Emerging%20Adulthood:%20Cognitive%20Development

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Part VI
Chapter Eighteen

• Emerging Adulthood Cognitive Development

Postformal Thought Morals and Religion Cognitive
Growth and Higher Education
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Cognitive Development in Emerging Adulthood

• Cognitive development can be described as the
• stage approach
• evaluates whether a new stage or level is
  reachedpostformal 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

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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

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Postformal Thought

• The Fifth Stage
• self-protectivehigh in self-involvement, low in
  self-doubt
• complexvaluing openness and independence above
  all
• integratedable to regulate emotions and logic

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Postformal Thought

• Combining Subjective and Objective Thought
• subjective thought
• rises from the personal experiences and
  perceptions of an individual
• objective thought
• devalues subjective feelings, personal faith, and
  emotional experience while overvaluing objective,
  logical thinking

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Postformal Thought

• Consolidating Emotions and Logic
• complex problem solving is the crucial
  intellectual accomplishment of adulthood
• combining affect (emotion) and logic (cognition)

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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
• parents illness
• adults with cognitive flexibility avoid
  retreating into either emotions or intellect

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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

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Postformal Thought

• Countering Stereotypes
• cognitive flexibility
• to change ones childhood assumptions
• younger adults hold less gender-stereotyped views
• stereotype threat
• the possibility that ones appearance or behavior
  will be misread to confirm another persons
  oversimplified prejudiced attitudes

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Postformal Thought

• Dialectical Thought
• a most advanced cognitive process, characterized
  by the ability to consider a thesis and its
  antithesis simultaneously and thus to arrive at a
  synthesis
• makes possible an ongoing awareness of pros and
  cons, advantages and disadvantages, possibilities
  and limitations

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Postformal Thought

• Dialectical Thought
• thesis
• a proposition or statement of belief the first
  stage of the process of dialectical thinking
• antithesis
• a proposition or statement of belief that opposes
  the thesis the second stage of the process of
  dialectical thinking

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Postformal Thought

• Dialectical Thought
• synthesis
• a new idea that integrates the thesis and its
  antithesis, thus representing a new and more
  comprehensive level of truth the third stage of
  the process of dialectical thinking

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Postformal Thought

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

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Postformal Thought

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

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Postformal Thought

• Culture and Dialectics
• 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"

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Morals and Religion

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

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Morals and Religion

• 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

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Morals and Religion

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

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Morals and Religion

• Stages of Faith James Fowler
• faith progresses from a simple, self-centered,
  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

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Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

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

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Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

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

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Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

• Evaluating the Changes
• Graduates and Dropouts
• 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