Exam 18: Seciton 4: Emerging Adulthood: Cognitive Development

For emerging adults, moral thinking may produce moral behavior.

Individuals in their early 20s are more likely than people of any other age to abuse alcohol and other drugs. However, with personal experience and learning from others, cognitive maturity leads most adults to drink occasionally and moderately from then on.

The characteristics of postformal thought (practical, flexible, dialectical) are evident as the brain matures.

Children are more likely than adults to imagine several solutions for every problem and then to take care in selecting the best one.

Cognitive flexibility is said to be the most advanced cognitive process.

Western as well as non-Western cultures describe adult thought as qualitatively similar to adolescent thought.

Education, specific dilemmas, and culture correlate less strongly than gender with whether a person's moral judgments emphasize relationships or absolutes.

Without being able to combine intellect and emotion, individuals may experience behavioral extremes (e.g., obesity, addiction) and cognitive extremes (e.g., believing that one is the best person on earth).

A hallmark of postformal cognition is intellectual flexibility, a characteristic far more typical of middle-aged adults than of younger people.

The number of students in college is decreasing in every nation in the world; this phenomenon is known as massification.

Moral values do not seem to be impacted by national background or era.

Many developmentalists now believe there is actually a fourth stage of cognitive development called postformal thought.

Good time management is characteristic of successful, conscientious, part-time college students more than for full-time students.

The possibility of being negatively stereotyped arouses emotions that could disrupt cognition or emotional regulation.

Students from all backgrounds learn more if they involve themselves in the campus community.

Cognitive flexibility, particularly the ability to change childhood assumptions, is needed to counter stereotypes.

The vast majority of college students rate "becoming a more cultured person" as essential or very important to them.

College education is one stimulus for young adults' shifts in moral reasoning.

Emerging adults are more likely than older or younger people to attend religious services and to pray, even though most consider themselves less spiritual compared to when they were younger.

Listening to others and considering diverse opinions are signs of cognitive flexibility.