Prereflective Reasoning (Stages 1–3): Belief that “knowledge is gained through the word of an authority figure or through firsthand observation, rather than, for example, through the evaluation of evidence. [People who hold these assumptions] believe that what they know is absolutely correct, and that they know with complete certainty. People who hold these assumptions treat all problems as though they were well-structured” (King & Kitchener, 2004, p. 39). Example statements typical of Stages 1–3: “I know it because I see it.” “If it’s on Fox News it must be true.”

Quasi-Reflective Reasoning (Stages 4 and 5): Recognition “that knowledge—or more accurately, knowledge claims—contain elements of uncertainty, which [people who hold these assumptions] attribute to missing information or to methods of obtaining the evidence. Although they use evidence, they do not understand how evidence entails a conclusion (especially in light of the acknowledged uncertainty), and thus tend to view judgments as highly idiosyncratic” (King & Kitchener, 2004, p. 40). Example statements typical of stages 4 and 5: “I would believe in climate change if I could see the proof; how can you be sure the scientists aren’t just making up the data?”

Reflective Reasoning (Stages 6 and 7): People who hold these assumptions accept “that knowledge claims cannot be made with certainty, but [they] are not immobilized by it; rather, [they] make judgments that are ‘most reasonable’ and about which they are ‘relatively certain,’ based on their evaluation of available data. They believe they must actively construct their decisions, and that knowledge claims must be evaluated in relationship to the context in which they were generated to determine their validity. They also readily admit their willingness to reevaluate the adequacy of their judgments as new data or new methodologies become available” (King & Kitchener, 2004, p. 40). Example statements typical of stages 6 and 7: “It is difficult to be certain about things in life, but you can draw your own conclusions about them based on how well an argument is put together based on the data used to support it.”

Clearly, the thought process these adults use is different from formal operations (Kitchener et al., 2006). Unlike formal-operational thinking, this approach involves considering situational constraints and circumstances, realizing that reality sometimes constrains solutions, and knowing that feelings matter. Perry (1970) first uncovered adults’ different thinking and traced its development. He found that 18-year-old first-year college students tend to rely heavily on the expertise of authority figures (e.g., experts, professors, police, parents) to determine which ways of thinking are right and which are wrong. For these students, thinking is tightlytied to logic, as Piaget had argued, and the only legitimate answers are ones that arelogically derived.

Perceptions change over the next few years. Students go through a phase in which they are much less sure of which answers are right—or whether there are any right answers at all. However, by the time they are ready to graduate, students are fairly adept at examining different sides of an issue and have developed commitments to particular viewpoints. Students recognize that they are the source of their own authority, that they must take a position on an issue, and that other people may hold different positions from theirs but be equally committed. During the college years, then, individuals become able to understand many perspectives on an issue, choose one, and still acknowledge the right of others to hold differing views. Perry concluded that this kind of thinking is very different from formal operations and represents another level of cognitive development. Based on several additional longitudinal studies and numerous cross-sectional investigations, researchers concluded that this type of thinking represents a qualitative change beyond formal operations (King & Kitchener, 2004; Kitchener et al., 2006; Sinnott, 2009). Postformal thought is characterized by a recognition that truth (the correct answer) may vary from situation to situation, that solutions must be realistic to be reasonable, that ambiguity and contradiction are the rule rather than the exception, and that emotion and subjective factors usually play a role in thinking. In general, the research evidence indicates that post formal thinking has its origins in young adulthood (Kitchener et al., 2006; Sinnott, 2009). Several research-based descriptions of the development of thinking in adulthood have been offered. One of the best is the description of the development of reflective judgment, a way in which adults reason through dilemmas involving current affairs, religion, science, personal relationships, and the like. Based on decades of longitudinal and cross-sectional research, Kitchener and King (1989; Kitchener et al., 2006) refined descriptions and identified a systematic progression of reflective judgment in young adulthood, which is described in ● Table 10.1.The first three stages in the model represent prereflectivethought. People in these stages typically do not acknowledge and may not even perceive that knowledge is uncertain. Consequently, they do not understand that some problems exist for which there is not a clear and absolutely correct answer. A student pressuring her instructor for the “right” theory to explain human development reflects this stage. She is also likely to hold firm positions on controversial issues and does so without acknowledging other people’s ability to reach a different (but nevertheless equally logical) position. About halfway through the developmental progression, students think very differently. In Stages 4 and 5, students are likely to say that nothing can be known for certain and to change their conclusions based on the situation and the evidence. At this point, students argue that knowledge is quite subjective. They are also less persuasive with their positions on controversial issues: “Each person is entitled to his or her own view; I cannot force my opinions on anyoneelse.” Kitchener and King refer to thinking in these stages as “quasi-reflective” thinking. As students continue their development into Stages 6 and 7, they begin to show true reflective judgment, understanding that people construct knowledge using evidence and argument after careful analysis of the problem or situation. They once again hold firm convictions but reach them only after careful consideration of several points of view. They also realize that they must continually reevaluate their beliefs in view of new evidence. Efforts at using the reflective judgment model to shape classroom education are becoming common. For example, teacher training programs (Friedman & Schoen, 2009; Zeidler et al., 2009) and examination practices (Badger, 2010) have been adapted using the reflective judgment model as guidance. Even though people are able to think at very complex levels, do they? Not usually (King & Kitchener, 2004). Why is this the case? Mostly it is because the environment does not provide the supports necessary for using one’s highest-level thinking, especially for issues concerning knowledge and experience you already have. For example, people may not always purchase the product that has the least impact on the environment, such as a fully electric car, even though philosophically they are strong environmentalists, because recharging stations are currently not widely available. However, if pushed and if given the necessary supports (e.g., easily available charging stations), people demonstrate a level of thinking and performance far higher than they typically show on a daily basis. This discrepancy may explain why fewer people at each more complex level of thinking consistently employ that level of thought. In sum, research on postformal thinking shows that many adults progress from believing in a single right way of thinking and acting to accepting the existence of multiple solutions, each potentially equally acceptable (or equally flawed). This progression is important; it allows for the integration of emotion with thought in dealing with practical, everyday problems, as we will see next. Integrating Emotion and Logic in Life Problems

You may have noticed that a hallmark of postformal thinking is the movement from thinking “I’m right because I’ve experienced it” to thinking “I’m not sure who’s right because your experience is different from mine.” Problem situations that had seemed pretty straightforward in adolescence appear more complicated to young adults; the “right thing to do” is much tougher to figure out. Differences in thinking styles have major implications for dealing with life problems. For example, couples who are able to understand and synthesize each other’s point of view are much more likely to resolve conflicts; couples not able to do so are more likely to feel resentful, drift apart, or even break up (Kramer, 1989; Kramer et al., 1991). People using the initial stages of reflective judgment believe that what commentators such as Bill O’Reilly say must be true because they are perceived as authority figures.

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CHAPTER

In addition to an increased understanding that there is more than one “right” answer, adult thinking is characterized by the integration of emotion with logic (Jain Labouvie-Vief, 2010; Labouvie-Vief, 2006; Labouvie-Vief, Grühn, & Studer, 2010). Beginning in young adulthood and continuing through middle age, people gradually shift from an orientation emphasizing conformity and context-free principles to one emphasizing change and context-dependent principles. As they mature, adults tend to make decisions and analyze problems not so much on logical grounds as on pragmatic and emotional grounds. Rules and norms are viewed as relative, not absolute. Mature thinkers realize that thinking is an inherently social enterprise that demands making compromises with other people and tolerating contradiction and ambiguity. Such shifts mean that one’s sense of self also undergoes a fundamental change (Jain & Labouvie-Vief, 2010;Labouvie-Vief, 2006; Labouvie- Vief et al., 2010). A good example of this developmental shift would be the differences between how late adolescents or young adults view an emotionally charged issue—such as unethical behavior at work—compared to the views of middle-aged adults. Younger people may view such behavior as completely inexcusable, with firing of the employee an inescapable outcome. Middle-aged adults may take contextual factors into account and consider what factors may have forced the person to engage in the behavior. Some might argue that this is because the topic is too emotionally charged for adolescents to deal with intellectually whereas young adults are better able to incorporate emotion into their thinking. But is this interpretation reasonable? It appears to be. In a now classic study, high-school students, college students, and middle-aged adults were given three dilemmas to resolve (Blanchard-Fields, 1986). One dilemma had low emotional involvement and concerned conflicting accounts of a war between two fictitious countries (North and South Livia) written by a partisan from each country. The other two dilemmas had high emotional involvement. In one, parents and their adolescent son disagreed about going to visit the grandparents (the son did not want to go). In the other, a man and a woman had to resolve an unintentional pregnancy (the man was anti-abortion, the woman was pro-choice). The results are shown in ❚ Figure 10.12. You should note two important findings. First, there were clear developmental trends in reasoning level, with the middle-aged adults best able to integrate emotion into thinking. Second, the high-school and collegestudents were equivalent on the fictitious war dilemma, but the young adult.

Possible Selves

When we are asked questions like, “What do you think you’ll be like a few years from now?” it requires us to imagine ourselves in the future. When we speculate like this, we create a possible self (Markus & Nurius, 1986). Possible selves represent what we could become, what we would like to become, and what we are afraid of becoming. What we could or would like to become often reflects personal goals; we may see ourselves as leaders, as rich and famous, or as in shape. What we are afraid of becoming may show up in our fear of being alone, or overweight, or unsuccessful. Our possible selves are powerful motivators; indeed, how we behave is largely an effort to achieve or avoid these various possible selves and to protect the current view of self (Baumeister, 2010). The topic of possible selves offers a way to understand how both stability and change operate in adults’ personality. On one hand, possible selves tend to remain stable for at least some period of time and are measurable with psychometrically sound scales (Hooker, 1999, 2002). On the other hand, possible selves may change in response to efforts directed toward personal growth (Frazier et al., 2000, 2002), which would be expected from ego-development theory. In particular, possible selves facilitate adaptation to new roles across the life span. For example, a full-time mother who pictures herself as an executive once her child goes to school may enroll in evening courses to acquire new skills. Thus, possible selves offer a way to bridge the experience of the current self and our imagined future self. Researchers have examined age differences in the construction of possible selves (Bardach et al., 2010; Cotter & Gonzalez, 2009; Frazier et al., 2000, 2002; Hooker, 1999). In a rare set of similar studies conducted across time and research teams by Cross and Markus (1991) and Hooker and colleagues (Frazier et al., 2000, 2002; Hooker, 1999; Hooker et al., 1996; Morfei et al., 2001), people across the adult life span were asked to describe their hoped-for and feared possible selves. The responses were grouped into categories (e.g., family, personal, material, relationships, occupation). Several interesting age differences emerged. In terms of hoped-for selves, young adults listed family concerns—for instance, marrying the right person—as most important (Cross & Markus, 1991), and Hooker and colleagues (1996) found that getting started in an occupation was also important for this age group. In contrast, adults in their 30s listed family concerns last; their main issues involved personal concerns, such as being a more loving and caring person (Cross & Markus, 1991). By ages 40 to 59, Cross and Markus found that family issues again became most common—for example, being a parent who can “let go” of the children. Hooker and Kaus (1994) also found that reaching and maintaining satisfactory performance in one’s occupational career as well as accepting and adjusting to the physiological changes of middle agewere important to this age group.As shown in ❚ Figure 10.14, health becomes an increasingly important factor indefining the self as people grow older. Both sets of studies found that, for the two younger groups, being overweight and (for women) becoming wrinkled and unattractive when old were commonly mentioned as feared-for selves. For the middle-aged and older adult groups, fear of having Alzheimer’s disease or being unable to care for oneself were frequent responses. For adults over 60, researchers find that personal issues are most prominent—for example, being active and healthy for at least another decade (Cross & Markus, 1991; Smith & Freund, 2002). Similarly, Hooker and colleagues (Frazier et al., 2000, 2002 Morfei et al., 2001) found that continuity in possible selves was much more prevalent than change in later life, especially in regard to independence and physical and lifestyle areas. However, they also found that change did occur in older age. The greatest amount of change occurred in the health domain, which predominated the hoped-for and feared-for selves. The health domain is the most sensitive and central to the self in the context of aging (Frazier et al., 2000) and people’s possible self related to health is quite resilient in the face of health challenges in later life (Cotter & Gonzalez, 2009). Overall, young adults have multiple possible selves and believe that they can actually become the hoped-for self and successfully avoid the feared self. Their outlook tends to be quite positive (Remedios, Chasteen, & Packer, 2010). Life experience may dampen this outlook. By old age, both the number of possible selves and the strength of belief have decreased. Older adults are more likely to believe that neither the hoped-for nor the feared self is under their personal control. These findings may reflect differences with age in personal motivation, beliefs in personal control, and the need to explore new options. Other researchers have examined possible selves in a different way by asking adults to describe their present, past, future, and ideal self (Busseri, Choma, & Sadava, 2009; Keyes & Ryff, 1999). Instead of examining categories of possible selves, this approach focuses on people’s perceptions of change over time. The data indicate that young and middle-aged adults see themselves as improving with age and expecting to continue getting better in the future, sometimes unrealistically so. By the time people reach old age, they see themselves as having remained stable over time but foreseedecline in their future. These findings suggest that the older group has internalized negative stereotypes about aging.