Twelve-year-old Tamika is a formal operational thinker. What are the major characteristics of her thought processes?

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

At the formal operational stage, Tamika no longer requires concrete things or events as objects of thought. Instead, she can come up with new, more general logical rules through internal reflection. Tamika is capable of hypothetico-deductive reasoning, which means that when faced with a problem, she starts with a hypothesis, or prediction about variables that might affect an outcome, from which she deduces logical, testable inferences. Then she systematically isolates and combines variables to see which of these inferences are confirmed in the real world. Tamika also demonstrates propositional thought by evaluating the logic of propositions (verbal statements) without referring to real-world circumstances. Language is more important to Tamika now, as abstract thought requires language-based and other symbolic systems that do not stand for real things, such as those that exist in higher mathematics. Tamika can reason verbally about abstract concepts, such as justice and freedom.