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31295013301188.Pdf (6.572Mb) A COMPARISON OF POSTFORMAL OPERATIONS IN DIVERSE ADULT POPULATIONS: CONTRASTING AFRICAN AMERICANS AND STANDARD-AVERAGE-EUROPEAN AMERICANS by LYNDA ROSS McBRIDE, B.A., M.A. A DISSERTATION IN HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND FAMILY STUDIES Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Texas Tech University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Approved ) December, 1998 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to acknowledge those individuals who have helped through out this research project. I am especially indebted to the volunteers who so generously gave of their time to participate in this study. I would like to thank each member of my committee for sharing their unique expertise and offering continued support and guidance. Nancy Bell guided the statistical write-up and kept me on task with reporting details. Yvorme Caldera was helpful with critiques and editing the first draft. Bonita Butner offered incites from an outside discipline that was most helpful in connecting research findings to real life inference. Finally, a very special acknowledgment and appreciation goes to Gwendolyn Sorell, my chair, for her continued support and encouragement not only through the dissertation process but throughout my doctoral studies. She provided many long hours in supervising and guiding this project to completion. Also to my children, Jacquelyn S. Donovan and Kyle A. Myers, a special thank you for their patience and understanding and their pride in my work. And, to my extended family, I thank Reuben, Andrew, and Benjamin Maes for their love and support. I have also received and welcomed continued support from my fellow graduate students in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies. These colleagues contributed relief, levity, and comradeship to a sometimes arduous process. Thank you: Sunny, Sara, Jennifer, Carolyn, Anna, Martha, and Mangala, also, Larry, Todd, and Boyd. Each contributed in their own special way to make my stay in Lubbock and Texas Tech University a memorable experience. 11 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENT ii ABSTRACT vi LIST OF TABLES viii LIST OF FIGURES ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION 1 II REVIEW OF LITERATURE 11 Statement of the Problem 11 Aduh Cognitive Development 15 Theoretical Framework 16 An Admixture of Theory and Empirical Research 20 Basseches 21 Conceptual Model 21 Empirical Findings 24 Labouvie-Vief 26 Conceptual Model 27 Empirical Findings 29 Sinnott 33 Conceptual Model 34 Empirical Findings 35 Kramer 36 Conceptual Model 37 Empirical Findings 38 iii Recap 39 In Critique 41 The Impact of Culture 43 Proem 48 Hypotheses 49 Significance of the Study 51 m METHOD 53 Participants 53 Procedures 56 Measures 56 Information Sheet 57 Social Paradigm Belief Inventory (SPBI) 57 Everyday Questions 59 Logical Reasoning Test 62 IV RESULTS 67 Descriptive Analysis 67 Test of Hypotheses 70 V CONCLUSION AND DISCUSSION 80 Summary of Findings 80 Conclusions 86 Future Research 89 Strengths of the Study 90 Limitations of the Study 91 ENDNOTES 94 REFERENCES 96 iv APPENDIX A. INFORMATION SHEET 104 B. CONSENT FORM 106 C SOCL\L PARADIGM BELIEF INVENTORY 109 D. SINNOTT'S EVERYDAY PROBLEMS 117 E. LOGICAL REASONING TEST 122 ouaBBBa^Ri^^ia ABSTRACT The study of cognitive change over adulthood became important to researchers during the 1980s with the recognition and clarification of the limits of Piaget's formal operational stage and suggestions that formal operations was not the concluding or most comprehensive cognitive structure. With this recognition, researchers turned to look for a model of development that might outline systematic and positive cognitive elaboration that occurred beyond formal operations and over the adult years. Thus, the field of postformal operations was created. Postformal theories build upon Piagetian theory with expectations that postformal stages evolve from formal operations. The new stages are outlined as cognitive levels through which the adult comes to understand the contextual and contradictory nature of social life. The aduh is expected to bring certain wisdom to the tasks of everyday life and look for a 'best' answer, not necessarily the most logically correct answer to whatever problem is at hand. Empirical findings suggest that indeed middle-aged and older adults do look for 'workable' answers while younger adults look for logical answers to a variety of posed everyday problems. Using interview methods to pose everyday problems and using a variety of new measurement techniques, researchers found detectable differences in cognitive processes of middle-aged aduhs when compared to young adults. Yet, efforts are just beginning and existing research is narrow in its focus. To date, research has centered on only White middle-class and highly educated respondents. Existing studies have not included individuals from disparate social statuses or ethnic groups. This project was designed to VI augment existing research. This project examined postformal levels of cognition in two previously underrepresented groups, working-class Anglos and African Americans. It was theorized, as social psychologists predicted, that social milieu would have an impact on cognitive development. It was predicted that minority status would aid in and speed the development of postformal stages. To a limited extent, the prediction was upheld and differences were found on measures of postformal operations between the working-class Anglos and African Americans who participated in this study. Vll ^•^BHHHeCH LIST OF TABLES 3.1 Crosstabulationsoflncome by Ethnic Group 63 3.2 Crosstabulationsoflncome Level by Gender 64 3.3 Crosstabulations of Education by Ethnic Group and Age Group 65 3.4 Crosstabulations of Education by Ethnic Group 66 4.1 Number of Respondents Who Self-reference on Sinnott's Every Day Questions by Age Group 74 4.2 Number of Respondents Per LRT Levels By Ethnic Group 75 4.3 Number of Respondents Per LRT Levels By Age Group 75 4.4 Means and Standard Deviations for SPBI Dialectic Subscale Scores By Age 76 4.5 Means and Standard Deviations for SPBI Dialectic Subscale Scores By Age and Ethnic Group 76 4.6 Means and Standard Deviation for SPBI Relativistic Subscale Scores By age group 77 4.7 Means and Standard Deviations for SPBI Relativistic Subscale Scores By Age and Ethnic Group 77 4.8 Means and Standard Deviations for SPBI Mechanistic Subscale Scores 78 4.9 Means and Standard Deviations for SPBI Formistic Subscale Scores 78 4.10 Correlations of SPBI Scores With Age, Education, and Income 79 Vlll LIST OF FIGURES El. Diagram For Question 1 130 E2. Diagram For Questions 2-3 130 E3. Diagram For Question 4 131 E4. Diagram For Question 5 131 ES. Balance Scale 132 E6. Open-Top Containers 133 E7. Shadow Screen 134 E8. Jars and Glasses 135 IX -•--LJ.I -.wtnn^^f^ammm^mmmfi^mL ZBCHBH CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Two essentially different perspectives dominate the study of cognitive change over aduhhood. One view proposes levels of cognitive development beyond formal operations that conform to an organismic stage model of development. The proposal that cognition in mature adults is qualitatively different than that in adolescents or even young adults is conceived and expressed in the tenn postformal operations. Models of postformal operations extend a Piagetian framework by adding a stage or stages that follow formal operations. A second position suggests that change in thought structures over adulthood is individualistic and dependent upon life experiences with no expectation for universal stages (Flavell, 1970). This debate is more than an academic exercise. In interpreting the work of credible authorities, an investigator will discover meaningful indications of cognitive diversity across cultures and cognitive change across adulthood. Anthropologists (Barth, 1969; Whorf, 1956, 1941) and social psychologists (John-Steiner, Panofsky & Smith, 1994; Luria, 1976; Vygotsky, 1978, 1931) suggest that peoples at various places and times conceptualize the world and social life differently than Western thinkers. Others (Gilligan, 1982) propose that women think differently than men. By far the most impelling force inspiring further study of postformal thought has been Klaus Riegel's proposals. Without exception, all postmodern theories of adult cognitive development cite Riegel's work (Basseches, 1980; Kramer, 1983; Labouvie- Vief, 1985, 1982, 1980; Sinnott, 1994). Riegel (1973) proposes that Piaget stopped short of a fiill explanation of cognitive development. According to Riegel and some may disagree, Piagetian stages adequately describe cognitive achievement during childhood; ahhough, Riegel continues that formal operations is inadequate to describe "thought and emotions of mature and creative persons" (Riegel, 1973, p. 346) Contradictions are important elements of advanced thought and mature thought must incorporate contradictions, and formal operations is noncontradictory. By noncontradictory it is suggested that formal operations is a system of thought in which all elements are known and can be manipulated. As example in case of the balance beam problem, weights and positions on the beam are manipulated so that two weights on one side of the fulcrum can balance three weights on the opposite side if correct distances from the fulcrum are chosen. One can hypothesize how one would go about solving such a problem. Thus, this is a classic formal operational problem. The elements of the problem are known and limited. In contrast, social life is such that one cannot systematically manipulate all variables as is required in a
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