Formal Operational Stage

Adolescence/ Adulthood

Piaget’s Cognitive Development

Limitation of concrete operational thinking | Unable to reason abstractly

Elkind’s Pseudo-stupidity Theory

Overanalysis of a simple problem | inability to solve it

Idealism

Elkin says the reason for this is because of idealism, the idea that they can engage in abstract hypothetical thinking.

• Idealism→ engage in critical theory, comparison of actual vs hypothetical world leads to idealism.

• Negative and Positive Outcomes

Adolescent Egocentrism

Elkin says that the ability to take the perspective of another person, and their POV, is still a struggle during this stage.

As adolescents develop the capacity to think about their own thoughts (metacognition), they become more egocentric, more self-conscious, more introspective | they become so concerned with themselves that they think other people think this way.

• imaginary audience | personal fable

• “I’m always thinking about how I feel → I assume other people are paying very close attention to me and what I say and how I behave.”

• Elkin says as a result, adolescents feel like they are on stage a lot of the time, “imaginary audience” → Spotlight effect

• Spotlight effect → there is always an audience watching them, and others will notice everything “when I am having a bad hair day.”

• The need to react to an imaginary audience helps us account for the extreme self-consciousness of many teens.

EX: Kid on the bus is talking loudly, making sure that his story makes it on the bus. Wardrobe conformity → buying the same shoes as your friends | extreme desire for privacy that teens tend to show.

Personal Fable

Things that happen to others will not happen to me because I am unique. And things that happen to me happen because of who I am.

• Adolescents believe their emotions are stronger than those of others

• Unique sense of their own immortality

• Elkin says that adolescents are more likely to take risks than adults are (TRUE)

• Not because they think nothing bad is going to happen

Critics Argument against Elkin

Adolescents overestimate their confidence and how likely they think something negative will happen.

They rely on intuitive rather than analytic reasoning

Teens might readily rely on objects, but in others logic goes out the window → emotional thinking

Teens conceptualization of Risk

If they view behavior to be avoided, then they are likely to avoid it, but if the mediator is more complex with both elements of good and bad, they might notice the costs and benefits and be more likely to take the risk.