Cognitive Development in Adolescence PDF

Cognitive Development in Adolescence  Piaget’s Theory Children of different ages think differently Changes in cognitive development proceed in distinct stages (e.g. discontinuous) Each person’s cognitive abilities are organized into one coherent mental structure Hi...

Cognitive Development in Adolescence  Piaget’s Theory Children of different ages think differently Changes in cognitive development proceed in distinct stages (e.g. discontinuous) Each person’s cognitive abilities are organized into one coherent mental structure His approach is known as the cognitive-developmental approach The driving forces behind development from one stage to the next is maturation – Piaget portrayed maturation as an active process – Children seek out information and stimulation in the environment that matches the maturity of their thinking  Piagetian Stages Stages Age Brief Description Sensorimotor 0–2 Cognitive development involves learning how to coordinate activities of the senses with motor activities Preoperational 2–7 Capable of representing the world symbolically (e.g. language) Concrete 7–11 Become more adept at using mental operations which Operations leads to a more advanced understanding of the world Formal 11–15 to Allows adolescents to reason about more complex tasks Operations 20 and problems involving multiple variables Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage Hypothetical-deductive reasoning Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory According to this theory, cognitive development is inherently both a social and cultural process – It is social because children learn through interactions with others and require assistance from others in order to learn what they need to know – It is cultural because what children need to know is determined by the culture they live in  Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory Zone of Proximal Development [ZPD] – Is the gap between what adolescents can accomplish alone and what they are capable of doing if guided by an adult or a more competent peer Scaffolding – degree of assistance provided to the adolescent in the zone of proximal development Building on Vygotsky’s Legacy Barbara Rogoff has extending Vygotsky’s theory with the idea of Guided Participation – Refers to the teaching interaction between two people as they participate in a culturally valued activity – This guidance is “the direction offered by cultural and social values, as well as social partners”  Information Processing Executive function Managing thoughts Goal-directed behavior Self-control Working memory (“mental workbench”) Manipulate and assemble information for decision making, problem solving Cognitive control Attention Reducing interfering thoughts Increased cognitive flexibility Information Processing Decision Making Becomes increasingly important Dual-process model Analytical and experiential Critical Thinking Increased speed and capacity for information processing Greater breadth of knowledge Increased ability to construct new combinations of knowledge Greater range of strategies (planning, alternatives, monitoring) Metacognition  Social Cognition Social cognition is the term used to describe the way we think about other people, social relationships, and social institutions  Two Aspects of Social Cognition 1. Perspective taking The ability to understand the thoughts and feelings - Selman’s research of others. 2. Adolescent egocentrism - Elkind’s research Having difficulty distinguishing your own thinking about yourself from the thoughts of others.  Perspective Taking Is the ability to understand the thoughts and feelings of others Selman’s theory of perspective taking is based on a stage approach that children and adolescents go through The egocentrism of childhood gradually develops into the mature perspective-taking ability of adolescence  Perspective Taking In early adolescence (ages 10–12) children become capable for the first time of mutual perspective taking Just as you understand that another person has a perspective that is different from you own, you also realize that other persons understand that you have a perspective that is different from theirs  Perspective Taking In late adolescence children become capable of social and conventional perspective taking Adolescents come to realize that their social perspectives and those of others are influenced not just by their interaction with each other but also by their roles in the larger society Adolescent Egocentrism (Elkind) Heightened self-consciousness Personal Fable sense of uniqueness and invincibility. Makes the feel that no one can understand how they feel. Imaginary Audience adolescent’s belief that others are as interested in them as they are in themselves; attention- getting behavior motivated by desire to be noticed, visible, “on stage.”