Brain maturation, additional years of schooling, moral challenges, increased independence, and intense conversations all occur between the ages of 11 and 18. These aspects of adolescents’ development propel impressive cognitive growth, as teenagers move from egocentrism to abstract logic.

During puberty, young people center on themselves, in part because maturation of the brain heightens self-consciousness (Sebastian et al., 2008). Young adolescents grapple with conflicting feelings about their parents and friends, thinking deeply (but not always realistically) about their future. Adolescents ruminate (going over problems via phone, text, conversation, and self-talk, as when they lie in bed, unable to sleep) about each nuance of everything they have done, are doing, and might do.

Adolescent egocentrism—that is, adolescents thinking intensely about themselves and about what others think of them—was first described by David Elkind (1967). In egocentrism, adolescents regard themselves as much more unique, special, and admired or disliked than anyone else considers them to be. Consequently, they have difficulty understanding other points of view. For example, few adolescent girls are attracted to boys with pimples and braces, but Edgar’s eagerness to be recognized as growing up kept him from realizing this, according to his older sister:

Now in the 8th grade, Edgar has this idea that all the girls are looking at him in school. He got his first pimple about three months ago. I told him to wash it with my face soap but he refused, saying, “Not until I go to school to show it off.” He called the dentist, begging him to approve his braces now instead of waiting for a year. The perfect gifts for him have changed from action figures to a bottle of cologne, a chain, and a fitted baseball hat like the rappers wear.

[adapted from Eva, personal communication]

Egocentrism leads adolescents to interpret everyone else’s behavior as if it were a judgment on them. A stranger’s frown or a teacher’s critique can make a teenager conclude that “No one likes me” and then deduce that “I am unlovable” or even “I can’t leave the house.” More positive casual reactions—a smile from a sales clerk or an extra-big hug from a younger brother—could lead to “I am great” or “Everyone loves me,” with similarly distorted self-perception.

Acute self-consciousness about physical appearance may be more prevalent between the ages of 10 and 14 than at any other time, in part because every adolescent notices that the changes in his or her particular body during puberty do not exactly conform to norms, ideals, and fantasies (Guzman & Nishina, 2014). Most young adolescents would rather not stand out from their peers, hoping instead to blend in, although they may want to flaunt adult standards. Conformity rules, and body changes do not always follow the rules.

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Because adolescents focus on their own perspectives, oblivious to other viewpoints, their emotions may not be grounded in reality. For example, a study of 1,310 Dutch and Belgian adolescents found that egocentrism was strong, and self-esteem and loneliness were more closely tied to their perception of how others saw them, not to their actual popularity. Gradually, after about age 15, some gained more perspective and became less depressed (Vanhalst et al., 2013).

The personal fable is the belief that one is unique, destined to have a heroic, fabled, even legendary life. Some 12-year-olds plan to star in the NBA, or to become billionaires, or to cure cancer. Some believe they are destined to die an early, tragic death; for them, the fact that smoking, eating junk food, or other habits could lead to midlife cancer or heart disease are irrelevant.

Adolescents markedly overestimate the chance that they will die soon. One study found that teens estimate 1 chance in 5 that they will die before age 20, when in fact the odds are less than 1 in 1,000. Even those most at risk of early death (urban African American males) survive at least to age 20 more than 99 times in 100. But if the peer group thinks that some of them will die young, they are more likely to do self-destructive things, such as risking jail, HIV, or drug addiction (Haynie et al., 2014).

The personal fable may coexist with the invincibility fable, the idea that death will not occur unless it is destined, which is another reason that some adolescents believe that fast driving, unprotected sex, or addictive drugs will do them no harm unless “their number is up.”

In every nation, most army volunteers—hoping for combat—are under age 20. Young recruits take more risks than older, more experienced soldiers (Killgore et al., 2006). Another example of the invincibility fable comes from online chat rooms: Despite adult warnings, teenagers reveal personal information that they should keep private (McCarty et al., 2011).

Egocentrism creates an imaginary audience in the minds of many adolescents. They believe they are at center stage, with all eyes on them, and they imagine how others might react to their appearance and behavior.

One woman remembers:

When I was 14 and in the 8th grade, I received an award at the end-of-year school assembly. Walking across the stage, I lost my footing and stumbled in front of the entire student body. To be clear, this was not falling flat on one’s face, spraining an ankle, or knocking over the school principal—it was a small misstep noticeable only to those in the audience who were paying close attention. As I rushed off the stage, my heart pounded with embarrassment and self-consciousness, and weeks of speculation about the consequence of this missed step were set into motion. There were tears and loss of sleep. Did my friends notice? Would they stop wanting to hang out with me? Would a reputation for clumsiness follow me to high school?

[Somerville, 2013, p. 121]

This woman went on to become an expert on the adolescent brain. She remembered from personal experience that “adolescents are hyperaware of other’s evaluations and feel they are under constant scrutiny by an imaginary audience” (Somerville, 2013, p. 124).

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A librarian acknowledges that libraries are rule-driven places that are supposed to be quiet and that this conflicts with the cognition of teenagers. He explains that the imaginary audience is the “reason why teens are so loud—they simply want to be sure that no one needs to strain to hear what their life is like today. [B]ecause of personal fable, a teenager will believe himself to be the exception to any rule” (Sexton, 2002). The librarian explains how research on adolescent thinking and brain development can help those in his field react to teenagers.

Another venue where the imaginary audience dominates is online. Teens post comments on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and so on, and they expect others to understand, laugh, or sympathize. Their imaginary audience is their friends and other teenagers, not parents, teachers, college admission officers, or future employers who might have another interpretation (boyd, 2014).

Too much can be made of adolescent egocentrism. Indeed, one team of researchers considers adolescent egocentrism a “largely discredited notion” (Laursen & Hartl, 2013, p. 1266). Nonetheless, they and many others find some truth in it. Adults must not exaggerate the idea or blame every adolescent behavior on it, but understanding egocentrism may help understanding adolescence.

Piaget described a shift to formal operational thought as adolescents move past concrete operational thinking and consider abstractions, including “assumptions that have no necessary relation to reality” (Piaget, 1972, p. 148).

Is Piaget correct? Many educators think so. They adjust the curriculum between primary and secondary school, reflecting a shift from concrete to formal, logical thought. Here are three examples:

Piaget and his colleagues devised a number of tasks to assess formal operational thought (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958). In these tasks, “in contrast to concrete operational children, formal operational adolescents imagine all possible determinants … [and] systematically vary the factors one by one, observe the results correctly, keep track of the results, and draw the appropriate conclusions” (P. H. Miller, 2011, p. 57).

One of their experiments (diagrammed in Figure 15.1) required balancing a scale by hooking weights onto the scale’s arms. To master this task, a person must realize the reciprocal interaction between distance from the center and heaviness of the weight. Therefore, a heavy weight close to the center can be counterbalanced with a light weight far from the center on the other side.

Balancing was not understood by the 3- to 5-year-olds. By age 7, children balanced the scale by putting the same amount of weight on each arm, but they didn’t realize how the distance from the center mattered. By age 10, children experimented with the weights, using trial and error, not logic. Finally, by about age 13 or 14, some children hypothesized about reciprocity, developing the correct formula (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969).

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One hallmark of formal operational thought is the capacity to think of possibility, not just reality. “Here and now” is only one of many possibilities, including “there and then,” “long, long ago,” “not yet,” and “never.” As Piaget said:

The adolescent … thinks beyond the present and forms theories about everything, delighting especially in considerations of that which is not….

[Piaget, 1972, p. 148]

Adolescents are therefore primed to engage in hypothetical thought, reasoning about if–then propositions that do not reflect reality. For example, consider this question (adapted from De Neys & Van Gelder, 2009):

If all mammals can walk,
And whales are mammals,
Can whales walk?

Children answer “No!” They know that whales swim, not walk; the logic escapes them. Some adolescents answer “Yes.” They understand the conditional if, and therefore the counterfactual phrase “if all mammals.”

Possibility no longer appears merely as an extension of an empirical situation or of action actually performed. Instead, it is reality that is now secondary to possibility.

[Inhelder & Piaget, 1958, p. 251; emphasis in original]

Hypothetical thought transforms perceptions, not necessarily for the better. Zombies and robots become fascinating, sometimes frightening.

Adolescents criticize everything from their mother’s spaghetti (it’s not al dente) to the Gregorian calendar (it’s not the Chinese or Jewish one). They criticize what is because of their hypothetical thinking and their awareness of other families and cultures. That complicates immediate, practical decisions (Moshman,2011).

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In developing the capacity to think hypothetically, by age 14 or so adolescents become more capable of deductive reasoning, or top-down reasoning, which begins with an abstract idea or premise and then uses logic to draw specific conclusions. In the example above, “if all mammals can walk” is a premise. By contrast, inductive reasoning, or bottom-up reasoning, predominates during the school years, as children accumulate facts and experiences (the knowledge base) to aid their thinking. Since they know whales cannot walk, that knowledge trumps the logic.

In essence, a child’s reasoning goes like this: “This creature waddles and quacks. Ducks waddle and quack. Therefore, this must be a duck.” This is inductive: It progresses from particulars (“waddles” and “quacks”) to a general conclusion (“a duck”). By contrast, deduction progresses from the general to the specific: “If it’s a duck, it will waddle and quack” (see Figure 15.2).

An example of the progress toward deductive reasoning comes from how children, adolescents, and adults change in their understanding of the causes of racism. Even before adolescence, almost everyone is aware that racism exists—and almost everyone opposes it. However, children tend to believe the core problem is that some people are prejudiced.

Using inductive reasoning, children conclude that the remedy is education. They argue against racism when they hear other people express it. By contrast, older adolescents think, deductively, that racism is a society-wide problem that requires policy solutions.

This example arises from a study of adolescent opinions regarding policies to remedy racial discrimination (Hughes & Bigler, 2011). Not surprisingly, most students of all ages in an interracial U.S. high school recognized disparities between African and European Americans and believed that racism was a major cause.

However, the age of the students made a difference. Among those who recognized marked inequalities, older adolescents (ages 16 to 17) more often supported systemic solutions (e.g., affirmative action and desegregation) than did younger adolescents (ages 14 to 15). Hughes and Bigler wrote: “[D]uring adolescence, cognitive development facilitates the understanding that discrimination exists at the social-systemic level … [and] racial awareness begins to inform views of race-conscious policies” (2011, p. 489).

Many cognitive scientists study how people of all ages sometimes think illogically. Such failures are apparent throughout adolescence (Albert & Steinberg, 2011), but there is one age-related difference: Younger adolescents are more confident of their illogical ideas than older adolescents are (De Neys & Feremans, 2013).

One example is the sunk cost fallacy: When people have spent money, time, or effort that cannot be recovered (a cost already “sunk”), they hold the fallacy that they must continue to pursue their goal because otherwise all previous effort will have been wasted (Cunha & Caldieraro, 2009). This fallacy leads people to pour money into repairing a “lemon” of a car, to remain in a class they are failing, to stay in an abusive relationship, and so on.

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Another common fallacy is base rate neglect, in which people ignore information about the frequency of a phenomenon. For example (cited by Kahneman, 2011, p. 151), if a stranger on the subway is reading the New York Times, which is more likely?

The answer is no college degree. Far more subway riders have no degree than have a PhD (perhaps 50:1). But people tend to ignore that base rate, and instead conclude that a PhD recipient is more likely to read the New York Times than someone without a degree. That is base rate neglect.

Egocentrism makes base rate neglect more likely and more personal. For instance, a teen might not wear a bicycle helmet, feeling invincible despite statistics, until a friend is brain-damaged in a biking accident. “When adolescents take unjustified risks, it is often because of the weakness of their analytic systems, which provide an inadequate check on impulsive or ill-considered decisions” (Sunstein, 2008, p. 145).

Many have criticized Piaget’s stage theory, as you know from previous chapters. That is apparent regarding formal operational thinking as well. For instance, research has found that adults long past adolescence sometimes reason like concrete operational or even preoperational children. Logical fallacies occur at every age, and “No contemporary scholarly reviewer of research evidence endorses the emergence of a discrete new cognitive structure at adolescence that closely resembles … formal operations” (Kuhn & Franklin, 2006, p. 954).

Nonetheless, something shifts in cognition after puberty: Piaget was correct when he concluded that most older adolescents possess the ability to think more logically and hypothetically than most children do.

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