Postformal Thought and Neo-Piagetian Perspectives

Abstract

Neo-piagetian researchers who expande piaget's work consider that formal thinking is not the last stage of intellectual development, and propose the existence of postformal operations. In the last decades the study of postformal thought promises to be a contribution to the progress in psychogenetic research on potential cognitive development in adulthood. The development of postformal and dialectical thinking is the key to the explanation of adaptive cognitive functioning in advanced age, and as it expands the cognitive structures of the subject, it favors a resolution of complex situations, which implies a higher-order cognitive balance. This adaptive capacity of postformal operations can have a  compensatory effect against The neurodegenerative process in aging. The interest of the present review is to recognize and clarify the main attempts to systematize postformal thinking in the theoretical proposals of psychogenetic research most recognized by the scientific community.