Cognitive Transitions
Chapter Outline
I. Changes in Cognition
· Adolescents think in ways that are more advanced, efficient,
and effective
A. Thinking about possibilities
o Unlike children, adolescents’ thinking is not necessarily tied to
concrete events
o For the adolescent, reality is only one aspect of “possible realities”
o Children have fantasies and imaginations, but adolescents can manipulate
their thoughts in a way that allows them to generate possibilities and
compare fantasies (possibilities) with likely future scenarios
o Finding solutions to problems involves a more systematic mental manipulation
of the pieces of the problem
o The ability to think logically and systematically enhances the adolescent’s
ability in abstract math (e.g., algebra, geometry, trigonometry), biology,
chemistry, and physics
o This advanced reasoning capacity also allows adolescents to reason
in social situations in more complex ways (e.g., teens become more argumentative
with parents and peers)
o Adolescents develop the ability to think about hypotheses and plan
for future consequences of their and others’ actions
o Teens can also suspend their own beliefs and argue from another’s
or an abstract point of view (e.g., playing “devil’s advocate”)
o Such cognitive changes facilitate perspective-taking
B. Thinking about abstract concepts
· Adolescents can think about things that cannot be directly
experienced in a much more advanced way than children
· Puns, proverbs, metaphors, and analogies make sense to adolescents
in ways that they do not to children
· Youth apply abstract thinking to social and ideological issues,
such as politics, philosophy, religion, and morality, and the meaning of
life, and to social interactions
C. Thinking about Thinking
· Thinking about one’s thoughts is called metacognition
· Includes being aware of thinking, being aware of one’s comprehension
or learning, and being able to explain one’s thoughts to others
· Adolescents also become more introspective, self-conscious,
and engage in intellectualizations more often
· Being more introspective, youth ponder their own emotions
· Being more self-conscious, they think about what others might
think of them
· Engaging in intellectualizations, they think more about their
own thoughts
· The growth of these abilities can cause the adolescent difficulties,
before he or she has gained control over them
· Increased introspection can lead to a self-absorbed adolescent
(a form of adolescent egocentrism)
· Adolescents can fall prey to thoughts of an imaginary audience,
or thinking that everyone else is aware of and thinking about the adolescent
(e.g., “everyone at the baseball stadium will notice how stupid I look
in this shirt”)
· They can also experience the personal fable, thinking that
one’s personal experiences are completely unique (“no one could possibly
understand what I’m going through, so why talk about it”) or that one has
extraordinary gifts and abilities (“I can take this curve faster than anyone
else who ever drove.”)
· Interestingly, these thought patterns may be as common among
adults as they are among adolescents
D. Thinking in Multiple Dimensions
· Adolescents can think about many different aspects of a situation
at once
· They understand that most complicated questions or problems
have complicated, multifaceted answers
· Youth describe themselves and others in more differentiated
and complicated terms, which leads social relationships to become more
sophisticated
· Adolescents understand sarcasm and double entendres in ways
children do not
E. Adolescent Relativism
· While children tend to see things in “black and white,” adolescents
tend to see things as relative (“shades of gray”)
· Adolescents may believe that there is nothing that one can
be 100% sure of; this may be a transitional mode of thinking on the way
to a more sophisticated understanding of what is known versus what is unknown
II. Theoretical Perspectives on Adolescent Thinking
A. The Piagetian View of Adolescent Thinking
· This cognitive-developmental view of thinking states that
individuals proceed through stages in which thinking changes dramatically
from one stage to the next
· Piaget’s four stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete
operational, and formal operations) span the ages 0-2, 2-7, 7-11, and 11
+, respectively
· Piage believed that both biological maturation and experience
with mental tasks influenced cognitive development
· The use of propositional logic is a hallmark of formal operations
· Propositional logic uses a set of “rules” for solving problems.
For example, if A is greater than B, and B is greater than C, then A must
be greater than C.
· Adolescents do not have to be aware of using propositional
logic in order to use it effectively
1. The growth of formal-operational thinking
· In early adolescence, individuals may be able to use propositional
logic only sporadically (emergent formal operations)
· The adolescents who eventually develop formal operational
abilities typically improve in their use of such thinking in middle to
late adolescence
· Distinctions have been made between competence and performance
of such mental skills
· Competence means what the adolescent can do, while performance
means what the adolescent actually does
· Performance on reasoning tasks is higher when the tasks have
personal relevance to teens
· The characteristics of formal operations may develop more
gradually than Piaget described
1. The scientific study of adolescence: Separating competence and performance in studies of adolescent reasoning
B. The Information-Processing (I-P) View of Adolescent Thinking
· This view has sought to determine what specific skills develop
as a person matures in thinking ability
· I-P research breaks down an ability into separate components
or steps, and studies each step as a unique skill
· I-P theory uses the personal computer as an analogy for how
the mind works (e.g., the mind uses programs and subprograms to solve problems
and store information)
1. Changes in information-processing abilities during adolescence
· Research has focused on five skills: attention, working memory,
processing speed, organization, and metacognition
· Adolescents have higher abilities than do children in selective
attention, or the ability to focus on one stimulus / idea and not be distracted
by others
· Adolescents also have higher abilities in divided attention,
or the ability to think about two or more things at once
· Adolescents also have better working memory, or the ability
to hold information in one’s conscious awareness for brief periods
· They also have better long-term memory, or the ability to
store and recall information over long time periods
· Adolescents also outperform children in how fast they can
think, called information processing speed
· They also can use organizational strategies better than children
(e.g., the use of planful thinking, or using mnemonic devices, to solve
problems or store information)
· They are more capable of remembering that certain mental skills
are useful in solving certain kinds of problems (e.g., how to go about
remembering a long list of terms)
· Finally, adolescents are more aware of their own thinking
processes than are children
C. New Directions for Theories about Adolescent Thinking
· Robbie Case views cognitive changes as following a stage-like
progression, but the qualitative differences between stages are better
described in I-P terms and skills than Piaget’s more global terms
· Case has also argued that changes in mental skills is likely
accounted for by physical changes in the brain during the maturation process
· Case points to the automatization of thinking that emerges
during adolescence (adolescents don’t need to consciously think about certain
information in order to use it, like children do; performing a task becomes
“automatic”)
· Andreas Demetriou argues that specialized structural systems
develop in the mind that allow the adolescent to perform specific mental
tasks (e.g., analytical thinking, experimental thinking, spatial thinking,
etc.)
· Demetriou believes each structure (or ability) develops through
stages, and that a general theory of global cognitive change is inaccurate
III. Individual Differences in Intelligence in Adolescence
A. Measuring Intelligence
1. The IQ test
· Various test have been created to measure overall intelligence
(IQ), such as the Stanford-Binet, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children,
and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale
· The first widely used IQ test was constructed in 1905 by Alfred
Binet in order to determine which French children would benefit from formal
schooling versus “special education”
· IQ tests typically provide scores that reflect an individual’s
overall ability compared to one’s agemates, or cohort
· The number 100 is used to indicate an “average” level of intelligence
on IQ tests
· Modern IQ tests actually provide indications of different
types of abilities, such as verbal abilities and performance (non-verbal)
abilities
· These tests are definitely focused on measuring abilities
that individuals use in formal education settings, rather than contexts
outside of school
2. Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory
· Robert Sternberg has proposed that there are three separate
abilities that make up overall intelligence
· Componential intelligence involves our ability to acquire,
store, and process information (“analytical thinking”)
· Experiential intelligence involves our ability to use insight
and creativity (“artistic thinking”)
· Contextual intelligence involves our ability to think in practical
terms (“street smarts”)
· All individuals have different levels of each ability
3. Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences
· Howard Gardner has proposed that there are seven types of
intelligence: verbal, mathematical, spatial, kinesthetic, self-reflective,
interpersonal, and musical
B. Intelligence: Test Performance in Adolescence
· How stable are IQ scores across different ages?
· How do the abilities measured by IQ tests improve in different
ages?
· Measurements of stability will always reflect one’s scores
in relation to agemates, and as such will not necessarily reflect improvements
in ability (e.g., if the whole peer group gets “smarter”, one’s IQ score
can basically remain the same)
· IQ scores are relatively stable; one’s overall ability compared
to one’s agemates is pretty stable over time
· However, the level of one’s ability usually increases over
adolescence; that is, adolescents do typically get “smarter” over time
· Recent research indicates that speed of information processing
during the first 12 months of life is predictive of IQ scores during adolescence
· While most children and adolescents progress “evenly”, scoring
at approximately the same level relative to one’s peers at different ages,
others do not follow such a pattern, some rising and some falling compared
to their agemates
· Overall, mental abilities increase at least until around age
20, when they may level off and remain high throughout early and middle
adulthood
· These findings support the importance of formal education
on intellectual ability
1. The SAT
· The scholastic aptitude test measures overall academic accomplishment
· It is used to predict the likelihood of success in college
· It is a good, but not perfect, predictor of college success
· Colleges therefore do not rely solely on SAT scores to make
acceptance decisions
· SAT math scores are better predictors of success in college
math classes for males than for females
The sexes: Are there differences in mental abilities at adolescence
(anymore)?
· Research decades ago indicated that significant gender differences
in intelligence emerged during adolescence
· This research claimed that females emerged with higher verbal
abilities, while males emerged with higher mathematical abilities
· It was suggested that hormonal differences were a major influence
on such differences
· Some also argued that the faster maturation of girls hindered
the development of mathematical/spatial abilities in females
· A third explanation, which has received the most support,
states that males and females are “shaped” in different ways by people
and society, so that males are encouraged in the “hard sciences” while
females are encouraged in “soft sciences” or language arts (e.g., English,
foreign language)
· Recent research has shown that adolescents’ abilities are
related more strongly to experiences, such as course selection, rather
than gender
· More recent gender studies have found males’ and females’
abilities to be more similar than were found decades ago, pointing to changes
in sex roles and educational opportunities that have taken place in industrialized
cultures
· The only remaining gender difference is in spatial ability,
and even this difference seems to be diminishing in recent years
C. Culture and Intelligence
· Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who emphasized the
broader social context in which cognitive development takes place
· Cultures are different with regard to the expectations and
opportunities for intelligent thought
· Each culture demands that children and adolescents develop
certain cognitive abilities
· Vygotsky argued that individuals progress best when the challenges
they face are not too easy, not too hard, but moderately challenging –
a level he called the zone of proximal development
· Individual instruction offered by a more experienced other
to a student that leads to cognitive improvement is called scaffolding
· When intelligence is assessed using instruments that do not
apply to the context in which individuals have been raised, those instruments
may be called “culturally-biased”
· Some argue that the differences between Caucasian and minority
test scores in the U.S. reflect the fact that standardized tests have been
constructed to measure the things that Caucasian individuals have had experience
with
· Culture-fair tests have been developed in an attempt to overcome
this testing bias
IV. Adolescent Thinking in Context
A. Changes in Social Cognition
· Thinking about people, social relationships, and social institutions
· Understanding of social relationships becomes more mature
and complex
1. Impression formation
· Impressions of others becomes more differentiated (people
all have different, specific qualities)
· Impressions become less egocentric (recognizing that one’s
own impression of someone is just one, and one biased, view of that person)
· Impressions become more abstract (based on attitudes and motives,
rather than appearance or behaviors)
· Adolescents make greater use of inferences (make assumptions,
based on evidence, of another’s internal characteristics)
· Impressions are more highly organized (seeing connections
between another’s traits and their settings or experiences)
· These gains in impression formation signal the emergence of
an implicit personality theory – an idea of why people are the way they
are
2. Social perspective taking
· Taking the view of others
· Adolescents are more capable of seeing things through the
eyes of another
· During early adolescence, according to Robert Selman, individuals
can engage in mutual role taking (thinking of a situation as an objective
“third party”, “seeing both sides of the coin”)
· In middle or late adolescence, individuals understand the
everyone’s perspective is very complicated, sometimes unconscious, and
influenced by many factors
3. Conceptions of morality and social convention
· Children tend to see moral rules as absolutes
· Adolescents, however, tend to question rules and believe that
morals are subjective
· Understanding social conventions (rules that govern social
behavior) changes
· In the adolescent’s mind, conventions are merely expectations,
not absolutes
· Adolescents often see conventions as “rules for rules’ sake”
and need not be obeyed
· Gradually, adolescents come to see the value of conventions
for regulating behavior and encouraging cooperation between people
B. Adolescent Risk Taking
· What are the reasons adolescents engage in risky behaviors?
· Behavioral decision theory analyzes the different elements
of the decision-making process
· Research demonstrates that adolescents use adult-like cognitive
processes when faced with a decision
· Adolescents do not feel more invulnerable to negative consequences
of bad decisions than adults
· Adolescents and adults, however, may evaluate consequences
differently
· Many adolescents may not feel that the costs of risky behavior
are serious as may adults do (e.g., contracting a STD by having unprotected
sex)
· Individuals who have higher needs for sensation seeking may
be more likely to engage in risky behaviors
· Sensation seeking may be higher during adolescence than childhood
and adulthood
C. Adolescent Thinking in the Classroom
· Evidence of critical thinking in the classrooms does not match
what developmentalists believe adolescents are capable of
· Critics suggest that schools rarely promote such thinking
· Give-and-take discussions may account for less than 10% of
classroom time in school
· Others believe that schools should specifically aim to improve
specific information processing skills (such as attention, organization,
and memory)
Study Questions
1. What are the five chief ways that adolescent thinking differs from
a child's thinking?
2. What is hypothetical thinking?
3. How is an adolescent's understanding of sarcasm a good example of multidimensional thinking?
4. What is meant by the term "adolescent egocentrism"?
5. What is "imaginary audience"? Give an example of this phenomenon.
6. What is "personal fable"? Give an example of what is meant by this term.
7. What are Piaget's stages of cognitive development?
8. Which Piagetian stage corresponds with adolescence?
9. What is adolescent thought like according to Piaget?
10. What is propositional logic?
11. How do Overton's studies on the competence-performance distinction, and his findings indicate an important weakness of Piaget's approach?
12. What are some of the other weaknesses of Piaget's theory?
13. How is the information processing view different from Piaget's approach?
14. What features of thought change during adolescence according to the information processing approach?
15. How do these features of thought change?
16. How do Robbie Case’s approach to cognitive development and Andreas Demetriou's theory concerning cognitive development both utilize cognitive- developmental notions and information processing notions in their theoretical framework?
17. Why was the intelligence test created?
18. How is the intelligence test limited in regard to measuring intelligence?
19. How stable is intelligence test performance in adolescence?
20. What is Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence?
21. What are Gardner's multiple intelligences?
22. How do Sternberg's and Gardner's approach to intelligence depart from traditional approaches to intelligence?
23. What is the SAT?
24. How well does the SAT predict success in college?
25. Are there gender differences in SAT performance? Describe.
26. Are there gender differences in mental abilities? Describe.
27. What role do biological and environmental factors in gender differences in mental abilities?
28. What is Lev Vygotsky's theory concerning intellectual development? Describe.
29. What is meant by "middle class White bias" in traditional intelligence tests?
30. How do the following social cognitive capacities change from childhood to adolescence?
Impression formation?
Social perspective taking?
Morality and social conventions?
31. What are three behaviors that are considered risk-taking behaviors?
32. What is behavioral decision theory? Describe.
33. How useful is behavioral decision theory in explaining adolescent risk taking?
34. What is critical thinking?
35. Does the American educational system encourage critical thinking?
Multiple Choice Questions - Please circle the correct answer.
1. The ability to think about thinking is known as:
a. multidimensional thinking
b. automatization
c. propositional logic
d. metacognition
2. This theoretical view of cognitive development invokes stages and
emphasizes qualitative change in thinking:
a. cognitive-developmental
b. information processing
c. psychometric
d. ethological
3. In their investigation of the competence-performance distinction,
Ward and Overton (1990) found that task ________ tended to effect
adolescent's performance on deductive reasoning tasks.
a. length
b. relevance
c. difficulty
d. sequence
4. Piaget found that adolescent thinking is:
a. sensorimotor
b. concrete operational
c. formal operational
d. preoperational
5. Improvements during adolescence in all of the following domains have
been linked with the information processing perspective except:
a. processing speed
b. metacognitive abilities
c. attention
d. propositional logic
6. This theorist has combined the Piagetian and the information processing
views to describe cognitive development.
a. Robbie Case
b. Robert Sternberg
c. Howard Gardner
d. Lev Vygotsky
7. Intelligence tests are good predictors of:
a. school success
b. job performance
c. emotional wellbeing
d. both a and b
8. Who has developed a triarchic theory of intelligence?
a. Howard Gardner
b. Lev Vygotsky
c. Robert Sternberg
d. Robbie Case
9. A basketball player should be high in:
a. self-reflective intelligence
b. kinesthetic intelligence
c. spatial intelligence
d. mathematical intelligence
10. Researchers have found that the correlation between IQ scores in
early adolescence and late adolescence is:
a. weak
b. moderate
c. strong
d. difficult to calculate
11. SAT scores are used to predict:
a. performance on the job
b. success in college
c. success in graduate school
d. creative and artistic potential
12. The largest and most reliable gender difference across the lifespan
appears to be in the area of:
a. math ability
b. spatial ability
c. verbal ability
d. creative ability
13. This developmental theorist suggests that children learn best when
tasks are within a zone of proximal development:
a. Robert Sternberg
b. Lev Vygotsky
c. Jean Piaget
d. Andreas Demetriou
14. According to Robert Selman, adolescents are better at social perspective
taking than children are because they can engage in ________ role
taking.
a. subjective
b. bidirectional
c. mutual
d. advanced
15. Each is an example of social cognition except:
a. perspective taking
b. impression formation
c. moral reasoning
d. propositional logic
16. During adolescence, impression formation becomes more:
a. concrete
b. organized
c. global
d. both b and c
17. In regard to adolescent risk taking behavior, researchers working
from a behavioral decision making framework have found that:
a. adolescents use different cognitive processes than adults
to make decisions;
b. adolescents are more likely than adults to feel invulnerable
and untouchable;
c. adolescents evaluate the desirability of consequences differently
than adults;
d. adolescents are more irrational and illogical than adults
in social decision making situations.
18. Some critics of adolescent thinking in the classroom point out that:
a. most American adolescents are not capable of abstract and
analytical thinking in the educational context;
b. most American adolescents prefer educational tasks that stress
rote memory of concrete facts;
c. most American adolescents are rarely asked to think in analytical
and relativistic ways in the classroom;
d. most American adolescents do not profit from hands-on learning
experiences that are designed to teach fundamental principles.
19. An adolescent's ability to handle analogies in comparison to a child
is indicative of the advanced ability to engage in:
a. metacognition
b. abstract thinking
c. propositional logic
d. hypothetical thinking
20. A heightened sense of self-consciousness which leads a young person
to believe that he or she is the focus of everyone's attention is
known as:
a. imaginary audience
b. interpersonal vanity
c. personal fable
d. adolescent egocentrism
21. The adolescent's ability to understand sarcasm in comparison to
a child is indicative of the advanced ability to engage in:
a. metacognition
b. hypothetical thinking
c. multi-dimensional thinking
d. relativistic thinking
22. Piaget believed that cognitive growth and development are dependent
on:
a. biological factors
b. environmental factors
c. genetic factors alone
d. both a and b
23. Which type of attention involves the ability to pay attention to
two sets of stimuli at the same time?
a. Selective attention
b. Divided attention
c. Adapted attention
d. Bi-directed attention
24. Who developed the first intelligence test?
a. David Wechsler
b. Louis Terman
c. Alfred Binet
d. Laurence Steinberg
25. Culture fair intelligence testing involves:
a. developing tests for different cultural groups
b. developing tests that assess a core set of verbal skills
c. developing tests that focus more on nonverbal skills
d. both a and c
True/False Questions - Mark each statement either True (T) or False (F).
1. In comparison to children's thinking, adolescent thinking is more abstract, more differentiated and more focused on the absolute.
2. Hypothetical thinking deals with "if-then" relationships.
3. A youngster who believes that noone has ever experienced heart break quite the way he has is exhibiting the personal fable phenomenon.
4. Generally, preschoolers are capable of preoperational thought.
5. According to Piaget, propositional logic underlies an adolescent's thinking abilities.
6. Studies of the competence-performance distinction in adolescent thinking abilities find that there tends to be very little distinction.
7. Information processing theories of cognitive development use a computer model to study human thinking.
8. Adolescents can retain information in working memory for up to 90 seconds.
9. Speed of information processing continues to improve from late adolescence into mid-adulthood.
10. Andreas Demetriou theorizes that human intellectual functioning is organized around specialized structural systems that are employed to solve problems.
11. Traditional intelligence tests are designed to measure a variety of cognitive abilities including creativity and inventiveness.
12. The Wechsler Tests (WISC-R and WAIS-R) have both verbal tests and performance tests of intelligence.
13. Howard Gardner believes that the most important form of intelligence is "book smarts".
14. Sternberg's componential intelligence involves the ability to acquire, process and store information.
15. Intelligence test scores in adolescence are stable because the cognitive abilities that are measured on these tests do not change from early to late adolescence.
16. The SAT is a measurement of academic achievement.
17. Gender differences in math ability are apparent in childhood and grow larger in adolescence.
18. According to Lev Vygotsky, an effective instructor structures a learning experience so that it is possible for the learner to successfully handle the task.
19. Adolescents are more likely than children to use inference in their impressions of other people.
20. Social conventions are generally the same as moral guidelines.
21. Behavioral decision theory has been used to look at adolescent risk taking.
22. Studies indicate that adolescents are far more likely than adults to feel invulnerable and hence are more likely to take risks.
23. High sensation seekers are more likely to engage in risk taking behavior than low sensation seekers.
24. The typical American school stresses the use of critical thinking in educational tasks for adolescents.
25. Consciously using a particular strategy to remember something is an example of metacognition.
26. The traditional information processing theories of cognitive development generally invoke stages to describe development.
27. The relevance of a task tends to effect adolescent’s deductive reasoning involving that task.
28. Social cognition involves thinking about people and relationships.
29. The moral reasoning of adolescents tends to be based on concrete rules that are handed down from important adults like parents and teachers.
30. Research has indicated that there tends to be a large gap between competence and performance in school achievement for non-English speaking high school students.
Matching Questions - Choose the term that most accurately fits the description.
___ 1. extreme self-absorption
a. hypothetic thinking
___ 2. effortless processing
b. adolescent egocentrism
___ 3. a system of propositional logic
c. imaginary audience
___ 4. if-then thinking
d. cognitive-developmental view
___ 5. equally difficult for all test takers
e. formal operations
___ 6. used to predict college success
f. selective attention
___ 7. theory involves specialized
g. working memory
structural systems
h. automatization
___ 8. theoretical viewpoint emphasizing
i. Andreas Demetriou
stages
j. Robert Sternberg
___ 9. belief that one is the center of
k. Howard Gardner
attention
l. SAT
___ 10. holds information briefly
m. Lev Vygotsky
___ 11. focusing on one stimulus while
n. culture fair tests
tuning out another
o. social perspective taking
___ 12. discusses seven types of intelligence
p. implicit personality theory
___ 13. enjoying novel and intense
q. risk-taking behavior
experiences
r. sensation seeking
___ 14. talks about componential,
s. critical thinking
experiential and contextual
t. abstract concepts
intelligence
___ 15. substance abuse, reckless driving,
unprotected sex
___ 16. the ability to view events from
another's viewpoint
___ 17. theory involves the zone of proximal
development
___ 18. a theory of why people are the way
they are
___ 19. analytical and synthetic thinking
___ 20. intangible notions
Answer Key
Multiple Choice Questions
1. d 11. b 21. c
2. a 12. b 22. d
3. b 13. b 23. b
4. c 14. c 24. c
5. d 15. d 25. c
6. a 16. b
7. a 17. c
8. c 18. c
9. b 19. b
10. c 20. a
True/False Questions
1. F 11. F 21. T
2. T 12. T 22. F
3. T 13. F 23. T
4. T 14. T 24. F
5. T 15. F 25. T
6. F 16. F 26. F
7. T 17. F 27. T
8. F 18. T 28. T
9. F 19. T 29. F
10. T 20. F 30. T
Matching Questions
1. b 11. f
2. h 12. k
3. e 13. r
4. a 14. j
5. n 15. q
6. l 16. o
7. i 17. m
8. d 18. p
9. c 19. s
10. g 20. t