1. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 1 Adolescence 8th edition By Laurence Steinberg, Ph.D. Chapter Two: Cognitive Transitions Insert Image

2. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 2 Chapter 2 Overview  What are the major changes in cognition that take place during adolescence?  What are the major theoretical perspectives on adolescent thinking?  What changes take place in the adolescent brain?  Are there individual differences in intelligence in adolescence?  How do changes in cognition affect real-world situations that adolescents encounter?

3. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 3 Changes in Cognition (Thinking) Main advantages over children’s thought: (1) Thinking about possibilities (2) Thinking about abstract concepts (3) Thinking about thinking (Metacognition) (4) Thinking in Multiple Dimensions (5) Seeing knowledge as relative (Relativism)

4. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 4 Thinking about Possibilities  Example: Ways in which their lives might be affected by different career choices  Moves easily between the specific and the abstract to generate alternative possibilities  Development of deductive reasoning”  “If-then” thinking  Major intellectual accomplishment

5. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 5 Deductive Reasoning  All hockey players wear mouth guards. Kim is a hockey player. Does Kim wear a mouth guard?  All hockey players wear mouth guards. Kim is wearing a mouth guard. Is Kim a hockey player?

6. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 6 Inductive Reasoning  Kim, John, Julie, Tom, and Kendra are all hockey players. Kim, John, Julie, Tom, and Kendra all wear mouth guards. Do all hockey players wear mouth guards?  Inference is made based on accumulated evidence (first statements, your own experience, etc.)

7. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 7 Thinking about Abstract Concepts  Ability to comprehend higher-order abstract logic:  Puns, proverbs, metaphors, and analogies  The growth of social thinking (social cognition) during adolescence is directly related to the young person’s improving ability to think abstractly

8. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 8 Metacognition: Thinking About Thinking  Monitoring one’s own cognitive activity during thinking  Increased introspection: thinking about our own emotions  Increased self-consciousness: thinking that others are thinking of us  Increased intellectualization: thinking about our own thoughts

9. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 9 Metacognitive Consequences  Adolescent Egocentrism  Imaginary audience  Believe that everyone is watching  Behavior is the focus of other’s concern  Personal fable  Experiences are unique  Nothing bad can happen to them because they are special

10. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 10 Thinking in Multiple Dimensions  Ability to view things from more than one aspect at a time  More sophisticated understanding of probability  Understand sarcasm  Understand double-entendres

11. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 11 Adolescent Relativism  Ability to see things as relative rather than as absolute  Skepticism becomes common  Everything may seem uncertain  No knowledge seems completely reliable

12. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 12 Adolescent Thinking: Piaget’s View SENSORIMOTOR STAGE BIRTH TO 2 YEARS PREOPERATIONAL 2 TO 6 YEARS CONCRETE OPERATONAL 6 TO 11 YEARS FORMAL OPERATIONS 11+ YEARS

13. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 13 Adolescent Thinking: Piaget’s View  Cognitive-developmental view  Interaction between biological change and environmental stimulation  Leads to intellectual growth  Each stage is characterized by a particular type of thought

14. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 14 Adolescent Thinking: Piaget’s View  Propositional logic  Based on formal principles of logic  Applies to abstract, complicated thinking as well as to concrete, literal thinking  Competence-performance distinction  A large gap exists between what can be done and what is done in daily life

15. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 15 Adolescent Thinking: The Information-Processing View  Question of Interest  What is it about the ways that adolescents think about things that make them better problem solvers than children?  Techniques used to write computer programs can help understand human reasoning processes

16. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 16 Adolescent Thinking: The Information-Processing View (1) Selective attention and divided attention (2) Working memory and long-term memory (3) Processing speed (4) Organization (5) Metacognition

17. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 17 The Adolescent Brain  Research is conducted using fMRI, PET, and DTI scans  Brain maturation in adolescence is linked to behavioral, emotional, and cognitive development during this period (Keating, 2004)

18. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 18  Among the most important brain changes to take place at adolescence:  The prefrontal cortex  The limbic system What Changes in The Brain?

19. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 19 The Adolescent Brain  Changes in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) improve efficiency of info- processing:  Synaptic "pruning”  Myelination  Changes in levels of neurotransmitters in the limbic system affect reward sensitivity:  Dopamine

20. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 20 The Synaptic Cleft: How Neurons Communicate

21. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 21 A Typical Neuronal Cell

22. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 22 Maturation of the Prefrontal Cortex  Full Maturation  Sometime between adolescence and early adulthood  Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex  Important for planning ahead  Ventromedial prefrontal cortex  Important for gut-level, intuitive decision making

23. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 23 Intellectual Abilities that Decline in Adolescence  Brain regions involved in language acquisition grow rapidly in preadolescence  These regions stop growing at puberty  Language-learning more difficult during adolescence than childhood

24. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 24 Implications of the Timing of Brain Maturation  Limbic system matures at puberty  Seek novelty, reward, stimulation  Prefrontal cortex matures several years later  Time gap may explain why adolescence is a period of heightened experimentation with risk

25. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 25 Individual Differences in Intelligence in Adolescence  Measurement of IQ  Intelligence quotient  First test developed in 1905  Most widely used – and misused – psychological instrument  Cohort  A group of people born during the same historical era

26. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 26 Individual Differences in Intelligence in Adolescence  Sternberg’s Triarchic Theory of Intelligence  Componential  Experiential  Contextual  Gardner’s Theory of Multiple Intelligences  Seven types of intelligences

27. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 27 Test Performance in Adolescence  Intelligence test scores become increasingly stable during childhood (age 6 or 7) and are remarkably stable during adolescence.  The SAT predicts one’s likelihood of success in college, but is only one of many useful predictive factors

28. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 28 Culture and Intelligence  Vygotsky emphasized context in which intellectual development occurs  Zone of Proximal Development  Scaffolding Insert Picture

29. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 29 Culture and Intelligence  Culture-fair tests  Intelligence tests that attempt to reduce sources of ethnic or cultural bias  Based less on verbal skills  Oriented toward performance tasks

30. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 30 Adolescent Thinking in Context: Social Cognition  Adolescents’ conceptions of interpersonal relationships become more mature:  Understanding of human behavior is more advanced  Ideas about social institutions and organizations are more complex  Ability to figure out what other people think is more accurate

31. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 31 Adolescent Thinking in Context: Social Cognition Studies fall into three categories: (1)Impression formation (2)Social perspective-taking (3)Conceptions of morality and social conventions

32. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 32 Adolescent Thinking in Context: Risk-Taking  Risk-taking is more common among males than females  This gender gap has been narrowing over time  Young people behave in risky ways because a variety of emotional and social factors influence their judgment

33. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 33 Adolescent Thinking in Context: Risk-Taking  Behavioral decision theory  Decision making is rational and individuals try to maximize benefits of alternative courses of action and minimize costs  Personal fable about invulnerability  Early adolescents less likely than young adults to feel invulnerable  Adolescents vary more than adults in interpreting words describing risk

34. Copyright © 2008 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved. 34 Adolescent Thinking: In The Classroom  American youth have difficulty with critical thinking  Schools should teach adolescents ways of:  Focusing attention  Improving short- and long-term memory  Organizing information  Monitoring thought processes