KEY TERMS AND CONCEPTS

• Formal operations

• ‘La méthode clinique’

• Information processing

• Developmental tasks

• Cycle of learning

• Imaginary audience

• Personal fable

Introduction

The nature of adolescent thinking has been the subject of a good deal of research. During adolescence individuals acquire a greater flexibility in the way they think and their cognitive abilities come to more closely resemble those of an adult. Adolescents are able to think in abstract terms and consider at length the nature of complex concepts such as beauty, truth and justice. This skill is promoted by their ability to entertain different ideas at the same time and to hypothesise about possibilities. In adolescence, individuals develop further their ability to put themselves in the place of another and then to consider such questions as ‘What would it be like to be a person from a different cultural background?’

In this chapter we examine the way adolescents' thinking develops, particularly the transition from the concrete operational way of thinking that prevails in middle childhood to the formal operational thought of adolescence. The new skills acquired with formal operational thought are identified and discussed.