Kathleen Stassen Berger
Part VI
Chapter Eighteen
Emerging Adulthood: Cognitive Development
Postformal Thought
Morals and Religion
Cognitive Growth and Higher
Education
Prepared by Madeleine Lacefield
Tattoon, M.A.
1
Cognitive Development in Emerging Adulthood
• Cognitive development can be described as
the…
– stage approach
• evaluates whether a new stage or level is reached—
postformal stage of thinking and reasoning in adulthood
– psychometric approach
• analyzes intelligence by means of IQ tests and other
measures
– information-processing approach
• studies how the brain encodes, stores, and retrieves
information
2
Postformal Thought
• Postformal thought
– a proposed adult stage of cognitive
development
– by being more practical, more flexible, and
more dialectical
– more capable of combing contradictory
elements into a comprehensive whole
3
Postformal Thought
• The Fifth Stage
– self-protective—high in self-involvement,
low in self-doubt
– complex—valuing openness and
independence above all
– integrated—able to regulate emotions and
logic
4
Postformal Thought
• Combining Subjective and Objective
Thought
– subjective thought
• rises from the personal experiences and
perceptions of an individual
– objective thought
• devalues subjective feelings, personal faith,
and emotional experience while overvaluing
objective, logical thinking
5
Postformal Thought
• Consolidating Emotions and Logic
– complex problem solving is the crucial
intellectual accomplishment of
adulthood
– combining affect (emotion) and logic
(cognition)
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Postformal Thought
• Cognitive Flexibility
– the ability…
• to be practical
• to predict
• to plan
• to combine objective and subjective
mental processes
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Postformal Thought
• Cognitive Flexibility
– plans can go awry:
• corporate restructuring
• failure of birth control
• parent’s illness
– adults with cognitive flexibility avoid
retreating into either emotions or
intellect
8
Postformal Thought
• cognitive flexibility
– problem-solving
– talking through problems with others
– changing your mind once you made a
mistake
– behavioral changes
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Postformal Thought
• cognitive flexibility
– more likely to imagine several solutions
for every problem and then choose the
best one
– research on problem-solving abilities
concludes that emerging adults are
better problem solvers than both
adolescents and the oldest adults
10
Postformal Thought
• Countering Stereotypes
– cognitive flexibility
• to change one’s childhood assumptions
• younger adults hold less gender-stereotyped
views
– stereotype threat
• the possibility that one’s appearance or
behavior will be misread to confirm another
person’s oversimplified prejudiced attitudes
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Postformal Thought
• Dialectical Thought
– a most advanced cognitive process,
characterized by the ability to consider a
thesis and its antithesis simultaneously and
thus to arrive at a synthesis
– makes possible an ongoing awareness of pros
and cons, advantages and disadvantages,
possibilities and limitations
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Postformal Thought
• Dialectical Thought
– thesis
• a proposition or statement of belief; the
first stage of the process of dialectical
thinking
– antithesis
• a proposition or statement of belief that
opposes the thesis; the second stage of
the process of dialectical thinking
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Postformal Thought
• Dialectical Thought
– synthesis
• a new idea that integrates the thesis and
its antithesis, thus representing a new
and more comprehensive level of truth;
the third stage of the process of
dialectical thinking
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Postformal Thought
• A “Broken” Love Affair
– nondialectical thinker
• likely to believe that each person has
stable, independent traits
• concludes that one partner is at fault
• a mistake from the beginning – “bad
match”
15
Postformal Thought
• A “Broken” Love Affair
– dialectical thinkers:
• see people and relationships as
constantly evolving
• partners are changed by time as well as
by their interaction
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Postformal Thought
• Culture and Dialectics
– dialectical thought affects priorities and
values
– notable differences in culture are the
result of nature, not nurture
– “cognitive differences have ecological,
historical, and sociological origins"
17
Morals and Religion
• adult responsibilities, experiences,
and education affect moral reasoning
and religious beliefs.
• maturation of values appears first in
emerging adulthood and continues
through middle age.
18
Morals and Religion
• morals and culture
– morals
• affected by circumstance, including
national background, culture, and era
– culture
• determines whether a particular practice
is a moral issue
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Morals and Religion
• the power of culture makes if difficult
to assess whether adults morality
changes with age
• moral thinking improves with age
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Morals and Religion
Dilemmas for Emerging Adults
– sex
– sexuality
– reproduction
– relationships
– contraception
– abortion
– drugs
– education
– vocation
21
Morals and Religion
• Stages of Faith – James Fowler
– Stage 1: Intuitive projective faith
– Stage 2: Mythic-literal faith
– Stage 3: Synthetic-conventional faith
– Stage 4: Individual-reflective faith
– Stage 5: Conjunctive faith
– Stage 6: Universalizing faith
22
Morals and Religion
• Stages of Faith – James Fowler
– …faith progresses from a simple, selfcentered, one-sided perspective to a
more complex, altruistic (unselfish) and
many-sided view.
– …faith is one way people combat stress,
overcome adversity, and analyze
challenges.
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Cognitive Growth and
Higher Education
• The Effects of College
– students attend college
• to secure better jobs, learn specific skills
• general education
– college correlates with
•
•
•
•
•
better health
less smoking
better eating
more exercise
longer life
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Cognitive Growth and
Higher Education
• Changes in the College Context
– the fact that colleges and universities are
designed to foster cognitive growth does not
necessarily mean that they succeed
• Changes in the Student
– students and social structures change over time
• Changes in the Institutions
– current colleges offer more career programs and
hire more part-time faculty
25
Cognitive Growth and
Higher Education
• Evaluating the Changes
– what do today’s students get out of
attending college?
– colleges no longer produce the “great
intellectual flexibility” that earlier
research found
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Cognitive Growth and
Higher Education
• Evaluating the Changes
– Diversity and Enrollment
• evidence on cognition suggests that
interactions with people of different
backgrounds and various views lead to
intellectual challenges and deeper
thought
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Cognitive Growth and
Higher Education
• Evaluating the Changes
– Graduates and Dropouts
• many young students lack the cultural
knowledge or cognitive maturity to
acquire the “social know-how” needed to
navigate through college
• some “adapt to complexities better as
they proceed through college…”
28