Cognitive development of

high school learners

Module 25
Table of contents
01 02 03
Introduction Perspective and Advancements Formal Operational Thinking
in Adolescents Thinking

04 05 06
Hypothetical and Abstract Metacognition and Risk Taking Intuitive and Analytic Thinking
Thinking
Introduction

Adolescence is Development of executive functions, or

a time of rapid cognitive skills that enable the control
cognitive
and coordination of thoughts and
development. 
behavior, are generally associated with
the prefrontal cortex area of the brain. 
Perspectives and advancements in adolescent
thinking

The constructivist perspective,
based on the work of Piaget, takes
a quantitative, stage-theory
approach. This view hypothesizes
that adolescents’ cognitive
improvement is relatively sudden
and drastic. 
The information-processing
perspective derives from the
study of artificial intelligence
and explains cognitive
development in terms of the
growth of specific components
of the overall process of
thinking.
Improvements in basic thinking abilities generally occur in five
areas during adolescence:

01 02 03
• Attention • Processing Speed • Metacognition
• Memory • Organization
 Formal Operational
Thought
The stage of cognitive development, termed by Piaget as formal operational thought,
marks a movement from an ability to think and reason from concrete visible events
to an ability to think hypothetically and entertain what-if possibilities about the
world.
Hypothetical and Abstract Thinking

One manifestation of the adolescent’s increased

facility with thinking about possibilities is the
improvement of skill in deductive reasoning (also
called top-down reasoning), which leads to the
development of hypothetical thinking.
Metacognition
Metacognition refers to “thinking about
thinking.” It is relevant in social cognition as it
results in increased introspection, self-
consciousness, and intellectualization. 
 Adolescent egocentrism is a term that David Elkind used to describe
the phenomenon of adolescents’ inability to distinguish between their
perception of what others think about them and what people actually
think in reality. 

Elkind’s theory on adolescent egocentrism is drawn

from Piaget’s theory on cognitive developmental stages, which
argues that formal operations enable adolescents to construct
imaginary situations and abstract thinking.

Imaginary audience is a term that Elkind used to describe the

phenomenon that an adolescent anticipates the reactions of other
people to them in actual or impending social situations.
A personal fable is a term Elkind
created to describe this notion,
which is the complement of the
construction of an imaginary
audience. Since an adolescent
usually fails to differentiate their
own perceptions and those of
others, they tend to believe that
they are important to so many
people (the imaginary audiences)
that they come to regard their
feelings as something special and
unique. 
Risk-taking

The behavioral decision-making theory proposes that adolescents and adults

both weigh the potential rewards and consequences of an action. However,
research has shown that adolescents seem to give more weight to rewards,
particularly social rewards, than adults. Adolescents value social warmth and
friendship, and their hormones and brains are more attuned to those values
than to long-term consequences.
 Intuitive and analytic
thinking
Cognitive psychologists often refer to intuitive and
analytic thought as the dual-process model; the notion
that humans have two distinct networks for processing
information. Intuitive thought is automatic,
unconscious, and fast, and it is more experiential and
emotional.
In contrast, analytic thought is deliberate,
conscious, and rational (logical). While
these systems interact, they are distinct
(Kuhn, 2013). Intuitive thought is easier,
quicker, and more commonly used in
everyday life.
 Reference:
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/wm-lifespandevelopment/chapter/
cognitive-development-during-adolescence/