The development of formal thinking (characteristics and examples)

Formal thinking is part of the theory of cognitive development, prepared by the Swiss psychologist, epistemologist and biologist Jean Piaget; which offers an exhaustive explanation of the nature and development of human intelligence.

Through it, Piaget describes up to 4 stages, the last being that of formal thinking; which usually appears in early adolescencearound approximately 11 years old.

In this case, formal thinking allows the adolescent to begin to develop increasingly complex hypotheses of reality based on the future. In addition, it helps him to be more capable of thinking beyond the immediate present, which in turn allows him to project himself into a future reality.

That being said, let’s dive into this stage and how it plays out.

The development of formal thinking

Formal thinking is a stage of cognitive development that begins in the early years of adolescence. This is characterized by the ability to leave the concrete present and begin to create abstract representations of reality.

It was Jean Piaget who was the first to talk about formal thinking. According to him, It is a milestone that the vast majority of us reachregardless of the social and educational context.

As a rule, we enter the stage of formal thinking at the beginning of adolescence (according to the author, adolescence ranges from 11 to 20 years old). Furthermore, it is configured as the last cognitive stage in which adults develop (whose previous stages correspond to sensorimotor development, preoperational thinking and that of concrete operations).

Childhood: thinking based on the “here and now”

When children are young, they live in the “here and now.” Your reality and your thoughts merge into a single moment, which is the present.. Thus, when they have to develop thoughts or reasoning, they base themselves on this present to do so.

“They do not go further” and it is normal, since it corresponds to the milestones of cognitive development of the stage in which they are. However, as the years go by and they grow, they develop the ability to establish mental operations combining different tenses; They can now use their imagination freely to travel to the future and the past and connect seemingly very different events.

Formal thinking: going beyond present reality

In this way, they enter the formal thinking stage. In her, They acquire the ability to make hypotheses that go beyond what their eyes see. They begin to analyze and develop thoughts beyond that current reality. In this way, they no longer use only what they see, but also what is not in front of them.

Besides, They also use natural laws to understand and explain certain phenomena.

To understand it better, let’s give an example: imagine that it rains. A small child may give the following explanation: the water falls from the sky because there are clouds, while a teenager (who already has formal thinking) could go beyond what he sees, and try to find an origin in what your senses have not perceived.

Characteristics of formal thinking

Jean Piaget and Bärbel Inhelder, Swiss psychologist, were leaders in the study of formal thinking. They talked about some important characteristics in this cognitive stage, and they are the ones we are going to refer to.

According to them, It is in adolescence when our brain flexibility allows new brain processes to be activatedwhich help us generate new theories and opinions on diverse topics.

In this way, the adolescent will be able to begin to develop abstract hypotheses that they can, in the future, contrast with reality.

Now, within this stage a series of aspects intervene that are important to keep in mind. These are:

The importance of language

Formal thinking is developing and language takes on an increasingly relevant role. Adolescents no longer reason only about physical aspects of reality, but also about aspects related to language.

Complex statements

Through formal thinking, Adolescents are also capable of understanding complex sentences (something that did not happen in childhood). In the same way, they are capable of developing more complex and abstract statements themselves.

Through them, they can describe reality in more detail; for example, through subordinate and conditional clauses.

Problem resolution

Formal thinking, according to Piaget and Inhelder, is also useful for solving problems. Thus, it is a type of thinking that allows you to access the information you need, organize it and discard what is not relevant to, for example, try to predict what will happen in the coming days.

Predictions and hypotheses

As we said, in this cognitive stage the analyzes carried out are no longer based only on what our eyes see, but on what one is able to imagine, hypothesize or predict. Besides, It is no longer analyzed only by behavior or people, but also feelings and emotions. This implies “going beyond” what is seen.

For example, a child may say that he loves his siblings because they are part of his family; A teenager can say this and include that he also values ​​aspects in them such as the support they offer him, their love and affection, their understanding, etc.

Delays in the acquisition of formal thinking

As already said, formal thinking develops in adolescence; between 11 and 15 years old, young people begin to acquire this type of reasoning.

However, despite the evolutionary stage in which they are found,Some kids without any underlying cognitive disorder may have difficulty thinking abstractly.pose hypotheses and effectively solve problems that arise in everyday life.

Regarding this, Piaget himself recognized the difficulty of adolescents in reaching this level of mental development. However, he considered that it was not impossible to acquire, since in their stage of biological development they had a greater neuronal configuration or brain maturity.

Thus, A possible delay in the acquisition of this thought may be due to the absence of a stimulating environment that helps the adolescent strengthen it.. As a consequence, young people tend to present problems in their secondary education, especially in areas where formal thinking is necessary, such as mathematics.

In these cases, The best alternative is to stimulate the young person with activities that help enhance this thinking.. To achieve this, programs have been developed for this purpose, which have been successful. Likewise, the adolescent can do stimulating activities such as:

Participate in debates.Make hypotheses about various events in everyday life.Read from books and then discuss them.Perform mental calculation exercises. Develop the habit of writing, such as writing a diary.

To conclude, we emphasize that thanks to formal thinking we acquire mental flexibility and we are able to understand (and elaborate) increasingly complex statements. It is a useful thought for solving problems that also allows us to have abstract ideas, as well as “possible” ideas and not only “real” ones.

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