The ability to formulate hypotheses and be able to test them is not a skill that has accompanied us throughout our lives. Our way of thinking changes with development, also accompanied and supported by the development of our own nervous system.
A child may know that if he presses a certain button the television will turn on, but what if it doesn’t turn on? Surely, go to the adult, who will be able to come up with various explanations for what may be happening. He will check if the remote has batteries, if they have run out, if the television has the light indicating that it is plugged into the power, etc.
The adult, through development, has acquired the ability to think abstractly or formally. Do you want to know more about it? Continue reading this Psychology-Online article in which we talk to you about abstract thinking: what it is, examples and how to develop it.
He Abstract thinking either formal thinking consists of the ability to think independently of the reality that is shown to us in a concrete way. It allows the human being to think about different scenarios and possibilities among which, of course, is concrete reality.
In the simplified example that we have presented in the introduction, the child is not able to think beyond the reality in front of him, which is that the television does not turn on. The adult, however, may think further, establish hypotheses, test them and thus solve the problem.
Abstract thinking, contextualized in , appears in the last stage of development: the stage of formal operations. For Vygotsky, it is precisely this acquisition that marks the difference between the thinking of the child and the thinking of the adolescent.
As we have indicated, formal thinking is what characterizes the Piaget’s last stage of cognitive development. Piagetian theory postulates that cognitive development occurs throughout several phases or stages, more or less lasting depending on each person but necessarily successive.
The acquisition of abstract thinking begins around the age of 11 (incipient formal stage) and is consolidated from the age of 14 or 15 (advanced formal stage). Although it is true that Piaget modifies his initial theories and indicates that it is at the age of 20 when this evolutionary acquisition is consolidated (Aguilar Villagrán, M., Navarro Guzmán, JI, López Pavón, JM and Alcalde Cuevas, C., 2002 ).
Until this acquisition occurs in adolescence, the child has gone through several stages of development in which his or her way of thinking has been qualitatively different.
1. Sensory-motor stage
It covers from birth to two years of age and is linked to sensory and motor development. The baby’s thinking would be circumscribed “here and now”.
2. Preoperational stage
This stage ranges from approximately 2 to 7 years old. At this stage arises the symbolic thinking, so that the child can think about events or objects that are not present at that moment. He may think about the ball you showed him a few days ago or the toy his schoolmate has and he liked it so much.
3. Stage of concrete operations
Although from 7 to 11 years old children are capable of doing complex mental operations (conservation tasks, classification, serialization, etc.) their way of thinking has a limitation, and that is that the child has to manipulate things or see them to be able to think about them. If you ask him to imagine them he will not give a correct answer. In , they begin, therefore, to use logic and mental operations but only for facts and objects in their environment, in their concrete reality.
4. Formal operations stage
For Piaget, the most important characteristic of this new way of thinking would be the fact that being able to think in terms of possibilities and not just realities. Adolescents go beyond immediate reality and begin to discover that reality can be much broader than what is in front of them, which will significantly influence their behavior.
Following Sierra, P. and Brioso, A. (2006), the adolescent differentiates between what is real and what is possible, necessarily using hypothetico-deductive reasoning and reasoning about verbal statements instead of reasoning about concrete objects.
This would be the last stage of Piagetian theory, however the existence of post-formal thought, subsequent to formal thought, has been proposed. This postformal thinking would go beyond formal reasoning that yields right or wrong results and would propose solutions relative to problems.