V.M.WESTERBERG’S SUPER BRIEF DEVELOPMENTAL THEORIES SERIES

GISELLA LABOUVIE-VIEF’S COGNITIVE-EMOTIONAL THEORY ( La Boo Bee Beef)

LBV believed that adults show POSTFORMAL THOUGHT: thinking that goes beyond Piaget's formal

operations.

a) Postformal thought acknowledges that the world sometimes lacks purely right and wrong solutions

and adults must draw upon prior experiences to solve problems.

b) Adults sometimes solve their problems by relativistic thinking (using reason + intuition) rather than

pure logic.

c) Postformal thought also means dialectical thinking, an appreciation [like] for argument, counter-

argument, and debate.

DEVELOPMENT IN LIFE:

1. Childhood: Fantasy period, everything is possible, children gain insight into career options by

fantasizing about them. E.g.: when asking what they want to be - pick coolest thing they can think of.

2. In Adolescence teenagers operate within a world of possibilities or hypotheses. 2 periods:

1. Tentative period. E.g: Wants to go to Harvard, but realizes grades not good enough.

2. Realistic period. E.g.: Can’t go to Harvard, so will decide among the Universities that accepted

him/her.

3. Adulthood moves from hypothetical to pragmatic or practical thought. Pragmatic thinkers accept

inconsistencies as part of life and develop thinking that thrives on imperfection and compromise.

4. Creativity rises in early adulthood, peaks in later 30s, is the ability to formulate new, meaningful

problems, and to ask significant questions that have not been posed before, it is rooted in expertise b/c

based on experiences.

5. Expertise: Middle adulthood; people remember & reason more quickly and effective than novice. They

have lot of knowledge about a topic and process information automatically and faster.

6. Late adulthood brings the chance for reflection and to solve problems [to go with a clear conscience].