Labouvie-Vief believed that adults think in more complex ways than described by Piaget's stages of formal operations. Specifically: 1) Adults acknowledge problems may lack right/wrong answers and draw on experience to solve them through relativistic thinking using both logic and intuition. 2) Adults also engage in dialectical thinking through appreciating arguments, counter-arguments, and debate. 3) Development moves from hypothetical thought in adolescence to pragmatic thought in adulthood, where adults accept inconsistencies and focus on compromise.

1. V.M.WESTERBERG’S SUPER BRIEF DEVELOPMENTAL THEORIES SERIES
GISELLA LABOUVIE-VIEF’S COGNITIVE-EMOTIONAL THEORY
( La Boo Bee Beef)
LBV believed that adults show POSTFORMAL THOUGHT: thinking that goes beyond Piaget's formal
operations.
a) Postformal thought acknowledges that the world sometimes lacks purely right and wrong solutions
and adults must draw upon prior experiences to solve problems.
b) Adults sometimes solve their problems by relativistic thinking (using reason + intuition) rather than
pure logic.
c) Postformal thought also means dialectical thinking, an appreciation [like] for argument, counter-
argument, and debate.
DEVELOPMENT IN LIFE:
1. Childhood: Fantasy period, everything is possible, children gain insight into career options by
fantasizing about them. E.g.: when asking what they want to be - pick coolest thing they can think of.
2. In Adolescence teenagers operate within a world of possibilities or hypotheses. 2 periods:
1. Tentative period. E.g: Wants to go to Harvard, but realizes grades not good enough.
2. Realistic period. E.g.: Can’t go to Harvard, so will decide among the Universities that accepted
him/her.
3. Adulthood moves from hypothetical to pragmatic or practical thought. Pragmatic thinkers accept
inconsistencies as part of life and develop thinking that thrives on imperfection and compromise.
4. Creativity rises in early adulthood, peaks in later 30s, is the ability to formulate new, meaningful
problems, and to ask significant questions that have not been posed before, it is rooted in expertise b/c
based on experiences.
5. Expertise: Middle adulthood; people remember & reason more quickly and effective than novice. They
have lot of knowledge about a topic and process information automatically and faster.
6. Late adulthood brings the chance for reflection and to solve problems [to go with a clear conscience].