Cognitive Development

Cognitive developmental view

Information processing view
Psychometric/intelligence view
Social cognition
Piaget’s theory

 Piaget said adolescents are motivated

to cognitively understand their world
because it is biologically adaptive
 Adolescents actively construct their
world employing various cognitive
organizational skills. These are:
 schema, assimilation, accommodation,
equilibration
What is a schema?

 A concept or framework that exists in an

individual’s mind to organize and
interpret information.
 How do you make sense of the world?
 What is the general organizational
framework that denote how you view
the world?
 Weltenschauung… a German term
What is assimilation?

 The process of incorporating new

information into existing knowledge
 You are synthesizing what you don’t
know into what you already know
 e.g., Charles Darwin’s father was a
preacher.
 Who is Darwin? What is father? What is
preacher? … the synthesis
What is accommodation?

 Occurs when individuals adjust to new

information.
 It is not a synthesis but is a
reorganization of knowledge.
 Thomas Kuhn’s “The Structure of
Scientific Revolutions” is a great book
about this
 Upsetting your world view...
What is equilibration?

 Think of Steven Gould’s concept of

punctuated equilibrium.
 Things remain stable until there is a
sudden and dramatic shift, then there is
stability again: this is equilibration
 Equilibration is a cognitive punctuated
equilibrium
Piagetian Stages of Cognitive
Development
 Stage 1: Sensorimotor Stage (0-2)
 Stage 2: Preoperational Stage (2-7)
 Stage 3: Concrete Operations Stage (7-
11)
 Stage 4:Formal Operations Stage (12+)
Sensorimotor stage

 Infants construct an understanding of

the world by coordinating sensory
experiences with physical motoric
actions.
 There are six substages of the
sensorimotor stage of cognitive
development; stage ends with
emergence of object permanence
Preoperational period

 In this stage of cognitive development,

children begin to represent their world
with words, images, and drawings.
 Appearance of symbolic thought
 Reality and fantasy are
indistinguishable
 Animistic thinking, transductive
reasoning
Concrete operations

 In this stage children can perform

operations, that is, mental actions that
allow the individual to do mentally what
had formerly been done before
physically
 Logical reasoning replaces intuitive
thought; conservation tasks are
beginning to be solved
Conservation task (volume)
Classification: an important
ability in concrete operational
thought
 Class
 inclusion
 reasoning
Formal operations

 Characterized by abstract, idealistic,

and logical thought
 emerges at approximately 11 to 15
years of age (if at all)
 harmony, melodious, quaint… what do
these mean?
 Emergence of hypothetical-deductive
reasoning
Concrete operations...
Formal operations

 Deductive reasoning
 “Bob left the hotel and walked toward
the parking lot. Without the benefit of
moonlight or any artificial light, he was
able to spot his black car 100 meters
away. How was this possible?”
Formal Operations and Teens
Early formal operational thought

 Adolescents’ think in hypothetical ways

producing unconstrained thoughts with
unlimited possibilities.
 There is an excess of assimilation as
the world is perceived too subjectively
and idealistically
 “We can change the world!”
Early formal operational thought
Late formal operational thought

 Involves a restoration of intellectual

balance
 Teens now test out the products of their
reasoning against experience and a
consolidation of formal operational
thought takes place.
 An intellectual balance is achieved by
accommodation to the assimilation
Late formal operational thought

 Tested
 Compared
 What is real?
 What is trash?
 Does this jive?
 Who am I?
Information processing view of
cognition
Information-Processing
Approach
 3 main characteristics
– thinking: highly flexible, adaptations and
adjustments; task-oriented; goal-directed
– change mechanisms: encoding,
automaticity; strategy construction
– self-modulation: using the above two
characteristics to actively regulate the self
and refine thinking processes
Information processing
requirements
 Attention: concentration and focusing of
mental efforts; attention is selective and
shifting
– 12 year olds’ attention is much better than
an 8 year olds’ attention
– attention span is about 20-50 minutes for
teens
– many adults have trouble attending for
more than 50 minutes
Information processing
requirements
 Memory: the retention of information
over time
 Short-term memory: limited capacity to
about 7 items and lasts for around 30
seconds
 Long-term memory: relatively
permanent memory that can last for
decades
Important adolescent thinking
skills: Decision Making
 Decision making: adolescents need
practice in decision making; how do you
teach a teen to make good decisions?
 How does the role of the parent change
when teaching decision making to
adolescents?
 What is the appropriate method to use
to make decisions?
Important adolescent thinking
skills: Critical thinking
 Critical thinking: thinking reflectively,
productively, and evaluating the
evidence
 There is a lot of non-critical thinking in
early teens, even some adults
 How do you teach someone to become
a critical thinker?
Important adolescent thinking
skills: Creativity
 Creativity: the ability to think in novel
ways “outside of the box” and develop
new solutions to problems
 Convergent thinking: how are 2 different
things alike?
 Divergent thinking: how are 2 alike
things different?
Creativity: Brainstorming

 A technique in which persons can come

up with new, creative ideas wherein
practicality is not immediately
considered.
 This is teaching problem solving.
Parents would do well to foster
brainstorming then to offer a solution to
their teens.
Important adolescent thinking
skills: Metacognition
 “thinking about thinking”
 How can you improve your thinking?
 Do you think your thinking is a good as
the person next to you; do you think
your thinking is better than it was 5
years ago?
 Do you know how to learn and how to
be your own teacher?
Self-regulation

 1) Goal setting and strategic planning

 2) Putting a plan into action and
monitoring the activities of the plan
 3) Monitoring the outcomes of the
activities and refining the strategies
employed
 4) Self-evaluation and monitoring
Self-regulation

 Most high-achieving students are self-

regulatory learners.
 They set goals and strategies for
achieving those goals
 They perform the activities necessary to
enact these strategies
 They monitor their activities and adjust
as is necessary until goal is reached
The psychometric/intelligence
view of cognition
Psychometric view

 Emphasizes the importance of

individual differences in intelligence
 Emphasizes that intelligence should be
quantified through the use of
intelligence tests
 Intelligence: verbal ability, problem-
solving, adaptation, and learning from
experience
Intelligence tests

 The Stanford-Binet IQ test

 IQ = MA/CA x 100
 Mental age: at what age level
intellectually are you performing relative
to the general population?
 Chronological age: how old are you?
 A Ratio index of relative intelligence
Intelligence tests: Normal Dist
Stanford-Binet IQ test

 Stanford: Stanford University; Louis

Terman at SU
Wechsler IQ tests

 David Wechsler
 WPPSI-R (ages 4 to 6.5)
 WISC-R (ages 6 - 16)
 WAIS-R (ages > 16)
 The tests produce a verbal IQ, a
performance IQ, and an overall IQ score
 Average IQ = 100, SD=15
Various Theories of multiple
intelligences
Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory

 Analytical intelligence
 Experiential/creative intelligence
 Contextual/practical intelligence
 Analytical: analyze, judge, evaluate,
compare, contrast
 Creative: establish new, “look
differently”, artistic/musicians
 Practical: what works best
Triarchic theory

 Those who are creative may not

necessary be very practical and vice
versa
 Those who are good at analysis may
not be very practical nor be very
creative
 Those who are practical may not be
very analytical or very creative
Howard Gardner’s 8 frames of
mind and intelligences (plural)
 Verbal skills
 Mathematical skills
 Spatial skills
 Bodily-kinesthetic skills
 Musical skills
 Interpersonal skills and Intrapersonal
skills
 Naturalistic skills/observers
Further types of intelligence

 Emotional intelligence
– developing emotional self-awareness
– managing emotions
– reading emotions in others
– handling relationships
 Social intelligence (we’ll talk about it)
 Political intelligence
Controversies on intelligence
measurement
 The “bell curve” and racist views about
intelligence
 The influences of heredity and
environment on intelligence
 Culture-fair IQ tests vs culture-biased IQ
tests
 What does an IQ test test anyway?
 Misuses of IQ test scores
Social Cognition

Reasoning about the social world

Social Cognition

 How individuals conceptualize and

reason about the people they watch,
interact with, have relationships with as
well as groups
 How individuals perceive themselves
within the context of these other people
and these other groups
 This is social cognition
Social Cognition: Adolescent
egocentrism
 Heightened self-awareness of
adolescents; the belief that others are
as interested in them as they are
interested in themselves
 Heightened sense of self-uniqueness
 “I am different, I am me!!” (and then
they will dress to look cool)
Adolescent egocentrism

 Imaginary audience:
teens will play to an
imaginary audience
to get attention, to
be noticed, histrionic
behavior
 Kewl green hair… :-)
Adolescent egocentrism

 Personal Fable:
How I am different
from everyone else;
no one can
understand me
because I am me
and not you and you
can’t understand
what is like to be
me!
Perspective taking

 "Put yourself in her position and think

how you'd feel."
 Do unto others as you would have them
do unto you.
 "Put yourself in his shoes"
 "Walk a mile in his moccasins"
 "See yourself through others' eyes.”
Perspective taking

 This is the extension of development of

empathy
 Moving outside of the self into the shoes
of others is the foundation upon which
better self-understanding can be laid.
 This can be taught by modeling; by
concern for animals in early childhood,
and by service projects in older children
Questions on Chapter 4?

 Test coming up!

 Prepare for tests by reading the
chapters twice, be able to be
accountable for any learning objective,
do the study guide, check the web,
revisit the notes notes on the web, ask
any questions you have before the test.