Explores how art education can enhance the mental abilities and educational needs of older adults. Maintains that the postformal operations development stage may be helpful in art studies. Suggests that older adults could study the meaning of their life experience as well as their place in culture. (KM)

The developmental trend from overall-similarity to dimensional-identity classifications is explained by a quantitative model. The model provides good qualitative fits to the extant data. Three experiments examining classifications in 120 2- to 8-year-olds and in 20 undergraduates support specific new claims of the model. (TJH)

Outlines theoretical issues associated with the presupposition that sociocognitive features of maturity can potentially generate worthwhile learning. Reviews recent research into the impact of adult-education-certified courses on mature students' sense of identity that supports claims for continued adult learning. Links are made to lifelong moral…

As an introduction to exploring the possibilities of an inservice plan to facilitate teacher cognitive development, the theories of educational philosophers and developmental psychologists are cited in arriving at a broad definition of the cognitive development of adults. From these theories it is surmised that teachers do operate at different…

The Piagetian perspective of adult cognitive development and adult education could have implications for how work and formal reasoning can be related to adult education programs and policy. During adolescence and adulthood, many individuals enter the cognitive period of formal operations (the last of three stages in Piaget's conceptual framework…

Interactions between metaphor comprehension and level of operational thought were examined to determine what advantages individuals at the formal operational level had in natural language tasks such as the understanding of figurative language. After 30 undergraduate students were classified as either late concrete, early formal, or late formal…

The growth of individuals participating in community problem solving activities within a rural setting was the focus of this study. Using grounded theory methodology, data was obtained from literature, interviews with participants in four rural community problem solving groups, and one participant-observation study of a rural community problem…

Why do some teachers demonstrate great cultural sensitivity in their work with children while others seem mired in stereotypes, perpetuating a view of diversity as exotic or denying that race is an issue in their classrooms? Why is it so difficult to change these dispositions of teachers? And what can we do in teacher education to further the…

Three types of lay theories about the social world form a developmental sequence. Earlier developing theories are reorganized at the next level into a more inclusive, encompassing view of the world in order to make better predictions. The absolute thinker sees the world as fixed and unchanging, reasons with absolute rules, and has a narrow world…

This paper discusses the concept of a family system in terms of an interactive system of interrelated, interdependent parts and suggests that VHS movies can act as perturbations, i.e., change promoting agents, for certain dysfunctional family systems. Several distinct characteristics of a family system are defined with particular emphasis on…

This paper presents a model of cognitive development across the life span that is designed to integrate the diverse empirical evidence in the area of cognitive development in childhood and adulthood. Relevant research is reviewed in the relationships between performance and age, and the effects of training on performance. A model is then proposed…

This special issue of the Mensa Research Journal contains four papers written by K. Warner Schaie, a psychologist who focuses on psychological development from young adulthood through old age. The first paper is "Living with Gerontology." In it, Schaie recounts his own childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood, his path to becoming a…

Social cognition of adults, unlike children's social understanding, has rarely been addressed from a developmental viewpoint. To extend the developmental perspective to the study of adults' social cognitive skills in relation to other mental and social skills, 52 college students were compared in role taking performance and nonsocial cognitive…

Midlife crises require different behavioral responses for women who have made decisions about marriage, motherhood, and career. For women experiencing midlife crises, assertiveness training has the potential to resolve conflicts. Assertiveness training (AT) consists of three components, i.e., skills training, anxiety reduction, and cognitive…

This paper describes a university course on counseling women designed to provide an integration of: (1) a general cognitive understanding of women along psychological, physiological, sociological, and developmental dimensions; (2) a recognition and understanding of cognitive-developmental theory as a framework within which to counsel women; and…