Cognitive Development in Adolescence

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Cognitive Development in Adolescence

• Lecture 16
• C6035 Human Development

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Adolescent Cognition

• Piagets Theory Adolescent was in formal
  operational stage of cognition where thought is
  more abstract adolescents are no longer limited
  to actual, concrete experiences as anchors for
  thought
• They can now conjure up make-believe situations
  events that are hypothetical possibilities then
  try to reason logically about them
• In this stage adolescent has ability to develop
  hypotheses, or best guesses to solve problems as
  in algebraic equation
• They systematically deduce, or conclude best path
  to follow in solving equation

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Challenge to Piagets formal Operational Stage

• There is much more individual variation than what
  he envisioned
• Indeed, it is estimated than only 1 out of 3
  young adolescents is a formal operational
  thinker, and many American adults never become
  such thinkers

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Adolescent Egocentrism

• Heightened self-consciousness of adolescents
  which is reflected in their belief that others
  are as interested in them as they are in their
  sense of personal uniqueness
• David Elkind proposes two types of social
  thinking
• imaginary audience a belief that they are on
  stage and that their every act is being viewed
  by an imaginary audience
• personal fable sense of uniqueness making them
  feel that no one can understand them

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Information Processing in Adolescents

• Ability to process information improves in areas
  of memory, decision making critical thinking
  self-regulatory learning
• Robert Sternberg found that solving problems,
  such as analogies, requires individuals to make
  continued comparisons between newly encoded
  information previously encoded information
• Adolescents probably have more storage space in
  short-term memory

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Adolescent Cognitive Capacities

• Adolescents have
• Increased speed, automaticity capacity of
  information processing
• More breadth of content knowledge,
• Increased ability to construct new combinations
  of knowledge
• Greater range for applying or obtaining knowledge
  
• Capacity to set goals for extending knowledge
• Awareness of their emotional makeup to
  periodically monitor their progress, fine-tune
  their strategies, evaluate obstacles make
  adaptations

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Values

• Adolescents carry with them a set of values that
  influences their thoughts, feelings actions
• Over past two decades, they have shown an
  increased concern for personal well-being
  decreased concern for well-being of others
  demonstrate an increasing need for
  self-fulfillment self-expression
• Some signs indicate that todays students are
  shifting toward stronger interest in welfare of
  society as there has been increase in percentage
  of freshmen who said that they were strongly
  interested in participating in community action
  programs

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Moral Education

• The Hidden Curriculum
• John Dewey recognized that schools provide moral
  education through a hidden curriculum which is
  conveyed by moral atmosphere that is a part of
  every school
• Teachers serve as models of ethical or unethical
  behavior
• Through its rules regulations, school
  administration infuses school with a value system

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Types of Moral Education

• Character Education direct approach involves
  teaching students basic moral literacy to prevent
  them from engaging in immoral behavior
• Values clarification helping people clarify what
  their lives are for what is worth working for
  where students are encouraged to define their own
  values understand values of others - It differs
  from character education in that it does not tell
  students what their values should be

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Religion

• Many children adolescents show an interest in
  religion
• Religious institutions, created by adults, are
  designed to introduce certain beliefs ensure
  that children will carry on religious tradition
• Religious issues are important to adolescents
• 95 of 13-18 year-olds said they believe in God
• Almost three-fourths reported they pray

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Developmental Changes

• Adolescence may be an especially important
  juncture for religious development because
  identity development becomes a central focus in
  their lives
• Closely related to Piagets theory of cognition
  is a developmental theory providing a theoretical
  backdrop for understanding religious development
  in children adolescents

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Piagets theory of cognition applied to Religious
Belief

• In preoperational intuitive religious thought
  childrens religious thoughts were unsystematic
  fragmented they do not understand material in
  religious stories
• In concrete operational thought children focus on
  particular details of pictures stories of
  religion
• In formal operational thought adolescents reveal
  a more abstract, hypothetical religious
  understanding

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Religiousness and Sexuality

• The degree of adolescents participation in
  religious organizations may be more important
  than religious affiliation as a determinant of
  premarital sexual attitudes behavior
• Adolescents who attend religious services
  frequently may hear messages about abstaining
  from sex
• In one study, adolescents who attended church
  frequently valued religion in their lives were
  less experienced sexually had less permissive
  attitudes toward premarital sex

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Fowlers Developmental Theory

• James Fowler proposed a theory of religious
  development in stages-focuses on motivation to
  discover meaning in life
• Stage 1. Intuitive-projective faith (early
  childhood) infants learn to trust their caregiver
  invent own intuitive images of good evil
• Stage 2. Mythical-literal faith (middle and late
  childhood) children begin to reason in more
  logical-but not abstract-way
• Stage 3. Synthetic-conventional faith (between
  childhood and adolescence) Adolescents develop
  formal operational thought integrate what they
  have learned about religion into coherent belief
  system

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Fowlers Developmental Theory

• Stage 4. Individuating-reflexive faith (between
  adolescence and adulthood) where individuals are
  capable of taking full responsibility for their
  religious beliefs
• Stage 5. Conjunctive faith (middle adulthood).
  Fowler says that only a few adults move on to
  this stage, which involves being more open to
  paradox opposing viewpoints
• Stage 6. Universalizing faith (middle or late
  adulthood) involves transcending specific belief
  systems to achieve a sense of oneness with all
  being

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Schools for Adolescents

• Controversy Surrounding Secondary Schools
• This century has seen schools playing prominent
  role in lives of adolescents
• Laws excluding teens from work mandating
  attendance at school were passed by virtually
  every state
• Some experts believe that junior senior high
  schools actually contribute to alienation
  delinquency interfere with transition to
  adulthood
• A push for back-to-basics where students are
  being taught fundamental skills knowledge
  needed for workplace

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Transition to Middle Junior High School

• Junior high schools emerged in 20s 30s on
  predication that physical, cognitive social
  changes characterizing early adolescence needed a
  separate institutional approach
• Junior high school served as transition to high
  school which was grades 1012
• Later - middle schools were adopted which
  restored 9th grade to high school brought 6th
  grade into transitional stage of junior or middle
  school

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Transition to Middle Junior High School

• When students make transition from elementary to
  middle or junior high school - they experience
  top-dog phenomenon
• Circumstance of moving from top position in
  elementary school to lowest position in
  middle/junior high school
• These positions are characterized by being
  oldest, biggest most powerful versus youngest,
  smallest least powerful

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Effective Middle Schools for Young Adolescents -
Joan Lipsitz

• Schools ability to adapt all school practices to
  fit physical, cognitive social development of
  its students
• Emphasize importance of creating environment
  positive for adolescents social emotional
  development
• Smaller communities or houses to lessen
  impersonal nature of large middle schools
• Lower student-to-counselor ratios
• Parental community involvement in school
• Curriculum structure flexible in time content
• Program for health and fitness

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High School Dropouts

• Over past 40 years proportion of adolescents who
  have not finished high school has steadily
  declined from 60 in 1940 to 5.2 in 1986
• Statistic is skewed by high number of Latino
  youths who drop out each year - High school
  graduation rates for Latinos is 63 for
  African-Americans it is 76
• Observed differences in dropout rates among
  ethnic groups were related to family background,
  especially socioeconomic status, lack of parental
  support supervision low parental expectations

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Theories of Career Development

• Three main theories describe manner in which
  adolescents make choices about career
  development
• Ginzbergs Developmental Theory
• Children and adolescents go through three
  career-choice stages fantasy, tentative, and
  realistic
• Until about age 11, children are in fantasy stage
  with unrealistic visions of their career
• Tentative stage is a transitional and occurs in
  the early to mid-adolescent years
• Realistic stage explores, focuses then selects
  a career

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Theories of Career Development

• Supers Self-Concept Theory
• Individuals self-concepts play central roles in
  their career choices
• During adolescence individuals first construct a
  career self-concept
• Develop ideas about work
• Crystallize or narrow their choices
• Begin to initiate behavior for some type of
  career
• Begin specific training for a career
• In later life - after 35 years of age - begin to
  consolidate engage in career enhancement

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Theories of Career Development

• Hollands Personality-Type Theory
• An effort should be made to match an individuals
  career choice with his or her personality
• Theory built upon assumption that everyone is a
  specific type will not change nor develop into
  other types
• Hollands six personality types
• Realistic conventional
• enterprising intellectual
• artistic social

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Influences on Career Development

• Increasing Educational Training
• ability to partake in advanced academic and
  vocational training
• Immediate Environment
• urban, rural or suburban
• ethnicity and race
• living conditions
• quality of schooling

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Influences on Career Development

• Gender
• some career choices are predominantly controlled
  by males
• wide disparity in income levels between male and
  female in many careers

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Sociohistorical Context of Adolescent Work

• At the turn of 19th century-fewer than 1 out of
  20 high-school-age children was in school
• Today - more than 9 out of every 10 adolescents
  receives a high school diploma
• National survey of 17,000 high school students- 3
  out of 4 reported some job income during average
  school week with income exceeding 50 per week
  for 41 males 30 females
• 1940 only 1of 25 10th graders had part-time job
• Jobs for Teens 17 fast-food restaurants, 20
  cashiers in retail stores, 10 unskilled laborers
  10 clerical assistants

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Work for Adolescents

• Benefits to work for Adolescents
• Money management
• Time budgets
• Pride in accomplishments
• Important skills about how to get keep a job
• Drawbacks to work
• Give up sports, social affairs with peers
  sometimes sleep
• Lower grade point averages
• Poor school attendance
• Less satisfaction with school
• Less time with their families
• Alcohol and marijuana