Piaget on Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget was interested in the development of cognitive processes in children and adolescents. According to his theory of cognitive development, Piaget outlined four stages, which all individuals go through. He believed children and adolescents actively explore and make sense of the world around them and each stage is marked by shifts in how children understand the world. 

While the child at the concrete operational stage becomes able to reason on the basis of objects, the adolescent begins to reason on the basis of verbal propositions. He can make hypothetical deductions and entertain the idea of relativity. "Formal thought reaches its fruition during adolescence. An adolescent, unlike the child, is an individual who thinks beyond the present and forms theories about everything, delighting especially in consideration of that which is not" (Piaget, 1947, p.148). The adolescent can not only think beyond the present, but can analytically reflect about their own thinking.

The adolescent thinker can leave the real objective world behind and enter the world of ideas. They are able to control events in their mind through logical deductions of possibilities and consequences. Even the direction of his thought processes change. The preadolescent begins by thinking about reality and attempts to extend thoughts toward possibility. The adolescent, who has mastered formal operations, begins by thinking of all logical possibilities and then considers them in a systematic fashion; reality is secondary to possibility. "The most distinctive property of formal thought is this reversal of direction between reality and possibility....formal thought begins with a theoretical synthesis implying that certain relations are necessary and thus proceeds in the opposite direction....This type of thinking proceeds from what is possible to what is empirically real (Inhelder and Piaget, 1958, p.251). This reversal of the direction of thought between reality and possibility constitutes a turning point in the development of the structure of intelligence, since it leads to an equilibrium that is both stable and fixed. 

Formal operations allow the adolescent to combine propositions and to isolate variables in order to confirm or disprove his hypothesis. He no longer needs to think in terms of objects or concrete events, but can carry out operations of symbols in his mind.

References:

Inhelder, B. and Piaget, J. (1958). The growth of logical thinking. (A. Parsons and S. Milgram, trans).     New York: Basic Books.

Muuss, Rolf E. (1975). Theories of Adolescence (3rd Edition). New York: Random House.

Piaget, J. (1947). The psychology of intelligence. (M. Piercy & D.E. Berlyne, trans.). New York: Harcourt, Brace.