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Two Theories Of Cognitive Development

Decent Essays

Two theories of cognitive development during transition from adolescence to early adulthood Cognitive development is a term that describes the growth of a person’s ability to think and reason. This growth happens in stages. To understand this development from adolescence to the early adulthood, two theories are important in our understanding of this process. In this write-up, the adolescence development theory called formal operations which is the last stage of Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development and Kramer’s (1983, 1989) three stages of cognitive progression beginning with absolutist reasoning marking early adulthood are summarized. For Piaget (1973), there are stages in human cognitive development, which culminates with the stage called formal operation beyond which early adulthood sets in. According to Piaget, this level of cognitive development is marked by a shift from concrete operation thinking to a capacity for abstract reasoning. At this stage the adolescence focuses less on the immediate concrete world and begins to develop and conceive abstract concepts like justice, politics, and history etc. According to Piaget, the adolescent stage begins approximately at 11 years. Adolescences are also able to more logical and scientific in solving problems. This stage is called hypothetico-deductive reasoning and propositional thought or scientific approach to problem-solving according to Piaget; in other words, adolescents can develop the capacity to identify situations and problem and variables that may affect the resolutions of such problem. Finally, adolescents develop the capacity for imaginary audience. They develop the capacity for observation and interpretation. By mere observation, adolescents can observe behaviors, comments, expressions and appearances and interpret their perceptions and thus make guesses about other peoples’ feelings. The second theory that deals with adolescence transition into early adulthood is propounded by Kramer (1983, 1989). He noted that human cognitive development takes three stages that include; absolutist, relativist and dialectical stage. According to Kramer, early adulthood begins with absolutist stage. At this stage people believe that at all times

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