A number of college students in forensic debate may be deterred from debating broad topics due to a lack of appropriate cognitive development and a perception of unacceptable certainty. These students have failed to develop formal thinking patterns because they lack reinforcing experiences in reasoning at that level. A sequenced pattern of…

Presents the major assumptions of cognitive-developmental theory on social reasoning processes. Provides a selective review of research on social reasoning in various domains and discusses implications of the cognitive-developmental analysis of social reasoning for argumentation theory. (JMF)

To examine the relationship between children's social-cognitive status and the production of persuasive arguments and to determine the effects of age and the channel of communication on these arguments, 16 first grade, 17 third grade, and 16 fifth grade students were asked to produce both oral and written persuasive messages and were administered…