CED 521 Psychology of Religious Learning
Timothy W. Brock
The Window of Human Development
Introduction
The material included in this presentation was based on information from the assigned readings Part II of Stages of Faith, by James Fowler, and from additional researched provided by the professor. In the assigned readings, Fowler created an imaginary conversation among Erik Erickson, Jean Piaget, and Lawrence Kohlberg. In this conversation, these three prominent developmentalists explained the basic assumptions of their theories and outlived how their theories might impact development at various stages of the life cycle.
Since members of the class will make presentations on the work of Erickson and Kohlberg, the focus of this class session will be an in-depth look at the work of Jean Piaget.
A Definition of Cognitive Development
Cognitive development is the mental maturation process that allows a person to handle more complex and more abstract thinking, ideas, and concepts. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development described the ways in which humans assimilate (or incorporate) information from the environment and accommodate (or modify) ideas to fit the context of their world. Further, he believed that as we assimilate information and accommodate ideas, we create schemas, or organized patterns of thought and behavior. The more complex our world, the more complex are the schemes used to organize our thoughts about the world.
As will be discussed in the next class session, Piaget was a structuralist. This means that he believed that, at transition from one stage of cognitive development to the next, the brain actually re-wires itself (creates new structures) in order to handle higher-order functioning.
Piaget’s Periods of Cognitive Development
Piaget described four types of cognitive functioning:
- Sensorimotor Period (Birth to 24 Months)*
- Preoperational Period (2 to 7 years)*
- Period of Concrete Operations (7 to 11 years)*
- Period of Formal Operations (Adolescence)*
*Please note that between each period, there is an unstable time of transition (as the organizing principles shift) before the person moves to the next stage and stabilizes.
Some researchers have adapted Piaget’s work and have described a fifth type of cognitive functioning:
- Period of Consolidation and Stabilization of Formal Operations (Youth and Early Adulthood)
Sensorimotor Period
(Infants)
In the Sensorimotor Period, infants discover aspects of the world through their sensory impressions, motor activities, and the coordination of the two.
- They learn to differentiate themselves from the external world.
- They learn that objects exist even when they are not visible and are independent of the infant’s own actions.
- They gain some appreciation of cause and effect.
- They can make detours and retrace their steps to reach a goal.
Preoperational Period
(Early—2 to 4 years old)
In this stage of development, children do not yet think by operations, that is, by manipulating and transforming information in basic logical ways.
- Instead, children can think in images and symbols and elaborate on them.
- They become able to represent something with something else.
- They acquire language, play games of pretend, and mix reality and imagination.
- They can draw or describe a path to a goal.
Preoperational Period
(Later—4 to 7 years old)
- Intelligence is said to be intuitive because children cannot make general statements.
- Egocentrism declines as children become able to take other peoples’ perspectives into account.
- They begin to think in terms of classes and see relationships, but they can cope with only one classification at a time.
- They can make guesses about cause and effect.
Concrete Operations
(7-11 years and possibly into the adult years)
These are the mental processes used by children. As the name implies, they depend on concrete operations to process concrete experiences. Some examples of Concrete Operations include:
- They can attend to two aspects or dimensions in order to make a judgment about area or volume.
- They can begin to read a map, or even make a map to Grandma’s house.
- They become adept at classification…flowers become roses or violets, purple becomes mauve or eggplant, Chevy’s become Corvettes, etc.
- They understand how certain things can exist in different states (for example, water is liquid, solid and vapor).
- They understand relational logic, that is, they have the capacity to serialization (to arrange in order of height, to alphabetize).
- They understand transivity, that is, they can answer the question, “John is taller than Mark and Joe is taller than John. Is Joe taller than Mark?”
- They begin to understand linguistic humor, for example, puns that depend on double meanings.
- They can provide a sequence for concrete operations, that is, in order to paint the fence, I need to do step 1 and then step 2, etc.
- In discussing ethical and moral decisions, the child will always default to a personal experience.
Note: According to material presented in the text, 50% of adults in the United States do not progress beyond concrete operations. Further, their thought is limited to actuality, to concrete problems and issues, to the real, empirically-perceived world. Possibility is limited to past concrete experiences or to present and future actualities. They have a hard time with hypothetical situations, paradox, and dialectic.
Formal Operations
(Beginning in Adolescence)
According to Piaget, as the brain rewires during adolescence, a whole new set of mental activities is now realized:
- The ability to reason logically about abstract ideas (with no basis in reality).
- The ability to process hypothetical propositions (and argue them all day long). Brainstorming, role playing, and case studies are now preferred teaching methods.
- The ability to deal with abstractions, form hypotheses, to solve problems systematically, and to engage in mental manipulations.
- The ability to think about thinking
- Thinking is not constrained by the “givens.” Imagination, possibilities, probabilities are now the order of the day.
- Imagination to create other worlds, especially ideal ones.
- They can prove a geometric theorem, explain the trajectory of a rebounding ball, they can construct whole systems of belief (i.e. personal theologies).
- The ability to use third person perspective, that is, the ability to see the world through someone else’s eyes and to see themselves and the world from the perspective of another.
- The ability to use hypothetico-deductive reasoning, a style of problem solving in which the possible solutions to a problem are generated and then systematically evaluated to determine the correct answer. This level of reasoning uses “If…then” prepositional statements in logical order.
Period of Consolidation and Stabilization of Formal Operations
(Youth to Early Adulthood)
Some researchers have continued Piaget’s work, postulating an additional stage of cognitive development. Individuals who have attained the level of formal operation become more accustomed to operating at that level, particularly in those content areas that are related to occupational or academic specialties (but maybe not to their religious and/or spiritual life). Additional tools associated with this higher level of brain function include:
- Problem Finding, or a stage beyond formal operations in which the individual is now capable of using knowledge to ask new questions and to define new problems.
- The Ability to Understand Paradox, or a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense, and yet is perhaps true.
- The Ability to Understand Dialectic or the ability to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas in tension so that eventually, these ideas produce a deeper truth.
Applications of Abstract Thought Processes
Some examples of the Use of Formal Operations include:
- In which gear does a car spend most of its time?
- How do explain the Nature of Christ as fully human and fully divine?
- How do you explain the Creation Story in Genesis? Is the materials to be interpreted literally, symbolically, or both?
The American Question
When Piaget came to the United States for the first time to lecture on his theory, the first question that was asked during the discussion after that lecture was, “How can we speed up the process?”
It was reported that Piaget just shook his head…and the question became known as “The American Question.”
Note: the answer to the question is “You can’t speed it up.” According to the theory, one can support the processes associated with the transition from period to period, but it can’t be sped up.
Additional Remarks
- Approximately 50% of the adult population is capable of thought using Formal Operations.
- According to the theory, no new mental structures emerge after adolescence or early adulthood. If you don’t rewire by late adolescence, you won’t rewire.
- Many people use Formal Operation in other areas of their live, but choose to use Concrete Operations (i.e. literal thinking) in their religious and/or spiritual life.
- I believe that we should help adolescents and young adults to use Formal Operations in their religious and/or spiritual life in order to help them “think theologically about life.”
- Just because adults can function on formal operations does not mean that they necessarily always do, i.e. adults use only the level of thought that they need to or are challenged to use.
- If nurtured in the context of a thoughtful Christian community, formal thought processes might add a rich layer of meaning to the religious and spiritual dimensions of life.
CED 521 Psychology of Religious Learning
Timothy W. Brock
The Window of Human Development
Introduction
The material included in this presentation was based on information from the assigned readings Part II of Stages of Faith, by James Fowler, and from additional researched provided by the professor. In the assigned readings, Fowler created an imaginary conversation among Erik Erickson, Jean Piaget, and Lawrence Kohlberg. In this conversation, these three prominent developmentalists explained the basic assumptions of their theories and outlived how their theories might impact development at various stages of the life cycle.
Since members of the class will make presentations on the work of Erickson and Kohlberg, the focus of this class session will be an in-depth look at the work of Jean Piaget.
A Definition of Cognitive Development
Cognitive development is the mental maturation process that allows a person to handle more complex and more abstract thinking, ideas, and concepts. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development described the ways in which humans assimilate (or incorporate) information from the environment and accommodate (or modify) ideas to fit the context of their world. Further, he believed that as we assimilate information and accommodate ideas, we create schemas, or organized patterns of thought and behavior. The more complex our world, the more complex are the schemes used to organize our thoughts about the world.
As will be discussed in the next class session, Piaget was a structuralist. This means that he believed that, at transition from one stage of cognitive development to the next, the brain actually re-wires itself (creates new structures) in order to handle higher-order functioning.
Piaget’s Periods of Cognitive Development
Piaget described four types of cognitive functioning:
- Sensorimotor Period (Birth to 24 Months)*
- Preoperational Period (2 to 7 years)*
- Period of Concrete Operations (7 to 11 years)*
- Period of Formal Operations (Adolescence)*
*Please note that between each period, there is an unstable time of transition (as the organizing principles shift) before the person moves to the next stage and stabilizes.
Some researchers have adapted Piaget’s work and have described a fifth type of cognitive functioning:
- Period of Consolidation and Stabilization of Formal Operations (Youth and Early Adulthood)
Sensorimotor Period
(Infants)
In the Sensorimotor Period, infants discover aspects of the world through their sensory impressions, motor activities, and the coordination of the two.
- They learn to differentiate themselves from the external world.
- They learn that objects exist even when they are not visible and are independent of the infant’s own actions.
- They gain some appreciation of cause and effect.
- They can make detours and retrace their steps to reach a goal.
Preoperational Period
(Early—2 to 4 years old)
In this stage of development, children do not yet think by operations, that is, by manipulating and transforming information in basic logical ways.
- Instead, children can think in images and symbols and elaborate on them.
- They become able to represent something with something else.
- They acquire language, play games of pretend, and mix reality and imagination.
- They can draw or describe a path to a goal.
Preoperational Period
(Later—4 to 7 years old)
- Intelligence is said to be intuitive because children cannot make general statements.
- Egocentrism declines as children become able to take other peoples’ perspectives into account.
- They begin to think in terms of classes and see relationships, but they can cope with only one classification at a time.
- They can make guesses about cause and effect.
Concrete Operations
(7-11 years and possibly into the adult years)
These are the mental processes used by children. As the name implies, they depend on concrete operations to process concrete experiences. Some examples of Concrete Operations include:
- They can attend to two aspects or dimensions in order to make a judgment about area or volume.
- They can begin to read a map, or even make a map to Grandma’s house.
- They become adept at classification…flowers become roses or violets, purple becomes mauve or eggplant, Chevy’s become Corvettes, etc.
- They understand how certain things can exist in different states (for example, water is liquid, solid and vapor).
- They understand relational logic, that is, they have the capacity to serialization (to arrange in order of height, to alphabetize).
- They understand transivity, that is, they can answer the question, “John is taller than Mark and Joe is taller than John. Is Joe taller than Mark?”
- They begin to understand linguistic humor, for example, puns that depend on double meanings.
- They can provide a sequence for concrete operations, that is, in order to paint the fence, I need to do step 1 and then step 2, etc.
- In discussing ethical and moral decisions, the child will always default to a personal experience.
Note: According to material presented in the text, 50% of adults in the United States do not progress beyond concrete operations. Further, their thought is limited to actuality, to concrete problems and issues, to the real, empirically-perceived world. Possibility is limited to past concrete experiences or to present and future actualities. They have a hard time with hypothetical situations, paradox, and dialectic.
Formal Operations
(Beginning in Adolescence)
According to Piaget, as the brain rewires during adolescence, a whole new set of mental activities is now realized:
- The ability to reason logically about abstract ideas (with no basis in reality).
- The ability to process hypothetical propositions (and argue them all day long). Brainstorming, role playing, and case studies are now preferred teaching methods.
- The ability to deal with abstractions, form hypotheses, to solve problems systematically, and to engage in mental manipulations.
- The ability to think about thinking
- Thinking is not constrained by the “givens.” Imagination, possibilities, probabilities are now the order of the day.
- Imagination to create other worlds, especially ideal ones.
- They can prove a geometric theorem, explain the trajectory of a rebounding ball, they can construct whole systems of belief (i.e. personal theologies).
- The ability to use third person perspective, that is, the ability to see the world through someone else’s eyes and to see themselves and the world from the perspective of another.
- The ability to use hypothetico-deductive reasoning, a style of problem solving in which the possible solutions to a problem are generated and then systematically evaluated to determine the correct answer. This level of reasoning uses “If…then” prepositional statements in logical order.
Period of Consolidation and Stabilization of Formal Operations
(Youth to Early Adulthood)
Some researchers have continued Piaget’s work, postulating an additional stage of cognitive development. Individuals who have attained the level of formal operation become more accustomed to operating at that level, particularly in those content areas that are related to occupational or academic specialties (but maybe not to their religious and/or spiritual life). Additional tools associated with this higher level of brain function include:
- Problem Finding, or a stage beyond formal operations in which the individual is now capable of using knowledge to ask new questions and to define new problems.
- The Ability to Understand Paradox, or a statement that is seemingly contradictory or opposed to common sense, and yet is perhaps true.
- The Ability to Understand Dialectic or the ability to hold two seemingly contradictory ideas in tension so that eventually, these ideas produce a deeper truth.
Applications of Abstract Thought Processes
Some examples of the Use of Formal Operations include:
- In which gear does a car spend most of its time?
- How do explain the Nature of Christ as fully human and fully divine?
- How do you explain the Creation Story in Genesis? Is the materials to be interpreted literally, symbolically, or both?
The American Question
When Piaget came to the United States for the first time to lecture on his theory, the first question that was asked during the discussion after that lecture was, “How can we speed up the process?”
It was reported that Piaget just shook his head…and the question became known as “The American Question.”
Note: the answer to the question is “You can’t speed it up.” According to the theory, one can support the processes associated with the transition from period to period, but it can’t be sped up.
Additional Remarks
- Approximately 50% of the adult population is capable of thought using Formal Operations.
- According to the theory, no new mental structures emerge after adolescence or early adulthood. If you don’t rewire by late adolescence, you won’t rewire.
- Many people use Formal Operation in other areas of their live, but choose to use Concrete Operations (i.e. literal thinking) in their religious and/or spiritual life.
- I believe that we should help adolescents and young adults to use Formal Operations in their religious and/or spiritual life in order to help them “think theologically about life.”
- Just because adults can function on formal operations does not mean that they necessarily always do, i.e. adults use only the level of thought that they need to or are challenged to use.
- If nurtured in the context of a thoughtful Christian community, formal thought processes might add a rich layer of meaning to the religious and spiritual dimensions of life.
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