Cognitive Developmental Changes

During adolescence, thought becomes more abstract, logical, and idealistic; adolescents become increasingly capable of examining their own thoughts, other people's thoughts, and what others might be thinking about them. This developing ability to reason gives adolescents a new level of cognitive and social awareness. Piaget believed that formal operational thought appears between roughly 11 and 15 years of age. During this stage, adolescent thinking expands beyond actual, concrete experiences — adolescents begin to think in more abstract terms and to reason about those abstractions. In addition to becoming more abstract, adolescent thought also becomes more idealistic: adolescents begin thinking about ideal characteristics for themselves and for others, and comparing themselves and others against these ideal standards — for example, they may develop an image of what an 'ideal' parent would be like, and compare their own parents against that ideal standard, which can, at times, leave adolescents uncertain about which of their newly formed ideal standards they should actually adopt. In contrast to the trial-and-error approach typically used by children, adolescent thinking becomes considerably more systematic in solving problems — adolescents think through possible courses of action, ask why something is happening the way it is, and search for solutions in a systematic way; Piaget referred to this type of logical thinking as hypothetical-deductive reasoning.

This more logical form of thought also influences the development of moral reasoning during adolescence. Social rules are no longer treated as absolute standards, and moral thinking begins to show real flexibility — the adolescent recognises alternative moral courses of action, explores different options, and then settles on a personal moral code, for example weighing questions like 'Should I smoke because everyone I know does?' or 'Is it ethical to copy answers in an examination?' This also opens up the possibility that adolescents may choose not to follow society's norms if those norms conflict with their own personal code of ethics — for example, taking part in a protest march for a cause rather than simply conforming to a college's own rules. …