[Note: This posting is the third of a series of
postings regarding adolescence. The
reader is invited to click on the previous two postings – and any other
postings – that lead to the content of this one.]
This posting continues
looking at how adolescents’ thinking changes mostly during the teenage years. To this point, this blog has highlighted a
few biological changes and provides a look at how adolescents acquire an
ability to abstract what they judge to be important information and, through
mostly deductive thinking, are able to formulate their own models over why
conditions are the way they are.
This posting moves on and first
addresses a related skill to modeling – the product of abstract thinking – that
teenagers do. That’s relativistic
thinking. It is related because through
this ability a youngster finds out that what he/she just accepted before as
being what is – and this includes ethical dicta – are comments or messaging reflecting
relative judgments and that that includes what is considered ethically good or
bad. In general, morality becomes a
whole new area of concern in that it can be questioned and “manipulated.”
As was pointed out in the last
posting, adolescents are more likely than younger children to question what
others say. They no longer just accept
things just because some adult says them.
In addition, as Michael Chandler[1]
explains, they better understand that what others say are not bits of
knowledge, but instead are beliefs.
As
Plato pointed out centuries ago, beliefs lie between ignorance and knowledge
even if they are stated as knowledge.
Teenagers, especially if the message is less than pleasing, are apt to question
or reject messages that others convey.
In short, they come to understand there are few absolute truths and that
what others say are instead usually relativistic claims.
This
turn has practical consequences, especially given the heightened sense teenager
feel to seek gratification that was mentioned in the last posting. Rules, for example, take on a more
relativistic quality as oppose to how they were initially presented by parents;
i.e., as absolutes. In addition, rules
can be better categorized. Some merely
reflect common sense – look both ways before one crosses the street – while
others reflect group or society’s biases – place one’s napkin on one’s lap
especially when the family goes out to eat.
Of
course, some of these societal rules, while relative to societal standards, do
hit upon important, life-affecting behaviors like those associated with dating. But whether they are serious or not,
teenagers are known to question and even test the boundaries of these
rules. Of course, not all adolescents stay
within the lines of acceptability or even the law.
And
life and success at school, be it in a civics classroom or not, provides ample
opportunities to question and break some rules.
These, of course, can summon disagreeable consequences for both the
teenager and the adults involved. Parent
conferences tend to be less than happy occasions.
This posting, secondly, looks at
another acquired ability or, perhaps better stated, a newly found topic for the
youngster to consider and that is thinking itself. Psychologists and other scholars call it
metacognition. Meta means self-referential,
so when one thinks about what and how one thinks, one is engaged in a
metacognitive activity.
This
other development is what is akin to the mind holding up a metaphorical mirror
to itself and becomes a significant type of thinking as the young person
transpires through these years. It
usually takes the form of an adolescent becoming conscious – monitoring –
his/her thoughts or line of thinking as it happens. This has potentially important consequences.
The youngster, through this inward-looking
process, can gain control over what he/she thinks and consequently how he/she behaves. For example, studying can become more
targeted and more effective. In terms of
thinking of others or of social events or conditions, the teenager gets better
at looking inward and passing judgment on how well he/she is seeing or analyzing
what is happening around him or her.
As
mentioned above, he/she can formulate models that explain interactions – like during
conversations – and how well his/her goals or aims are being met or dismissed. This “intellectualizing” adds richness to
his/her self-consciousness.
Self-labeling,
as this blog has pointed out before, takes on a more emotional quality and is
likely to greatly influence courses of action the youngster chooses to follow
or avoid. At the same time, he/she
becomes aware that he/she does not have total control over what he/she
thinks in terms of content and process.
Emanating from the research and
theorizing of David Elkind,[2]
meta-thinking by adolescents can lead to these young people forming an
“imaginary audience.” That is, they
begin to feel – more than believe – that they are the subject of their friends’
and acquaintances’ thoughts to an inordinate degree – that they, the others, are
really talking about them and watching them.
Jane
L. Rankin, et al.,[3]studied
this form of egotistical thinking and found that it can be a source of undue
pressure; a false move can lead to unbearable shame or embarrassment. Of course, one can watch this dynamic as
serving the central plot line of numerous situation comedies on TV, but in some
cases this tendency can have tragic results.
More than one life has been taken as a result of this thinking.
It can also lead to the self-consciously
derived “personal fable.” This other aspect
of this distorted thinking about oneself can also lead to dangerous results. The personal fable, according to Elkind’s model,
can generate within the young person a sense of invulnerability. He/she begins to think that he/she can engage
in risk-taking behaviors without suffering the danger the risk entails.
While
an imaginary audience is more pronounced among females, this sense of invulnerability,
the personal fable, afflicts boys to a greater degree as their scores on
related testing indicate. Informally,
one can see this among young males in one’s community. In addition, the frequency of developing such
a fable increases with age within the adolescent years.[4]
On a more positive note – and one that
can be deduced from the other developed characteristics described here – adolescents
can more realistically understand that the thoughts and actions of others can
have an influence or effect on a given group or a population. In addition, that influence does not
necessarily depend on the actor being present or even involved with what others
are doing.[5] This, in turn, can encourage a teenager to be
careful about what he/she does or says.
The next posting will continue by
looking at some outcomes these reviewed developments among adolescents have. They include some of the qualities and
characteristics this and the last posting mentioned. Specifically, it will highlight risk-taking, inhibition,
and wisdom. Some of the points to be
made have already been referred to but they will be treated a bit more descriptively
as to how they affect secondary and younger college students.
[1] Michael Chandler, “The Othello Effect: Essay on the Emergence and Eclipse of Skeptical
Doubt,” Human Development, 30, 3 (1987), 137-159, summary accessed
January 12, 2020, https://psycnet.apa.org/record/1987-30890-001 .
[2] David Elkins, “Egocentrism in Adolescence,” Child
Development, 38, 4, 1025-1034.
[3] Jane L. Rankin, David J. Lane, Frederick X. Gibbons,
Meg Gerrard, “Adolescent Self-Consciousness:
Longitudinal Age Changes and Gender Differences in Two Cohorts,” Journal
of Research on Adolescence, 14 (February 4, 2004), 1-21. Abstract accessed January 13, 2020, https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1532-7795.2004.01401001.x . This sort of
self-consciousness is found to be more prevalent in girls than boys. This study also distinguished between public
self-consciousness and private self-consciousness. Private self-consciousness has a greater effect
on adulthood.
[4] Amy Alberts, David Elkins, Stephen Ginsberg, “The
Personal Fable and Risk Taking in Early Adolescence,” Journal of Youth and
Adolescence, 36, 1 (January 1976), 71-76.
[5] Robert
L. Selman, The Growth of Interpersonal Understanding: Development and Clinical Analysis (New York,
NY: Academic Press/Victoria,
Canada: AbeBooks, 1980).
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