Developmental

Psychology

Lecture 6.
Cognitive
Development
in
Adolescence
 “The principal goal of education is to
create [persons] who are
O capable of doing new things--[people] who are
creative, inventive, and discoverers.
O The second goal of education is to form minds
which can be critical, can verify, and not accept
everything they are offered…
O We need pupils who are active, who learn early to
find out by themselves, partly by their own
spontaneous activity and partly through material
we set up for them; who learn early to tell what is
verifiable and what is simply the first idea to come
to them.”-Piaget (1972)
 The thoughts, ideas, and concepts developed at
this period of life greatly influence one’s future life
and play a major role in character and personality
formation.
 Educational video
O Formal operational stage - Intro to Psychology
O https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hvq7tq2fx1Y&ab_channel=Udacity

O Questions:
O 1. What kind of new cognitive ability according
to Piaget comes with adolescence ? Why is it
called like this?
O 2. What is the hallmark characteristic of this
thinking? Can adolescents think well about
reality?
O 3. How do we call the ability to think about your
thinking ? What does this ability make
adolescents do? Is this process automatic?
 Changes
OInclude five basic Areas:
Attention (selective and
divided)
 Memory ( short-term)
Information processing speed
Organizational strategies
OMetacognition : Thinking about
Thinking…
 Thinking About Thinking:
Metacognition
O Better able to manage and to talk
about, and explain, their own thinking.
O Increased introspection, self-
consciousness, and intellectualization.
O Extreme self-absorption: adolescent
egocentrism
O imaginary audience
O personal fable
 Educational video
Adolescent Egocentrism
Ohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NQKjVj_NTI&ab_channel=StephanieShaw

OQUESTION: What is imaginary audience

? Explain. Does it help adolescents to
think better or makes them limited?

O QUESTION: What is a personal fable?

Explain. Does it help adolescents to
think better or makes them limited?
O
 Adolescent egocentrism
Preoccupation with himself or herself. Desire
to be on a permanent social stage where
you are the focus of attention. More focus
on others’ opinions. First, a drop in self-
esteem, soon recover and becomes stable.
MY VALUES? WHAT I WANT OUT OF LIFE?
 Hypothetico-Deductive
Reasoning
O the ability to solve problems by using
possibilities to test realities;

O the ability to look at events and consider a

number of possible reasons for them occurring;

O The ability to plan one’s life systematically and

prioritize and we can make assumptions about
events that have no necessary relation to reality.
For example, a young person engage in the formal
operations stage might view a news report of a break-out
of war in a region. They might form hypotheses explaining
why war has occurred an have view on possible outcomes.
 Advantages of abstract ,
hypothetical thinking
O the ability to plan ahead, see the future consequences
of an action and to provide alternative explanations of
events.
O makes adolescents more skilled debaters, as they can
reason against a friend’s or parent’s assumptions.
O allows adolescents to comprehend the sorts of higher-
order abstract logic inherent in proverbs, metaphors,
and analogies, understand and use satire, metaphor,
and sarcasm.
O allows them to apply logical processes to social and
ideological matters such as interpersonal relationships,
politics, philosophy, religion, morality, friendship, faith,
fairness, and honesty.
 Relativistic Thinking
O More likely to question others’ assertions
and less likely to accept “facts” as
absolute truths.
O Belief that “everything is relative” tends to
become overwhelming at times--so much
so that adolescents tend to become
skeptical about everything!
 Implications for Teaching
O Social interchange is more effective than authoritarian, teacher-
centered approaches to instruction.
O Adolescent students need multiple opportunities to observe,
analyze possibilities, and draw inferences about perceived
relationships.
O Discussions, problem-solving activities, and scientific experiments
encourage the development of formal thinking and problem-solving
skills.
O Give explicit feedback and encouragement; allow time for
reasoning capacities to develop.
O Challenge students’ thinking by helping them to see things that
might not fit with their prior schema;
O Challenge students to modify old schemas by presenting them with
information to form new schemas;
O
 Summary
O Adolescents achieve improvements in the following 5 areas :
O Attention. Improvements are seen in selective attention (the process by
which one focuses on one stimulus while tuning out another), as well as
divided attention (the ability to pay attention to two or more stimuli at the
same time).
O Memory. Improvements are seen in working memory and long-term
memory.
O Processing Speed. Adolescents think more quickly than children.
Processing speed improves sharply between age five and middle
adolescence, levels off around age 15, and does not appear to change
between late adolescence and adulthood.
O Organization. Adolescents are more aware of their own thought processes
and can use mnemonic devices and other strategies to think and remember
information more efficiently.
O Metacognition. Adolescents can think about thinking itself. This often
involves monitoring one’s own cognitive activity during the thinking process.
Metacognition provides the ability to plan ahead, see the future
consequences of an action, and provide alternative explanations of events.
 Summary : Cognitive Changes in
Adolescence
 Better able to think about what is possible, instead
of limiting their thinking to what is real.
 Better able to think about abstract concepts.
 Begin thinking more often about the process of
thinking itself.
 Thinking tends to become multidimensional, rather
than limited to a single issue.
 More likely than children to see things as relative,
rather than as absolute.
 Improves during adolescence :
 – Thinks about own thoughts self-consciousness
 – Monitors own learning processes more efficiently
 – Paces own studying
 Case studies
O 1. School experience: Make up 4-5 activities /tasks/ projects
which require formal operational thinking. Explain how these
tasks help adolescents develop cognitively. .(10
min)TEMPERAMENT
O 2. Role play : demonstrate adolescent egocentrism by short
dialogues between Teacher- Student, Parent-Adolescent,
Adolescent-Adolescent. Create situations where ‘imaginary
audience’ or ‘personal fable’ are used. ( 10 min) EMOTION
O 3. Small conference: 2-3 teachers have been to International
congress on Adolescents Metacognition. Report some
interesting findings that you learned from latest research in this
congress. (10 min) INTELLIGENCE
O 4. Internet research: explore sex differences in cognitive
development , their learning abilities and achievements. ( 10
min) MOTIVATION
 Reflection journal

O Based on principles of Piaget theory

generate a chart on effective teaching
and learning for adolescents. Consider
what really works for you and provide
at least one example.
O Write between 150-200 words.
O Developmental and Educational
Psychology for Teachers . Ch.6,(pp
123- 140)