11.4: Cognitive Development in Early Adulthood
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Learning Objectives
By the end of this section, you will be able to:
- Identify the cognitive capabilities that develop during early adulthood
- Describe the developmental changes in social cognition associated with early adulthood
- Describe the contextual and cultural factors that influence the development of early adult cognitive capabilities
Devon finished a pipefitting apprenticeship a year ago and is now living fully on their own for the first time. They have just been offered a position managing a small group of people at work. They are excited to be promoted but anxious about overseeing others. It was challenging enough to prioritize their personal life and budget for food, bills, and rent. Now they have to learn how to prioritize projects, make major decisions at work, and delegate parts of each project to those in their work group, on top of making sure they are able to get their work done.
Some of the cognitive tasks and milestones during early adulthood include taking on more responsibilities, finding employment or a career (which may include attending college or a trade school), attaining abstract thought, increasing awareness of our own limitations and strengths, honing decision-making skills, becoming fully independent (including financially independent), being less swayed by peer pressure, and adjusting to changes in relationships with family. Developing and honing new cognitive skills during this time is essential for solving the kinds of complex problems we will encounter for the rest of our lives. Fortunately, our brain continues to develop in ways that make these tasks easier.
Changes in the Brain during Early Adulthood
Just like the rest of the body, the brain reaches maturity and peak functioning during early adulthood. However, we continue to develop new synapse s—a lifelong process—and myelination of our axons continues, particularly in the prefrontal cortex (Dvorak et al., 2021; Hochberg & Konner, 2020; Kwon et al., 2020; Mills et al., 2021), throughout the lifespan. These changes in the brain within the area of the prefrontal cortex are mostly completed by age 25 (citation), and are associated with improved cognitive functioning, specifically in the efficacy and speed of processing and performance of higher-order functions like planning, organizing, solving problems, and resisting impulses (Hochberg & Konner, 2020; Kwon et al., 2020).
In addition to the development within the prefrontal cortex, the process of synaptic pruning continues until the mid-20’s. We also know from research that , with the prefrontal cortex is the last area where synaptic pruning finally winds down within the brain (Cohen et al., 2016; Dennis et al., 2013). These two processes, final synaptic pruning and the continued myelination of nerve fibers in this area, helps increase the efficiency of signals between neurons within the brain. Instead of processing information locally, the brain begins to connect more distant regions, allowing information to be processed in many areas (Hochberg & Konner, 2020; Taber-Thomas & Pérez-Edgar, 2015). Once these connections have been well established, both impulse control and emotional control are enhanced (Simpson, 2018; Wood et al., 2017). Thus, these brain changes help young adults become better at making decisions, delaying gratification, solving problems, assessing risk, prioritizing, and regulating their emotions. Improvements don’t happen all at once. For example, research conducted by Cohen and colleagues (2016) investigated differences in brain functioning between adolescents (ages 13–17), emerging adults ages 18–21, and ages 22–25. The prefrontal cortices of the 18–21-year-olds functioned more like those of adolescents than of the 22–25-year-olds on a task assessing inhibition of a behavior. These results also support Arnett’s theory that emerging adulthood is a discrete developmental state and involves gradual progression rather than an abrupt transition.
Intersections and Contexts: Brain of Emerging Adults: Impulse Control and Risk-Taking Behaviors
Although people can act impulsively regardless of age, such as calling in sick for a week to attend a once-in-a-lifetime music festival or changing one's choice of college major on a whim, this type of behavior occurs more frequently in emerging adulthood than later in adulthood (Brodbeck et al., 2013). Life experience, or lack of, plays some role in the differences in risk-taking and impulsive behaviors between emerging adults and adults. However, these differences are also likely the result of changes in the frontal lobes and other brain areas (Brodbeck et al., 2013). Changes in the brain help it shift from a priority of developing skills and obtaining knowledge about the world to actually using that knowledge and skills to live as an adult.
Unfortunately, this means that while people are exploring options and making decisions more independently, their brain is still in transition, and thus, people may not always make the best decisions. Within the brain, areas that are involved in impulsive behaviors, including risk-taking and decision-making, are also involved in emotional regulation, including impulse control and emotional control. Research has found that people who had difficulty with emotional regulation, based on clinical tests and self-report are prone to more impulsive behaviors related to substance misuse and gambling (Schreiber et al., 2012). Thus, until refinements within these areas are complete, people may make impulsive decisions that bring immediate rewards instead of making decisions based on long-term rewards (Parr et al., 2022).
Another contributor to impulsivity may be the neurotransmitter dopamine. Children, teens, and adults of different ages have different amounts of dopamine in their brains, with dopamine levels decreasing as we age (Lee & Kim, 2022). Similarly, children, teens, and adults of different ages aren’t all equally good at controlling impulses and making goal-based decisions, with older adults being better at this than other age groups, including younger adults. However, some younger adults appear to have less trouble with this than others, suggesting that individual differences may also be at work. Having less dopamine as we age may help us, along with our increased cognitive skills and personal experiences, to better resist impulsive behaviors (Parr et al., 2022).
Early Adult Cognitive Characteristics
Some of the cognitive abilities that develop or become refined through both physiological changes in the brain and experience in daily life are reflective thought, crystallized intelligence, post-formal thought, and dialectical thinking. Up until now, a lot of our coverage of cognitive development has focused on Piaget’s theory and stages. Piaget believed that formal operational thought was the last stage in our cognitive development, but is this actually the case? Do you currently have the same cognitive skills and reason the same way you did when you were 14? Put another way, do you currently have the same problems and life circumstances you had when you were 14?
Researchers since Piaget have proposed the existence of post-formal thought , a stage beyond formal operations that is more flexible, complex, and capable of recognizing more than one objectively correct answer to problems (Kincheloe & Steinberg, 1993; Sinnott, 1998; Griffin et al., 2009). Though adolescents in the formal operational stage can easily think hypothetically, they lack experience with the world and are often unable to consider as many possibilities as adults can. Adults are better able to predict likely outcomes or consequences, combining abstract thought and logic with intuition and life experience. This ability to think of potential outcomes is one of the hallmarks of post-formal thought, and it extends Piaget’s ideas about formal operations to the unique skills and abilities developed during emerging adulthood and adulthood. Thus, it helps people think critically, accept contradictions and ambiguity, and understand situations they’ve never experienced. Table 11.4 shows some key characteristics of post-formal thought and how they may be applied in real life.
| Cognitive Characteristic | What It Does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Flexible | Aids our ability to transfer between forms of logic, such as between abstract and concrete thought. | A person can think concretely about their favorite video game and then abstractly about how video games can be used for education or stress relief. |
| Helpful in defining problems | Allows us to describe an issue. | Students in a group project might define conflicts they have as miscommunication or a personality clash. |
| Practical | Points us to pragmatic solutions. | Someone weighing two job offers can evaluate the practical aspects of each one (e.g., commute time, work hours, benefits) to decide which one will better meet their goals. |
| Open to multiple solutions | Helps us acknowledge that most problems have more than one cause and solution and that people facing the same problem may have different goals. | A marriage counselor has to consider their clients’ individual situations and not take a “one size fits all” approach. |
| Open to paradox | Shows us that sometimes a situation that seems contradictory may work. | A student doing a term paper spends time writing an outline and researching sources before actually starting to write, enabling them to finish more efficiently than a classmate who just starts writing with no plan in mind. |
In young adulthood, we continue to use many of the cognitive abilities we acquired earlier in life. Skills like memory, perspective taking, and problem solving are still important, although we may use them for different tasks. For example, we no longer just use memory to recall information—we also use it to apply information, remembering not only facts but also how those facts can be used. Nurses must know more than what different medications do; they also have to know how medications interact, how and when they should be administered, and what a typical dosage is. This allows them to detect possible interactions and errors and provide better patient care. We also use existing problem-solving skills to address challenges of adult life, such as what to do in case of a flat tire or how to go about finding an internship for the summer.
During early adulthood, people increase their problem-solving and decision-making skills, become aware that the world is full of gray areas, and recognize that little in life is absolute. They’re better able to see that historical, cultural, and social factors play a role in events, and that different people might view the same event differently due to these factors. Thus they gain a deeper understanding of relativism , or the idea that cultural standards, values, and ethics are a product of the time and cultural context within which they developed, and what is proper, relevant, or true for one individual may not be for another. They also increase their knowledge base, gain more experience with the world and with interacting with others, become more flexible, and hone skills such as planning, prioritizing, strategizing, time management, self-control, and emotional regulation. Table 11.5 lists some cognitive skills and how they develop during early adulthood. Several types of cognitive skills improve or peak at this life stage.
| Cognitive Skill | What Happens in Early Adulthood | Example of Relevant Tasks |
|---|---|---|
| Fluid intelligence | Peaks in our 20s | A psychology student can interpret statistical information to understand a journal article. |
| Crystallized intelligence | Increases until our 40s, when it peaks | An artist can use her knowledge of different sculpture materials to determine the best one to use. |
| Working memory | Improves during our 20s and peaks around age 30 | A nurse can calculate drug dosages in his head. |
| Inhibitory control | Peaks in our 20s | A salesclerk can inhibit their impulse to argue with an unhappy customer. |
| Vocabulary | Increases until late adulthood | A therapy client can find the right words to use when expressing feelings during a session. |
| Speed of processing | Peaks in our 20s | A parent driving kids to school can react quickly to unexpected road hazards. |
Dialectical Thinking and Reflective Thought
One form of cognitive processing refined during early adulthood is dialectical thinking , the ability to remain practical, flexible, and open to the multiple factors and solutions in a given situation. Where adolescents think in absolute terms, seeing something as either good or bad, adults are more likely to realize life is full of gray areas and that an event might be a “‘double-edged” sword or a “blessing in disguise”. For example, breaking up with a romantic partner may result in someone finding a more fulfilling relationship or being able to pursue goals they’d previously put on hold. This ability to combine two opposing points of view is at the core of dialectical thinking (Figure 11.18).
Solving adult problems also requires us to constantly consider many sources of information. Reflective thought relies on logical thought processes such as continuous, active evaluation of information and beliefs using evidence and past experiences. It allows us to continually question facts, draw inferences, and make connections between different types of information (Immordino-Yang et al., 2019). It emerges between 20 and 25 years of age, coinciding with brain myelination. Higher education may also stimulate and hone reflective thinking (Sherman, 2021), as students often need to relate new information to old, think through hypothetical situations, and apply their knowledge and skills to solve unfamiliar problems and issues. For example, when learning about the country of Morocco, which is located in Northern Africa near Spain, a learner may be surprised to learn of a Middle Eastern country that is so far from the core group of countries typically associated with the Middle East. In addition, the learner will need and have the ability to hypothesize how Middler Eastern culture may take on different aspects given the distance of Morocco from the Middle East, and its close proximity to Western Europe. Similarly, changes in crystallized intelligence also occur and are believed to be mediated by both an individual’s life experiences and, for those pursuing a degree, the college courses they take (Hochberg & Konner, 2020).
Heuristics
Our thinking also becomes more efficient in early adulthood. Heuristic s are mental shortcuts that help us process information more quickly. They frequently simplify a problem or decision point and reduce the time and energy needed to come up with a solution. Because our brains are metabolically “expensive,” meaning they require a lot of energy to function, being efficient when facing mental tasks makes sense. Common heuristics are the familiarity heuristic, affect heuristic, and scarcity heuristic. All have their advantages and their downsides.
The familiarity heuristic makes us feel more comfortable with things or people we have experience with than with those we have yet to experience or meet. Often, we will choose the most comfortable or familiar option, but then we may never know whether the novel thing or person was a better choice. For example, you may buy apples every week because apples are a familiar choice, not considering less familiar fruits like mangoes, even though you might enjoy mangoes more than apples if you tried them.
The affect heuristic causes us to use emotions more than other factors when making a decision. We can also consider this similar to intuition or a “gut instinct”. Decisions we make using the affect heuristic aren’t always bad—for example, a person on a job interview “gets a bad feeling” about the way the employees interact with each other, declines a job offer, and later learns of a hostile environment lawsuit against that company. However, using the affect heuristic can also cause us to make impractical decisions, such as letting our emotions talk us into adopting a rescue dog even though our living arrangements aren’t appropriate for a dog.
Finally, the scarcity heuristic causes us to believe that the rarer or less available something is, the more valuable it is. Advertisers sometimes count on the scarcity heuristic to sell products, telling us that “quantities are limited” and we should “act now”. Unfortunately, this can cause us to waste money on things we don’t really need.
While heuristics can help us use short-cuts to make decisions, they aren’t always the best way to make a decision. An emerging adult might have ideas about what it would be like to live in a big city based on what they've seen in movies and be excited about all the activities to explore and people to meet, but not realize potential drawbacks, such as the high cost of living, traffic, pollution, and so on. Taking the time to think through a decision like moving to a new area should be done rationally and purposefully, not using a heuristic.
Problem Solving and Divergent Thinking
The use of both convergent and divergent thought to solve problems increases during early adulthood. Convergent thought uses a known solution to deal with a problem, whereas divergent thought creates a new solution. Divergent thought is closely associated with creativity because it often leads to “thinking outside the box” or creating multiple potential ways to solve a problem (Runco, 2014). Although they’re different ways of thinking, convergent and divergent thought can be used together. By combining divergent thought processes with reflective thought, and by honing convergent thought processes, people can gain a deeper understanding of a situation or problem and come up with multiple solutions. A college student who wants to make more friends could use divergent thinking to brainstorm all the possible ways they could do that (e.g., joining clubs, playing intramural sports, attending tutoring sessions) and then use convergent thinking to gather more information (e.g., what available clubs there are) and narrow down options based on factors like time commitment, interests, and other characteristics (e.g., the Chemistry Club is only for chemistry majors, rushing a fraternity would be too expensive).
Social Cognition in Early Adulthood
Social cognition is an area of psychology concerned with what people are thinking within social situations. It asks what information we keep about our previous social interactions, how we use this information in future social interactions, and how we interpret the social motives of others. In this section, we’ll consider several aspects of social cognition: Theory of mind, empathy, moral development, and prosocial behavior.
Theory of Mind and Empathy
Like many other cognitive skills, theory of mind appears in early childhood and continues to develop as we grow up. Cognitive theory of mind is the ability to draw conclusions about another person’s intentions and beliefs, and affective theory of mind is the ability to draw conclusions about another person’s feelings. In general, both types of theory of mind improve as we age (Baksh et al., 2021; Kilford & Blakemore, 2020; Velikonja et al., 2019), giving us a better ability to form connections and interact with others. Empathy also develops in early childhood and improves as we mature (Figure 11.19). As with theory of mind, we can consider both cognitive empathy (being able to adopt someone’s point of view) and affective empathy (being able to vicariously experience someone’s emotions). A potentially important component of empathy is our ability to recognize and process faces, including facial displays of emotion. Several studies have indicated that this ability improves from adolescence to emerging adulthood due to maturation of relevant parts of the brain (Gur & Gur, 2016; Kilford & Blakemore, 2020; Tousignant et al., 2016; Velikonja et al., 2019).
Moral Reasoning and Prosocial Behavior
Another theory that touches on social cognition related to our behavior is Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. Remember from earlier chapters that in Kohlberg’s theory, emerging adults are more likely than teenagers and children to use postconventional reasoning, considering broader ethical principles such as justice and fairness to make moral decisions. However, Kohlberg’s theory has some limitations, such as ignoring the interpersonal aspects of morality and focusing too much on objective justice instead of the needs of others (Miller et al., 2018). Kohlberg (1969) also felt that men advanced farther than in their moral development and viewed women as deficient in their moral reasoning abilities. These ideas met with criticism from, among others, Carol Gilligan , who was a research assistant of Kohlberg. She consequently developed her own ideas of moral development, arguing that women aren’t deficient in their moral reasoning, but rather just reason differently than men do. Specifically, Gilligan proposed that in their moral reasoning, girls and women focus more on staying connected and the importance of interpersonal relationships (Gilligan, 1982). Another criticism of the theory is that Kohlberg’s stories, such as the Heinz dilemma, were culturally biased and did not apply well to all cultures, particularly collectivistic cultures that prioritize interdependence more than independence (Jia & Krettenauer, 2017; Moheghi et al., 2020). Indeed, culture does play a role in cognitive development, as we’ll discover in the next section.
Early adulthood may mean increased moral dilemmas as well as more opportunities to behave in moral ways. Lapsley and colleagues (2023) point out that the moral dilemmas of adult life are often ambiguous and solving them requires considering multiple factors, such as avoiding harm versus doing good, the long-term consequences of the decision, and whether the punishment fits the crime. This maps onto the elements of post-formal thought described earlier. Emerging adults are also faster and more flexible in their moral decision-making than adolescents are (Padilla-Walker, 2016).
Theory of mind, empathy, and moral reasoning can all affect prosocial behavior by giving us more information we can use to help others. When we can both consider other people’s perspectives and identify with them, we can better meet their needs. Being able to consider multiple dimensions of complex moral situations enables us to make decisions that have a better chance of being beneficial. Additionally, in early adulthood we may have more opportunities and more ability to engage in prosocial behavior by, for example, voting or giving a friend a ride somewhere after their car breaks down (Padilla-Walker, 2016).
Link to Learning
How empathic are you? This video gives some interesting perspective on our experience of empathy toward people who are different from us.
Contextual and Cultural Variations in Cognition
People from different cultures approach problems differently, and they value different factors when making decisions. The way an individual forms their identity, and their cultural and societal norms and beliefs, all influence the way they process information and the development of cognitive skills in early adulthood.
Variations in Practical Thinking
In general, collectivistic cultures show a preference for a holistic style of thinking that relies on contextual information, situational attributions, low tolerance for ambiguity, and dislike of competition. Western cultures, on the other hand, tend to be more individualistic and emphasize dispositional (personality) attributions (explanations for behavior), competition, and reliance on absolute facts, with a higher tolerance for ambiguity (Grossman, 2018; Her & Haron, 2016; Rachev & Petkova, 2019). These differences appear to influence some specific aspects of cognition. For example, Rachev and Petkova discovered that Bulgarian business owners were extremely susceptible to the affect heuristic, and attributed this to a collectivistic tendency to prioritize emotional satisfaction over competition; in other words, because emotional factors are so important, they become a primary focus when making decisions (2019). A study comparing Israeli and Taiwanese children ages 4–11 found that the Israeli children demonstrated the scarcity heuristic by age 7, while the Taiwanese children never showed it. The researchers explained this difference in individualistic/collectivistic terms: When an item is viewed as scarce, members of individualistic cultures are more likely to want it because it helps them stand out, but this isn’t a priority for members of individualistic cultures (Diesendruck et al., 2018). While this is child research and not adult research, it provides more support for the idea that cultural factors may influence use of specific cognitive strategies, and that this influence may start well before adulthood.
Culture may also affect views of convergent and divergent thinking as well as creativity. Specifically, collectivistic cultures may prioritize convergent thinking over divergent thinking because it focuses on finding the “right answer” and therefore reducing uncertainty (Her & Haron, 2016). Consistent with this, Paletz and colleagues note that Eastern and Western cultures tend to define creativity somewhat differently; Eastern cultures tend to define creativity in terms of appropriateness to the context of prevailing cultural norms, while Western cultures tend to define it in terms of novelty (2018). This may influence the way people generate solutions to problems. For example, a person from a Western culture may consider all possible solutions to a problem, regardless of how feasible they are, but someone from an Eastern culture may only consider solutions that are practical (Figure 11.20).
Life circumstances other than culture can also affect adult cognition. Research comparing the use of availability heuristics in Italy and Sweden has demonstrated that while residents of both countries use these heuristics, the focus varies depending on what’s most salient to residents of those countries. Specifically, when asked to estimate the likelihood of flood, drought, and wildfires, the respondents rated as more likely the specific events that had occurred in their country most recently (Di Baldassarre et al., 2021). Thus, while the ability to use heuristics is universal, the information that we use to shape our judgments depends on experience.
Variations in Social Cognition
Specific cultural values may affect social cognition. For example, the value of familism , prevalent in Latino culture, emphasizes the importance of helping others and is related to expressed prosocial tendencies (Knight et al., 2016; 2018). A study of college students in India, Japan, and the United States found that the Japanese and American students were more likely to use exchange norm s (either repaying a debt or anticipating future benefit) when deciding whether to help a friend, while Indian students were more likely to use communal norm s (helping with no expectation of reciprocity; Miller et al., 2017). Also, a study comparing European American and Hindu Indian adults found that when evaluating the reasons why a person did something (e.g., didn’t help someone in need), European American participants tended to attribute this behavior to personality characteristics (e.g., being selfish), while Hindu Indian participants tended to attribute it to contextual factors (e.g., not wanting to be late for work; Miller et al., 2018). This suggests that while the ability to consider others’ inner states is common across cultures, there may be cultural differences in what people prioritize when making those judgments Figure 11.21.
Contextual factors other than culture may also be relevant. For example, people who experience autism spectrum disorder have more difficulty than neurotypical people on tasks requiring theory of mind (e.g., Baksh et al., 2021; Sasson et al., 2019), although this may depend to some extent on underlying general intellectual ability (Sasson et al., 2019). Also, when asked to explain their motivation for performing prosocial acts, people with autism spectrum disorder tend to provide egocentric answers (“I’m nice”) instead of answers that indicate larger understanding of social norms (“It’s important to help people”; Baksh et al., 2021).
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