Childhood Cognitive Development

Over the progression of this second unit, our class has covered a variety of topics from childhood cognitive development to intelligence. An especially fascinating topic for me came during Chapter Six when the processes of cognitive changes during our life span were discussed. Of special relevance for me were the changes talked about in the latter half of the chapter concerning cognitive changes during emerging adulthood. With my childhood now well behind me and young adulthood looming just around the corner the time seems right for a period of reflection upon my mental capacities now versus during my teenage years. Three changes stand out the most to me my reasoning abilities, my way of thinking about and viewing the world, and my general

For example, during my younger days I was mainly fixated on absorbing as much knowledge as I possibly could in an effort to expand my understanding of the world. However, as I have grown older I have had a growing desire to take this knowledge about the world and apply it in meaningful, pragmatic ways. American psychologist K. Warner Schaie proposed just such a way of cognitive change in 1977 (Santrock, 2014, p. 212 and 213). Even more important than my general reasoning abilities, another change that I have noticed during this transitional period of my life would be my point-of-view on humanity and the world as a

After I graduated high school and moved into a university career, my overall idealism has decreased (Santrock, 2014, p. 212). When I was younger I tended to view the world in positions of separations, for example an action was either entirely moral or entirely immoral, and there was no middle ground. This type of development is in line with a prominent 20th century psychologist (Santrock, 2014, p. 213). Conversely, I have systemically progressed away from this way of thinking as I have grown older, into a more relativistic, reflective way of meditation. An occurrence of this may be that I once viewed our invasion of Iraq in 2003 as a positive and ethical because we are America, “the greatest country on Earth”, and can do no wrong. However, as I grew wiser and less naïve, I came to realize that the war was founded on lies and deceit for the purpose of safeguarding legacies, power, and wealth for the most well-off in American society. In short, I came to view the world as less “black and white” and more “grey”. This evolution of thinking was also an important theory of the aforementioned 20th century psychologist (Santrock, 2014, p. 213). When we are younger we tend to wear our emotions on our sleeves, but as we grow older it becomes easier to hide our true feelings behind a wall of fake smiles and hollow