Ages 11 to 18
How do adolescents think?

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Egocentrism
Belief that they are more socially significant than they actually are
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 Focusing on themselves more than others
Other types of egocentrism
 The personal fable
 The invincibility fable
 Imaginary audience

 Personal fable - “I am unique”
 “My thoughts & feelings have not happened to anyone else”
 Difficult to see another person’s perspective
▪ “You just don’t understand!”

 “I will not be hurt”
 Smoking, drugs, STD’s, high-speed driving
 Does not apply to all adolescents

 “Everyone is watching me”
 Makes teenagers self-conscious

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What is adolescent egocentrism?
What is the personal fable?
What is the invincibility fable?
What is the imaginary audience?

 Fourth and final stage
 Use abstract ideas
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 Hypothetical thought
▪ Thinking of possibilities, not just reality
▪ If-then propositions
E.g. Balance experiment
 A 14 year old will understand that both weight and distance from the center must be considered when balancing a scale

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Deductive – Top down
 General to specific
Inductive – Bottom-up
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 Specific to general
Both are used in research
Deductive
Theory
(General)
Inductive
Research
(Specific)

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Intuitive thought (Intuition)
 From an emotion or hunch beyond rational explanation
 Based on past experiences and cultural assumptions
Analytic thought
 Depends of logic & rationality
 Analysis of pros & cons, risks & consequences
 Possibilities & facts

 Sunk cost fallacy
 “I have invested so much, I must keep going”
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 Know when to cut your losses
Base rate neglect fallacy
 Ignoring the overall frequency or probability of an effect from a behavior
 E.g. Smoking, not wearing a helmet
 Lottery tickets & gambling

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Which of Piaget’s stages are adolescents in?
 What is one of the major achievements in this stage?
What is the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning?
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 What is an example of each
What types of thought are there?
What are the thinking fallacies?
 Give an example of each

 Broadens students’ horizons
 New education & experiences
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 Gets them past the egocentric thought
Reduces social isolation

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Internet addiction
 Gambling or video games
▪ Escape from problems
Cyberbullying
 Spreading insults and rumors
Negative specialties (Online)
 Cutting, extreme dieting, prejudice
Negatives result more from the antisocial attitudes and/or depression of the person, not the technology
Sexting, Facebook pages, etc

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What are the positives of technology related to adolescent egocentrism and social isolation?
What are the negatives of technology related to antisocial attitudes, depression, and cyberbullying?