Adolescents and adults are forced to make a variety of decisions every day that will impact their lives. Some of these decisions may be based on abstract and logical thinking (formal stage), but others require dialectical thought (post-formal stage).
For this task, you must interview family and friends and ask them to describe various situations in which they had to make important decisions (e.g., buying a car or home, which college to attend, or who to date/marry). It would be best if you interviewed at least one person between ages 15-20 and one person older than 30 years.
Ask them to describe at least three of their biggest decisions:
- What were the decisions and how did they figure out what to do (e.g., made a list of pros/cons; figured out how to benefit from the expected consequences; based the decision on previous experiences of theirs/others)?
- Did parents/teachers/friends help them to decide, and if so, how?
- Did they make the best decision based on what they knew at the time?
- What would they do differently if deciding today?
For this assignment, write an essay about the following:
Evaluate the stories you collected; then, for each person determine:
1. If you would classify them as formal operational or post-formal operational, based on how they made their decisions (i.e., basically, using concepts in formal thinking, dialectical/post-formal thinking, or a combination of both).
2. What is the evidence for your evaluation?
3. Based on the answer to the last question above (whether they would do it differently), are they still in the formal stage or have they progressed to post-formal?