Chapter Fifteen

1
Chapter Fifteen

• Adolescence
• Cognitive Development

2
More and Better Cognition

• Basic cognitive skills continue to emerge
• Logic emerges
• Intuitive thinking becomes quicker and more
  compelling
• Every basic skill of information process
  continues to develop
• Brain maturation continues
• myelination is ongoing, so reaction time shorter
• prefrontal cortex becomes more densely packed and
  more efficient
• helps in planning, analyzing, and being able to
  pursue goals
• Language mastery improves

3
Hypothetical-Deductive Thought

• Important characteristics
• hypothetical thought
• thinking about possibilities
• deductive and inductive reasoning
• deductive reasoningreasoning from general
  principle via logical steps to specific
  conclusion
• inductive reasoningreasoning specific
  experiences or facts to a general conclusion
• Hypothetical thought and deductive reasoning not
  always demonstrated in adolescence, nor acquired
  by everyone
• Two modes of information processing advance
  during adolescence
• analytic thought (adolescents dont always like
  to use this type of thinking)
• intuitive thought (ideas are discovered and
  applied)
• Two pathways in the brain may lead to two-track
  thinking

4
Adolescent Egocentrism

• Characteristic of adolescent thinking that
  sometimes leads young people to focus on
  themselves to the exclusion of others and to
  believe that their thoughts feelings and
  experiences are unique
• Invincibility fable
• adolescents feel they are immune to the laws of
  mortality and probability (and nature)
• they therefore take all kinds of risks
• Personal fable
• adolescents imagine their own lives as mythical
  or heroic
• they see themselves destined for fame or fortune
• Imaginary audience
• adolescents fantasize about how others will react
  (opinions of onlookers)
• they assume everyone else judges appearance (s)
• theyre not at ease with social world
• The various forms of adolescent egocentrism are
  the most obvious forms of intuitive, emotional
  thought
• Adolescent egocentrism is not necessarily
  destructive
• may signal growth toward cognitive maturity and
  personal adaptation

5
Making Decisions School, Jobs, and Sex

• Few adolescents can or should decide their future
  career
• Courses studied and leisure choices do make a
  difference
• Graduation from high school confers many benefits
• graduates stay healthier, live longer, are
  richer, and more likely to marry, stay out of
  jail, and buy homes
• Worldwide, more adolescents are attending high
  school
• Volatile mismatch (reason for dropping out)
• current needs often conflict with traditional
  structures of schools
• person-environment fitdegree to which
  environment is conducive to growth of particular
  individual
• Secondary schools focused on the elite thus,
  they do not reflect needs of most adolescents
• School schedules undercut education
• In large schools, only a few juniors and seniors
  can be involved in extracurricular activities
• Internationally, education systems vary in
  expectations, curriculum, pedagogical methods,
  and legal requirements