What is postformal thinking?

Jean Piaget described four stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations and formal operations. Each of these periods is characterized by the use of progressively more complex cognitive operations.

Although this author stated that cognition reaches its final stage in adolescence, other theorists consider that postformal thinking also exists, a fifth stage of cognitive development characterized by the ability to relativize, assume contradiction and synthesize opposite elements.

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Formal thought according to Piaget

For Jean Piaget, pioneer of evolutionary psychology and author of the most popular theory on cognitive development, it reaches its culmination when it is abandoned concrete thinking and formal thinking is consolidated, that is, the ability to think in a abstract.

This implies that when reaching this stage, which generally happens between the ages of 11 and 15, not only working with concrete, tangible and reality-based elements, but also with hypotheses and possibilities. In addition, skills are developed that allow adopting perspectives other than one's own.

Formal thought has a hypothetical-deductive character, which goes beyond the characteristic empiricism of the stage of concrete operations; In this way, reality comes to be understood as a subset of the possible, unlike in the previous period, in which the possible is seen as an extension of the real.

Piaget and his collaborator Bärbel Inhelder claimed that formal thought is based on verbal statements (propositional thinking), rather than on concrete objects. Since the flexibility of language is much greater than that of matter, this type of thinking enormously increases the cognitive and communicative possibilities.

Subsequently, different authors questioned and qualified the concept original of formal thought. Thus, today it is believed that not all people reach this stage, that this can happen at any age and only in the tasks in which we specialize, and that there may be another type of even more advanced reasoning: thought postformal.

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Characteristics of postformal thinking

Representatives of different theoretical orientations, especially dialectical and life cycle psychology, have proposed the existence of post-formal or dialectical thinking, which is conceptualized as a stage after operations formal.

Unlike formal, postformal thinking would allow to integrate the subjective, the emotional and the symbolic with the logical, analytical and objective components of the previous period. As a consequence, there would be a complexity of cognitive operations, which would function less literally and rigidly than in the case of formal thought.

Three basic characteristics of postformal thought have been described: the relativism of knowledge, the acceptance of contradiction, and the synthesis between discordant elements.

1. Relativism

Formal thinking tends to be dichotomous; thus, for example, people are usually categorized as "good" or "bad", and statements are understood as absolute truths or as lies, with no intermediate points.

However, interaction with other people, the adoption of multiple roles and the acquisition of new information promote awareness about what there are multiple truths that depend on the point of view, highly influenced by personal history, and the context from which they are observed.

Thus, this tendency means that not as much attention is paid to what is supposed to be "the truth", and the attention is focused on the type of narratives that are adopted to explain it.

2. Contradiction

Once relativistic thinking appears, contradiction is accepted as a natural aspect of life. Seemingly incompatible phenomena can coexist, both in the perception of reality and in living beings and objects.

Thus, anyone can be "good" and "bad" simultaneously, continuing with the previous example. The complex nature of reality is accepted, and the idea that there are different overlapping ontological realities is internalized.

Various authors defend that the acceptance of the contradiction is the most characteristic feature of adult thought, and that usually develops during middle age. However, the interindividual variability is high, so it can also happen before or after.

3. Synthesis or dialectic

Since they take relativism and contradiction as natural aspects of human experience, people who use the Postformal thinking can integrate (or synthesize) contradictory mental content, both cognitively and emotional.

During this stage there is a continuous dialectic in thought, so that all ideas are compared and synthesized with their opposites and with other different experiences. This allows a higher and more flexible reasoning capacity than that which characterizes formal thinking.

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Stage of development or style of thinking?

Although those who defend the concept of postformal thought usually define it as a stage of the cognitive development that, as its name suggests, appears after the stage of formal operations, for the moment scientific research has not confirmed this hypothesis.

Although it is true that the defining characteristics of postformal thought are manifested more frequency the older the age, not all people who develop normally reach this period cognitive. In fact, not even everyone is able to advance from the stage of concrete operations to that of formal ones.

Furthermore, scientific evidence shows that some people who have not reached the formal period show relativistic thinking. It has therefore been hypothesized that postformal thinking is a style of reasoning consisting of a set of metacognitive skills that can be acquired after maturation, and not necessarily a developmental stage.