Post-Formal Operations? A Need for Further Conceptualization

Several conceptualizations of cognitive development in adulthood have recently been advanced within a Piagetian framework. While each is unique, there are three shared features: (1) the realization of the relativistic, non-absolute nature of knowledge; (2) an acceptance of contradiction, and (3) integration of contradiction into an overriding whole. Formal operational thought shares with Pepper’s 1942 analytic world views the assumptions of independence of variables and underlying stability, while post-formal operational thought shares with the synthetic world views the assumptions of interdependence of variables and change as basic to reality. Nevertheless, no one has demonstrated that formal operational structures are unable to account for relativistic and dialectical forms of thought. The best distinction between formal and post-formal operational thought may lie in their differential emphases on stability versus change and independence versus interdependence of variables. Both formal and post-formal operational individuals may display surface behaviors which appear relativistic and dialectical in nature, yet which reflect these different underlying assumptions about the origin of change and contradiction. Attention should be directed toward specifying the form of the developmental sequence from formal to post-formal operational thought, since development may be nonlinear in nature, and alternative paths toward post-formal operations may be possible.