or divide)

Order (alphabetize and sort)

Transform objects and actions (change things, such as 5 pennies = 1 nickel)

Ages 12 to 18 is called adolescence. Kids and teens in this age group do more complex thinking. This type of thinking is also known as formal logical operations. This includes the ability to:

Do abstract thinking. This means thinking about possibilities.

Reason from known principles. This means forming own new ideas or questions.

Consider many points of view. This means to compare or debate ideas or opinions.

Think about the process of thinking. This means being aware of the act of thought processes.

How cognitive growth happens during the teen years

From ages 12 to 18, children grow in the way they think. They move from concrete thinking to formal logical operations. It’s important to note that:

Each child moves ahead at their own rate in their ability to think in more complex ways.

Each child develops their own view of the world.

Some children may be able to use logical operations in schoolwork long before they can use them for personal problems.

When emotional issues come up, they can cause problems with a child’s ability to think in complex ways.

The ability to consider possibilities and facts may affect decision-making. This can happen in either positive or negative ways.

Types of cognitive growth through the years

A child in early adolescence:

Uses more complex thinking focused on personal decision-making in school and at home

Begins to show use of formal logical operations in schoolwork

Begins to question authority and society's standards

Begins to form and speak his or her own thoughts and views on many topics. You may hear your child talk about which sports or groups he or she prefers, what kinds of personal appearance is attractive, and what parental rules should be changed.

A child in middle adolescence:

Has some experience in using more complex thinking processes

Expands thinking to include more philosophical and futuristic concerns

Often questions more extensively

Often analyzes more extensively

Thinks about and begins to form his or her own code of ethics (for example, What do I think is right?)

Thinks about different possibilities and begins to develop own identity (for example, Who am I? )

Thinks about and begins to systematically consider possible future goals (for example, What do I want? )

Thinks about and begins to make his or her own plans

Begins to think long-term

Uses systematic thinking and begins to influence relationships with others

A child in late adolescence:

Uses complex thinking to focus on less self-centered concepts and personal decision-making

Has increased thoughts about more global concepts, such as justice, history, politics, and patriotism

Often develops idealistic views on specific topics or concerns

May debate and develop intolerance of opposing views

Begins to focus thinking on making career decisions

Begins to focus thinking on their emerging role in adult society

How you can encourage healthy cognitive growth

To help encourage positive and healthy cognitive growth in your teen, you can:

Include him or her in discussions about a variety of topics, issues, and current events.

Encourage your child to share ideas and thoughts with you.

Encourage your teen to think independently and develop his or her own ideas.

Help your child in setting goals.

Challenge him or her to think about possibilities for the future.

Compliment and praise your teen for well-thought-out decisions.

Help him or her in re-evaluating poorly made decisions.

If you have concerns about your child's cognitive development, talk with your child's healthcare provider.

10.4 Cognition in Adolescence and Adulthood

Learning objectives.

Describe adolescent egocentrism.
Describe the limitations of adolescent thinking.
Describe how differences between cross-sectional, longitudinal, and sequential research designed have contributed to our understanding of the development of intelligence in middle adulthood.
Define crystallized and fluid intelligence.
Explain how intelligence changes with age.

Cognition in Adolescence

three adolescent boys look at a note together

Adolescence is a time of rapid cognitive development. Biological changes in brain structure and connectivity in the brain interact with increased experience, knowledge, and changing social demands to produce rapid cognitive growth. These changes generally begin at puberty or shortly thereafter, and some skills continue to develop as an adolescent ages. Development of executive functions, or cognitive skills that enable the control and coordination of thoughts and behavior, are generally associated with the prefrontal cortex area of the brain. The thoughts, ideas, and concepts developed at this period of life greatly influence one’s future life and play a major role in character and personality formation.

Improvements in basic thinking abilities generally occur in several areas during adolescence:

Attention . Improvements are seen in selective attention (the process by which one focuses on one stimulus while tuning out another), as well as divided attention (the ability to pay attention to two or more stimuli at the same time).
Memory . Improvements are seen in working memory and long-term memory.
Processing speed. Adolescents think more quickly than children. Processing speed improves sharply between age five and middle adolescence, levels off around age 15, and then remains largely the same between late adolescence and adulthood.

Adolescent Egocentrism

Adolescents’ newfound meta-cognitive abilities also have an impact on their social cognition, as it results in increased introspection, self-consciousness, and intellectualization. Adolescents are much better able to understand that people do not have complete control over their mental activity. Being able to introspect may lead to forms of egocentrism, or self-focus, in adolescence. Adolescent egocentrism is a term that David Elkind used to describe the phenomenon of adolescents’ inability to distinguish between their perception of what others think about them and what people actually think in reality . Elkind’s theory on adolescent egocentrism is drawn from Piaget’s theory on cognitive developmental stages, which argues that formal operations enable adolescents to construct imaginary situations and abstract thinking.

Accordingly, adolescents are able to conceptualize their own thoughts and conceive of other people’s thoughts. However, Elkind pointed out that adolescents tend to focus mostly on their own perceptions, especially on their behaviors and appearance, because of the “physiological metamorphosis” they experience during this period. This leads to adolescents’ belief that other people are as attentive to their behaviors and appearance as they are themselves (Elkind, 1967; Schwartz et al.., 2008). According to Elkind, adolescent egocentrism results in two distinct problems in thinking: the imaginary audience and the personal fable. These likely peak at age fifteen, along with self-consciousness in general.

Imaginary audience is a term that Elkind used to describe the phenomenon that an adolescent anticipates the reactions of other people to him/herself in actual or impending social situations . Elkind argued that this kind of anticipation could be explained by the adolescent’s conviction that others are as admiring or as critical of them as they are of themselves. As a result, an audience is created, as the adolescent believes that he or she will be the focus of attention. However, more often than not the audience is imaginary because in actual social situations individuals are not usually the sole focus of public attention. Elkind believed that the construction of imaginary audiences would partially account for a wide variety of typical adolescent behaviors and experiences; and imaginary audiences played a role in the self-consciousness that emerges in early adolescence. However, since the audience is usually the adolescent’s own construction, it is privy to his or her own knowledge of him/herself. According to Elkind, the notion of imaginary audience helps to explain why adolescents usually seek privacy and feel reluctant to reveal themselves–it is a reaction to the feeling that one is always on stage and constantly under the critical scrutiny of others.

A smartphone is held over a steering wheel

Elkind also suggested that adolescents have another complex set of beliefs: They are convinced that their own feelings are unique and they are special and immortal. Personal fable is the term Elkind used to describe this notion, which is the complement of the construction of an imaginary audience. Since an adolescent usually fails to differentiate their own perceptions and those of others, they tend to believe that they are of importance to so many people (the imaginary audiences) that they come to regard their feelings as something special and unique. They may feel that they are the only ones who have experienced strong and diverse emotions, and therefore others could never understand how they feel. This uniqueness in one’s emotional experiences reinforces the adolescent’s belief of invincibility, especially to death.

This adolescent belief in personal uniqueness and invincibility becomes an illusion that they can be above some of the rules, constraints, and laws that apply to other people; even consequences such as death (called the invincibility fable ). This belief that one is invincible removes any impulse to control one’s behavior (Lin, 2016). Therefore, some adolescents will engage in risky behaviors, such as drinking and driving or unprotected sex, and feel they will not suffer any negative consequences.

Intuitive and Analytic Thinking

Piaget emphasized the sequence of cognitive developments that unfold in four stages. Others suggest that thinking does not develop in sequence, but instead, that advanced logic in adolescence may be influenced by intuition. Cognitive psychologists often refer to intuitive and analytic thought as the dual-process model ; the notion that humans have two distinct networks for processing information (Kuhn, 2013.)

Intuitive thought is automatic, unconscious, and fast, and it is more experiential and emotional . In contrast , analytic thought is d eliberate, conscious, and rational (logical) . Although these systems interact, they are distinguishable (Kuhn, 2013). Intuitive thought is easier, quicker, and more commonly used in everyday life. The discrepancy between the maturation of the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex, as discussed previously, may make teens more prone to emotional intuitive thinking than adults.

As adolescents develop, they gain in logic/analytic thinking ability but may sometimes regress, with social context, education, and experiences becoming major influences. Simply put, being “smarter” as measured by an intelligence test does not advance or anchor cognition as much as having more experience, in school and in life (Klaczynski & Felmban, 2014).

Risk-taking

Because most injuries sustained by adolescents are related to risky behavior (alcohol consumption and drug use, reckless or distracted driving, and unprotected sex), a great deal of research has been conducted to examine the cognitive and emotional processes underlying adolescent risk-taking. In addressing this issue, it is important to distinguish three facets of these questions: (1) whether adolescents are more likely to engage in risky behaviors (prevalence), (2) whether they make risk-related decisions similarly or differently than adults (cognitive processing perspective), or (3) whether they use the same processes but weigh facets differently and thus arrive at different conclusions. Behavioral decision-making theory proposes that adolescents and adults both weigh the potential rewards and consequences of an action. However, research has shown that adolescents seem to give more weight to rewards, particularly social rewards, than do adults. Adolescents value social warmth and friendship, and their hormones and brains are more attuned to those values than to a consideration of long-term consequences (Crone & Dahl, 2012).

Some have argued that there may be evolutionary benefits to an increased propensity for risk-taking in adolescence. For example, without a willingness to take risks, teenagers would not have the motivation or confidence necessary to leave their family of origin. In addition, from a population perspective, is an advantage to having a group of individuals willing to take more risks and try new methods, counterbalancing the more conservative elements typical of the received knowledge held by older adults.

Cognitive Development in Early Adulthood

Emerging adulthood brings with it the consolidation of formal operational thought, and the continued integration of the parts of the brain that serve emotion, social processes, and planning and problem solving. As a result, rash decisions and risky behavior decrease rapidly across early adulthood. Increases in epistemic cognition are also seen, as young adults’ meta-cognition, or thinking about thinking, continues to grow, especially young adults who continue with their schooling.

Perry’s Scheme

One of the first theories of cognitive development in early adulthood originated with William Perry (1970), who studied undergraduate students at Harvard University. Perry noted that over the course of students’ college years, cognition tended to shift from dualism (absolute, black and white, right and wrong type of thinking) to multiplicity (recognizing that some problems are solvable and some answers are not yet known) to relativism (understanding the importance of the specific context of knowledge—it’s all relative to other factors). Similar to Piaget’s formal operational thinking in adolescence, this change in thinking in early adulthood is affected by educational experiences.

Table 9.2 Stages of Perry’s Scheme

adapted from Lifespan Development by Lumen Learning

Some researchers argue that a qualitative shift in cognitive development takes place for some emerging adults during their mid to late twenties. As evidence, they point to studies documenting continued integration and focalization of brain functioning, and studies suggesting that this developmental period often represents a turning point, when young adults engaging in risky behaviors (e.g., gang involvement, substance abuse) or an unfocused lifestyle (e.g., drifting from job to job or relationship to relationship) seem to “wake up” and take ownership for their own development. It is a common point for young adults to make decisions about completing or returning to school, and making and following through on decisions about vocation, relationships, living arrangements, and lifestyle. Many young adults can actually remember these turning points as a moment when they could suddenly “see” where they were headed (i.e., the likely outcomes of their risky behaviors or apathy) and actively decided to take a more self-determined pathway.

Cognition in Middle Adulthood

The brain at midlife has been shown to not only maintain many of the abilities of young adults, but also gain new ones. Some individuals in middle age actually have improved cognitive functioning (Phillips, 2011). The brain continues to demonstrate plasticity and rewires itself in middle age based on experiences. Research has demonstrated that older adults use more of their brains than younger adults. In fact, older adults who perform the best on tasks are more likely to demonstrate bilateralization than those who perform worst. Additionally, the amount of white matter in the brain, which is responsible for forming connections among neurons, increases into the 50s before it declines.

Emotionally, the middle-aged brain is calmer, less neurotic, more capable of managing emotions, and better able to negotiate social situations (Phillips, 2011). Older adults tend to focus more on positive information and less on negative information than do younger adults. In fact, they also remember positive images better than those younger. Additionally, the older adult’s amygdala responds less to negative stimuli. Lastly, adults in middle adulthood make better financial decisions, a capacity which seems to peak at age 53, and show better economic understanding. Although greater cognitive variability occurs among middle aged adults when compared to those both younger and older, those in midlife who experience cognitive improvements tend to be more physically, cognitively, and socially active.

Crystalized versus Fluid Intelligence

Intelligence is influenced by heredity, culture, social contexts, personal choices, and certainly age. One distinction in specific intelligences noted in adulthood, is between fluid intelligence , which refers to the capacity to learn new ways of solving problems and performing activities quickly and abstractly , and crystallized intelligence , which refers to the accumulated knowledge of the world we have acquired throughout our lives (Salthouse, 2004). These intelligences are distinct, and show different developmental pathways as pictured in Figure 10.22. Fluid intelligence tends to decrease with age (staring in the late 20s to early 30s), whereas crystallized intelligence generally increases all across adulthood (Horn et al., 1981; Salthouse, 2004).

Fluid intelligence, sometimes called the mechanics of intelligence, tends to rely on perceptual speed of processing, and perceptual speed is one of the primary capacities that shows age-graded declines starting in early adulthood, as seen not only in cognitive tasks but also in athletic performance and other tasks that require speed. In contrast, research demonstrates that crystallized intelligence, also called the pragmatics of intelligence, continues to grow all during adulthood, as older adults acquire additional semantic knowledge, vocabulary, and language. As a result, adults generally outperform younger people on tasks where this information is useful, such as measures of history, geography, and even on crossword puzzles (Salthouse, 2004). It is this superior knowledge, combined with a slower and more complete processing style, along with a more sophisticated understanding of the workings of the world around them, that gives older adults the advantage of “wisdom” over the advantages of fluid intelligence which favor the young (Baltes et al., 1999; Scheibe et al., 2009).

Fluid and Crystalized Intelligence across the lifespan

These differential changes in crystallized versus fluid intelligence help explain why older adults do not necessarily show poorer performance on tasks that also require experience (i.e., crystallized intelligence), although they show poorer memory overall. A young chess player may think more quickly, for instance, but a more experienced chess player has more knowledge to draw upon.

Seattle Longitudinal Study

The Seattle Longitudinal Study has tracked the cognitive abilities of adults since 1956. Every seven years the current participants are evaluated, and new individuals are also added. Approximately 6000 people have participated thus far, and 26 people from the original group are still in the study today. Current results demonstrate that middle-aged adults perform better on four out of six cognitive tasks than those same individuals did when they were young adults. Verbal memory, spatial skills, inductive reasoning (generalizing from particular examples), and vocabulary increase with age until one’s 70s (Schaie, 2005; Willis & Shaie, 1999). In contrast, perceptual speed declines starting in early adulthood, and numerical computation shows declines starting in middle and late adulthood (see Figure 10.23).

Cognitive skills in the aging brain have been studied extensively in pilots, and similar to the Seattle Longitudinal Study results, older pilots show declines in processing speed and memory capacity, but their overall performance seems to remain intact. According to Phillips (2011) researchers tested pilots age 40 to 69 as they performed on flight simulators. Older pilots took longer to learn to use the simulators but subsequently performed better than younger pilots at avoiding collisions.

Tacit knowledge is knowledge that is pragmatic or practical and learned through experience rather than explicitly taught, and it also increases with age (Hedlund et al., 2002). Tacit knowledge might be thought of as “know-how” or “professional instinct.” It is referred to as tacit because it cannot be codified or written down. It does not involve academic knowledge, rather it involves being able to use skills and to problem-solve in practical ways. Tacit knowledge can be seen clearly in the workplace and underlies the steady improvements in job performance documented across age and experience, as seen for example, in the performance of both white and blue collar workers, such as carpenters, chefs, and hair dressers.

Cognition in Late Adulthood

Changes in sensory functioning and speed of processing information in late adulthood often translate into changes in attention (Jefferies et al., 2015). Research has shown that older adults are less able to selectively focus on information while ignoring distractors (Jefferies et al., 2015; Wascher et al., 2012), although Jefferies and her colleagues found that when given double time, older adults could perform at the same level as young adults. Other studies have also found that older adults have greater difficulty shifting their attention between objects or locations (Tales et al., 2002).

Consider the implication of these attentional changes for older adults. How does maintenance or loss of cognitive ability affect older adults’ everyday lives? Researchers have studied cognition in the context of several different everyday activities. One example is driving. Although older adults often have more years of driving experience, cognitive declines related to reaction time or attentional processes may pose limitations under certain circumstances (Park & Gutchess, 2000). In contrast, research on interpersonal problem solving suggests that older adults use more effective strategies than younger adults to navigate through social and emotional problems (Blanchard-Fields, 2007). In the context of work, researchers rarely find that older individuals perform more poorly on the job (Park & Gutchess, 2000). Similar to everyday problem solving, older workers may develop more efficient strategies and rely on expertise to compensate for cognitive declines.

Problem Solving

Declines with age are found on problem-solving tasks that require processing non-meaningful information quickly– a kind of task that might be part of a laboratory experiment on mental processes. However, many real-life challenges facing older adults do not rely on speed of processing or making choices on one’s own. Older adults resolve everyday problems by relying on input from others, such as family and friends. They are also less likely than younger adults to delay making decisions on important matters, such as medical care (Strough et al., 2003; Meegan & Berg, 2002).

What might explain these deficits as we age?

The processing speed theory , proposed by Salthouse (1996, 2004), suggests that as the nervous system slows with advanced age our ability to process information declines . This slowing of processing speed may explain age differences on a variety of cognitive tasks. For instance, as we age, working memory becomes less efficient (Craik & Bialystok, 2006). Older adults also need longer time to complete mental tasks or make decisions. Yet, when given sufficient time (to compensate for declines in speed), older adults perform as competently as do young adults (Salthouse, 1996). Thus, when speed is not imperative to the task, healthy older adults generally do not show cognitive declines.

In contrast, inhibition theory argues that older adults have difficulty with tasks that require inhibitory functioning, or the ability to focus on certain information while suppressing attention to less pertinent information (Hasher & Zacks, 1988). Evidence comes from directed forgetting research. In directed forgetting people are asked to forget or ignore some information, but not other information. For example, you might be asked to memorize a list of words but are then told that the researcher made a mistake and gave you the wrong list and asks you to “forget” this list. You are then given a second list to memorize. While most people do well at forgetting the first list, older adults are more likely to recall more words from the “directed-to-forget” list than are younger adults (Andrés et al., 2004).

Aging stereotypes exaggerate cognitive losses

While there are information processing losses in late adulthood, many argue that research exaggerates normative losses in cognitive functioning during old age (Garrett, 2015). One explanation is that the type of tasks that people are tested on tend to be meaningless. For example, older individuals are not motivated to remember a random list of words in a study, but they are motivated for more meaningful material related to their life, and consequently perform better on those tests. Another reason is that researchers often estimate age declines from age differences found in cross-sectional studies. However, when age comparisons are conducted longitudinally (thus removing cohort differences from age comparisons), the extent of loss is much smaller (Schaie, 1994).

A third possibility is that losses may be due to the disuse of various skills. When older adults are given structured opportunities to practice skills, they perform as well as they had previously. Although diminished speed is especially noteworthy during late adulthood, Schaie (1994) found that when the effects of speed are statistically removed, fewer and smaller declines are found in other aspects of an individual’s cognitive performance. In fact, Salthouse and Babcock (1991) demonstrated that processing speed accounted for all but 1% of age-related differences in working memory when testing individuals from ages 18 to 82. Finally, it is well established that hearing and vision decline as we age. Longitudinal research has found that deficits in sensory functioning explain age differences in a variety of cognitive abilities (Baltes & Lindenberger, 1997). Not surprisingly, more years of education, higher income, and better health care (which go together) are associated with higher levels of cognitive performance and slower cognitive decline (Zahodne et al., 2015).

Watch this video from SciShow Psych to learn about ways to keep the mind young and active.

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Intelligence and Wisdom

When looking at scores on traditional intelligence tests, tasks measuring verbal skills show minimal or no age-related declines, while scores on performance tests, which measure solving problems quickly, decline with age (Botwinick, 1984). This profile mirrors crystalized and fluid intelligence. Baltes (1993) introduced two additional types of intelligence to reflect cognitive changes in aging. Pragmatics of intelligence are cultural exposure to facts and procedures that are maintained as one ages and are similar to crystalized intelligence. Mechanics of intelligence are dependent on brain functioning and decline with age, similar to fluid intelligence. Baltes indicated that pragmatics of intelligence show little decline and typically increase with age whereas mechanics decline steadily, staring at a relatively young age. Additionally, pragmatics of intelligence may compensate for the declines that occur with mechanics of intelligence. In summary, global cognitive declines are not typical as one ages, and individuals typically compensate for some cognitive declines, especially processing speed.

Wisdom has been defined as “ expert knowledge in the fundamental pragmatics of life that permits exceptional insight, judgment and advice about complex and uncertain matters” ( Baltes & Smith, 1990). A wise person is insightful and has knowledge that can be used to overcome obstacles in living. Does aging bring wisdom? While living longer brings experience, it does not always bring wisdom. Paul Baltes and his colleagues (Baltes & Kunzmann, 2004; Baltes & Staudinger, 2000) suggest that wisdom is rare. In addition, the emergence of wisdom can be seen in late adolescence and young adulthood, with there being few gains in wisdom over the course of adulthood (Staudinger & Gluck, 2011). This would suggest that factors other than age are stronger determinants of wisdom. Occupations and experiences that emphasize others rather than self, along with personality characteristics, such as openness to experience and generativity, are more likely to provide the building blocks of wisdom (Baltes & Kunzmann, 2004). Age combined with a certain types of experience and/or personality brings wisdom.

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13.3 Cognitive Development in Adolescence

Cognitive skills continue to expand in adolescence, while each child develops at their own rate, including their ability to think abstractly and in increasingly complex ways.

Adolescents will develop their own worldview, influencing their thinking and metacognition. We know that adolescents are in the formal operational stage of cognitive development. During adolescence, teenagers move beyond concrete thinking and become capable of abstract thought. Teen thinking is also characterized by the ability to consider multiple points of view, imagine hypothetical situations, debate ideas and opinions, and form new ideas. In addition, it’s not uncommon for adolescents to question authority or challenge established societal norms. The following section will further explore the expanding cognitive processes related to adolescence including executive functioning, attention, and how environmental stressors can impact cognitive processing.

Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model provides further context for developing cognitive processes as a child’s microsystem further expands during this period as they begin to plan and make strides toward adulthood. Adolescents may begin driving, working, registering to vote, getting involved with social or political concerns, enlisting in the military, or planning for college or vocational school. Additionally, a teen’s microsystem begins shifting away from their immediate family as peers and romantic interests play a larger role in their lives.

13.3.1 Executive Functioning

Executive functions like attention, increases in working memory, and cognitive flexibility have been steadily improving since early childhood. Studies have found that executive function is very competent in adolescence. However, self-regulation, or the ability to control impulses, may still fail. A failure in self-regulation is especially true when there is high stress or high demand on mental functions (Luciano & Collins, 2012). While high stress or demand may tax even an adult’s self-regulatory abilities, neurological changes in the adolescent brain may make teens particularly prone to more risky decision-making under these conditions. Improvements in basic thinking abilities generally occur in five areas during adolescence: attention, memory, processing speed, organization, and metacognition.

Attention: improvements in both selective attention and divided attention.
Memory: improvements in working memory and long-term memory.
Processing speed : improves sharply between age 5 and middle adolescence, levels off around age 15, and does not appear to change between late adolescence and adulthood.
Organization: improved awareness of their thought processes and use of mnemonic devices and other strategies to think and remember information more efficiently.
Metacognition: improved ability to think about thinking itself, including the ability to plan ahead, see the future consequences of an action, and provide alternative explanations of events.

13.3.1.1 Activity: Information Processing Model

In previous chapters, the information processing model was discussed. Memory will continue developing as well as the skills to acquire new information. Here is a video to review how information is processed, types of memory, and how this relates to cognitive development during this period of development.

Figure 13.7. Information processing model: Sensory, working, and long term memory | MCAT | Khan Academy [YouTube Video] .

13.3.1.2 Metacognition

Thinking about thinking is referred to as metacognition. Adolescents become more reflective and can understand complex relationships between ideas and people. Metacognition abilities vary among adolescents and adults based on the capacity to evaluate situations objectively. Adolescents are better able to understand that people do not have complete control over their mental activity. The ability to be introspective may lead to forms of egocentrism, or self-focus.

Neuroimaging shows that different areas of the brain are responsible for cognitive processing and emotional processing (Brock et al., 2009). Cognitive processes are called “cool EF” (Zelazo & Carlson, 2012). Examples of cool EF are executive functions like attention, metacognition, problem-solving, and working memory. Emotional processes are called “hot EF” (Zelazo & Carlson, 2012). Hot EF relates to self-control, self-regulation, impulsivity, perspective-taking, and engagement in inappropriate versus appropriate behavior (Bjorklund & Causey, 2018).

Biological and behavioral development support the notion that the hot and cool EF trajectories are different. Frontal cortex development and myelination continue through adolescence (Bjorklund & Causey, 2018, p. 262). Neural pathways and brain areas associated with emotion regulation develop later than other systems, supporting the idea that the cool EF system comes on board before the hot EF system (Bjorklund & Causey, 2018, p. 262; Brock et al., 2009). One study found that when they switched the construct from a “hot” representation (emotionally charger) to a “cooler” representation (more neutral), it was much easier for the children to engage with and be successful at the task (Zelazo & Carlson, 2012). These findings suggest that having to operate from the hot system places greater demands on the child. It is a more difficult system to utilize and it takes longer to develop (Zelazo & Carlson, 2012). Having an awareness of children’s hot and cool EF systems is important for understanding how best to interact with them, both personally or professionally, such as in an educational setting.

While metacognition is still developing throughout adolescence, it typically peaks just after late adolescence, making it a useful strategy for learning in and out of school ( Hitomi dos Santos Kawata et al., 2021 ). Out of the classroom in everyday decision-making, metacognition allows adolescents to discern information as helpful or misleading ( Moses-Payne et al., 2021 ). In the classroom metacognition assists in learning. Practices in the classroom can help students achieve agency over their learning and allows students to transfer learned information across varying contexts. Classroom practices to support metacognition include:

Clear learning goals.
Motivational strategies for deferred gratification.
Scaffolding or progression in instruction.
Model the use of metacognitive strategies (e.g., think aloud).
Reciprocal teaching.
Encourage reflection and evaluation.

13.3.1.3 Pruning

Adolescence is one of the few times that the brain is rapidly producing a large number of brain cells, more than it needs, in fact. While these extra brain cells provide extra storage for information, they also can decrease efficiency ( U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2018 ). To become more efficient, the brain continues to form new neural connections and becomes faster through pruning. The process of pruning rids the brains of unused neurons and connections, and produces myelin, the fatty tissue that forms around axons and neurons, which helps speed transmissions between different regions of the brain (Blakemore, 2008; Rapoport et al., 1999). This video describes more about “brain remodeling” and how pruning assists in executive function and efficiency in cognitive development: “ Shannon Odell: What’s the smartest age? | TED Talk .”

13.3.1.4 Activity: Excessive Pruning and Mental Health

Emerging research suggests that there may be connections to excessive pruning that happens in adolescence and mental health conditions such as schizophrenia. Dr. Steve McCarroll’s team at Harvard are exploring the specialization of cell types related to schizophrenia and pruning. “ Steve McCarroll: How data is helping us unravel the mysteries of the brain | TED Talk .”

How is excessive pruning related to cognitive diseases such as schizophrenia as mentioned in the video above? This article explores the C4 protein and environmental factors that can further lead to excessive pruning related to schizophrenia.

https://journals.lww.com/co-psychiatry/fulltext/2021/05000/abnormal_synaptic_pruning_during_adolescence.6.aspx

What are some of the interdisciplinary approaches that allow this type of innovation to occur?

13.3.2 Critical Thinking

Critical thinking is the act of analyzing information presented as facts, evidence, or arguments and being able to make a decision. Critical thinking requires an individual to assess the reliability and validity of information, evaluating the ideas and arguments. Critical thinkers ask key questions, evaluate the evidence, use logical and objective reasoning to problem-solve, synthesize the information so that they can communicate their ideas clearly. Critical thinking skills are applicable in many aspects of an adolescents life, from school, social interactions, and work.

Critical thinking requires the ability to express oneself in spoken and written communication, both of which adolescents have the opportunity to develop and demonstrate in school. It is in adolescence that critical thinking and the cognitive skills associated, such as metacognition, are expected both in school and out. For example, in school adolescents must be able to communicate synthesized information in written assignments. To do this students must be able to evaluate sources and information accessed online. The strategies for thinking about thinking (metacognition) in the evaluation process, will define the quality of the outcome.

Critical thinking is not fully established in adolescence and is something to be practiced. Guided learning provided in school allows students to acquire the experience needed to build their knowledge, including their knowledge of how they learn and their evaluation of their learning. These two defining qualities of metacognition are part of critical thinking as well. In fostering critical thinking, through discussions and written assignments, teachers can foster a student’s ability to understand information in a deeper context by being able to reflect and construct or control their own ideas rather than being controlled by information passively. For students who may face barriers in written or expressive language, accommodations can be made to support the development of critical thinking by utilizing resources the student may already be accessing such as speech or occupational therapy.

13.3.2.1 Relativistic Thinking

Beyond critical thinking, adolescents are also more likely to engage in relativistic thinking, which is the ability to acknowledge that some truths are context dependent. They are more likely to question others’ assertions and less likely to accept information as absolute truth. As they interact more with people outside their family circle, they learn that family rules they believed to be absolute are actually dependent on family and culture. They begin to differentiate between rules crafted from common sense, like don’t touch a hot stove, and those that are based on culturally dependent standards, like a family’s codes of etiquette. This acknowledgement of multiple truths or context dependent norms can lead to the questioning of authority in all domains.

13.3.2.2 Intuitive and Analytic Thinking

Cognitive psychologists often refer to intuitive and analytic thought as the Dual-Process Model; the notion that humans have two distinct networks for processing information (Albert & Steinberg, 2011). Intuitive thought is automatic, unconscious, and fast, and it is more experiential and emotional (Kahneman, 2011). In contrast, Analytic thought is deliberate, conscious, and rational. While these systems interact, they are distinct (Kuhn, 2013). Intuitive thought is easier and more commonly used in everyday life. It is also more commonly used by children and teens than by adults (Klaczynski, 2001). The quickness of adolescent thought, along with the maturation of the limbic system, may make teens more prone to emotional intuitive thinking than adults.

As critical thinking is developing in adolescence, adolescents can utilize strategies for problem solving. Heuristics are cognitive shortcuts that are useful in many cases but may lead to errors as they are often based on biased information, such as a personal experience. Heuristic thinking has broad applications, it is essentially an educated guess about something. We use heuristics all the time, for example, when deciding what groceries to buy from the supermarket, when looking for a library book, when choosing the best route to drive through town to avoid traffic congestion, and so on. Heuristics can be thought of as aids to decision making; they allow us to reach a solution without a lot of cognitive effort or time. They can aid in both our intuitive and analytical thinking (Figure 13.8). The benefit of heuristics in helping us reach decisions fairly easily is also the potential downfall: the solution provided by the use of heuristics is not necessarily the best one.

Figure 13.8. Input into adolescent decision-making process utilizing heuristics thinking strategies or emerging critical thinking skills. These strategies and skills influence the use of intuitive thinking or analytical thinking. Image by Kelly Hoke licensed under CC BY 4.0 .

13.3.2.3 Cognitive Empathy

Cognitive empathy relates to the ability to take the perspective of others and feel concern for others (Shamay-Tsoory et al., 2005). Cognitive empathy has developmental gains in early childhood and changes across the lifespan, however, studies are mixed if cognitive empathy increases or not during adolescence (Doris et al., 2022; Van der Graaff et al., 2013). Cognitive empathy is an important component of social problem-solving and conflict avoidance. Studies show that modeling perspective taking and that in caregiver-adolescent relationships, validation of a teenagers feelings can support the development of cognitive empathy (Main, Paxton, and Dale, 2016; Main et al., 2019). The limbic system (Figure 13.9) fully matures in early adolescence and is associated with emotional processing. However, for perspective taking to occur there is a reliance on the prefrontal cortex which is associated with critical thinking. The prefrontal cortex however does not mature until adulthood.

Figure 13.9. The Limbic System Adolescence by Martha Lally, Suzanne Valentine-French, and Diana Lang is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

13.3.2.4 Impulse Control

During adolescence, two influential changes occur in the brain leading to changes in cognitive abilities and changes in how individuals begin to view risk and reward. One change is within the prefrontal cortex, which undergoes the most development during this period. The other is changes in dopamine, a chemical in the brain that is a neurotransmitter and produces feelings of pleasure, which can contribute to increases in adolescents’ sensation-seeking and reward motivation (Figure 13.10).

Figure 13.10. Dopaminergic system and reward processing licensed under CC-BY-4.0 .

The prefrontal cortex, the area of the brain responsible for critical thinking, forming judgments, controlling impulses, and emotional regulation, continues to develop in adolescence (Goldberg, 2001). Even though critical thinking skills are emerging in adolescence, individuals at this age often decide to do activities that produce the most dopamine without full consideration of consequences. The difference in timing of the development of these different regions of the brain contributes to risk-taking during middle adolescence because adolescents are motivated to seek thrills (Steinberg, 2008). One of the world’s leading experts on adolescent development, Laurence Steinberg, likens this to engaging a powerful engine before the braking system is in place. The result is that adolescents are prone to risky behaviors more often than children or adults because they give more weight to rewards. Furthermore, adolescents highly value social connection and their hormones and brains are more attuned to reward those values than to long-term consequences (Crone & Dahl, 2012).

Despite the stereotype of adolescents as loose cannons, adolescents are making choices influenced by a very different set of chemical influences than their adult counterparts—a hopped-up reward system that can drown out warning signals about risk. Adolescent decisions are not always defined by impulsivity because of lack of brakes, but because of planned and enjoyable pressure to the accelerator. It is helpful to put all of these brain processes in a developmental context. Young people need to somewhat enjoy the thrill of risk-taking to complete the incredibly overwhelming task of growing up. In summary, changes in brain development, information processing, and hormonal changes lead adolescents to:

Being focused on the present.
Engaging in risk-taking behaviors.
Feeling invulnerable.
Seeking out novel, adventurous, and varied experiences.

13.3.3 Licenses and Attributions for Cognitive Development in Adolescence

“Cognitive Development” and subsections remixed and adapted from:

Lifespan Development by Julie Lazzara is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Human Behavior and the Social Environment I by Susan Tyler is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted and from You Don’t Say? Developmental Science Offers Answers to Questions About How Nurture Matters by Emily Spalding is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Child Development by Lumen Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Adolescent Development by Jennifer Lansford is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License . Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available in our Licensing Agreement .

“ Shannon Odell: What’s the smartest age? | TED Talk .” License Terms: CC BY — NC — ND 4.0 International.

“ Steve McCarroll: How data is helping us unravel the mysteries of the brain | TED Talk ”. License Terms: CC BY — NC — ND 4.0 International.

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Cognitive Development in Adolescence

Diana Lang; Nick Cone; Martha Lally; Suzanne Valentine-French; Tera Jones; and Lumen Learning

Cognitive changes during adolescence include a shift from concrete to more abstract and complex thinking. Such changes are fostered by improvements during early adolescence in attention, memory, processing speed, and metacognition (ability to think about thinking and therefore make better use of strategies like mnemonic devices that can improve thinking). As explained before, early in adolescence, changes in the brain’s limbic system contribute to increases in adolescents’ sensation-seeking and reward motivation. Later in adolescence, the brain’s cognitive control centers in the prefrontal cortex develop, increasing adolescents’ self-regulation and future orientation.

Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage of Cognitive Development

During the formal operational stage, many adolescents are able to understand abstract principles which have no physical reference. Most can now contemplate abstract constructs such as beauty, love, freedom, and morality. Most adolescents are no longer limited by what can be directly seen or heard. Additionally, while younger children solve problems through trial and error, adolescents demonstrate hypothetical-deductive reasoning, which is developing hypotheses based on what might logically occur. They are able to think about all the possibilities in a situation beforehand, and then test them systematically. [1] During this stage of cognitive development, individuals are typically able to engage in true scientific thinking. Formal operational thinking involves accepting hypothetical situations. Individuals in this stage can understand the concept of transitivity, which means that a relationship between two elements is carried over to other elements logically related to the first two, such as if A<B and B<C, then A<C. [2] For example, when asked: If Maria is shorter than Alicia and Alicia is shorter than Caitlyn, who is the shortest?

Not everyone reaches the formal operational stage. Many adults do not regularly demonstrate formal operational thought, and in small villages and tribal communities, it is barely used at all. A possible explanation is that some individuals’ thinking have not been sufficiently challenged to demonstrate formal operational thought in all areas.

Adolescent Egocentrism

Once adolescents can understand abstract thoughts, they enter a world of hypothetical possibilities and demonstrate egocentrism or a heightened self-focus. David Elkind [3] expanded on the concept of Piaget’s adolescent egocentricity. Elkind theorized that the physiological changes that occur during adolescence result in many adolescents being primarily concerned with themselves. Additionally, since adolescents fail to differentiate between what others are thinking and their own thoughts, they believe that others are just as fascinated with their behavior and appearance. This belief results in the adolescent anticipating the reactions of others, and consequently constructing an imaginary audience. “The imaginary audience is the adolescent’s belief that those around them are as concerned and focused on their appearance as they themselves are” (p. 441). [4] Elkind thought that the imaginary audience contributed to the self-consciousness that occurs during early adolescence. [5]

The desire for privacy and reluctance to share personal information may be a further reaction to feeling under constant observation by others. Another important consequence of adolescent egocentrism is the personal fable or belief that one is unique, special, and invulnerable to harm. Elkind [6] explains that because adolescents feel so important to others (imaginary audience) they regard themselves and their feelings as being special and unique. Adolescents believe that only they have experienced strong and diverse emotions, and therefore others could never understand how they feel. This uniqueness in one’s emotional experiences reinforces the adolescent’s belief that “nothing can happen to them”, especially to death. Many adolescents will engage in risky behaviors, such as drinking and driving or having unprotected sex, and believe they will not suffer any negative consequences.

Consequences of Formal Operational Thought

As adolescents become able to think abstractly and hypothetically, they exhibit many new ways of reflecting on information. [7] For example, they can demonstrate greater introspection or thinking about one’s thoughts and feelings. They can begin to imagine how the world could be which leads them to become idealistic or insisting upon high standards of behavior. Because of their idealism, they may become critical of others, especially adults in their life. Additionally, adolescents can demonstrate hypocrisy, or pretend to be what they are not. Since they are able to recognize what others expect of them, they will conform to those expectations for their emotions and behavior seemingly hypocritical to themselves.

Information Processing Theory of Cognitive Development

Cognitive control.

Executive functions, such as attention, increases in working memory, and cognitive flexibility steadily improve from early childhood onward. Studies have found that executive function is very well-developed in adolescence. However, self-regulation, or the ability to control impulses, may still fail. A failure in self-regulation is especially true when there is high stress or high demand on mental functions. [8] While high stress or demand may tax even an adult’s self-regulatory abilities, neurological changes in the adolescent brain may make teens particularly prone to more risky decision making under these conditions.

Inductive and Deductive Reasoning

Inductive reasoning tends to emerge in childhood, and is a type of reasoning that is sometimes characterized as “bottom-up processing” in which specific observations, or specific comments from those in authority, may be used to draw general conclusions (e.g., child having two friends who are rude makes a conclusion all friends are rude). However, in inductive reasoning, the veracity of the information that created the general conclusion does not guarantee the accuracy of that conclusion. For instance, a child who has only observed thunder on summer days may conclude that it only thunders in the summer. In contrast, deductive reasoning , sometimes called “top-down-processing,” should emerge in adolescence. This type of reasoning starts with some overarching (general) principle and based on this propose specific conclusions. For example, if a general theory maintains that all trees are green and then asked what color do you expect a particular tree to be, deduction would say the tree should be green. Or, if an adolescent was given the following information: if Jesse is shorter than Matt and Matt is shorter than Tyler, then who is the tallest and the shortest? Deductive reasoning tells us that Tyler is the tallest and Jesse is the shortest. Deductive reasoning guarantees a truthful conclusion if the premises on which it is based are accurate (see Figure 1)

Moral Reasoning in Adolescence

As adolescents become increasingly independent, they also develop more nuanced thinking about morality, or what is right or wrong. We all make moral judgments on a daily basis. As adolescents’ cognitive, emotional, and social development continue to mature, their understanding of morality expands and their behavior becomes more closely aligned with their values and beliefs. Therefore, moral development describes the evolution of these guiding principles and is demonstrated by the ability to apply these guidelines in daily life. Understanding moral development is important in this stage where individuals make so many important decisions and gain more and more legal responsibility.

If you recall from the module on Middle Childhood, Lawrence Kohlberg [9] argued that moral development moves through a series of stages, and reasoning about morality becomes increasingly complex (somewhat in line with increasing cognitive skills, as per Piaget’s stages of cognitive development). As children develop intellectually, they pass through three stages of moral thinking: the preconventional level , the conventional level , and the postconventional level . In middle childhood into early adolescence, many youth begin to care about how situational outcomes impact others and wants to please and be accepted (conventional morality). At this developmental phase, people are able to value the good that can be derived from holding to social norms in the form of laws or less formalized rules. From adolescence and beyond, many adolescents begin to employ abstract reasoning to justify behaviors. Moral behavior is based on self-chosen ethical principles that are generally comprehensive and universal, such as justice, dignity, and equality, which is postconventional morality.

Photo of two girls holding drinks in a dark room.

Influences on Moral Development

Adolescents are receptive to their culture, to the models they see at home, in school and in the mass media. These observations influence moral reasoning and moral behavior. When children are younger, their family, culture, and religion greatly influence their moral decision-making. During the early adolescent period, peers have a much greater influence. Peer pressure can exert a powerful influence because friends play a more significant role in teens’ lives. Furthermore, the new ability to think abstractly enables teens to begin to question the absolute authority of parents, schools, government, and other traditional institutions. [10] By late adolescence, most teens are less rebellious as they have begun to establish their own identity, their own belief system, and their own place in the world.

Unfortunately, some adolescents have life experiences that may interfere with their moral development. Traumatic experiences may cause them to view the world as unjust and unfair. Additionally, social learning also impacts moral development. Adolescents may have observed the adults in their lives making immoral decisions that disregarded the rights and welfare of others, leading these youth to develop beliefs and values that are contrary to the rest of society. That being said, adults have opportunities to support moral development by modeling the moral character that we want to see in our children. Parents are particularly important because they are generally the original source of moral guidance. Authoritative parenting facilitates children’s moral growth better than other parenting styles and one of the most influential things a parent can do is to encourage the right kind of peer relations. [11] While caregivers may find this process of moral development difficult or challenging, it is important to remember that this developmental step is essential to a youth’s well-being and ultimate success in life.

Parenting has the largest impact on adolescent moral development. Read more here in this article, “Building Character: Moral Development in Adolescence” from the Center for Parent and Teen Communication.

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Individual and Family Development, Health, and Well-being Copyright © 2022 by Diana Lang; Nick Cone; Martha Lally; Suzanne Valentine-French; Tera Jones; and Lumen Learning is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

Adolescent Development

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First Online: 06 December 2023
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Alma L. Jimenez 10 ,
Cornelio G. Banaag Jr 10 ,
Angeline Monica A. Arcenas 10 &
Larimer V. Hugo 10

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This chapter describes adolescence as the transition period from childhood to adulthood characterized by complex biopsychosocial processes influenced by cross-cultural factors. Across cultures, as the adolescent transitions into adulthood, resolution of developmental milestones includes sexual maturation, identity consolidation, establishment of independence, autonomy, intimate relationships, and entry into higher education, vocation, or occupation. Biological, psychological, and social factors interact with epigenetic processes determining states of health and disease in adolescents. Allostatic load as a result of adverse life events may negatively impact development during this phase of development.

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Alma L. Jimenez, Cornelio G. Banaag Jr, Angeline Monica A. Arcenas & Larimer V. Hugo

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Renato D. Alarcón

Columbia University Medical Center, New York, USA

César A. Alfonso

Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

Shigenobu Kanba

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David M. Ndetei

Malaysian Research Inst on Ageing, Universiti Putra Malaysia, Selangor, Malaysia

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Alma Lucindo Jimenez

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Jimenez, A.L., Banaag, C.G., Arcenas, A.M.A., Hugo, L.V. (2023). Adolescent Development. In: Tasman, A., et al. Tasman’s Psychiatry. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-42825-9_106-1

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7.6: Introduction to Cognitive Development in Adolescence

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Lumen Learning

What you’ll learn to do: describe changes in cognitive development and moral reasoning during adolescence

Here we learn about adolescent cognitive development. In adolescence, changes in the brain interact with experience, knowledge, and social demands and produce rapid cognitive growth. The changes in how adolescents think, reason, and understand can be even more dramatic than their obvious physical changes. This stage of cognitive development, termed by Piaget as the formal operational stage, marks a movement from the ability to think and reason logically only about concrete, visible events to an ability to also think logically about abstract concepts.

Adolescents are now able to analyze situations logically in terms of cause and effect and to entertain hypothetical situations and entertain what-if possibilities about the world. This higher-level thinking allows them to think about the future, evaluate alternatives, and set personal goals. Although there are marked individual differences in cognitive development among teens, these new capacities allow adolescents to engage in the kind of introspection and mature decision making that was previously beyond their cognitive capacity.

Contributors and Attributions

Introduction to Cognitive Development in Adolescence. Authored by : Tera Jones for Lumen Learning. Provided by : Lumen Learning. License : CC BY: Attribution
In Their Shoes. Authored by : Louis Briscese. Provided by : U.S. Department of Defense. Located at : https://dod.defense.gov/Photos/Photo-Gallery/igphoto/2001716400/ . License : CC BY-NC: Attribution-NonCommercial

Piaget’s Theory and Stages of Cognitive Development

Saul Mcleod, PhD

Editor-in-Chief for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MRes, PhD, University of Manchester

Saul Mcleod, PhD., is a qualified psychology teacher with over 18 years of experience in further and higher education. He has been published in peer-reviewed journals, including the Journal of Clinical Psychology.

Learn about our Editorial Process

Olivia Guy-Evans, MSc

Associate Editor for Simply Psychology

BSc (Hons) Psychology, MSc Psychology of Education

Olivia Guy-Evans is a writer and associate editor for Simply Psychology. She has previously worked in healthcare and educational sectors.

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Key Takeaways

Jean Piaget is famous for his theories regarding changes in cognitive development that occur as we move from infancy to adulthood.
Cognitive development results from the interplay between innate capabilities (nature) and environmental influences (nurture).
Children progress through four distinct stages , each representing varying cognitive abilities and world comprehension: the sensorimotor stage (birth to 2 years), the preoperational stage (2 to 7 years), the concrete operational stage (7 to 11 years), and the formal operational stage (11 years and beyond).
A child’s cognitive development is not just about acquiring knowledge, the child has to develop or construct a mental model of the world, which is referred to as a schema .
Piaget emphasized the role of active exploration and interaction with the environment in shaping cognitive development, highlighting the importance of assimilation and accommodation in constructing mental schemas.

Stages of Development

Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four different stages of intellectual development which reflect the increasing sophistication of children’s thought

Each child goes through the stages in the same order (but not all at the same rate), and child development is determined by biological maturation and interaction with the environment.

At each stage of development, the child’s thinking is qualitatively different from the other stages, that is, each stage involves a different type of intelligence.

Although no stage can be missed out, there are individual differences in the rate at which children progress through stages, and some individuals may never attain the later stages.

Piaget did not claim that a particular stage was reached at a certain age – although descriptions of the stages often include an indication of the age at which the average child would reach each stage.

The Sensorimotor Stage

Ages: Birth to 2 Years

The first stage is the sensorimotor stage , during which the infant focuses on physical sensations and learning to coordinate its body.

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

The infant learns about the world through their senses and through their actions (moving around and exploring their environment).
During the sensorimotor stage, a range of cognitive abilities develop. These include: object permanence; self-recognition (the child realizes that other people are separate from them); deferred imitation; and representational play.
They relate to the emergence of the general symbolic function, which is the capacity to represent the world mentally
At about 8 months, the infant will understand the permanence of objects and that they will still exist even if they can’t see them and the infant will search for them when they disappear.

During the beginning of this stage, the infant lives in the present. It does not yet have a mental picture of the world stored in its memory therefore it does not have a sense of object permanence.

If it cannot see something, then it does not exist. This is why you can hide a toy from an infant, while it watches, but it will not search for the object once it has gone out of sight.

The main achievement during this stage is object permanence – knowing that an object still exists, even if it is hidden. It requires the ability to form a mental representation (i.e., a schema) of the object.

Towards the end of this stage the general symbolic function begins to appear where children show in their play that they can use one object to stand for another. Language starts to appear because they realise that words can be used to represent objects and feelings.

The child begins to be able to store information that it knows about the world, recall it, and label it.

Individual Differences

Cultural Practices : In some cultures, babies are carried on their mothers’ backs throughout the day. This constant physical contact and varied stimuli can influence how a child perceives their environment and their sense of object permanence.
Gender Norms : Toys assigned to babies can differ based on gender expectations. A boy might be given more cars or action figures, while a girl might receive dolls or kitchen sets. This can influence early interactions and sensory explorations.

Learn More: The Sensorimotor Stage of Cognitive Development

The Preoperational Stage

Ages: 2 – 7 Years

Piaget’s second stage of intellectual development is the preoperational stage . It takes place between 2 and 7 years. At the beginning of this stage, the child does not use operations, so the thinking is influenced by the way things appear rather than logical reasoning.

A child cannot conserve which means that the child does not understand that quantity remains the same even if the appearance changes.

Furthermore, the child is egocentric; he assumes that other people see the world as he does. This has been shown in the three mountains study.

As the preoperational stage develops, egocentrism declines, and children begin to enjoy the participation of another child in their games, and let’s pretend play becomes more important.

Toddlers often pretend to be people they are not (e.g. superheroes, policemen), and may play these roles with props that symbolize real-life objects. Children may also invent an imaginary playmate.

Toddlers and young children acquire the ability to internally represent the world through language and mental imagery.
During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically. This is the ability to make one thing, such as a word or an object, stand for something other than itself.
A child’s thinking is dominated by how the world looks, not how the world is. It is not yet capable of logical (problem-solving) type of thought.
Moreover, the child has difficulties with class inclusion; he can classify objects but cannot include objects in sub-sets, which involves classifying objects as belonging to two or more categories simultaneously.
Infants at this stage also demonstrate animism. This is the tendency for the child to think that non-living objects (such as toys) have life and feelings like a person’s.

By 2 years, children have made some progress toward detaching their thoughts from the physical world. However, have not yet developed logical (or “operational”) thought characteristics of later stages.

Thinking is still intuitive (based on subjective judgments about situations) and egocentric (centered on the child’s own view of the world).

Cultural Storytelling : Different cultures have unique stories, myths, and folklore. Children from diverse backgrounds might understand and interpret symbolic elements differently based on their cultural narratives.
Race & Representation : A child’s racial identity can influence how they engage in pretend play. For instance, a lack of diverse representation in media and toys might lead children of color to recreate scenarios that don’t reflect their experiences or background.

Learn More: The Preoperational Stage of Cognitive Development

The Concrete Operational Stage

Ages: 7 – 11 Years

By the beginning of the concrete operational stage , the child can use operations (a set of logical rules) so they can conserve quantities, realize that people see the world in a different way (decentring), and demonstrate improvement in inclusion tasks. Children still have difficulties with abstract thinking.

During this stage, children begin to think logically about concrete events.
Children begin to understand the concept of conservation; understanding that, although things may change in appearance, certain properties remain the same.
During this stage, children can mentally reverse things (e.g., picture a ball of plasticine returning to its original shape).
During this stage, children also become less egocentric and begin to think about how other people might think and feel.

The stage is called concrete because children can think logically much more successfully if they can manipulate real (concrete) materials or pictures of them.

Piaget considered the concrete stage a major turning point in the child’s cognitive development because it marks the beginning of logical or operational thought. This means the child can work things out internally in their head (rather than physically try things out in the real world).

Children can conserve number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9). Conservation is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its appearance changes.

But operational thought is only effective here if the child is asked to reason about materials that are physically present. Children at this stage will tend to make mistakes or be overwhelmed when asked to reason about abstract or hypothetical problems.

Cultural Context in Conservation Tasks : In a society where resources are scarce, children might demonstrate conservation skills earlier due to the cultural emphasis on preserving and reusing materials.
Gender & Learning : Stereotypes about gender abilities, like “boys are better at math,” can influence how children approach logical problems or classify objects based on perceived gender norms.

Learn More: The Concrete Operational Stage of Development

The Formal Operational Stage

Ages: 12 and Over

The formal operational period begins at about age 11. As adolescents enter this stage, they gain the ability to think in an abstract manner, the ability to combine and classify items in a more sophisticated way, and the capacity for higher-order reasoning.

Adolescents can think systematically and reason about what might be as well as what is (not everyone achieves this stage). This allows them to understand politics, ethics, and science fiction, as well as to engage in scientific reasoning.

Adolescents can deal with abstract ideas: e.g. they can understand division and fractions without having to actually divide things up, and solve hypothetical (imaginary) problems.

Concrete operations are carried out on things whereas formal operations are carried out on ideas. Formal operational thought is entirely freed from physical and perceptual constraints.
During this stage, adolescents can deal with abstract ideas (e.g. no longer needing to think about slicing up cakes or sharing sweets to understand division and fractions).
They can follow the form of an argument without having to think in terms of specific examples.
Adolescents can deal with hypothetical problems with many possible solutions. E.g. if asked ‘What would happen if money were abolished in one hour’s time? they could speculate about many possible consequences.

From about 12 years children can follow the form of a logical argument without reference to its content. During this time, people develop the ability to think about abstract concepts, and logically test hypotheses.

This stage sees the emergence of scientific thinking, formulating abstract theories and hypotheses when faced with a problem.

Culture & Abstract Thinking : Cultures emphasize different kinds of logical or abstract thinking. For example, in societies with a strong oral tradition, the ability to hold complex narratives might develop prominently.
Gender & Ethics : Discussions about morality and ethics can be influenced by gender norms. For instance, in some cultures, girls might be encouraged to prioritize community harmony, while boys might be encouraged to prioritize individual rights.

Learn More: The Formal Operational Stage of Development

Piaget’s Theory

Piaget’s theory places a strong emphasis on the active role that children play in their own cognitive development.
According to Piaget, children are not passive recipients of information; instead, they actively explore and interact with their surroundings.
This active engagement with the environment is crucial because it allows them to gradually build their understanding of the world.

1. How Piaget Developed the Theory

Piaget was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, where his job was to develop French versions of questions on English intelligence tests. He became intrigued with the reasons children gave for their wrong answers to the questions that required logical thinking.

He believed that these incorrect answers revealed important differences between the thinking of adults and children.

Piaget branched out on his own with a new set of assumptions about children’s intelligence:

Children’s intelligence differs from an adult’s in quality rather than in quantity. This means that children reason (think) differently from adults and see the world in different ways.
Children actively build up their knowledge about the world . They are not passive creatures waiting for someone to fill their heads with knowledge.
The best way to understand children’s reasoning is to see things from their point of view.

Piaget did not want to measure how well children could count, spell or solve problems as a way of grading their I.Q. What he was more interested in was the way in which fundamental concepts like the very idea of number , time, quantity, causality , justice , and so on emerged.

Piaget studied children from infancy to adolescence using naturalistic observation of his own three babies and sometimes controlled observation too. From these, he wrote diary descriptions charting their development.

He also used clinical interviews and observations of older children who were able to understand questions and hold conversations.

2. Piaget’s Theory Differs From Others In Several Ways:

Piaget’s (1936, 1950) theory of cognitive development explains how a child constructs a mental model of the world. He disagreed with the idea that intelligence was a fixed trait, and regarded cognitive development as a process that occurs due to biological maturation and interaction with the environment.

Children’s ability to understand, think about, and solve problems in the world develops in a stop-start, discontinuous manner (rather than gradual changes over time).

It is concerned with children, rather than all learners.
It focuses on development, rather than learning per se, so it does not address learning of information or specific behaviors.
It proposes discrete stages of development, marked by qualitative differences, rather than a gradual increase in number and complexity of behaviors, concepts, ideas, etc.

The goal of the theory is to explain the mechanisms and processes by which the infant, and then the child, develops into an individual who can reason and think using hypotheses.

To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental processes as a result of biological maturation and environmental experience.

Children construct an understanding of the world around them, then experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment.

Piaget claimed that knowledge cannot simply emerge from sensory experience; some initial structure is necessary to make sense of the world.

According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure (genetically inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent learning and knowledge are based.

Schemas are the basic building blocks of such cognitive models, and enable us to form a mental representation of the world.

Piaget (1952, p. 7) defined a schema as: “a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly interconnected and governed by a core meaning.”

In more simple terms, Piaget called the schema the basic building block of intelligent behavior – a way of organizing knowledge. Indeed, it is useful to think of schemas as “units” of knowledge, each relating to one aspect of the world, including objects, actions, and abstract (i.e., theoretical) concepts.

Wadsworth (2004) suggests that schemata (the plural of schema) be thought of as “index cards” filed in the brain, each one telling an individual how to react to incoming stimuli or information.

When Piaget talked about the development of a person’s mental processes, he was referring to increases in the number and complexity of the schemata that a person had learned.

When a child’s existing schemas are capable of explaining what it can perceive around it, it is said to be in a state of equilibrium, i.e., a state of cognitive (i.e., mental) balance.

Operations are more sophisticated mental structures which allow us to combine schemas in a logical (reasonable) way.

As children grow they can carry out more complex operations and begin to imagine hypothetical (imaginary) situations.

Apart from the schemas we are born with schemas and operations are learned through interaction with other people and the environment.

Piaget emphasized the importance of schemas in cognitive development and described how they were developed or acquired.

A schema can be defined as a set of linked mental representations of the world, which we use both to understand and to respond to situations. The assumption is that we store these mental representations and apply them when needed.

Examples of Schemas

A person might have a schema about buying a meal in a restaurant. The schema is a stored form of the pattern of behavior which includes looking at a menu, ordering food, eating it and paying the bill.

This is an example of a schema called a “script.” Whenever they are in a restaurant, they retrieve this schema from memory and apply it to the situation.

The schemas Piaget described tend to be simpler than this – especially those used by infants. He described how – as a child gets older – his or her schemas become more numerous and elaborate.

Piaget believed that newborn babies have a small number of innate schemas – even before they have had many opportunities to experience the world. These neonatal schemas are the cognitive structures underlying innate reflexes. These reflexes are genetically programmed into us.

For example, babies have a sucking reflex, which is triggered by something touching the baby’s lips. A baby will suck a nipple, a comforter (dummy), or a person’s finger. Piaget, therefore, assumed that the baby has a “sucking schema.”

Similarly, the grasping reflex which is elicited when something touches the palm of a baby’s hand, or the rooting reflex, in which a baby will turn its head towards something which touches its cheek, are innate schemas. Shaking a rattle would be the combination of two schemas, grasping and shaking.

4. The Process of Adaptation

Piaget also believed that a child developed as a result of two different influences: maturation, and interaction with the environment. The child develops mental structures (schemata) which enables him to solve problems in the environment.

Adaptation is the process by which the child changes its mental models of the world to match more closely how the world actually is.

Adaptation is brought about by the processes of assimilation (solving new experiences using existing schemata) and accommodation (changing existing schemata in order to solve new experiences).

The importance of this viewpoint is that the child is seen as an active participant in its own development rather than a passive recipient of either biological influences (maturation) or environmental stimulation.

When our existing schemas can explain what we perceive around us, we are in a state of equilibration . However, when we meet a new situation that we cannot explain it creates disequilibrium, this is an unpleasant sensation which we try to escape, and this gives us the motivation to learn.

According to Piaget, reorganization to higher levels of thinking is not accomplished easily. The child must “rethink” his or her view of the world. An important step in the process is the experience of cognitive conflict.

In other words, the child becomes aware that he or she holds two contradictory views about a situation and they both cannot be true. This step is referred to as disequilibrium .

Jean Piaget (1952; see also Wadsworth, 2004) viewed intellectual growth as a process of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This happens through assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration.

To get back to a state of equilibration, we need to modify our existing schemas to learn and adapt to the new situation.

This is done through the processes of accommodation and assimilation . This is how our schemas evolve and become more sophisticated. The processes of assimilation and accommodation are continuous and interactive.

5. Assimilation

Piaget defined assimilation as the cognitive process of fitting new information into existing cognitive schemas, perceptions, and understanding. Overall beliefs and understanding of the world do not change as a result of the new information.

Assimilation occurs when the new experience is not very different from previous experiences of a particular object or situation we assimilate the new situation by adding information to a previous schema.

This means that when you are faced with new information, you make sense of this information by referring to information you already have (information processed and learned previously) and trying to fit the new information into the information you already have.

Imagine a young child who has only ever seen small, domesticated dogs. When the child sees a cat for the first time, they might refer to it as a “dog” because it has four legs, fur, and a tail – features that fit their existing schema of a dog.
A person who has always believed that all birds can fly might label penguins as birds that can fly. This is because their existing schema or understanding of birds includes the ability to fly.
A 2-year-old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has long frizzy hair on the sides. To his father’s horror, the toddler shouts “Clown, clown” (Siegler et al., 2003).
If a baby learns to pick up a rattle he or she will then use the same schema (grasping) to pick up other objects.

6. Accommodation

Accommodation: when the new experience is very different from what we have encountered before we need to change our schemas in a very radical way or create a whole new schema.

Psychologist Jean Piaget defined accommodation as the cognitive process of revising existing cognitive schemas, perceptions, and understanding so that new information can be incorporated.

This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.

In order to make sense of some new information, you actually adjust information you already have (schemas you already have, etc.) to make room for this new information.

A baby tries to use the same schema for grasping to pick up a very small object. It doesn’t work. The baby then changes the schema by now using the forefinger and thumb to pick up the object.
A child may have a schema for birds (feathers, flying, etc.) and then they see a plane, which also flies, but would not fit into their bird schema.
In the “clown” incident, the boy’s father explained to his son that the man was not a clown and that even though his hair was like a clown’s, he wasn’t wearing a funny costume and wasn’t doing silly things to make people laugh. With this new knowledge, the boy was able to change his schema of “clown” and make this idea fit better to a standard concept of “clown”.
A person who grew up thinking all snakes are dangerous might move to an area where garden snakes are common and harmless. Over time, after observing and learning, they might accommodate their previous belief to understand that not all snakes are harmful.

7. Equilibration

Piaget believed that all human thought seeks order and is uncomfortable with contradictions and inconsistencies in knowledge structures. In other words, we seek “equilibrium” in our cognitive structures.

Equilibrium occurs when a child’s schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation. However, an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation).

Piaget believed that cognitive development did not progress at a steady rate, but rather in leaps and bounds. Equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as we do not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge (accommodation).

Once the new information is acquired the process of assimilation with the new schema will continue until the next time we need to make an adjustment to it.

Equilibration is a regulatory process that maintains a balance between assimilation and accommodation to facilitate cognitive growth. Think of it this way: We can’t merely assimilate all the time; if we did, we would never learn any new concepts or principles.

Everything new we encountered would just get put in the same few “slots” we already had. Neither can we accommodate all the time; if we did, everything we encountered would seem new; there would be no recurring regularities in our world. We’d be exhausted by the mental effort!

Applications to Education

Think of old black and white films that you’ve seen in which children sat in rows at desks, with ink wells, would learn by rote, all chanting in unison in response to questions set by an authoritarian old biddy like Matilda!

Children who were unable to keep up were seen as slacking and would be punished by variations on the theme of corporal punishment. Yes, it really did happen and in some parts of the world still does today.

Piaget is partly responsible for the change that occurred in the 1960s and for your relatively pleasurable and pain-free school days!

“Children should be able to do their own experimenting and their own research. Teachers, of course, can guide them by providing appropriate materials, but the essential thing is that in order for a child to understand something, he must construct it himself, he must re-invent it. Every time we teach a child something, we keep him from inventing it himself. On the other hand that which we allow him to discover by himself will remain with him visibly”. Piaget (1972, p. 27)

Plowden Report

Piaget (1952) did not explicitly relate his theory to education, although later researchers have explained how features of Piaget’s theory can be applied to teaching and learning.

Piaget has been extremely influential in developing educational policy and teaching practice. For example, a review of primary education by the UK government in 1966 was based strongly on Piaget’s theory. The result of this review led to the publication of the Plowden Report (1967).

In the 1960s the Plowden Committee investigated the deficiencies in education and decided to incorporate many of Piaget’s ideas into its final report published in 1967, even though Piaget’s work was not really designed for education.

The report makes three Piaget-associated recommendations:

Children should be given individual attention and it should be realized that they need to be treated differently.
Children should only be taught things that they are capable of learning
Children mature at different rates and the teacher needs to be aware of the stage of development of each child so teaching can be tailored to their individual needs.

“The report’s recurring themes are individual learning, flexibility in the curriculum, the centrality of play in children’s learning, the use of the environment, learning by discovery and the importance of the evaluation of children’s progress – teachers should “not assume that only what is measurable is valuable.”

Discovery learning – the idea that children learn best through doing and actively exploring – was seen as central to the transformation of the primary school curriculum.

How to teach

Within the classroom learning should be student-centered and accomplished through active discovery learning. The role of the teacher is to facilitate learning, rather than direct tuition.

Because Piaget’s theory is based upon biological maturation and stages, the notion of “readiness” is important. Readiness concerns when certain information or concepts should be taught.

According to Piaget’s theory, children should not be taught certain concepts until they have reached the appropriate stage of cognitive development.

According to Piaget (1958), assimilation and accommodation require an active learner, not a passive one, because problem-solving skills cannot be taught, they must be discovered.

Therefore, teachers should encourage the following within the classroom:

Educational programs should be designed to correspond to Piaget’s stages of development. Children in the concrete operational stage should be given concrete means to learn new concepts e.g. tokens for counting.
Devising situations that present useful problems, and create disequilibrium in the child.
Focus on the process of learning, rather than the end product of it. Instead of checking if children have the right answer, the teacher should focus on the student’s understanding and the processes they used to get to the answer.
Child-centered approach. Learning must be active (discovery learning). Children should be encouraged to discover for themselves and to interact with the material instead of being given ready-made knowledge.
Accepting that children develop at different rates so arrange activities for individual children or small groups rather than assume that all the children can cope with a particular activity.
Using active methods that require rediscovering or reconstructing “truths.”
Using collaborative, as well as individual activities (so children can learn from each other).
Evaluate the level of the child’s development so suitable tasks can be set.
Adapt lessons to suit the needs of the individual child (i.e. differentiated teaching).
Be aware of the child’s stage of development (testing).
Teach only when the child is ready. i.e. has the child reached the appropriate stage.
Providing support for the “spontaneous research” of the child.
Using collaborative, as well as individual activities.
Educators may use Piaget’s stages to design age-appropriate assessment tools and strategies.

Classroom Activities

Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years):.

Although most kids in this age range are not in a traditional classroom setting, they can still benefit from games that stimulate their senses and motor skills.

Object Permanence Games : Play peek-a-boo or hide toys under a blanket to help babies understand that objects still exist even when they can’t see them.
Sensory Play : Activities like water play, sand play, or playdough encourage exploration through touch.
Imitation : Children at this age love to imitate adults. Use imitation as a way to teach new skills.

Preoperational Stage (2-7 years):

Role Playing : Set up pretend play areas where children can act out different scenarios, such as a kitchen, hospital, or market.
Use of Symbols : Encourage drawing, building, and using props to represent other things.
Hands-on Activities : Children should interact physically with their environment, so provide plenty of opportunities for hands-on learning.
Egocentrism Activities : Use exercises that highlight different perspectives. For instance, having two children sit across from each other with an object in between and asking them what the other sees.

Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years):

Classification Tasks : Provide objects or pictures to group, based on various characteristics.
Hands-on Experiments : Introduce basic science experiments where they can observe cause and effect, like a simple volcano with baking soda and vinegar.
Logical Games : Board games, puzzles, and logic problems help develop their thinking skills.
Conservation Tasks : Use experiments to showcase that quantity doesn’t change with alterations in shape, such as the classic liquid conservation task using different shaped glasses.

Formal Operational Stage (11 years and older):

Hypothesis Testing : Encourage students to make predictions and test them out.
Abstract Thinking : Introduce topics that require abstract reasoning, such as algebra or ethical dilemmas.
Problem Solving : Provide complex problems and have students work on solutions, integrating various subjects and concepts.
Debate and Discussion : Encourage group discussions and debates on abstract topics, highlighting the importance of logic and evidence.
Feedback and Questioning : Use open-ended questions to challenge students and promote higher-order thinking. For instance, rather than asking, “Is this the right answer?”, ask, “How did you arrive at this conclusion?”

While Piaget’s stages offer a foundational framework, they are not universally experienced in the same way by all children.

Social identities play a critical role in shaping cognitive development, necessitating a more nuanced and culturally responsive approach to understanding child development.

Piaget’s stages may manifest differently based on social identities like race, gender, and culture:

Race & Teacher Interactions : A child’s race can influence teacher expectations and interactions. For example, racial biases can lead to children of color being perceived as less capable or more disruptive, influencing their cognitive challenges and supports.
Racial and Cultural Stereotypes : These can affect a child’s self-perception and self-efficacy . For instance, stereotypes about which racial or cultural groups are “better” at certain subjects can influence a child’s self-confidence and, subsequently, their engagement in that subject.
Gender & Peer Interactions : Children learn gender roles from their peers. Boys might be mocked for playing “girl games,” and girls might be excluded from certain activities, influencing their cognitive engagements.
Language : Multilingual children might navigate the stages differently, especially if their home language differs from their school language. The way concepts are framed in different languages can influence cognitive processing. Cultural idioms and metaphors can shape a child’s understanding of concepts and their ability to use symbolic representation, especially in the pre-operational stage.

Curriculum Development

According to Piaget, children’s cognitive development is determined by a process of maturation which cannot be altered by tuition so education should be stage-specific.

For example, a child in the concrete operational stage should not be taught abstract concepts and should be given concrete aid such as tokens to count with.

According to Piaget children learn through the process of accommodation and assimilation so the role of the teacher should be to provide opportunities for these processes to occur such as new material and experiences that challenge the children’s existing schemas.

Furthermore, according to this theory, children should be encouraged to discover for themselves and to interact with the material instead of being given ready-made knowledge.

Curricula need to be developed that take into account the age and stage of thinking of the child. For example there is no point in teaching abstract concepts such as algebra or atomic structure to children in primary school.

Curricula also need to be sufficiently flexible to allow for variations in the ability of different students of the same age. In Britain, the National Curriculum and Key Stages broadly reflect the stages that Piaget laid down.

For example, egocentrism dominates a child’s thinking in the sensorimotor and preoperational stages. Piaget would therefore predict that using group activities would not be appropriate since children are not capable of understanding the views of others.

However, Smith et al. (1998), point out that some children develop earlier than Piaget predicted and that by using group work children can learn to appreciate the views of others in preparation for the concrete operational stage.

The national curriculum emphasizes the need to use concrete examples in the primary classroom.

Shayer (1997), reported that abstract thought was necessary for success in secondary school (and co-developed the CASE system of teaching science). Recently the National curriculum has been updated to encourage the teaching of some abstract concepts towards the end of primary education, in preparation for secondary courses. (DfEE, 1999).

Child-centered teaching is regarded by some as a child of the ‘liberal sixties.’ In the 1980s the Thatcher government introduced the National Curriculum in an attempt to move away from this and bring more central government control into the teaching of children.

So, although the British National Curriculum in some ways supports the work of Piaget, (in that it dictates the order of teaching), it can also be seen as prescriptive to the point where it counters Piaget’s child-oriented approach.

However, it does still allow for flexibility in teaching methods, allowing teachers to tailor lessons to the needs of their students.

Social Media (Digital Learning)

Jean Piaget could not have anticipated the expansive digital age we now live in.

Today, knowledge dissemination and creation are democratized by the Internet, with platforms like blogs, wikis, and social media allowing for vast collaboration and shared knowledge. This development has prompted a reimagining of the future of education.

Classrooms, traditionally seen as primary sites of learning, are being overshadowed by the rise of mobile technologies and platforms like MOOCs (Passey, 2013).

The millennial generation, defined as the first to grow up with cable TV, the internet, and cell phones, relies heavily on technology.

They view it as an integral part of their identity, with most using it extensively in their daily lives, from keeping in touch with loved ones to consuming news and entertainment (Nielsen, 2014).

Social media platforms offer a dynamic environment conducive to Piaget’s principles. These platforms allow for interactions that nurture knowledge evolution through cognitive processes like assimilation and accommodation.

They emphasize communal interaction and shared activity, fostering both cognitive and socio-cultural constructivism. This shared activity promotes understanding and exploration beyond individual perspectives, enhancing social-emotional learning (Gehlbach, 2010).

A standout advantage of social media in an educational context is its capacity to extend beyond traditional classroom confines. As the material indicates, these platforms can foster more inclusive learning, bridging diverse learner groups.

This inclusivity can equalize learning opportunities, potentially diminishing biases based on factors like race or socio-economic status, resonating with Kegan’s (1982) concept of “recruitability.”

However, there are challenges. While the potential of social media in learning is vast, its practical application necessitates intention and guidance. Cuban, Kirkpatrick, and Peck (2001) note that certain educators and students are hesitant about integrating social media into educational contexts.

This hesitancy can stem from technological complexities or potential distractions. Yet, when harnessed effectively, social media can provide a rich environment for collaborative learning and interpersonal development, fostering a deeper understanding of content.

In essence, the rise of social media aligns seamlessly with constructivist philosophies. Social media platforms act as tools for everyday cognition, merging daily social interactions with the academic world, and providing avenues for diverse, interactive, and engaging learning experiences.

Applications to Parenting

Parents can use Piaget’s stages to have realistic developmental expectations of their children’s behavior and cognitive capabilities.

For instance, understanding that a toddler is in the pre-operational stage can help parents be patient when the child is egocentric.

Play Activities

Recognizing the importance of play in cognitive development, many parents provide toys and games suited for their child’s developmental stage.

Parents can offer activities that are slightly beyond their child’s current abilities, leveraging Vygotsky’s concept of the “Zone of Proximal Development,” which complements Piaget’s ideas.

Peek-a-boo : Helps with object permanence.
Texture Touch : Provide different textured materials (soft, rough, bumpy, smooth) for babies to touch and feel.
Sound Bottles : Fill small bottles with different items like rice, beans, bells, and have children shake and listen to the different sounds.
Memory Games : Using cards with pictures, place them face down, and ask students to find matching pairs.
Role Playing and Pretend Play : Let children act out roles or stories that enhance symbolic thinking. Encourage symbolic play with dress-up clothes, playsets, or toy cash registers. Provide prompts or scenarios to extend their imagination.
Story Sequencing : Give children cards with parts of a story and have them arranged in the correct order.
Number Line Jumps : Create a number line on the floor with tape. Ask students to jump to the correct answer for math problems.
Classification Games : Provide a mix of objects and ask students to classify them based on different criteria (e.g., color, size, shape).
Logical Puzzle Games : Games that involve problem-solving using logic, such as simple Sudoku puzzles or logic grid puzzles.
Debate and Discussion : Provide a topic and let students debate on pros and cons. This promotes abstract thinking and logical reasoning.
Hypothesis Testing Games : Present a scenario and have students come up with hypotheses and ways to test them.
Strategy Board Games : Games like chess, checkers, or Settlers of Catan can help in developing strategic and forward-thinking skills.

Critical Evaluation

The influence of Piaget’s ideas on developmental psychology has been enormous. He changed how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying children.

He was an inspiration to many who came after and took up his ideas. Piaget’s ideas have generated a huge amount of research which has increased our understanding of cognitive development.

Piaget (1936) was one of the first psychologists to make a systematic study of cognitive development. His contributions include a stage theory of child cognitive development, detailed observational studies of cognition in children, and a series of simple but ingenious tests to reveal different cognitive abilities.
His ideas have been of practical use in understanding and communicating with children, particularly in the field of education (re: Discovery Learning). Piaget’s theory has been applied across education.
According to Piaget’s theory, educational programs should be designed to correspond to the stages of development.
Are the stages real? Vygotsky and Bruner would rather not talk about stages at all, preferring to see development as a continuous process. Others have queried the age ranges of the stages. Some studies have shown that progress to the formal operational stage is not guaranteed.

For example, Keating (1979) reported that 40-60% of college students fail at formal operation tasks, and Dasen (1994) states that only one-third of adults ever reach the formal operational stage.

The fact that the formal operational stage is not reached in all cultures and not all individuals within cultures suggests that it might not be biologically based.

According to Piaget, the rate of cognitive development cannot be accelerated as it is based on biological processes however, direct tuition can speed up the development which suggests that it is not entirely based on biological factors.
Because Piaget concentrated on the universal stages of cognitive development and biological maturation, he failed to consider the effect that the social setting and culture may have on cognitive development.

Cross-cultural studies show that the stages of development (except the formal operational stage) occur in the same order in all cultures suggesting that cognitive development is a product of a biological process of maturation.

However, the age at which the stages are reached varies between cultures and individuals which suggests that social and cultural factors and individual differences influence cognitive development.

Dasen (1994) cites studies he conducted in remote parts of the central Australian desert with 8-14-year-old Indigenous Australians. He gave them conservation of liquid tasks and spatial awareness tasks. He found that the ability to conserve came later in the Aboriginal children, between ages of 10 and 13 (as opposed to between 5 and 7, with Piaget’s Swiss sample).

However, he found that spatial awareness abilities developed earlier amongst the Aboriginal children than the Swiss children. Such a study demonstrates cognitive development is not purely dependent on maturation but on cultural factors too – spatial awareness is crucial for nomadic groups of people.

Vygotsky , a contemporary of Piaget, argued that social interaction is crucial for cognitive development. According to Vygotsky the child’s learning always occurs in a social context in cooperation with someone more skillful (MKO). This social interaction provides language opportunities and Vygotsky considered language the foundation of thought.

Piaget’s methods (observation and clinical interviews) are more open to biased interpretation than other methods. Piaget made careful, detailed naturalistic observations of children, and from these, he wrote diary descriptions charting their development. He also used clinical interviews and observations of older children who were able to understand questions and hold conversations.

Because Piaget conducted the observations alone the data collected are based on his own subjective interpretation of events. It would have been more reliable if Piaget conducted the observations with another researcher and compared the results afterward to check if they are similar (i.e., have inter-rater reliability).

Although clinical interviews allow the researcher to explore data in more depth, the interpretation of the interviewer may be biased.

For example, children may not understand the question/s, they have short attention spans, they cannot express themselves very well, and may be trying to please the experimenter. Such methods meant that Piaget may have formed inaccurate conclusions.

As several studies have shown Piaget underestimated the abilities of children because his tests were sometimes confusing or difficult to understand (e.g., Hughes , 1975).

Piaget failed to distinguish between competence (what a child is capable of doing) and performance (what a child can show when given a particular task). When tasks were altered, performance (and therefore competence) was affected. Therefore, Piaget might have underestimated children’s cognitive abilities.

For example, a child might have object permanence (competence) but still not be able to search for objects (performance). When Piaget hid objects from babies he found that it wasn’t till after nine months that they looked for it.

However, Piaget relied on manual search methods – whether the child was looking for the object or not.

Later, researchers such as Baillargeon and Devos (1991) reported that infants as young as four months looked longer at a moving carrot that didn’t do what it expected, suggesting they had some sense of permanence, otherwise they wouldn’t have had any expectation of what it should or shouldn’t do.

The concept of schema is incompatible with the theories of Bruner (1966) and Vygotsky (1978). Behaviorism would also refute Piaget’s schema theory because is cannot be directly observed as it is an internal process. Therefore, they would claim it cannot be objectively measured.
Piaget studied his own children and the children of his colleagues in Geneva to deduce general principles about the intellectual development of all children. His sample was very small and composed solely of European children from families of high socio-economic status. Researchers have, therefore, questioned the generalisability of his data.
For Piaget, language is considered secondary to action, i.e., thought precedes language. The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) argues that the development of language and thought go together and that the origin of reasoning has more to do with our ability to communicate with others than with our interaction with the material world.

Piaget’s Theory vs Vygotsky

Piaget maintains that cognitive development stems largely from independent explorations in which children construct knowledge of their own.

Whereas Vygotsky argues that children learn through social interactions, building knowledge by learning from more knowledgeable others such as peers and adults. In other words, Vygotsky believed that culture affects cognitive development.

These factors lead to differences in the education style they recommend: Piaget would argue for the teacher to provide opportunities that challenge the children’s existing schemas and for children to be encouraged to discover for themselves.

Alternatively, Vygotsky would recommend that teachers assist the child to progress through the zone of proximal development by using scaffolding.

However, both theories view children as actively constructing their own knowledge of the world; they are not seen as just passively absorbing knowledge.

They also agree that cognitive development involves qualitative changes in thinking, not only a matter of learning more things.

What is cognitive development?

Cognitive development is how a person’s ability to think, learn, remember, problem-solve, and make decisions changes over time.

This includes the growth and maturation of the brain, as well as the acquisition and refinement of various mental skills and abilities.

Cognitive development is a major aspect of human development, and both genetic and environmental factors heavily influence it. Key domains of cognitive development include attention, memory, language skills, logical reasoning, and problem-solving.

Various theories, such as those proposed by Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky, provide different perspectives on how this complex process unfolds from infancy through adulthood.

What are the 4 stages of Piaget’s theory?

Piaget divided children’s cognitive development into four stages; each of the stages represents a new way of thinking and understanding the world.

He called them (1) sensorimotor intelligence , (2) preoperational thinking , (3) concrete operational thinking , and (4) formal operational thinking . Each stage is correlated with an age period of childhood, but only approximately.

According to Piaget, intellectual development takes place through stages that occur in a fixed order and which are universal (all children pass through these stages regardless of social or cultural background).

Development can only occur when the brain has matured to a point of “readiness”.

What are some of the weaknesses of Piaget’s theory?

However, the age at which the stages are reached varies between cultures and individuals, suggesting that social and cultural factors and individual differences influence cognitive development.

What are Piaget’s concepts of schemas?

Schemas are mental structures that contain all of the information relating to one aspect of the world around us.

According to Piaget, we are born with a few primitive schemas, such as sucking, which give us the means to interact with the world.

These are physical, but as the child develops, they become mental schemas. These schemas become more complex with experience.

Baillargeon, R., & DeVos, J. (1991). Object permanence in young infants: Further evidence . Child development , 1227-1246.

Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction. Cambridge, Mass.: Belkapp Press.

Cuban, L., Kirkpatrick, H., & Peck, C. (2001). High access and low use of technologies in high school classrooms: Explaining an apparent paradox. American Educational Research Journal , 38 (4), 813-834.

Dasen, P. (1994). Culture and cognitive development from a Piagetian perspective. In W .J. Lonner & R.S. Malpass (Eds.), Psychology and culture (pp. 145–149). Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Gehlbach, H. (2010). The social side of school: Why teachers need social psychology. Educational Psychology Review , 22 , 349-362.

Hughes, M. (1975). Egocentrism in preschool children . Unpublished doctoral dissertation. Edinburgh University.

Inhelder, B., & Piaget, J. (1958). The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence . New York: Basic Books.

Keating, D. (1979). Adolescent thinking. In J. Adelson (Ed.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (pp. 211-246). New York: Wiley.

Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self: Problem and process in human development . Harvard University Press.

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Passey, D. (2013). Inclusive technology enhanced learning: Overcoming cognitive, physical, emotional, and geographic challenges . Routledge.

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Wadsworth, B. J. (2004). Piaget’s theory of cognitive and affective development: Foundations of constructivism . New York: Longman.

14 Chapter 14: Adolescence – Cognitive Development

Chapter objectives.

After this chapter, you should be able to:

Describe Piaget’s formal operational stage and the characteristics of formal operational thought
Compare Theories – Lawrence’s Kohlberg’s Moral Development and Carol Gilligan’s Morality of Care
Explain the Information Processing Theory
Describe the strategies for memory storage
Explain the areas of transition for adolescence

Introduction

During adolescence more complex thinking abilities emerge. Researchers suggest this is due to increases in processing speed and efficiency rather than as the result of an increase in mental capacity—in other words, due to improvements in existing skills rather than development of new ones (Bjorkland, 1987; Case, 1985). Let’s explore these improvements.

Cognitive Development in Adolescence

During adolescence, teenagers move beyond concrete thinking and become capable of abstract thought. Teen thinking is also characterized by the ability to consider multiple points of view, imagine hypothetical situations, debate ideas and opinions (e.g., politics, religion, and justice), and form new ideas. In addition, it’s not uncommon for adolescents to question authority or challenge established societal norms.

Cognitive empathy , also known as theory-of-mind, which relates to the ability to take the perspective of others and feel concern for others (Shamay-Tsoory, Tomer, & Aharon-Peretz, 2005). Cognitive empathy begins to increase in adolescence and is an important component of social problem solving and conflict avoidance. According to one longitudinal study, levels of cognitive empathy begin rising in girls around 13 years old, and around 15 years old in boys (Van der Graaff et al., 2013). 1

Cognitive Changes in the Brain

Early in adolescence, changes in Dopamine , a chemical in the brain that is a neurotransmitter and produces feelings of pleasure, can contribute to increases in adolescents’ sensation-seeking and reward motivation. During adolescence, people tend to do whatever activities produce the most dopamine without fully considering the consequences of such actions. Later in adolescence, the prefrontal cortex , the area of the brain responsible for outcomes, forming judgments, controlling impulses and emotions, also continues to develop (Goldberg, 2001). The difference in timing of the development of these different regions of the brain contributes to more risk taking during middle adolescence because adolescents are motivated to seek thrills ( Steinberg, 2008 ). One of the world’s leading experts on adolescent development, Laurence Steinberg, likens this to engaging a powerful engine before the braking system is in place. The result is that adolescents are prone to risky behaviors more often than children or adults.

Figure 14.2 – A simulation of the risky behavior of drinking and driving. 2

Although the most rapid cognitive changes occur during childhood, the brain continues to develop throughout adolescence, and even into the 20s (Weinberger, Elvevåg, & Giedd, 2005). The brain continues to form new neural connections and becomes faster and more efficient because it prunes , or casts off unused neurons and connections (Blakemore, 2008), and produces myelin , the fatty tissue that forms around axons and neurons, which helps speed transmissions between different regions of the brain (Rapoport et al., 1999). This time of rapid cognitive growth for teens, making them more aware of their potential and capabilities, causes a great amount of disequilibrium for them. Theorists have researched cognitive changes and functions and have formed theories based on this developmental period. 3

Cognitive Theorists: Piaget, Elkind, Kohlberg, and Gilligan

Jean piaget: formal operational stage of cognitive development.

Cognition refers to thinking and memory processes, and cognitive development refers to long-term changes in these processes. One of the most widely known perspectives about cognitive development is the cognitive stage theory of a Swiss psychologist named Jean Piaget . Piaget created and studied an account of how children and youth gradually become able to think logically and scientifically. Because his theory is especially popular among educators, we focus on it in this chapter.

Piaget was a psychological constructivist : in his view, learning was proceeded by the interplay of assimilation (adjusting new experiences to fit prior concepts) and accommodation (adjusting concepts to fit new experiences). The to-and-fro of these two processes leads not only to short-term learning, but also to long-term developmental change . The long-term developments are really the main focus of Piaget’s cognitive theory.

As you might remember, Piaget proposed that cognition developed through distinct stages from birth through the end of adolescence. By stages he meant a sequence of thinking patterns with four key features:

They always happen in the same order.
No stage is ever skipped.
Each stage is a significant transformation of the stage before it.
Each later stage incorporated the earlier stages into itself.

Basically this is the “staircase” model of development. Piaget proposed four major stages of cognitive development, and called them (1) sensorimotor intelligence, (2) preoperational thinking, (3) concrete operational thinking, and (4) formal operational thinking. Each stage is correlated with an age period of childhood, but only approximately. Formal operational thinking appears in adolescence. 4

During the formal operational stage, adolescents are able to understand abstract principles . They are no longer limited by what can be directly seen or heard, and are able to contemplate such constructs as beauty, love, freedom, and morality. Additionally, while younger children solve problems through trial and error, adolescents demonstrate hypothetical-deductive reasoning , which is developing hypotheses based on what might logically occur. They are able to think about all the possibilities in a situation beforehand, and then test them systematically, (Crain, 2005) because they are able to engage in true scientific thinking.

Figure 14.1 – Teenage thinking is characterized by the ability to reason logically and solve hypothetical problems such as how to design, plan, and build a structure. 5

Figure 14.3 – Piaget proposed that formal operational thinking is the last stage in cognitive development. 6

Does everyone reach formal operations?

According to Piaget, most people attain some degree of formal operational thinking, but use formal operations primarily in the areas of their strongest interest (Crain, 2005). In fact, most adults do not regularly demonstrate formal operational thought. A possible explanation is that an individual’s thinking has not been sufficiently challenged to demonstrate formal operational thought in all areas.

Adolescent Egocentrism

Once adolescents can understand abstract thoughts, they enter a world of hypothetical possibilities and demonstrate egocentrism, a heightened self-focus. The egocentricity comes from attributing unlimited power to their own thoughts (Crain, 2005). Piaget believed it was not until adolescents took on adult roles that they would be able to learn the limits to their own thoughts.

David Elkind: On Piaget’s Theory

David Elkind (1967) expanded on the concept of Piaget’s adolescent egocentricity. Elkind theorized that the physiological changes that occur during adolescence result in adolescents being primarily concerned with themselves. Additionally, since adolescents fail to differentiate between what others are thinking and their own thoughts, they believe that others are just as fascinated with their behavior and appearance. This belief results in the adolescent anticipating the reactions of others, and consequently constructing an imaginary audience. The imaginary audience is the adolescent’s belief that those around them are as concerned and focused on their appearance as they themselves are (Schwartz, Maynard, & Uzelac, 2008, p. 441). Elkind thought that the imaginary audience contributed to the self-consciousness that occurs during early adolescence. The desire for privacy and the reluctance to share personal information may be a further reaction to feeling under constant observation by others.

Figure 14.4 – This teen is likely thinking, “they must be whispering about me.” 7

Another important consequence of adolescent egocentrism is the personal fable or belief that one is unique, special, and invulnerable to harm. Elkind (1967) explains that because adolescents feel so important to others (imaginary audience) they regard themselves and their feelings as being special and unique. Adolescents believe that only they have experienced strong and diverse emotions, and therefore others could never understand how they feel. This uniqueness in one’s emotional experiences reinforces the adolescent’s belief of invulnerability, especially to death. Adolescents will engage in risky behaviors, such as drinking and driving or unprotected sex, and feel they will not suffer any negative consequences. Elkind believed that adolescent egocentricity emerged in early adolescence and declined in middle adolescence, however, recent research has also identified egocentricity in late adolescence (Schwartz, et al., 2008).

Consequences of Formal Operational Thought

As adolescents are now able to think abstractly and hypothetically, they exhibit many new ways of reflecting on information (Dolgin, 2011). For example, they demonstrate greater introspection or thinking about one’s thoughts and feelings. They begin to imagine how the world could be, which leads them to become idealistic or insisting upon high standards of behavior. Because of their idealism, they may become critical of others, especially adults in their life. Additionally, adolescents can demonstrate hypocrisy , or pretend to be what they are not. Since they are able to recognize what others expect of them, they will conform to those expectations for their emotions and behavior seemingly hypocritical to themselves. Lastly, adolescents can exhibit pseudostupidity , which is when they approach problems at a level that is too complex and they fail because the tasks are too simple. Their new ability to consider alternatives is not completely under control and they appear “stupid” when they are in fact bright, just inexperienced. 8

Lawrence Kohlberg: Moral Development

Kohlberg (1963) built on the work of Piaget and was interested in finding out how our moral reasoning changes as we get older. He wanted to find out how people decide what is right and what is wrong (moral justice). Just as Piaget believed that children’s cognitive development follows specific patterns, Kohlberg argued that we learn our moral values through active thinking and reasoning, and that moral development follows a series of stages. Kohlberg’s six stages are generally organized into three levels of moral reasons. To study moral development, Kohlberg posed moral dilemmas to children, teenagers, and adults. You may remember one such dilemma, the Heinz dilemma, that was introduced in Chapter 12: 9

A woman was on her deathbed. There was one drug that the doctors thought might save her. It was a form of radium that a druggist in the same town had recently discovered. The drug was expensive to make, but the druggist was charging ten times what the drug cost him to produce. He paid $200 for the radium and charged $2,000 for a small dose of the drug. The sick woman’s husband, Heinz, went to everyone he knew to borrow the money, but he could only get together about $1,000 which is half of what it cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it cheaper or let him pay later. But the druggist said: “No, I discovered the drug and I’m going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the man’s laboratory to steal the drug for his wife. Should Heinz have broken into the laboratory to steal the drug for his wife? Why or why not? 10

Based on their reasoning behind their responses (not whether they thought Heinz made the right choice or not), Kohlberg placed each person in one of the stages as described in the image on the following page:

Figure 14.5 – Kohlberg’s six stages of moral development. 11

Although research has supported Kohlberg’s idea that moral reasoning changes from an early emphasis on punishment and social rules and regulations to an emphasis on more general ethical principles, as with Piaget’s approach, Kohlberg’s stage model is probably too simple. For one, children may use higher levels of reasoning for some types of problems, but revert to lower levels in situations where doing so is more consistent with their goals or beliefs (Rest, 1979). Second, it has been argued that this stage model is particularly appropriate for Western countries, rather than non-Western, samples in which allegiance to social norms (such as respect for authority) may be particularly important (Haidt, 2001). In addition, there is little correlation between how children score on the moral stages and how they behave in real life.

Perhaps the most important critique of Kohlberg’s theory is that it may describe the moral development of boys better than it describes that of girls. Carol Gilligan has argued that, because of differences in their socialization, males tend to value principles of justice and rights, whereas females value caring for and helping others. Although there is little evidence that boys and girls score differently on Kohlberg’s stages of moral development (Turiel, 1998), it is true that girls and women tend to focus more on issues of caring, helping, and connecting with others than do boys and men (Jaffee & Hyde, 2000). 12

Carol Gilligan: Morality of Care

Carol Gilligan, whose ideas center on a morality of care, or system of beliefs about human responsibilities, care, and consideration for others, proposed three moral positions that represent different extents or breadth of ethical care. Unlike Kohlberg, or Piaget, she does not claim that the positions form a strictly developmental sequence, but only that they can be ranked hierarchically according to their depth or subtlety. In this respect her theory is “semi-developmental” in a way similar to Maslow’s theory of motivation (Brown & Gilligan, 1992; Taylor, Gilligan, & Sullivan, 1995). The following table summarizes the three moral positions from Gilligan’s theory:

Table 14.1 – Positions of Moral Development According to Gilligan

Position 1: Caring as Survival

The most basic kind of caring is a survival orientation , in which a person is concerned primarily with his or her own welfare. As a moral position, a survival orientation is obviously not satisfactory for classrooms on a widespread scale. If every student only looked out for himself or herself alone, classroom life might become rather unpleasant. Nonetheless, there are situations in which caring primarily about yourself is both a sign of good mental health and also relevant to teachers. For a child who has been bullied at school or sexually abused at home, for example, it is both healthy and morally desirable to speak out about the bullying or abuse—essentially looking out for the victim’s own needs at the expense of others’, including the bully’s or abuser’s. Speaking out requires a survival orientation and is healthy because in this case, the child is at least caring about herself.

Position 2: Conventional Caring

A more subtle moral position is caring for others , in which a person is concerned about others’ happiness and welfare, and about reconciling or integrating others’ needs where they conflict with each other. In classrooms, students who operate from Position 2 can be very desirable in some ways; they can be kind, considerate, and good at fitting in and at working cooperatively with others. Because these qualities are very welcome in a busy classroom, it can be tempting for teachers to reward students for developing and using them for much of their school careers. The problem with rewarding Position 2 ethics, however, is that doing so neglects the student’s identity—his or her own academic and personal goals or values. Sooner or later, personal goals, values and identity need attention, and educators have a responsibility for assisting students to discover and clarify them. Unfortunately for teachers, students who know what they want may sometimes be more assertive and less automatically compliant than those who do not.

Position 3: Integrated Caring

The most developed form of moral caring in Gilligan’s model is integrated caring , the coordination of personal needs and values with those of others. Now the morally good choice takes account of everyone including yourself, not everyone except yourself.

In classrooms, integrated caring is most likely to surface whenever teachers give students wide, sustained freedom to make choices. If students have little flexibility about their actions, there is little room for considering anyone’s needs or values, whether their own or others’. If the teacher says simply, “Do the homework on page 50 and turn it in tomorrow morning,” then compliance becomes the main issue, not moral choice. But suppose instead that she says something like this: “Over the next two months, figure out an inquiry project about the use of water resources in our town. Organize it any way you want—talk to people, read widely about it, and share it with the class in a way that all of us, including yourself, will find meaningful.” Although an assignment this general or abstract may not suit some teachers or students, it does pose moral challenges for those who do use it. Why? For one thing, students cannot simply carry out specific instructions, but must decide what aspect of the topic really matters to them. The choice is partly a matter of personal values. For another thing, students have to consider how the topic might be meaningful or important to others in the class. Third, because the time line for completion is relatively far in the future, students may have to weigh personal priorities (like spending time with family on the weekend) against educational priorities (working on the assignment a bit more on the weekend). Some students might have trouble making good choices when given this sort of freedom—and their teachers might therefore be cautious about giving such an assignment. But in a way these hesitations are part of Gilligan’s point: integrated caring is indeed more demanding than the caring based on survival or orientation to others, and not all students may be ready for it. 13

We’ve learned that major changes in the structure and functioning of the brain occur during adolescence and result in the theories about cognitive and behavioral developments ( Steinberg, 2008 ). These cognitive changes include how information is processed, and are fostered by improvements in cognitive function during early adolescence such as in memory, encoding, and storage as well as ability to think about thinking , therefore becoming better at information processing functions. 14

Information Processing Theory: Memory, Encoding, and Storage

Figure 14.6 – The brain’s developments during adolescence allow for greater information processing functions. 15

Memory is an information processing system that we often compare to a computer. Memory is the set of processes used to encode, store, and retrieve information over different periods of time.

Figure 14.7 – The memory process. 16

Encoding involves the input of information into the memory system. Storage is the retention of the encoded information. Retrieval, or getting the information out of memory and back into awareness, is the third function.

Encoding (Input of Information to Memory)

We get information into our brains through a process called encoding , which is the input of information into the memory system. Once we receive sensory information from the environment, our brains label or code it. We organize the information with other similar information and connect new concepts to existing concepts. Encoding information occurs through both automatic processing and effortful processing. For example, if someone asks you what you ate for lunch today, more than likely you could recall this information quite easily. This is known as automatic processing , or the encoding of details like time, space, frequency, and the meaning of words. Automatic processing is usually done without any conscious awareness.

Recalling the last time you studied for a test is another example of automatic processing. But what about the actual test material you studied? It probably required a lot of work and attention on your part to encode that information; this is known as effortful processing . When you first learn new skills such as driving a car, you have to put forth effort and attention to encode information about how to start a car, how to brake, how to handle a turn, and so on. Once you know how to drive, you can encode additional information about this skill automatically.

Storage (Retaining Information in Memory)

Once the information has been encoded, we have to retain it. Our brains take the encoded information and place it in storage. Storage is the creation of a permanent record of information. In order for a memory to go into storage (i.e., long-term memory), it has to pass through three distinct stages: Sensory Memory, Short-Term Memory, and finally Long-Term Memory. These stages were first proposed by Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin (1968). Their model of human memory, called Atkinson-Shiffrin (A-S), is based on the belief that we process memories in the same way that a computer processes information.

Figure 14.8 – According to the Atkinson-Shiffrin model of memory, information passes through three distinct stages in order for it to be stored in long-term memory. 17

Sensory Memory (First Stage of Storage)

In the Atkinson-Shiffrin model, stimuli from the environment are processed first in sensory memory , storage of brief sensory events, such as sights, sounds, and tastes. It is very brief storage—up to a couple of seconds. We are constantly bombarded with sensory information. We cannot absorb all of it, or even most of it. And most of it has no impact on our lives. For example, what was your professor wearing the last class period? As long as the professor was dressed appropriately, it does not really matter what they were wearing. Sensory information about sights, sounds, smells, and even textures, which we do not view as valuable information, we discard. If we view something as valuable, the information will move into our short-term memory system.

One study of sensory memory researched the significance of valuable information on short-term memory storage. J. R. Stroop discovered a memory phenomenon in the 1930s: you will name a color more easily if it appears printed in that color, which is called the Stroop effect.

The Stroop Effect describes why it is difficult for us to name a color when the word and the color of the word are different. To test this out a person is instructed not to read the words below, but to say the color the word is printed in. For example, upon seeing the word “yellow” in green print, they should say “green,” not “yellow.” This experiment is fun, but it’s not as easy as it seems.

Short-Term Memory or Working Memory (Second Stage of Storage)

Short-term memory is a temporary storage system that processes incoming sensory memory; sometimes it is called working memory. Short-term memory takes information from sensory memory and sometimes connects that memory to something already in long-term memory. Short-term memory storage lasts about 20 seconds. Think of short-term memory as the information you have displayed on your computer screen—a document, a spreadsheet, or a web page. Information in short-term memory either goes to long-term memory (when you save it to your hard drive) or it is discarded (when you delete a document or close a web browser).

George Miller (1956), in his research on the capacity of memory, found that most people can retain about seven items in short-term memory. Some remember five, some nine, so he called the capacity of short-term memory the range of seven items plus or minus two.

To explore the capacity and duration of short-term memory, two people can try this activity. One person reads the strings of random numbers below out loud to the other, beginning each string by saying, “Ready?” and ending each by saying, “Recall.” Then the second person should try to write down the string of numbers from memory.

This can be used to determine the longest string of digits that you can store. For most people, this will be close to seven, Miller’s famous seven plus or minus two. Recall is somewhat better for random numbers than for random letters (Jacobs, 1887) and is also often slightly better for information we hear ( a coustic encoding, which is the encoding of sounds) rather than what we see ( visual encoding, which is the encoding of images and words in particular) (Anderson, 1969).

Long-Term Memory (Third and Final Stage of Storage)

Long-term memory is the continuous storage of information. Unlike short-term memory, the storage capacity of long-term memory has no limits. It encompasses all the things you can remember that happened more than just a few minutes ago to all of the things that you can remember that happened days, weeks, and years ago. In keeping with the computer analogy, the information in your long-term memory would be like the information you have saved on the hard drive. It isn’t there on your desktop (your short-term memory), but you can pull up this information when you want it, at least most of the time. Not all long-term memories are strong memories. Some memories can only be recalled through prompts. For example, you might easily recall a fact— “What is the capital of the United States?”—or a procedure—“How do you ride a bike?”—but you might struggle to recall the name of the restaurant you had dinner at when you were on vacation in France last summer. A prompt, such as that the restaurant was named after its owner, who spoke to you about your shared interest in soccer, may help you recall (retrieve) the name of the restaurant.

Retrieval (Finding Memories)

So you have worked hard to encode via effortful processing (a lot of work and attention on your part in order to encode that information) and store some important information for your upcoming final exam. How do you get that information back out of storage when you need it? The act of getting information out of memory storage and back into conscious awareness is known as retrieval . This would be similar to finding and opening a paper you had previously saved on your computer’s hard drive. Now it’s back on your desktop, and you can work with it again. Our ability to retrieve information from long-term memory is vital to our everyday functioning. You must be able to retrieve information from memory in order to do everything from knowing how to brush your hair and teeth, to driving to work, to knowing how to perform your job once you get there.

Long-Term Memory Retrieval (Storage System): Recall, Recognition, Relearning, and Forgetting

There are three ways you can retrieve information out of your long-term memory storage system: recall, recognition, and relearning. Recall is what we most often think about when we talk about memory retrieval: it means you can access information without cues. For example, you would use recall for an essay test. Recognition happens when you identify information that you have previously learned after encountering it again. It involves a process of comparison. When you take a multiple-choice test, you are relying on recognition to help you choose the correct answer. The third form of retrieval is relearning , and it’s just what it sounds like, it involves learning information that you previously learned. Whitney took Spanish in high school, but after high school she did not have the opportunity to speak Spanish. Whitney is now 31, and her company has offered her an opportunity to work in their Mexico City office. In order to prepare herself, she enrolls in a Spanish course at the local community college. She’s surprised at how quickly she’s able to pick up the language after not speaking it for 13 years; this is an example of relearning.

Forgetting (It Wasn’t Locked In)

As we just learned, your brain must do some work (effortful processing) to encode information and move it into short-term, and ultimately long-term memory. This has strong implications for a student, as it can impact their learning – if one doesn’t work to encode and store information, it will likely be forgotten. Research indicates that people forget 80 percent of what they learn only a day later. This statistic may not sound very encouraging, given all that you’re expected to learn and remember as a college student. Really, though, it points to the importance of a study strategy other than waiting until the night before a final exam to review a semester’s worth of readings and notes. When you learn something new, the goal is to “lock it in” sooner rather than later, and move it from short-term memory to long-term memory, where it can be accessed when you need it (like at the end of the semester for your final exam or maybe years from now). The next section will explore a variety of strategies that can be used to process information more deeply and help improve retrieval. 18

Memory Strategies 19

Knowing What to Know

How can you decide what to study and what you need to know? The answer is to prioritize what you’re trying to learn and memorize, rather than trying to tackle all of it. Below are some strategies to help you do this:

Think about concepts rather than facts: Most of the time instructors are concerned about you learning about the key concepts in a subject or course rather than specific facts.
Take cues from your instructor : Pay attention to what your instructor writes on the board, mentions repeatedly in class, or includes in study guides and handouts, they are likely core concepts that you’ll want to focus on.
Look for key terms : Textbooks will often put key terms in bold or italics.
Use summaries : Read end of chapter summaries, or write your own, to check your understanding of the main elements of the reading.

Transferring Information from Short-Term Memory to Long-Term Memory

In the previous discussion of how memory works, the importance of making intentional efforts to transfer information from short-term to long-term memory was noted. Below are some strategies to facilitate this process:

Start reviewing new material immediately : Remember that people typically forget a significant amount of new information within 24 hours of learning it.
Study frequently for shorter periods of time : If you want to improve the odds of recalling course material by the time of an exam or in future class, try reviewing it a little bit every day.

Strengthening your M emory

How can you work to strengthen your overall memory? Some people have stronger memories than others but memorizing new information takes work for anyone. Below are some strategies that can aid memory:

Rehearsal: One strategy is rehearsal, or the conscious repetition of information to be remembered (Craik & Watkins, 1973). Academic learning comes with time and practice, and at some point the skills become second nature.
Incorporate visuals: Visual aids like note cards, concept maps, and highlighted text are ways of making information stand out. These aids make the information to be memorized seem more manageable and less daunting.
Create mnemonics: Memory devices known as mnemonics can help you retain information while only needing to remember a unique phrase or letter pattern that stands out . They are especially useful when we want to recall larger bits of information such as steps, stages, phases, and parts of a system (Bellezza, 1981). There are different types of mnemonic devices:
Acronym: An acronym is a word formed by the first letter of each of the words you want to remember. Such as HOMES for the Great Lakes (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior)
Acrostic: In an acrostic , you make a phrase of all the first letters of the words. For example, if you need to remember the order of mathematical operations, recalling the sentence “Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally” will help you, because the order of mathematical operations is Parentheses, Exponents, Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction.
Jingles: Rhyming tunes that contain key words related to the concept, such as “i before e, except after c” are jingles.
Visual : Using a visual to help you remember is also useful. Such as the knuckle mnemonic shown in the image below to help you remember the number of days in each month. Months with 31 days are represented by the protruding knuckles and shorter months fall in the spots between knuckles.

Figure 14.9 – You might use a mnemonic device to help you remember someone’s name, a mathematical formula, or the six levels of Bloom’s taxonomy. 20

Chunking: Another strategy is chunking, where you organize information into manageable bits or chunks, such as turning a phone number you remember into chunks.
Connect new information to old information: It’s easier to remember new information if you can connect it to old information, a familiar frame of reference, or a personal experience.
Get quality sleep: Although some people require more or less sleep than the recommended amount, most people should aim for six to eight hours every night.

Adolescence (A Time of Transitions)

Cognitive growth and a new found sense of freedom and independence makes it both easier and more difficult for teens when making choices and coping with upcoming transitions and life decisions.

Academic Achievement, High School Dropouts, and Gap Years

As Adolescents grow older, they encounter age-related transition points that require them to progress into a new role, such as go to college, take a year off or Gap Year, or start to work towards a career. Educational expectations vary not only from culture to culture, but also from class to class. While middle- or upper-class families may expect their daughter or son to attend a four-year university after graduating from high school, other families may expect their child to immediately begin working full-time, as many within their families have done before. 21

Academic Achievement

Adolescents spend more waking time in school than in any other context (Eccles & Roeser, 2011). Academic achievement during adolescence is predicted by interpersonal (e.g., parental engagement in adolescents’ education), intrapersonal (e.g., intrinsic motivation), and institutional (e.g., school quality) factors. Academic achievement is important in its own right as a marker of positive adjustment during adolescence but also because academic achievement sets the stage for future educational and occupational opportunities. The most serious consequence of school failure, particularly dropping out of school, is the high risk of unemployment or underemployment in adulthood that follows. High achievement can set the stage for college or future vocational training and opportunities. 22

High School Dropouts

The status dropout rate refers to the percentage of 16 to 24 year-olds who are not enrolled in school and do not have high school credentials (either a diploma or an equivalency credential such as a General Educational Development [GED] certificate). The dropout rate is based on sample surveys of the civilian, non- institutionalized population, which excludes persons in prisons, persons in the military, and other persons not living in households. 23 The dropout rate among high school students has declined from a rate of 9.7% in 2006, to 5.4% in 2017. 24

Gap Year: How: different Societies Socialize Young Adults

Age transition points require socialization into new roles that can vary widely between societies. For example, in the United Kingdom, when teens finish their secondary schooling (aka high school in the United States), they often take a year “off” before entering college. Frequently, they might take a job, travel, or find other ways to experience another culture. Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge, spent his gap year practicing survival skills in Belize, teaching English in Chile, and working on a dairy farm in the United Kingdom (Prince of Wales 2012a). His brother, Prince Harry, advocated for AIDS orphans in Africa and worked as a jackeroo (a novice ranch hand) in Australia (Prince of Wales 2012b).

In the United States, this life transition point is socialized quite differently, and taking a year off is generally frowned upon. Instead, U.S. youth are encouraged to pick career paths by their mid-teens, to select a college and a major by their late teens, and to have completed all collegiate schooling or technical training for their career by their early twenties.

In other nations, this phase of the life course is tied into conscription , a term that describes compulsory military service. Egypt, Switzerland, Turkey, and Singapore all have this system in place. Youth in these nations (often only the males) are expected to undergo a number of months or years of military training and service. 27

Adolescents and Independence: Career, Work Experience, and Driving

Adolescents in the workforce.

Many adolescents work either summer jobs, or during the school year, or may work in lieu of college. Holding a job may offer teenagers extra funds, provide the opportunity to learn new skills, foster ideas about future careers, and perhaps shed light on the true value of money. However, there are numerous concerns about teenagers working, especially during the school year. Several studies have found that working more than 20 hours per week can lead to declines in grades, a general disengagement from school (Staff, Schulenberg, & Bachman, 2010; Lee & Staff, 2007; Marsh & Kleitman, 2005), an increase in substance abuse (Longest & Shanahan, 2007), engaging in earlier sexual behavior, and pregnancy (Staff et al., 2011). Like many employee groups, teens have seen a drop in the number of jobs. The summer jobs of previous generations have been on a steady decline, according to the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (2016).

Figure 14.12 – How many hours and the reasons why this teen works, will influence the effects of her job. 28

The Working Poor

A major concern in the United States is the rising number of young people who choose to work rather than continue their education and are growing up or continuing to grow up in poverty. Growing up poor or entering the workforce too soon, can cut off access to the education and services people need to move out of poverty and into stable employment. Research states that education was often a key to stability, and those raised in poverty are the ones least able to find well-paying work, perpetuating a cycle. Those who work only part time, may it be teens or whomever, are more likely to be classified as working poor than are those with full-time employment; higher levels of education lead to less likelihood of being among the working poor. 29 In 2017, the working poor included 6.9 million Americans, down from 7.6 million in 2011 (U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2019). 30

Teenage Drivers

Driving gives teens a sense of freedom and independence from their parents. It can also free up time for parents as they are not shuttling teens to and from school, activities, or work. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) reports that in 2014 young drivers (15 to 20 year-olds) accounted for 5.5% (11.7 million) of the total number of drivers (214 million) in the US (National Center for Statistics and Analysis (NCSA), 2016). However, almost 9% of all drivers involved in fatal crashes that year were young drivers (NCSA, 2016), and according to the National Center for Health Statistics (2014), motor vehicle accidents are the leading cause of death for 15 to 20 year-olds. “In all motorized jurisdictions around the world, young, inexperienced drivers have much higher crash rates than older, more experienced drivers” (NCSA, 2016, p. 1).

The rate of fatal crashes is higher for young males than for young females, although for both genders the rate was highest for the 15-20 year-old age group. For young males, the rate for fatal crashes was approximately 46 per 100,000 drivers, compared to 20 per 100,000 drivers for young females. The NHTSA (NCSA, 2016) reported that of the young drivers who were killed and who had alcohol in their system, 81% had a blood alcohol count past what was considered the legal limit. Fatal crashes involving alcohol use were higher among young men than young women. The NHTSA also found that teens were less likely to use seat belt restraints if they were driving under the influence of alcohol, and that restraint use decreased as the level of alcohol intoxication increased.

AAA completed a study in 2014 that showed that the following are risk factors for accidents for teen drivers:

Following cars too closely
Driving too fast for weather and road conditions
Distraction from fellow passengers
Distraction from cell phones

According to the NHTSA, 10% of drivers aged 15 to 19 years involved in fatal crashes were reported to be distracted at the time of the crash; the highest figure for any age group (NCSA, 2016). Distraction coupled with inexperience has been found to greatly increase the risk of an accident (Klauer et al., 2014).

The NHTSA did find that the number of accidents has been on a decline since 2005. They attribute this to greater driver training, more social awareness to the challenges of driving for teenagers, and to changes in laws restricting the drinking age. The NHTSA estimates that the raising of the legal drinking age to 21 in all 50 states and the District of Columbia has saved 30,323 lives since 1975. 31

Figure 14.13 – This teen needs to have solid driver training and awareness of driving challenges. 32

Wisdom and Risk-Taking

Whether it is a sense heightened of ability (we’ve learned a lot about the egocentrism, personal fable, imaginary audience, or the lack of development of prefrontal cortex), or just poor decision making, many teens tend to take unnecessary risks. Wisdom , or the capacity for insight and judgment that is developed through experience, increases between the ages of 14 and 25, and increases with maturity, life experiences, and cognitive development. Wisdom increases gradually and is not the same as intelligence, and adolescents do not improve substantially on IQ tests since their scores are relative to others in their age group, as everyone matures at approximately the same rate. Adolescents must be monitored because they are more likely to take risks than adults. The behavioral decision-making theory proposes that adolescents and adults both weigh the potential rewards and consequences of an action. However, adolescents seem to give more weight to rewards, particularly social rewards, than do adults. Scaffolding adolescents until they show consistent and appropriate judgment will likely allow for fewer negative consequences. 33

In this chapter we looked at:

Piaget’s formal operational stage
Moral Development and Morality of Care theories
Memories in the Information Processing Theory
Adolescent transitions and independence

In the next chapter we will be examining adolescent social emotional development

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What Is Cognitive Development? 3 Psychology Theories

But don’t worry, we will try our best to help you with the essentials of this complex field of study.

We’ll start with some background, then show you how cognitive skills are used every day. In addition, we will explain a few theories and describe fascinating studies.

Since cognitive development goes beyond childhood and into adolescence, we are sure you will want to know all about this, too.

To end this article, we provide some helpful resources. You can use these to support the cognitive skills of your students or clients.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free . These science-based exercises explore fundamental aspects of positive psychology, including strengths, values, and self-compassion, and will give you the tools to enhance the wellbeing of your clients, students, or employees.

This Article Contains:

What is cognitive development in psychology, cognitive development skills & important milestones, 5 real-life examples of cognitive development, 3 ground-breaking cognitive development theories, a look at cognitive development in adolescence, 3 fascinating research studies, helpful resources from positivepsychology.com, a take-home message.

Cognitive development is how humans acquire, organize, and learn to use knowledge (Gauvain & Richert, 2016).

In psychology, the focus of cognitive development has often been only on childhood. However, cognitive development continues through adolescence and adulthood. It involves acquiring language and knowledge, thinking, memory, decision making, problem solving, and exploration (Von Eckardt, 1996).

Much of the research within cognitive development in children focuses on thinking, developing knowledge, exploring, and solving problems (Carpendale & Lewis, 2015).

Nature vs nurture debate

The nature versus nurture debate refers to how much an individual inherits compared to how much they are influenced by the environment. How do nature and nurture shape cognitive development?

American psychologist Arthur Jensen (1969, 1974) emphasized the role of genetics within intelligence, arguing for a genetic difference in the intelligence of white and Black people.

Jensen (1969) made some very bold assertions, stating that Black people have lower cognitive abilities. His research was heavily criticized for being discriminatory. He did not consider the inbuilt bias of psychometric testing (Ford, 1996). The lower test scores of Black individuals were more likely to be a result of a lack of resources and poor-quality life opportunities (Ford, 2004).

In an enormous cross-sample of 11,000 adolescent twins, Brant et al. (2013) found that those with a higher intelligence quotient (IQ) appeared to be more influenced by nurture and stimulation. The researchers suggested this may be because of their heightened attention and arousal system, absorbing more information from the environment, being more open to new experiences, and allowing brain plasticity and changes to occur.

They also found that adolescents with a lower IQ showed more genetic influence on their IQ from their parents. The researchers suggested that their lower levels of intelligence may result in lower motivation levels and an inability to seek out new experiences.

This study highlights the need for those with lower IQ levels to be supported with positive interventions to increase their cognitive abilities and capacity.

These milestones reflect skill achievement and take into account genetic makeup and environmental influence (Dosman, Andrews, & Goulden, 2012).

Here are a few of these important milestones, the associated skills, and the age at which they are typically achieved. The following table is modified from the Child Development Institute .

Table 1. Children’s cognitive milestones and skill development

Language and other cognitive skills

Language skills are essential for a child’s ability to communicate and engage with others. These skills support other areas of a child’s development, such as cognitive, literacy, and social development (Roulstone, Loader, Northstone, & Beveridge, 2002).

The modified table below was sourced from the Australian parenting website raisingchildren.net.au and describes how language develops in children.

Table 2. Language development from 0 to 8 years

Thinking skills

Thinking concerns manipulating information and is related to reasoning, decision making, and problem solving (Kashyap & Minda, 2016). It is required to develop language, because you need words to think.

Cognitive development activities helps thinking and reasoning to grow. Thinking is a skill that does not commence at birth. It develops gradually through childhood and advances more rapidly when children are around two years old. Reasoning develops around six. By the time they’re 11, children’s thinking becomes much more abstract and logical (Piaget, 1936).

Developing knowledge

Knowledge is essential for cognitive development and academic achievement. Increased knowledge equates to better speaking, reading, listening, and reasoning skills. Knowledge is not only related to language. It can also be gained by performing a task (Bhatt, 2000). It starts from birth as children begin to understand the world around them through their senses (Piaget, 1951).

Building knowledge is important for children to encode and retrieve new information. This makes them able to learn new material. Knowledge helps to facilitate critical thinking (Piaget, 1936). Clearly, the development of children’s knowledge base is a critical part of cognitive development.

Memory development

The development of memory is lifelong and related to personal experiences.

Explicit memory, which refers to remembering events and facts of everyday life, develops in the first two years (Stark, Yassa, & Stark, 2010). Explicit memory develops around 8 to 10 months.

Working memory and its increase in performance can be seen from three to four years through adolescence (Ward, Berry, & Shanks, 2013). This is demonstrated through increased attention, the acquisition of language, and increased knowledge.

Implicit memory, which is unconscious and unintentional, is an early developing memory system in infants and develops as the brain matures (Ward et al., 2013).

Perceptual skills

Perceptual skills develop from birth. They are an important aspect of cognitive development. Most children are born with senses of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell (Karasik, Tamis-LeMonda, & Adolph, 2014).

As children develop, they learn to communicate by interacting with their environment and using their sensory and motor skills (Karasik et al., 2014).

When visual, tactile, and auditory skills are combined, they emerge as perceptual skills. These perceptual skills are then used to gauge spatial relationships, discriminate between figure and ground, and develop hand–eye coordination (Libertus & Hauf, 2017).

Exploring and solving problems

Problem solving can be seen in very young children when they play with blocks, objects, and balls. It is entwined with perceptual skills and memory. Very young children playing with blocks, picking up a spoon, or even looking for objects demonstrate the development of problem solving skills (Goldschmied & Jackson, 1994). This is known as heuristic play (Auld, 2002).

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To understand how people think and process information, it is important to look at how cognitive skills are used in everyday life. Here are some real-life examples of cognitive development.

Decision making

To make a decision, a person needs to weigh up information and make the best choice. As an example, think about a restaurant menu. There is a lot of information on the menu about food options. Reading the menu requires you to analyze the data then reduce it to make a specific meal choice.

Recognition of faces

Have you ever wondered why it is possible to recognize a person even when they have grown a beard, wear makeup or glasses, or change their hair color?

Cognitive processing is used in facial recognition and explains why we still recognize people we meet after a long time, despite sometimes drastic changes in their physical appearance.

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

This widely used therapeutic intervention is based on an understanding of cognition and how it changes behavior.

It is based on the premise that cognition and behavior are linked, and this theory is often used to help individuals overcome negative thinking patterns . CBT provides them with alternative positive thinking patterns to promote positive behavior.

The cognitive processes of short-term and long-term memory explain forgetting. An example of forgetting can be seen in students who do not study for exams. If they do not transfer the information from short-term to long-term memory, they forget the knowledge required for the examination and may fail.

Thinking and cognition are required for reasoning. Reasoning involves intellect and an attempt to search for the truth from new or existing information. An example of this activity can be seen in political debates on television.

They all attempt to explain how cognitive development occurs.

Piaget’s cognitive development theory

Jean Piaget (1936) is famous for his theory of cognition that considers four specific stages of development .

The sensorimotor stage (0–2 years) is when infants build an understanding of the world through their senses and movement (touching, feeling, listening, and watching). This is when children develop object permanence.

The pre-operational stage (2–7 years) is when language and abstract thinking arise. This is the stage of symbolic play.

When a child is 7 years old, they enter Piaget’s concrete-operational stage , which goes up to 11 years. This is when logical and concrete thought come into action.

At the age of 11 onward, children learn logical and abstract rules and solve problems. Piaget described this as the formal operational stage.

Vygotsky’s theory

Lev Vygotsky described an alternative theory. He believed that children’s cognitive development arises through their physical interaction with the world (Vygotsky, 1932). Vygotsky’s theory is based on the premise that the support of adults and peers enables the development of higher psychological functions. His is known as the sociocultural theory (Yasnitsky, 2018).

Vygotsky believed that a child’s initial social interactions prompt development, and as the child internalizes learning, this shifts their cognition to an individual level.

Vygotsky (1932) considered children akin to apprentices, learning from the more experienced, who understand their needs.

There are two main themes of Vygotsky’s theory.

The zone of proximal development is described as the distance between the actual development level and the level of potential. This is determined by independent problem solving when children are collaborating with more able peers or under the guidance of an adult (Vygotsky, 1931).

This may explain why some children perform better in the presence of others who have more knowledge and skills but more poorly on their own. These skills, displayed in a social context but not in an isolated setting, are within the zone of proximal development. This highlights how a more knowledgeable person can provide support to a child’s cognitive development (Vygotsky, 1932).

Thinking and speech are considered essential. Vygotsky described a connected relationship between language development and the thinking process. His theory explains how younger children use speech to think out loud. Gradually, they evolve silent inner speech once mental concepts and cognitive awareness are developed (Vygotsky, 1931).

Ecological systems theory

Another more modern theory, similar in some sense to Vygotsky’s, is one by American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner (1974). He suggested that a child’s environment, within an arrangement of structures, has a differing impact on the child (Bronfenbrenner, 1974).

Bronfenbrenner’s five structures are the micro-system, mesosystem, ecosystem, macrosystem, and chronosystem. These concern the surrounding environment, family, school, values, customs, and cultures. They are interrelated, with each system influencing others to impact the child’s development (Bronfenbrenner, 1977).

Bronfenbrenner (1974) considered the micro-system as the most influential. This system contains the developing child, family, and educational environment, and impacts a child’s cognitive development the most.

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development – Sprouts

Adolescence is a period of transition between late childhood and the beginning of adulthood.

Based on Inhelder and Piaget’s (1958) stage theory of cognitive growth, adolescence is when children become self-conscious and concerned with other people’s opinions as they go through puberty (Steinberg, 2005). The psychosocial context of adolescents is considerably different from that of children and adults.

The brain goes through a dramatic remodeling process in adolescence. Neural plasticity facilitates the development of social cognitive skills (Huttenlocher, 1979). Structural development of cortical regions of the brain may significantly influence cognitive functioning during adolescence (Huttenlocher, De Courten, Garey, & Van der Loos, 1983).

Recognition of facial expressions and emotion is one area of social cognition that has been investigated in adolescence (Herba & Phillips, 2004). The amygdala, a part of the brain associated with emotion processing, was found to be significantly activated in response to fearful facial expressions in a study of adolescents (Baird et al., 1999). This highlights that the development of emotional cognition is prominent in this age group.

Here are three we find most interesting.

1. A cognitive habilitation program for children

Millians and Coles (2014) studied five children who had experienced learning and academic deficits because of prenatal alcohol exposure. Before and after an intervention, researchers gave standardized tests of nonverbal reasoning and academic achievement to the children.

Four of the five children showed increases to the average range of scores on measures of nonverbal, reasoning, reading, and mathematics. This study highlighted the benefit of interventions to address children’s cognitive difficulties and learning problems, even when the cognitive difficulties are apparent from birth.

2. Bilingual babies and enhanced learning

Introducing babies to two languages has been shown to improve cognitive abilities, especially problem solving (Ramírez-Esparza, García-Sierra, & Kuhl, 2017).

Spanish babies between 7 and 33.5 months were given one hour of English sessions for 18 weeks. By the end of the 18 weeks, the children produced an average of 74 English words and phrases. This study showed that the age between 0 and 3 years is the best time to learn a second language and gain excellent proficiency. However, languages can be learned at any time in life.

3. Unusual autobiographical memory

In an unusual case study, a woman described as ‘AJ’ was found to have highly superior autobiographical memory, a condition that dominated her life (Parker, Cahill, & McGaugh, 2006).

Her memory was described as ‘nonstop, uncontrollable and automatic.’ AJ did not use any mnemonic devices to recall. She could tell you what she was doing on any day of her life.

AJ could also recall her past with a high level of accuracy. This study provided some insightful details of the neurobiology of autobiographical memory and changes in the prefrontal cortex that cause these superior cognitive abilities.

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The first few years of a child’s life show rapid changes in brain development. This is part of the child’s cognitive development. There are a number of different theories of how and when this occurs. These are not set in stone, but are a guide to the cognitive development of children.

If children are not achieving their milestones at the approximate times they should, extra support can help make a difference. Even children with fetal alcohol syndrome can achieve considerably improved cognition with specialized support.

Remember, cognitive development does not end in childhood, as Piaget’s schema theory first suggested. It continues through adolescence and beyond. Cognitive development changes carry on through much of a teenager’s life as the brain is developing.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Positive Psychology Exercises for free .

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Understanding the Whole Child: Prenatal Development through Adolescence

11.4 information processing: learning, memory, and problem solving.

During middle and late childhood children make strides in several areas of cognitive function including the capacity of working memory, their ability to pay attention, and their use of memory strategies. Both changes in the brain and experience foster these abilities. In this section, we will look at how children process information, think and learn, allowing them to increase their ability to learn and remember due to an improvement in the ways they attend to, store information, and problem solve. 453

Working Memory : The capacity of working memory expands during middle and late childhood, research has suggested that both an increase in processing speed and the ability to inhibit irrelevant information from entering memory are contributing to the greater efficiency of working memory during this age (de Ribaupierre, 2002). Changes in myelination and synaptic pruning in the cortex are likely behind the increase in processing speed and ability to filter out irrelevant stimuli (Kail, McBride-Chang, Ferrer, Cho, & Shu, 2013). 454

Working memory expands during middle and late childhood.^[[Image](https://www.ncpedia.org/media/working-memory-illustration) by [Anchor](https://www.ncpedia.org/anchor/anchor) is licensed under [CC BY-NC-SA](https://www.ncpedia.org/category/licensing/creative-commons)]

Figure 11.16: Working memory expands during middle and late childhood. 455

Attention : As noted above, the ability to inhibit irrelevant information improves during this age group, with there being a sharp improvement in selective attention from age six into adolescence (Vakil, Blachstein, Sheinman, & Greenstein, 2009). Children also improve in their ability to shift their attention between tasks or different features of a task (Carlson, Zelazo, & Faja, 2013). A younger child who is asked to sort objects into piles based on type of object, car versus animal, or color of object, red versus blue, would likely have no trouble doing so. But if you ask them to switch from sorting based on type to now having them sort based on color, they would struggle because this requires them to suppress the prior sorting rule. An older child has less difficulty making the switch, meaning there is greater flexibility in their intentional skills. These changes in attention and working memory contribute to children having more strategic approaches to challenging tasks.

Memory Strategies : Bjorklund (2005) describes a developmental progression in the acquisition and use of memory strategies. Such strategies are often lacking in younger children, but increase in frequency as children progress through elementary school. Examples of memory strategies include rehearsing information you wish to recall, visualizing and organizing information, creating rhymes, such as “i” before “e” except after “c”, or inventing acronyms, such as “roygbiv” to remember the colors of the rainbow. Schneider, Kron-Sperl, and Hünnerkopf (2009) reported a steady increase in the use of memory strategies from ages six to ten in their longitudinal study. Moreover, by age ten many children were using two or more memory strategies to help them recall information. Schneider and colleagues found that there were considerable individual differences at each age in the use of strategies, and that children who utilized more strategies had better memory performance than their same aged peers.

Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 ↩︎

Image by Anchor is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA ↩︎

Chapter 7: Adolescence

Cognitive development.

More complex thinking abilities emerge during adolescence. Some researchers suggest this is due to increases in processing speed and efficiency rather than as the result of an increase in mental capacity—in other words, due to improvements in existing skills rather than development of new ones (Bjorkland, 1987; Case, 1985). During adolescence, teenagers move beyond concrete thinking and become capable of abstract thought. Recall that Piaget refers to this stage as formal operational thought. Teen thinking is also characterized by the ability to consider multiple points of view, imagine hypothetical situations, debate ideas and opinions (e.g., politics, religion, and justice), and form new ideas. In addition, it’s not uncommon for adolescents to question authority or challenge established societal norms.

Early in adolescence, changes in the brain’s dopaminergic system contribute to increases in adolescents’ sensation-seeking and reward motivation. Later in adolescence, the brain’s cognitive control centers in the prefrontal cortex develop, increasing adolescents’ self-regulation and future orientation. The difference in timing of the development of these different regions of the brain contributes to more risk taking during middle adolescence because adolescents are motivated to seek thrills that sometimes come from risky behavior, such as reckless driving, smoking, or drinking, and have not yet developed the cognitive control to resist impulses or focus equally on the potential risks (Steinberg, 2008 [1] ). One of the world’s leading experts on adolescent development, Laurence Steinberg, likens this to engaging a powerful engine before the braking system is in place. The result is that adolescents are more prone to risky behaviors than are children or adults.

Cognitive empathy , also known as theory-of-mind (which we discussed earlier with regard to egocentrism), relates to the ability to take the perspective of others and feel concern for others (Shamay-Tsoory, Tomer, & Aharon-Peretz, 2005). Cognitive empathy begins to increase in adolescence and is an important component of social problem solving and conflict avoidance. According to one longitudinal study, levels of cognitive empathy begin rising in girls around 13 years old, and around 15 years old in boys (Van der Graaff et al., 2013). Teens who reported having supportive fathers with whom they could discuss their worries were found to be better able to take the perspective of others (Miklikowska, Duriez, & Soenens, 2011).

A picture shows four people gathered around a table attempting to figure out a problem together.

Teenage thinking is characterized by the ability to reason logically and solve hypothetical problems such as how to design, plan, and build a structure. (credit: U.S. Army RDECOM)

Steinberg, L. (2013). Adolescence (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill. ↵
Second paragraph on cognitive development. Authored by : Jennifer Lansford. Provided by : Duke University. Located at : http://nobaproject.com/modules/adolescent-development?r=LDE2MjU3 . Project : The Noba Project. License : CC BY-NC-SA: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike
Stages of Development. Authored by : OpenStax College. Located at : http://cnx.org/contents/[email protected]:1/Psychology . License : CC BY: Attribution . License Terms : Download for free at http://cnx.org/content/col11629/latest/.

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Intellectual and Cognitive Development in Children and Teens

Sensorimotor stage (birth-2 years)
Preoperational stage (2-7 years)
Concrete operational stage (7-12 years)
Formal operational stage (12 years and older)

A Few Things Parents Can Do To Promote Cognitive Development

The best thing parents can do is play with your kids (baby to teens) doing things that you both enjoy.
Introduce your child early to music. Sing to them and with them. Play different kinds of music in the background while you are playing with your baby. Get your child a play music set . Teach them to play the key board . Take them for music lessons. We highly recommend the Yamaha Program which starts kids out a preschool but goes all the way to high school. They learn music theory, how to play instruments and how to write their own music. Go to concerts for kids.
Introduce your children to art. Crayons and other art materials should be available. Young Rembrandt’s has a national directory for art classes.
Spend time with younger children reading to them. When they can read on their own, encourage reading and discuss with them about they are reading. Ask questions.
Play games with your child starting with “pat a cake” and moving on to card games and board games. Have a family game night.
Encourage your child to get outdoors. Exercise and fresh air are good for brain development. Take them to the park, the beach or the forest.
Go on nature walks and talk about what you see. Get books or information on things of interest. Watch TV shows on topics they are interested in and talk about it later. Here are the top 12 Tv channels for kids: Discovery, Animal Planet, Science Channel, History Channel, Nickelodeon, Nick Jr, The Learning Channel, Disney Channel, PBS, and Sprout.
Introduce them to the local library. Get the card. Talk to the children’s librarian for book recommendations for your child. Also, ask about the programs they have for children.
Check with your local community college and department of recreation and parks for special programs they have for kids and teens.
Go to museums of all kinds and any other attractions around you.
Take trips to places you can have fun and be out in nature or visit cultural or historical centers.
Let them play with things around the house. Bring a box or two home and watch they can do.
Select toys with play value (they can make believe, build things, learn things) and that are age appropriate. Amazon has a great toy department that provides excellent tools to select the right toys for your child.

Ages and Stages: A Parent's Guide to Normal Childhood Development

Gymboree Series On Activities for Children We highly recommend this series for parents because the books provide numerous “how to do it” play activities to nurture (provide the scaffolding) child development. From babies to young children they cover cognitive, language, physical and social development. Not only will these activities stimulate development but build a strong parent and child relationship. Plus they are fun for both parents and kids.

Developmental Play At School: Fun And Essential For Learning!
Why Puzzles Are Good for Your Child’s Development
Why You Should Get Involved in Your Child’s Activities, Hobbies, and School
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Two Activities That Will Help Wire Your Child’s Brain For Learning
Smart Eating: 6 Brain-Boosting After-School Snacks for Kids
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“Play Is The Work of the Child” Maria Montessori
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How to Support Your Child’s Creative Side
8 Tips for Getting Your Kids Out Into Nature
Children are Little Scientists: Encouraging Discovery Plan

Cognitive Developmental Mile Stones:

Listens attentively to sounds and voices (by 1 month)
Cries deliberately for assistance (by 1 month)
Coordinates eye movements (by 2 months)
Discovers hands and feet as an extension of self (by 3 months)
Likes to repeat enjoyable acts (by 4 months)
Recognizes and responds to name (by 5 months)
Studies objects intently (by 6 months)
Recognizes and responds to own name.
Discriminates between familiar and unfamiliar faces.
Demonstrates happiness and unhappiness with sounds.
Demonstrates memory by waiting while feeding is prepared and stopping crying when a person enters a room.
Looks forward to feeding by sight.
Anticipates events (by 7 months)
Finds hidden objects (by 10 months)
Can point to body parts
Puts nesting toys together correctly
Develops expectations about familiar events
Waves bye-bye
Follows simple directions.
Searches for an object that has disappeared.
Pours objects out of a container and puts each back in.
Imitates actions of others.
Understands basic cause and effect relationships (touching hot stove burns hand).
Enjoys the repetition of events.
Enjoys picture book for a short period of time.
Assembles simple nesting toys.
Identifies family members in photographs
Enjoys cause and effect relationship
Is able to make choices between clear alternatives
Begins to solve problems
Remembers more
Learns by exploring.
Responds to simple directions.
Points to familiar objects upon request.
Remembers where things are in different areas of the house (room).
Hunts for a hidden toy.
Shows brief interest in a picture book
Gives a mechanical toy to the caregiver to activate
Places a large round shape in a form board.
Sorts shapes and colors
Mimics adult behavior
Points to and names objects
Refers to self by name
Learns by helping
Learns concepts such as size, shape, and weight as he/she moves and plays with objects in the environment.
Points to body parts upon request.
Acknowledges absence of familiar persons (points to the door, says gone).
Points to and names objects in a book.
Begins to recognize shapes.
Enjoys cause-and-effect relationships (banging drum, turning on TV).
Follows simple instructions.
Asks names of objects.
Identifies more objects with names
Comprehends size
Beginning to understand time sequences (e.g. before lunch)
Matches shapes and colors
Counts and manipulates objects
Is beginning to think about consequences
Is able to concentrate for longer periods of time
Enjoys reciting fingerplays, nursery rhymes, and songs.
Repeats radio and TV commercials.
Responds to rhythms.
Learns simple relationships such as big and small.
Invents simple sentences to express thoughts.
Uses names of familiar people and objects.
Is curious about how things work.
Begins to understand the reasoning of caregivers.
Interested in size and shape.
Identifies colors.
Counts from one to ten.
Counts two or more objects.
Asks why questions.
Responds to how questions.
Learns the name, address, phone number, sex, age and parents names.
Holds up fingers to indicate age.
Uses bathroom words and laughs.
Enjoys doing things for self.
Develops a better understanding of cause and effect.
Distinguishes between fact and fiction
Comprehends special concepts (e.g. around, in front, high, next to)
Rote counts up to 2
Can complete a 6-8 piece puzzle
Begins to understand time concepts
Understands simple math concepts
Recalls main details of a store
Improves their ability to reason.
Knows birthday.
Identifies coins such as penny, nickel and dime.
Understands seasons.
Begins to understand the need for rules.
Understands the concept of texture, size, distance, and temperature.
Forms logical conclusions.
Enjoys games that test abilities.
Improves their ability to remember past events.
Has difficulty understanding time.
Learns right from wrong.
Accepts rules, but doesn’t always understand the reason.
Enjoys routines.
Exhibits increased attention span and concentration.
Follows instructions concerning numbers.
Understands terms like more than and less than.
Uses many words without understanding definitions.
Understands simple. classifications such as groups of trees and animals.
Places blocks and nesting toys in order (small to large).
Asks a lot of questions, especially, “Why?”
Asks more complex questions.
Desires detailed answers.
Shows unusual interest in numbers.
Accepts and understands rules.
Exhibits longer attention span.
Likes active, competitive games.
Enjoys simple games such as checkers and cards.
Draws symbolic pictures.
Understands the value of coins.
Enjoys hobbies and collections.
Likes to experiment.
Enjoys playing with dolls, blocks, and tools.
Recognizes problems and can work out solutions.
Draws conclusions from what is seen.
Learns to generalize and draw conclusions.
Is interested in factual information.
Enjoys group projects such as science and art.
Likes to construct things.
Enjoys learning experiences involving pets.
Applies math concepts to daily life.
Spends long periods of time working on hobbies and crafts.
Has increased memory and thinking
Becomes more abstract.
Understands the value of money.
Growing capacity for abstract thought
Mostly interested in present with limited thought to the future
Intellectual interests expand and become more important
Deeper moral thinking
Continued growth of capacity for abstract thought
Greater capacity for setting goals
Interest in moral reasoning
Thinking about the meaning of life

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Abstract Thought in Adolescence: How to Nurture Critical Thinking in Schools

The Role of Abstract Thought in Adolescence

The phase of adolescence is marked by two particularly striking cognitive developments: the capacity to explore hypothetical scenarios and the budding of critical thinking. Both play a pivotal role in shaping how teenagers interpret and engage with the world around them.

Exploring Hypothetical Scenarios and Critical Thinking

The development of abstract thought allows adolescents to consider “what if” questions, envisaging multiple outcomes from a single scenario. This ability is crucial for effective decision-making, empathy, and risk assessment. Additionally, the emergence of critical thinking skills enables teenagers to question, analyse, and evaluate information more thoroughly, preparing them for informed citizenship and complex problem-solving in adulthood. A study from the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology (2014) affirmed that this ability to theorise and predict outcomes without direct experience enhances decision-making, risk assessment, and empathy.

Navigating the Modern World

In today’s fast-paced, interconnected society, the capacity for abstract thought is invaluable. It equips young people to sift through vast amounts of information, differentiate between fact and opinion, and understand global issues from multiple perspectives. This cognitive skillset is indispensable for navigating the challenges of the digital age, including assessing online content critically and engaging with complex socio-political issues. The Educational Psychology Review (2017) highlighted that this analytical approach is crucial for academic pursuits and cultivating informed, discerning citizens in a complex digital age.

Challenges in Developing Abstract Thought

The journey from concrete to abstract thinking is not without its challenges. Adolescents may struggle with egocentric perspectives or find it difficult to fully embrace multiple viewpoints. Recognising and addressing these obstacles is crucial for educators and parents to support teenagers effectively.

The Influence of External Factors

Peer Pressure: One cannot underestimate the impact of peer validation in adolescence. While peers can be a source of support, the desire to ‘fit in’ might sometimes curtail independent, abstract thinking. Navigating peer influence while developing one’s identity can be a delicate balancing act for many adolescents.

Digital Distractions: While offering unprecedented access to information, the digital age also presents a myriad of distractions. The constant barrage of notifications, the allure of social media, and the instant gratification of online games can potentially hamper the sustained, deep thinking required for abstract reasoning.

Limited Exposure to Diverse Scenarios: Encountering a variety of scenarios — both in life and literature — fosters abstract thought. Limited exposure due to an overly sheltered upbringing or a narrow curriculum can inadvertently limit the opportunities to flex and develop these cognitive muscles.

Strategies for Educators and Parents

Fostering an environment that encourages open-ended questions, debates, and complex problem-solving can significantly enhance adolescents’ abstract thinking skills. Encouraging exploration, curiosity, and creative thinking prepares them for higher education and professional success. By supporting teenagers as they navigate these cognitive shifts, we lay the groundwork for a future characterized by innovative thinking and lifelong learning.

Encouraging Open-Ended Questions

A study by the University of Cambridge found that open-ended questions don’t have one definitive answer and stimulate expansive thinking. For instance, instead of asking, “What happened in the story?” try, “What do you think would have happened if the main character made a different choice?” Such questions prompt adolescents to contemplate, reason, and imagine various outcomes.

Engaging in Debates and Group Discussions

Debates offer a platform for students to present, defend, and challenge viewpoints, fostering a depth of understanding. Moreover, group discussions encourage collaborative thinking, where students build upon each other’s ideas. The British Council recommends structured debates as a means to hone both linguistic and analytical skills in students.

Introducing Complex Problem-Solving Scenarios

Real-world problems, whether in mathematics, science, or social studies, nudge students to apply abstract reasoning. Problems that don’t have straightforward solutions, ones that require connecting multiple concepts, or those that offer multiple solutions, are particularly effective. For instance, scenarios around climate change, ethical dilemmas, or predicting future trends can spark more profound analytical thought.

The progression to abstract thought during adolescence is a transformative phase, marking the transition from black-and-white thinking to a world of complex ideas and hypotheses. For educators, recognising and nurturing this cognitive evolution is key to developing curricula that challenge and engage young minds. As we support adolescents through this intellectual journey, we contribute to the cultivation of the next generation of thinkers, innovators, and leaders.

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Vocabulary for IELTS - Unit 2 - Article 2

Cognitive development in children: mastering abstract concepts.

Cognitive development is a crucial aspect of a child’s growth. It involves the development of thought processes, including remembering, problem-solving, and decision-making, from infancy through adolescence to adulthood. This article will explore how children master abstract concepts and the role of imitation in cognitive development.

During infancy , cognitive development begins with a focus on the physical world. Infants start to develop their understanding of the world around them. They learn to recognize faces, respond to sounds, and start to mimic the actions of those around them. This stage is the foundation for the development of more complex cognitive abilities.

Infants begin to develop their senses and start to understand the world around them. They learn to recognize the faces of their parents and caregivers, respond to their voices, and even mimic their expressions. This stage is crucial for the development of basic motor skills and cognitive abilities.

As infants transition into toddlers , their cognitive abilities continue to develop. They start to master more complex tasks, such as walking and talking. They also begin to understand abstract concepts . For example, a toddler might not understand the concept of ‘tomorrow’, but they can understand that it means a time that is not ‘now’.

During this stage, toddlers become more independent and start to assert their will. They may throw tantrums when they don’t get what they want, but this is a normal part of their development. They are also fond of imitating the adults around them, which helps them learn and master new skills.

The transition to adolescence is marked by significant cognitive development. Adolescents start to think more abstractly and critically. They begin to understand and grapple with abstract concepts such as justice, freedom, and equality. They start to question societal norms and values, and they develop their own opinions and beliefs.

This is also the stage where they can engage in introspection , thinking about their own thoughts and feelings. They start to understand that they can have thoughts about their thoughts, which is a highly abstract concept .

During adolescence, individuals often start to think more about how others see them. This is part of becoming self-conscious. As they grow and change, adolescents might act in ways that are different from before. This can seem like they are being rebellious. They might also seem to want challenge the authority. But really, they are just trying to figure out who they are. This is a normal part of adolescence.

From infancy to adolescence , children’s cognitive abilities develop at an unparalleled rate. They move from understanding the concrete to mastering abstract concepts . They learn to mimic and imitate the world around them, which plays a crucial role in their cognitive development. Understanding these stages of cognitive development can help us support children as they grow and develop.

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How Wisdom Emerges from Intellectual Development: A Developmental/Historical Theory for Raising Mandelas

Andreas demetriou.

1 Department of Psychology, University of Nicosia, Nicosia 1700, Cyprus

2 Cyprus Academy of Science, Letters, and Arts, Nicosia 1700, Cyprus

Antonis Liakos

3 Faculty of History and Archaeology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, 15784 Athens, Greece; moc.liamg@sokailotna

Niyazi Kizilyürek

4 Department of Turkish and Middle Eastern Studies, University of Cyprus, Kallipoleos 75, Nicosia 1678, Cyprus; yc.ca.ycu@izayin

Associated Data

Not applicable.

This paper invokes cognitive developmental theory as a means for preparing citizens to deal with and resolve conflicts within or across nations. We take the centuries-old Greek–Turkish dispute as an example. We first outline a theory of intellectual development postulating that mental changes emerge in response to changing developmental priorities in successive life periods, namely, interaction control in infancy, attention control and representational awareness in preschool, inferential control and cognitive management in primary school, and advanced forms of reasoning and self-evaluation in adolescence. Based on this model, we outline a control theory of wisdom postulating that different aspects of wisdom emerge during development as different levels of control of relations with others: trust and care for others in infancy, taking the other’s perspective, reflectivity, and empathy in preschool, rationality and understanding the rules underlying individual and group interactions in primary school, and understanding the general principles of societal operation explaining the differences in approach and interest between groups in adolescence and early adulthood. We also outline the educational implications of this theory for the education of citizens by capitalizing on intellectual strengths at successive developmental periods to comprehensively understand the world and to act prudently when dealing with interpersonal and social or national conflict. Finally, the paper discusses the political constraints and implications of this theory. This is the first attempt to derive wisdom from the development of cognitive and personality processes from infancy through early adulthood and to connect it to serious world problems.

The modern world is a world of nation states and the foundation history of the nation states is a history of warfare. There is almost not a single nation state that did not emerge from war. Wars create a background of nationalism and uneven development which protract conflict and tension between or within countries for a long time after they end. Conflicts and tensions compromise life and well-being. One such conflict is the conflict between Greeks and Turks. The Greek nation state emerged from an independence war against the Ottoman Empire (1821–1828); modern Turkey was founded as a modern nation state after a war with Greece (1919–1921). Cyprus is a battlefield where the Greek–Turkish conflict is endlessly protracted. The national desire of Greek Cypriots to unite with Greece and counter the national desire of Turkish Cypriots for division of Cyprus between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots turned Cyprus into a hotspot of ethnic conflict, where the end of history ( Fukuyama 1992 ) is still far away.

The Republic of Cyprus emerged as an independent state from a war against British colonialism (1955–1959) and was established as a constitutional bi-communal state governed by its two dominant communities, Greeks, about 80% of the population, and Turks, about 18%. Obviously, historical forces were too strong for the small young state to overcome. Even more so, the division between the two communities was institutionalized in the constitution: although political bodies, such as the government, the parliament, and public administration, were proportionally shared by the two communities, education was separate and under the jurisdiction of an independent body in each community. This was enough to perpetuate separatist and conflictual national narratives, undermining the very functioning of political institutions. The state collapsed soon after independence, in 1963, because of strong disputes about distribution of power between the two communities and lack of unifying pressures coming from the people. Since then, inter-communal tensions and conflict never ended and peaked in a coup and civil war within the Greek Cypriot community in 1974; as a result, a Turkish invasion followed, causing displacement of about one-third of the population and occupation of one-third of the island by Turkish forces since then. Negotiations about a political settlement of the dispute have continued under the auspices of the United Nations since 1963. In the words of a UN envoy, negotiations in Cyprus go well as long as they go on!

Our position here is that the consequences of this dispute for the life of people are disproportionately large. The issues at stake changed drastically over historical time, so that division and conflict cause more harm than profit for any other than those perpetuating their power by capitalizing on division, such as political parties and politicians across the divide. In fact, none of the causes that ignited the Greek revolution against the Ottomans or the wars in the late 19th and early 20th century between Greece and Turkey is currently active. However, the leadership and the peoples in Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus refrain from making decisions that would bring the conflict to an end. Legalistic disputes about distribution of power and jurisdiction in a common federal state draw on the centuries-old Greek–Turkish conflict which fuels current political disputes and conflicts of interests with historical arguments within and across the two nations. It is well known that perpetuating negative narratives about the other in groups with conflictual relations facilitates further conflict, preventing search for means that would facilitate overcoming the conflict ( Psaltis et al. 2020 ). This background causes lack of trust and tolerance, ethnic and nationalist tension, and self-perpetuating hostility drawing on misdeeds against each other.

Some scholars proposed that the average level of intelligence in a population is related to the level of democracy, technological advancement, and prosperity and the ability to efficiently resolve tensions and disputes with other countries or between groups within a country ( Rindermann 2018 ). The higher the level, the better it is for peace and well-being. Rindermann suggested that wars in the modern world abound in regions where secular intelligence is considerably lower than the standard average. However, it is questionable whether current theory of intelligence would suffice to help nations to overcome disputes. Rindermann’s argument above may be cyclical: there may well be social and political factors other than individual intelligence causing national or social success, which subsequently result in provisions raising individual intelligence, such as generalized education. In fact, international history abounds with examples where advanced nations made fatally self-defeating decisions, including Germany, Rindermann’s country.

We argue that no theory of intelligence or intellectual development suffices to generate solutions for serious social or political problems. To be useful for this sake, any theory would have to be much broader, accounting for individual and social development on several fronts, such as the following:

This theory would have to account for both (a) individual mental development and (b) the contribution of individual development to the functioning of the social groups and institutions at various levels, increasingly distancing from an individual’s own life, such as family, city, nation, and humanity. This requires understanding how cognitive, social, moral, and personality development interact. Currently, no comprehensive theory exists that would do justice to these interactions. Piaget’s theory might have been the closest approximation to it, delving into the common core of intellectual ( Piaget 1968 ), social ( Piaget 1951 ), and moral development ( Piaget 1932 ). However, Piaget’s theory, gearing every aspect of understanding on the development of logical reasoning, is not accepted anymore. Current theories are too fragmented to satisfy the requirements above (see Demetriou and Spanoudis 2018 ).

Finally, provisions are needed for the organization and functioning of social and political institutions, such as parliament and other decision-making bodies, to guide social and political goal setting and problem solving, enabling the handling of strong historical forces that compromise the present and future of people.

1. Historical and Epistemological Concerns: How Wisdom Emerges from Intellectual Development

The developmental model outlined here draws on two major sources: current theory and research on intellectual development and current theory and research on wisdom in dealing with important life problems and societal issues. We argue that intellectual development and the development of wisdom are more closely related than assumed in the literature. Our central position is that neither of these lines of research alone is sufficient for the attainment of the aims above. The theory of intellectual development focuses on cognitive processes in childhood and adolescence. The theory of wisdom focuses on a specific approach to problem-solving and decision-making in adulthood. Historically, the two fields operationalized constructs differently. However, thinking and problem-solving in actual life need not respect the boundaries of different research fields in psychological research.

The psychology of intelligence adopted Binet’s ( Binet and Simon [1908] 1948 ).) priorities for studying intelligence in the early 20th century. These focused on mental processes which are important for school learning, such as reasoning, language, and comprehension of concepts. The field was admirably successful in identifying individual differences in these processes and directing educational decision-making accordingly ( Anastasi 2005 ). The psychology of cognitive development, under the influence of Piaget ( 1968 ), focused on the development of reasoning ( Flavell 1985 ). Notably, Piaget’s career as a researcher started in Binet’s laboratory. Additionally, as an epistemologist interested in the nature and origins of knowledge, Piaget prioritized the study of logical reasoning and understanding philosophically defined categories of reason, such as number, space, and causality, rather than life-important decision-making. Piaget’s ideas caused important progress in our understanding of cognitive development. However, both the individual differences and the developmental approach to cognition did ill-justice to problem-solving and decision-making of broad social or societal interest, the focus of this article.

The study of wisdom has a different history. In classical Greek philosophy, wisdom involves nous (mind), discerning reality, and episteme , knowing and reasoning on universal truths. Phronesis involves the ability to make correct decisions and reflect on experience for important life matters. Current psychological theory and research on wisdom includes both ancient constructs ( Ferrari 2009 ). It is considered a complex state of mind and personality enabling adults to use personal life experiences and a broad knowledge basis to make prudent judgments about complex personal, interpersonal, and social problems, which are recognized as inclusive, balanced, moral, and beneficial for everyone involved ( Ardelt et al. 2019 ; Baltes and Smith 1990 ; Staudinger 2008 ; Sternberg and Karami 2021 ).

Wisdom so conceived is intelligence at its best. The road to it is intellectual development, gradually constructing a scaffold of thought enabling one to discern and evaluate reality, know universal and historical truths and reason on them, make practically beneficial decisions given the situation, and reflect on them to become better for the future. Wisdom has been an object of research on adult development but not of development in childhood, underestimating the fact that wise adults have been children . The study of cognitive development focused on changes in cognitive processes from infancy through early adulthood, but it did not examine how problems of everyday childhood or adolescence are resolved. The position of this paper is that all aspects of wisdom have precursors in early cognitive development. Thus, our central concern is to ensure that wisdom will gradually emerge from each phase of intellectual development, preparing citizens to deal intelligently and prudently with personal, national, and international issues involving conflict.

2. Empirical Concerns: How Wisdom and Intelligence Are Related

All theories assume that wisdom includes intelligence and much more. This is reflected in the moderate correlation, circa.3, between various processes addressed by intelligence research, such as processing speed, reasoning, and vocabulary, and processes addressed by wisdom research, such as integration of multiple points of view, ethical considerations, and self-transcendence ( Glück 2020a , 2020b ; Grossmann et al. 2020 ). In neo-Piagetian theory, wisdom was associated with attaining formal or postformal reasoning ( Kallio 1995 ). Therefore, there is wide agreement that “wisdom is not a form of intelligence, nor is intelligence a form of wisdom” Glück ( 2020a, p. 17 ). Wisdom requires the following processes: (1) cognitive processes underlying intelligence, such as reasoning, reflection, and metacognition; (2) creativity to conceive of new solutions and interpretations, if old solutions do not suffice; (3) knowledge of the persons and situations requiring solutions, “the pragmatics of life”; (4) products (ideas and solutions) balancing interests of the parties involved, which are recognized by all to advance common good; (5) the motivation and affectivity to act accordingly ( Sternberg and Karami 2021 ; Sternberg et al. 2019 ). Processes in points 1 and 2 become increasingly integrated and abstract with development, accounting for individual differences in cognitive ability. Points 3 and 4 draw on the processes in 1 and 2 to acquire knowledge and skill in different conceptual or activity domains. Mastering these domains requires drawing on the first two types of processes in the fashion required for mastering other complex domains, such as science. Processes in point 5 relate to motivation and dispositions to get involved in all other processes.

Thus, intelligence–wisdom relations appear as an investment cascade: fluid reasoning together with certain interests and personality dispositions allow the construction of a broad knowledge base underlying crystallized intelligence, which may be extended, by some people, into the “big questions” of human existence. Some of these people may capitalize on their own and others’ life challenges and develop wisdom, if some intellectual possibilities are present and if they have certain personality qualities, such as openness, empathy, and self-reflectivity. According to Glück ( 2020a ), wise people have high levels of intelligence, and they are open, reflective, empathic, and ethical; however, not all intelligent people are wise.

Some complex domains, such as science, are learned in systematic long studies. No such program exists for wisdom. Theories of wisdom assume that becoming wise requires long-term life planning, optimum life management, and life review, allowing to make meaning of past decisions and actions and optimize future ones ( Baltes and Smith 1990 ; Staudinger 2008 ). Thus, learning by doing is assumed. The present article suggests that wisdom might develop more broadly if wisdom-building mechanisms are properly guided to become invested with the knowledge required together with handling the personality dispositions required to provide the emotional context and motivation for wise thinking and decisions. In other words, we suggest that education for wisdom must be part of a program aiming to support intellectual development.

The model of wisdom-based reasoning provides the operationalization of wisdom that is necessary for the development of a program for educating wisdom that draws on intellectual development. This model postulates that wise thinking draws on four aspects of cognition ( Brienza et al. 2021 ; Grossmann 2017 ): (a) intellectual humility, emerging from recognition of the limits of one’s own knowledge; (b) recognition that there may be multiple points of view or perspectives or that a current issue of concern belongs to a broader context; (c) recognition that views or interests often change in social relations or in time; (d) systematic search for the integration of different opinions, which implies recognition of compromise as part of social decision-making. We show below that all four aspects of cognition required for wisdom-based reasoning are acquired in early and middle childhood as building blocks of cognitive development.

3. A Cognitive Developmental Theory for Intelligence and Wisdom

3.1. the mental architecture.

The theory of intellectual development we employ makes four fundamental assumptions ( Demetriou et al. 2018a ; Demetriou and Spanoudis 2018 ).

First, the human mind involves mental processes that carry out different tasks for understanding and problem-solving, namely, control functions, enabling focusing on information and action critical at a given moment and updating as required; integration functions, enabling grasping relations, generalizing, and validly filling in missing information; and cognizance, enabling awareness of the objects of mental activity and mental processes.

Second, these processes are functionally intertwined, always operating together as a unit at various levels, from perception to abstract thinking; meaning-making emerges from their integrated functioning. This unit, named noetron, after nous, the Greek term for mind ( Demetriou et al. 2021 ), operates as a “master-algorithm,” coordinating current goals and relational integration with awareness of mental processes, their objects, and contents. Noetron is constantly updated in reference to the results of ongoing activity, mental or actual, coordinating feedforward expectations with feedback from the results of activity; matching feedforward with feedback information enables subjective experiences ascribing intrinsic values to mental states and activities, allowing choices among them according to their value suggested by successes and failures. Any organism lacking this form of a unifying mental agency would not be capable of capitalizing on a balanced combination of past knowledge and experience for the sake of future-oriented understanding or action. Ideally, this combination optimizes choices by selecting the best fitting experience or concept to vary, based on how the future is conceived. This is a fundamental condition for the development of wisdom, which is an advanced aspect of comprehensive intelligent judgment.

Third, noetron expands with development, generating increasingly inclusive repertoires of action or thought choices. In cognitive science terms, this expansion gradually generates a Language of Thought including tokens of experience and action (representations), rules for their possible legitimate relations (reasoning) ( Fodor 1975 ), and exemplars from experience providing ready-made frames for rule implementation. In other words, noetron is embedded into an expanding system integrating perceptual experiences into representations by various forms of rules underlying forms of reasoning, such as inductive, analogical, and deductive reasoning, and problem-solving scripts. Increasing flexibility in choosing and using different forms of reasoning and scripts implies increasingly efficient levels of control, for instance, going from action control in infancy to representational control in preschool to inferential control in primary school to truth control in adolescence.

Fourth, with age, the profile of mental ability varies depending on the developmental needs for exercising control at successive developmental phases. Developmental priorities change with the functional state of noetron. When a process is highly demanded for efficient noetron functioning, mastering this process becomes a dominant developmental priority. Changes in mastering this process become highly helpful for learning and highly predictive of learning outcomes in various domains, including school learning ( Demetriou et al. 2019b , 2020a , 2020b , 2020c ). After a critical integration point in satisfying functional demands, the two may vary independently, because the formation of mental ability shifts to other priorities, showing dependence on other processes ( Demetriou et al. 2017 ; Demetriou and Spanoudis 2018 ). Developmental priorities and their relations with cognitive processes and wisdom are discussed below. Table 1 summarizes developmental priorities for cognitive and wisdom development and their educational implications.

Dominant cognitive, wisdom, and educational priorities as a function of age.

3.2. Developing Mind: From Cognition to Wisdom

Precursors of wisdom in infancy . Episodic representations dominate in infancy. These are mental states preserving the spatial and time properties of actions and experiences. Thus, interaction control, allowing efficiency of actions on objects, is the developmental priority of infancy ( Demetriou and Spanoudis 2018 ). Cognitively, mastering interaction control provides the background for understanding that one’s own actions may have implications for objects and persons and that taking control needs effort. However, strictly speaking, infants cannot be wise because they lack the representational resolution, integrative power, awareness, knowledge, and emotional stability required for wisdom. Mastering interaction control, the developmental priority of this cycle, sets the background for later attainment of wisdom. This background is set when interacting with objects and persons, exploring differences across them, engaging actively with them but staying calm when results violate expectations, seeking help to improve interactions, and enabling the infant to realize that some solutions are better than others and that attaining them requires trying out alternative solutions.

Individual differences in emotionality and affectivity appear early in infancy and these may interfere in mastering interaction control ( Soto et al. 2011 ; Roberts et al. 2006 ). Differences between infants in reactivity to persons and objects suggest that some infants are more likely than others to enter the road to wisdom. Infants high in activity, attraction to novelty, and inclination to affiliate, but low in intense emotional reactions predisposing for self-control are more likely to enter this road. Infants low in these attributes and high in emotionality need special care to take control of their interactions in a context of emotional security. Emotionally, mastering interaction control lays the ground for trust and security in dealing with oneself and others. Failing to protect infants from these weaknesses may channel them away from coherent, balanced, and beneficial interactions with others later in life.

Attaining intellectual humility, decentering, and recognition of uncertainty in early childhood . Realistic mental representations emerge from episodic representation at 2–3 years and are associated with symbols, such as words and mental images. These dominate in preschool, from 2 to 7 years. Hence, representational awareness and attention control are the major developmental priorities in this period. Mastering attention control enables the attainment of more complex cognitive tasks, such as organizing action according to represented goals, following ongoing verbal interactions, and exploring the behavior and interactions between other persons and objects ( Demetriou et al. 2018a ; Diamond 2013 ; Zelazo 2015 ). Mastering symbol systems, such as language, and subjecting action under the control of representation, renders awareness of representations and control of attention important. Awareness of representations enables individuals to become social partners and negotiate each other’s views or intentions; it also provides a representational insight that views of reality are often mirrored in each person’s representations. Preschool children’s strong interest in the imaginary worlds of fairy tales and movies reflects humans’ emergent realization that the world may be represented by alternative, often surprising, ways ( Hinchcliffe 2006 ) and that using them helps explore their possible differences and functionalities ( Dubourg and Baumard 2021 ). Education of tolerance and empathy may capitalize on the preschooler’s discovery of imaginary worlds.

Notably, three of the four aspects of wisdom-based reasoning emerge in this period. The precursor of intellectual humility is children’s awareness of their ignorance. Children talk explicitly about their own and others’ knowledge and they admit their own ignorance ( Harris et al. 2017 ). In addition, by the age of 4–5 years, children revise incorrect interpretations in the light of new information. By the age of 7–8 years, children are aware that visual or oral input can be ambiguous, and they differentiate the conditions of epistemic uncertainty from physical uncertainty ( Robinson et al. 2006 ). This understanding predates recognition of uncertainty and change. Grasp of Theory of Mind ( Wellman 2014 ) at 3–5 years strongly suggests that preschoolers understand that mental states and beliefs may differ between individuals, depending on the sources of information they have access to. These achievements are precursors of the recognition of others’ perspectives and relevance to context ( Hughes and Leekham 2004 ). They also predate the reflective stance about oneself and others, a pivotal component of wisdom.

Children high in awareness of others’ mental and emotional states are more likely than children who are low in these processes to engage in activities leading to wisdom. These children may understand that activities and objects may be shared and that goals may be better attained by persons working together than one person working alone. If sociable, helpful, and generous to others, organized, systematic, planful, and creative, children may realize that they may have a role in leading shared activities and gaining satisfaction from success and praise. However, the reasoning needed to grasp the underlying causal relations between events and realities or between motives and their effects is still weak in this cycle. Moreover, control of social interaction and openness to experience are not yet well refined and consolidated ( Demetriou et al. 2018a , 2018b ; Roberts et al. 2006 ). Together, these weaknesses hinder the recognition of problems of importance to a group and designing broadly beneficial problem-solving activities. Thus, synthesizing beyond one’s own experience and perspective is limited.

For the present concerns, it would be useful if children in this cycle are guided to reflect on how their activities may be benevolent or may cause pain or distress in others ( Weststrate et al. 2018 ). The keen representational interests of this cycle may be used to familiarize children with the experiences of children belonging to other groups and develop empathy for their agemates belonging to the other group. This requires ad hoc educational programs allowing children to listen to the stories of the others from the others , to remember the stories of others, and to hold group-specific narratives against each other. The aim is to build a conception of the world where self-centered attitudes and ethnocentric heroism are relativized vis-à-vis an overall human narrative where human life and general well-being dominate as standards for individual action ( Kizilyurek 2019 ).

Search for integration and compromise in primary school . With representational awareness and attention control established by 5–6 years, priorities change in primary school, from 7 to 11 years. The relations between representations need to be worked out and accurately represented. Hence, cognitive priorities are redirected from knowing the represented world and coupling representations with the environment to the relations between representations and concepts themselves. Holding representations active for as long as required to process relations and connect them by inference are the major priorities of this period. Inductive inference is the major tool for grasping the relations between objects and concepts because it enables transfer of meaning from experience to novel situations. Therefore, processes for handling memory and inductive inference are the major contributors to the formation of general cognitive ability in this period. Explicit deductive reasoning emerges at the end of this period, from 8–11 years, reflecting the integration of inferential rules into a system where one representation may be systematically viewed from the point of view of others. It is notable that from 7–9 years, children recognize that two viewers or listeners might make different interpretations, depending on what information they have access to and the inference used to connect them ( Kazi et al. 2019 ; Spanoudis et al. 2015 ).

Therefore, the fourth requirement for wisdom-based reasoning, the search for integration and compromise, emerges in this period of life. In rule-based thought, children have the mental capacity to employ reasoning to inter-relate activities and emotions with the requests or needs of others, such as parents, siblings, and school mates, when they diverge from intentions and wishes. This enables children to formulate concepts organizing one’s own experiences and action plans, understand the role of rules and prescriptions in one’s life, and use them to generate or negotiate solutions to problems. Rule-based thinkers may be aware of the underlying connections between concepts, events, and experiences, or actions, thoughts, and motives. They may also use previous knowledge or experience to anticipate consequences of actions or events. They can also be aware of different perspectives on the same event because they understand that information or knowledge causes differences in perceptions and attitudes, even if reasoning is the same. Therefore, rule-based thinkers may analyze problems rationally and can take a reflective stance toward others and problems, which is conducive to tolerance of alternative views and their possible synthesis into solutions going beyond one’s own preferences.

However, rule-based thought often fails to grasp higher-order relations highlighting links between seemingly unrelated rules or systems; in addition, rule-based thought lacks truth control tools protecting from fallacious reasoning. This often causes personal biases and perspectives to dominate, especially if promoted by authority, in individuals who are not socially oriented, emotionally stable, or open to novelty. For instance, lack of openness may hinder individuals from seeing problems from the perspective of others. These individuals may not avail themselves to opportunities conducive to wisdom. In short, many adults do not reach wisdom if they stay in rule-based thought.

To deal with the weaknesses of rule-based thought, children in this cycle must be induced to explicitly grasp the rules under which conflicting groups operate. They must reflect on how conflicting rules may cause conflicting actions, which may in turn cause pain and compromise the interests and well-being of all persons involved. They must also be induced to redefine each other’s rules so that commonly accepted and beneficial ones may be conceived and implemented. There is evidence that practicing distanced self-reflection in the third person about conflict situations increases wise judgments by widening one’s own often narrow self-focus ( Grossmann et al. 2020 ). In addition, teaching by example and historical role models may be the method of choice to enable rule-based thinkers to see how important figures approached complex problems and experience, from their point of view, the benefits obtained for themselves (becoming important figures in society) and others (improvement of their condition) (see Grossmann 2017 ).

Building wisdom-based knowledge in adolescence . Intellectual changes are consolidated in adolescence when controlled reasoning is fully established. Overarching principles integrating rules into systems according to truth and validity dominate in adolescence. Principles enable thinkers to grasp when it is and when it is not possible to use an inferential rule to infer a state of reality based on this rule. Thus, a critical approach to reality is possible. These processes strengthen until middle age. In addition, cognitive self-evaluation and self-representation become powerful factors in the formation of cognitive ability among university-educated persons in middle age ( Demetriou and Bakracevic 2009 ; Demetriou et al. 2017 ). In adulthood, persons must take control of their life, regardless of how far they have gone on each of the cognitive and personality development dimensions discussed above. Entering the worlds of work, family, and citizenship without the protective shields provided by parents and schools imposes strong cognitive, personality, and social requirements.

Therefore, principle-based thought is, by definition, an important tool for transcending one’s own subjectivity to view problems from the point of view of other persons or alternative contexts, a condition for wisdom ( Ardelt et al. 2017 , 2019 ; Demetriou n.d. ; Kallio 1995 ). Sound deductive reasoning is a truth control system enabling persons to evaluate solutions and perspectives according to their truth, value, and scope in concern with the persons and stakes involved. The epistemic stance enables persons to realize that even the best solutions may be relative and subject to revision. Thus, at the individual level, these types of thought may guide the development of long-term life plans, such as choosing a course of studies or a profession, balancing value judgments for one’s own weaknesses and strengths vis-à-vis a preferred lifestyle or social role. At the social level, they may enable individuals to grasp assumptions and prescriptions of multiple contexts in which they live and enable problem-solving, generating solutions, decisions, and courses of action that are optimal for the individual and other persons or institutions affected.

Scholars argue that higher levels of mental functioning, such as principle-based thought, openness, and higher levels of ego development, are complementary aspects of the same construct: the mature mind ( Costa and McCrae 1993 ; McCrae and Costa 1997 ) which creatively integrates cognitive, personality, and emotional trends and proclivities in dealing with problems ( Demetriou et al. 2018c ). It is notable that wisdom in later life is associated with openness to novelty, mindedness, and well-being coming from having purpose in life, satisfaction, positive relations with others, environmental mastery, and a general concern for the well-being of others ( Wink and Staudinger 2016 ). In this cycle, adolescents must be induced to consider the multiplicity of factors that may cause a conflict, such as historical, religious, political, and economic reasons and grasp their underlying principles. They must also be induced to consider historical events and decisions of political or historical figures from the point of view of all of the actors involved. This would enable them to understand that wise decisions are often those which may not appear right at the time they are taken. They must also be induced to understand that the modern narratives about these events may serve purposes other than the interests and well-being of the individuals or institutions involved.

4. A Developmental Model for Wise Conflict Management in Schools

In conclusion, we have suggested that wisdom is an emergent system of control integrating cognitive, emotional, and personality abilities and attributes for the sake of efficient, constructive, and self-enhancing activities and relations with others. This is a long process starting from infancy, building on attaining control of processes dominating in successive periods of life. The central idea is that childhood is important for integrating wise judgment into spontaneous cognitive functioning because satisfying the developmental priorities of each cycle causes the necessary build-up of the cognitive and personality characteristics required for wise judgment. Mastering interactions with persons and objects (infancy) provides the background for knowing that one’s actions have implications for objects and other persons. Mastering executive control and becoming aware of mental worlds (early childhood) are necessary for judgments acceptable by many. Mastering inference and using it to organize understanding and action (middle and late childhood) is necessary for understanding that views and decisions build up mentally and are built on rule systems that may differ between persons or groups. Mastering principles, imagining possible worlds, and understanding that inference and interpretation may not always be true or valid (adolescence) is necessary for adopting the critical stance, enabling to analyze and explore truths and search systematically for truth. Mastering the art of balanced and constructive choices embedding judgments and decisions in societal, cultural, and historical perspectives requires knowledge and experience drawn from autonomous life (early adulthood). All of these must be acquired in a positive context enabling persons to take responsibility for their life, develop trust for others, and become motivated to be constructive for themselves and others.

The theory above may guide enhancement of tolerance for social and political differences and capitalizing on them for efficient and productive functioning in a world of differences and diversities in such a way that it may enhance learning in more classic school domains. Specifically, there is research showing that school performance at successive educational levels is best predicted by the processes associated with the developmental priorities of each developmental cycle: command of attention control processes and representational awareness at preschool, management of working memory and inductive reasoning in primary school, and mastery of deductive reasoning, language, and accurate self-evaluation at secondary school ( Demetriou et al. 2019a , 2019b , 2020a , 2020b , 2021 ). Importantly, training of mental processes transfers to general cognitive ability only if aligned with developmental priorities: training on attention control and theory of mind in preschool ( Rueda et al. 2012 ), training on working memory in primary school ( Holmes and Gathercole 2014 ), and training on relational integration ( Klauer and Phye 2008 ; Papageorgiou et al. 2016 ) and deductive reasoning schemes in secondary school ( Christoforides et al. 2016 ).

5. Ending History Wars: Overcoming a Side-Effect of Democracy

National educational goals and priorities are shaped by the orientations and priorities of a society and the institutions implementing them ( Demetriou 2013 ; Nisbett 2003 ). In modern states, educational goals and priorities exist at several levels, often in conflict with each other. Education is addressed to everyone, aiming to enable the understanding and use of complex knowledge and technology in societies where differences must be accepted and honored. However benign these aims are, they are often understood differently, and they are not unconditionally accepted by different groups and stakeholders. Parties and organizations compete for priorities and orientations of society, including education, because it prepares citizens for the future, thereby affecting their own existence and role. Modern states are governed by several authorities with time-limited overlapping mandates and mutually balanced powers. Therefore, shaping the aims of education and educational practices is complicated and tricky business.

It is assumed that the level and quality of education depends on the quality of democracy and vice versa. It is also assumed that the level and quality of education and democracy in a country causes improvement in the relations of this country with other countries, facilitating intelligent and wise analysis and resolution of disputes. Inversely, it is assumed that wars stem more frequently from authoritarian regimes than democracies. However, unfortunately, democracy may have its share in starting a war. In the national rivalry between Greece and Turkey, strangely enough, things proved more peaceful under authoritarian regimes or conservatist governments (Metaxas dictatorship 1936–1941, post-war Greek authoritarian governments 1945–1963 and 1967–1973) than under democratic rule and populist governments (George Papandreou’s government 1963–1967 and Andreas Papandreou’s governments in the eighties). This may be ascribed to the major influence that well-preserved nationalist ideas have on the public sphere and public opinion. These are preserved in the national narrative by education. They are often part of identity-building policies that shape the orientations of education in both Greece ( Liakos 2008 , 2011 ) and Turkey and Cyprus ( Kizilyurek and Kizilyurek 2004 ). Individual identities and related attitudes and feelings are then exploited by politicians to increase their political appeal and access to power. In a sense, fossilized national narratives function as political traps channeling nations to wrong directions, because people’s rule and democracy are not always compatible with the relativization of national differences and the culture of rights of minorities and different groups within a nation or multinational entities, such as the European Union or multinational countries. National rivalry comes not from the elites, but from the peoples themselves.

History wars often reflect this situation and become a tool of democratic functioning, protracting real wars or social polarization within societies. Obviously, this interpretation does not imply that we favor authoritarian over democratic governance. On the contrary, it highlights the hurdles of democracy with the aim to remove them from political practices for the sake of its further development. It is the task of education to raise critical and wise citizens from infancy through adulthood. Hopefully, this would enable nations to properly understand and weigh social and international problems when dealing with conflict and rivalries. Even this benign aim may be disputed because it might be interpreted by some to endanger the continuation of a nation as a distinct entity in time and space. Thus, provisions are needed to ensure that wisdom-based education and upbringing are accepted and implemented by all nations involved. Perhaps, the European Union is the most interesting historical and political experiment designed to achieve these aims.

However, even this is disputed, especially in nations where national, social, and political orientations are not settled. In these nations, the ideal for a European citizen is often interpreted with caution, because no commonly accepted answer exists on how much a European identity may be integrated with national identity. In Greece, there is still insecurity toward Europe because many believe that it endangers national religion, values, and traditions ( Stavridi-Patrikiou 2007 ). In Cyprus, there is an ongoing discussion that the establishment and success of the state of Cyprus will eventually compromise Greek identity, among the Greek Cypriots, or Turkish identity, among the Turkish Cypriots, in favor of a Cypriot identity. Political parties or other institutions, such as the Church, object to the development of new curricula in several subjects, especially history, language, and religion, because they are concerned that this is ill-intentioned, aiming to increase distance between Cyprus and Greece (or Turkey, depending upon the community). A few years ago, a new curriculum, developed under the leadership of the first author as the then Minister of Education and Culture, with the aim to develop a culture of historical reconciliation and mutual tolerance between the Greek and the Turkish Cypriot ignited fierce history wars among the Greek Cypriots and was strongly opposed by many, with the Church in the lead. The Archbishop of Cyprus went as far as to state in public that he “will invite people to burn the new history books” because they supposedly endanger national history, as he himself understands it. In fact, a new history war started again while this revision, about the teaching of the role of Ataturk during the Greek–Turkish war in the early 20th century, was in progress. Many stars would have to align before the implementation of psychological models, such as the present one, would change society. Without this alignment, these models may appear as an interesting academic exercise, at best.

Mandela was a wise man who led his country to end apartheid, a long and very painful conflict between the white and black populations of South Africa. Four Mandelas may be needed to resolve the Greek–Turkish dispute: one in Athens, one in Ankara, and two in Nicosia (a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot). We do not have them yet. Perhaps, we will not have them for as long as populist nationalist elites across the divide instrumentalize historical and political disputes about nation and national identity. After all, Mandela emerged from South Africa’s prisons, not its schools! However, it may be time for countries that shaped history for centuries, such as Greece and Turkey, to protect their citizens and future generations from war, letting their Mandelas to emerge from their schools rather than from battlefields or prisons.

These Mandelas would have to understand the history of both nations in the long term; they must understand the reasons which caused their conflict in the past and the reasons which caused changes in their relations over the centuries. They must also understand that relations between nations change with changes in the wider historical and cultural context. For instance, neither Greece nor Turkey or Cyprus operate in the context of the Byzantine or the Ottoman empire; they rather operate in a completely different context, including the European Union. The distribution of power and influence is not primarily dependent on military power but on other forms of soft power, such as science and cultural productions. In this regard, cooperation is a win-win multiplicative factor of power and influence; military competition is a loss-loss factor weakening all nations involved in many different respects. If education would raise a majority of Mandelas in both nations (in all nations for that matter), then naturally Mandelas would emerge in the leadership of both nations, leading them to a new chapter in their history.

This paper outlined a theory of individual-social development that may help raise them and call them to service. Raising Mantelas in this fashion will enable nations to overcome historical conflicts in which they are trapped. Times scales in the resolution of these problems are much larger than individual lives. Thus, raising many Mandelas in education may be the optimal management of the future by societies trapped in their past.

6. Conclusions

In short, a theory of intellectual development that may lead to a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of social and political problems and to collective wisdom was outlined. To our knowledge, this is the first theory attempting to derive wisdom from the development of cognitive and personality processes from infancy through early adulthood and connect it to serious world problems. This theory aims to (i) advance a deeper understanding of social and political problems since early childhood, (ii) advance individual wisdom for the sake of social well-being and long-term human interests, and (iii) guide education to capitalize on developmental priorities to develop knowledge and mental skills conducive to a wise decision-making ability when dealing with conflicts and disputes. Obviously, this model needs to be tested empirically. Ideally, longitudinal evidence would show that individuals performing high in childhood on tasks addressed to recognition of one’s own ignorance, understanding others’ perspectives, and integrating rules in overarching systems serving the interests of different individuals are more likely to demonstrate wisdom in real-world problems in adulthood. This type of research is time and resource demanding. Alternatively, training of these processes would have to generalize to the four aspects of wise reasoning and cause changes in inter-group attitudes in the fashion found by Brienza et al. ( 2021 ).

It was also argued that long-held national narratives and convictions may be incompatible with attaining these aims. The mechanisms for choosing individual leaders in modern democracies and their political functioning when chosen may be incompatible with international and supra-social goal setting and dealing with conflicts. Leaders are mostly elected by nations or different political and social groups to maintain and enhance political, social, and economic interests of their constituencies. Therefore, the success of the present model would be facilitated if political institutions are founded that would ensure integrative, wise, and future-oriented policies and practices rather than policies trapped into the past and motivated to sustain historical divisions and tensions. Probably, countries need a Wisdom Authority to watch and guide analysis and decision-making of problems. Only Mandelas would have to stuff a country’s Wisdom Authority.

Author Contributions

A.D. shaped the psychological part, A.L. shaped the historical part, and N.K. shaped political science part of the article. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

This research received no external funding.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

There is no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

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Cognitive Development in Adolescence
Cognitive development means the growth of a child's ability to think and reason. This growth happens differently from ages 6 to 12, and from ages 12 to 18. Children ages 6 to 12 years old develop the ability to think in concrete ways. These are called concrete operations. These things are called concrete because they're done around objects ...
Cognitive Development during Adolescence
Figure 1. Adolescents practice their developing abstract and hypothetical thinking skills, coming up with alternative interpretations of information. Adolescence is a time of rapid cognitive development. Biological changes in brain structure and connectivity in the brain interact with increased experience, knowledge, and changing social demands ...
10.4 Cognition in Adolescence and Adulthood
Cognitive Development in Early Adulthood. Emerging adulthood brings with it the consolidation of formal operational thought, and the continued integration of the parts of the brain that serve emotion, social processes, and planning and problem solving. As a result, rash decisions and risky behavior decrease rapidly across early adulthood.
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In this paper, cognitive competence is defined as critical thinking and creative thinking skills which facilitate effective problem solving, decision making, and learning for positive youth development. However, there are several conceptual and research gaps that need to be filled.
Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Developments
This paper summarizes major brain changes during adolescence and evidence linking maturation of these cognitive and language functions to brain development, placing consideration of both areas of development in the context of rehabilitation for adolescents with TBI. Keywords: adolescence, brain-behavior relationships, cognitive development.
The Adolescent Brain: Learning, Reasoning, and Decision Making
The Adolescent Brain raises questions relevant to young people's educational and health outcomes, as well as to neuroscience research. This book examines the ways in which brain development impacts reasoning and decision-making in adolescents, from the use and function of memory and representation, to judgment, mathematical problem-solving and ...
Complex Problem Solving: Profiles and Developmental Paths Revealed via
Complexity is one of the major demands of adolescents' future life as adults. To investigate adolescents' competence development in applying problem-solving strategies in complex environments, we conducted a two-wave longitudinal study in a sample of Finnish adolescents (11-17 years old; N = 1,959 at Time 1 and N = 1,690 at Time 2, 3 years later).
13.3 Cognitive Development in Adolescence
Cognitive empathy is an important component of social problem-solving and conflict avoidance. Studies show that modeling perspective taking and that in caregiver-adolescent relationships, validation of a teenagers feelings can support the development of cognitive empathy (Main, Paxton, and Dale, 2016; Main et al., 2019).
Cognitive Development in Adolescence
Cognitive control. Executive functions, such as attention, increases in working memory, and cognitive flexibility steadily improve from early childhood onward. Studies have found that executive function is very well-developed in adolescence. However, self-regulation, or the ability to control impulses, may still fail.
Adolescent Development
In addition, novel problem-solving methods become available and the adolescent acquires far greater abilities to understand, integrate, and relate experiences and ideas. Cross-cultural investigators have challenged the notion that formal operational thought is the end-state of cognitive development.
7.6: Introduction to Cognitive Development in Adolescence
In adolescence, changes in the brain interact with experience, knowledge, and social demands and produce rapid cognitive growth. The changes in how adolescents think, reason, and understand can be even more dramatic than their obvious physical changes. This stage of cognitive development, termed by Piaget as the formal operational stage, marks ...
Piaget's Stages: 4 Stages of Cognitive Development & Theory
Piaget divided children's cognitive development into four stages; each of the stages represents a new way of thinking and understanding the world. He called them (1) sensorimotor intelligence, (2) preoperational thinking, (3) concrete operational thinking, and (4) formal operational thinking. Each stage is correlated with an age period of ...
14 Chapter 14: Adolescence
Cognitive empathy, also known as theory-of-mind, which relates to the ability to take the perspective of others and feel concern for others (Shamay-Tsoory, Tomer, & Aharon-Peretz, 2005). Cognitive empathy begins to increase in adolescence and is an important component of social problem solving and conflict avoidance.
The Development of Problem Solving in Young Children: A Critical
Problem solving is a signature attribute of adult humans, but we need to understand how this develops in children. Tool use is proposed as an ideal way to study problem solving in children less than 3 years of age because overt manual action can reveal how the child plans to achieve a goal. Motor errors are as informative as successful actions. Research is reviewed on intentional actions ...
Cognitive Development in Adolescence
In adolescence, changes in the brain interact with experience, knowledge, and social demands and produce rapid cognitive growth. The changes in how adolescents think, reason, and understand can be even more dramatic than their obvious physical changes. This stage of cognitive development, termed by Piaget as the formal operational stage, marks ...
What Is Cognitive Development? 3 Psychology Theories
In psychology, the focus of cognitive development has often been only on childhood. However, cognitive development continues through adolescence and adulthood. It involves acquiring language and knowledge, thinking, memory, decision making, problem solving, and exploration (Von Eckardt, 1996).
11.4 Information Processing: Learning, Memory, and Problem Solving
Understanding the Whole Child: Prenatal Development through Adolescence 11.4 Information Processing: Learning, Memory, and Problem Solving During middle and late childhood children make strides in several areas of cognitive function including the capacity of working memory, their ability to pay attention, and their use of memory strategies.
Cognitive Development
Cognitive empathy, also known as theory-of-mind (which we discussed earlier with regard to egocentrism), relates to the ability to take the perspective of others and feel concern for others (Shamay-Tsoory, Tomer, & Aharon-Peretz, 2005). Cognitive empathy begins to increase in adolescence and is an important component of social problem solving ...
Cognitive Development
Problem-solving and cognitive development progress from establishing object permanence, causality, and symbolic thinking with concrete (hands-on) learning to abstract thinking and embedding of implicit (unconscious) to explicit memory development. Birth to two months: The optical focal length is approximately 10 inches at birth.
Intellectual and Cognitive Development in Children and Teens
When parents usually think about intellectual or cognitive development they are thinking more about learning academic skills and building a knowledge base. ... Brain Development and Learning From Birth to Adolescence Hailed by parents and ... They're also great for developing real-life, problem-solving skills. Methods Your students will learn ...
Abstract Thought in Adolescence: The Cognitive Revolution!
The foundation of critical thinking and hypothesis generation begins here, setting the stage for a lifetime of learning and problem-solving. Understanding Abstract Thought. Abstract thinking, a distinguishing facet of adolescent cognitive development, sets the stage for deeper comprehension, critical analysis, and self-awareness.
PDF Intellectual development
Adolescence This is a time when young people are being challenged and exposed to many new ideas and experiences. • Abstract thought is an important intellectual development in adolescence. Instead of the need for hands-on exploration, adolescents can use abstract thought processes to work out problems. By the end of this life stage young ...
Vocabulary for IELTS
Cognitive Development in Children: Mastering Abstract Concepts Cognitive development is a crucial aspect of a child's growth. It involves the development of thought processes, including remembering, problem-solving, and decision-making, from infancy through adolescence to adulthood. This article will explore how children master abstract concepts and the role of imitation in cognitive ...
How Wisdom Emerges from Intellectual Development: A Developmental
Our central position is that neither of these lines of research alone is sufficient for the attainment of the aims above. The theory of intellectual development focuses on cognitive processes in childhood and adolescence. The theory of wisdom focuses on a specific approach to problem-solving and decision-making in adulthood.

Cognitive Development in the Teen Years

How cognitive growth happens during the teen years

Types of cognitive growth through the years

How you can encourage healthy cognitive growth

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10.4 Cognition in Adolescence and Adulthood

Cognition in Adolescence

Adolescent Egocentrism

Intuitive and Analytic Thinking

Risk-taking

Cognitive Development in Early Adulthood

Perry’s Scheme

Table 9.2 Stages of Perry’s Scheme

Cognition in Middle Adulthood

Crystalized versus Fluid Intelligence

Seattle Longitudinal Study

Cognition in Late Adulthood

Problem Solving

What might explain these deficits as we age?

Aging stereotypes exaggerate cognitive losses

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13.3 Cognitive Development in Adolescence

13.3.1 Executive Functioning

13.3.1.1 Activity: Information Processing Model

13.3.1.2 Metacognition

13.3.1.3 Pruning

13.3.1.4 Activity: Excessive Pruning and Mental Health

13.3.2 Critical Thinking

13.3.2.1 Relativistic Thinking

13.3.2.2 Intuitive and Analytic Thinking

13.3.2.3 Cognitive Empathy

13.3.2.4 Impulse Control

13.3.3 Licenses and Attributions for Cognitive Development in Adolescence

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Cognitive Development in Adolescence

Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage of Cognitive Development

Adolescent Egocentrism

Consequences of Formal Operational Thought

Information Processing Theory of Cognitive Development

Inductive and Deductive Reasoning

Moral Reasoning in Adolescence

Influences on Moral Development

Adolescent Development

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7.6: Introduction to Cognitive Development in Adolescence

What you’ll learn to do: describe changes in cognitive development and moral reasoning during adolescence

Contributors and Attributions

Piaget’s Theory and Stages of Cognitive Development

Key Takeaways

Stages of Development

The Sensorimotor Stage

Major Characteristics and Developmental Changes:

Individual Differences

The Preoperational Stage

The Concrete Operational Stage

The Formal Operational Stage

Piaget’s Theory

1. How Piaget Developed the Theory

Piaget branched out on his own with a new set of assumptions about children’s intelligence:

2. Piaget’s Theory Differs From Others In Several Ways:

Examples of Schemas

4. The Process of Adaptation

5. Assimilation

6. Accommodation

7. Equilibration

Applications to Education

Plowden Report

How to teach

Classroom Activities