This document discusses cognitive development in emerging adulthood, including postformal thought and higher-level reasoning abilities that develop beyond adolescence. It proposes that adulthood brings greater practical thinking, flexibility, and ability to integrate contradictory ideas. While some question if this is a distinct stage, research finds cognitive changes through the adult lifespan. Adults can better combine logic and emotion to solve complex problems. Culture also influences cognitive processes like dialectical thought. Higher education may support cognitive growth through exposure to diverse views and complex problem-solving.

1. Part VI Emerging Adulthood: Cognitive Development Chapter Eighteen Postformal Thought Morals and Religion Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

2. 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

3. Postformal Thought The Practical and the Personal: A Fifth Stage? Postformal thought a proposed adult stage of cognitive development following Piaget’s fourth, a stage that goes beyond adolescent thinking by being more practical, more flexible, and more dialectical more capable of combing contradictory elements into a comprehensive whole

4. Postformal Thought The Practical and the Personal: A Fifth Stage? Really a Stage? Piaget considered formal operations to be the final cognitive stage brain researchers report that the prefrontal cortex is finally developed by age 20 non-western cultures describe adult though as qualitatively different from adolescent thought

5. Postformal Thought The Practical and the Personal: A Fifth Stage? Really a Stage? in Hinduism a stage of social embeddedness (similar to problem finding) lasts through middle age, then a new stage appears at which people are expected to be less engaged in immediate social concerns

6. Postformal Thought The Practical and the Personal: A Fifth Stage? Really a Stage? stages that are neurologically based do not appear in adulthood many scholars find a “qualitative” and “quantitative” change in cognitive functioning through the adult life span may be a misnomer a new cognitive level reached if adult life circumstances allow it adults think different than adolescents

7. Postformal Thought The Fifth Stage self-protective —high in self-involvement, low in self-doubt complex —valuing openness and independence above all dysregulated —fragmented, overwhelmed by emotions or problems integrated—able to regulate emotions and logic

8. 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

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

10. Postformal Thought Cognitive Flexibility the ability… to be practical to predict to plan to combine objective and subjective mental processes

11. 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

12. Postformal Thought Working Together cognitive flexibility problem-solving talking through problems with others changing your mind once you made a mistake behavioral changes

13. Postformal Thought Working Together cognitive flexibility adults are more likely than children 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. 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”

19. 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

20. Postformal Thought Culture and Dialectics researchers believe that background affects cognitive processes Greek philosophy led Europeans to use analytic absolution logic to take sides in a battle between right and wrong, good and evil Confucianism and Taoism led the Chinese to seek compromise - “Middle Way” to think holistically, the whole rather than the parts

21. Postformal Thought Culture and Dialectics Respond to the following; Mary, Phoebe, and Julie all have daughters. Each mother has held a set of values that has guided her efforts to raise her daughter. Now the daughters have grown up, and each of them is rejecting many of her mother's values. How did it happen and what should they do?

22. Postformal Thought Culture and Dialectics Respond to the following; Suppose you are the police officer in charge of a case involving a graduate student who murdered a professor… As a police officer, you must establish motive.

23. Postformal Thought Culture and Dialectics dialectical thought affects priorities and values researchers agree that notable differences in culture are the result of nature, not nurture “cognitive differences have ecological, historical, and sociological origins"

24. 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.

25. Morals and Religion one stimulus for young adults in moral reasoning is college education discussions of moral issues or required subtle ethical decisions (i.e., law and medicine)

26. Morals and Religion Which Era? What Place? morals and culture morals affected by circumstance, including national background, culture, and era culture determines whether a particular practice is a moral issue

27. Morals and Religion Which Era? What Place? the power of culture makes if difficult to assess whether adults morality changes with age moral thinking improves with age

28. Morals and Religion sex sexuality reproduction relationships contraception abortion drugs education vocation Dilemmas for Emerging Adults

29. Morals and Religion Measuring Moral Growth …shifts were seen as young adults incorporated human social concerns…young adults became dialectical, reaching a new level… (Kohlberg,Chapter 23—Labouvie-Vief, 2006)

30. Morals and Religion Measuring Moral Growth Defining Issues Test (DIT) a series of questions developed by James Rest and designed to asses respondents’ level of moral development by having them rank possible solutions to moral dilemmas

31. 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

32. 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.

33. Cognitive Growth and Higher Education college graduates seem to be not only healthier and wealthier as well as deeper and more flexible thinkers. scientists view these conclusions with suspicion.

34. 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

35. 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 Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

36. 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 Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

37. 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 Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

38. Evaluating the Changes Graduates and Dropouts if postformal thinking—the ability to cope with the complexities of personal emotions and logical decision making—is the result of higher education…then are the college students who dropout leaving before reaching this level of cognition? Cognitive Growth and Higher Education

39. 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…” Cognitive Growth and Higher Education