Bridging Paradigms: Positive Development In Adulthood And Cognitive Aging

This volume examines positive development across adulthood with particular emphasis on postformal thought. The editors acknowledge that researchers have compiled a substantial body of descriptive evidence about the styles of thinking used by adults under certain conditions. The questions that remain are whether these styles reflect qualitative changes; how these styles develop; whether there are necessary precursors; why there is content specificity; what the relationship is to physiological or neurological development; whether adults can deliberately control postformal thought; how postformal thought develops in different cultures; what key developmental experiences, if any, are needed for postformal thought to develop; and what postformal thought means in a practical sense.

These questions are addressed by the research and theory discussed in this volume. The contributors reflect a diversity of backgrounds assumptions, disciplines, and methods. Postformal thought and its correlates are described from physiological, psychological, sociological, anthropological, and clinical perspectives.

JAN D. SINNOTT is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for the Study of Adult Development at Towson State University. / She is a well-known researcher on lifespan cognitive development and publishes frequently on aging, sex roles, and adult development. She edited Everyday Problem Solving (Praeger, 1989) and co-edited Adult Development, Volumes 1 and 2 (Praeger, 1989 and 1990). She is co-editor of an upcoming book entitled Everyday Memory.

JOHN C. CAVANAUGH is Professor of Psychology at Bowling Green State University and Director of the Institute for Psychological Research and Application. He is also Director for Behavioral Research at the Northwest Ohio Dementia and Memory Center at the Medical College of Ohio in Toledo. His research interests include: cognitive aging in everyday life, self-evaluations of cognition and stress and coping processes in caregivers of Alzheimer's disease patients. He authored Adult Development and Aging.