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Originally Posted by Rhianne
(Post 749673)
I don't understand the rioters at all but then nor I can't understand why people would choose to live in what seems, to me, to be the ultimate shit-hole.
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Good luck with this explaination.
Why an adolescent does something and why those girls just blame the rich may be two completely different reasons. The concept is called epistemology. As an adolescent enters Level 3, abstract reasoning and metacognitive abilities emerge. An adolescent should grow out of this Level and into Level 4 by high school. Should learn how different truths have perspectives. How some beliefs are more valid that others. Unfortunately many adolescents never graduate to that stage of cognitive development until their twenties or older.
Rice and Dolgin describe this in their book The Adolescent:
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Once adolescents enter the formal operations stage, they become either dogmatists or skeptics, at least in the short run. Boyes and Chandler see these opposite types as being rooted in the same awareness that truth is always constructed and that facts are open to multiple and valid interpretations. This is an unsettling revelation at best, and adolescents feel beset by uncertainty. They wonder: "if you can't tell the truth from the false, if you cannot be certain who is right and who is wrong, how can you make good choices?"
Skeptical adolescents react to this uncertainty by rejecting rationality. The take the attitude that if they cannot be certain bout what to do or whom to believe, then all opinions and positions are equally valid and they don't have to listen to any (or to anyone in particular). They lose respect for authority and have little patience for those who parade around as experts. Because they have lost faith in logic, these adolescents behave impulsively (without reasoning through situations), intuitively (doing what their emotions, rather than their logic, tells them to do), and indifferently (without attempting to choose a good course of action, "going with the flow"). They are apt to conform to others, letting the majority make their decisions for them, and they become rebellious or disengaged.
In contrast to skeptics, dogmatists flee from their uncertainty, rigidly clinging to one set of beliefs. They are intolerant of other views because they find them threatening, and they do not want to question their own beliefs. They conform to the views of those they have chosen as allies. They insist that their way of thinking is right and that any who disagree with them are wrong.
Whereas skeptics believe that anyone who believes too deeply in anything is foolish, dogmatists believe that anyone who espouses something different than they do is misguided. Clearly neither of these reasonings is desirable. Boyes and Chandler view skepticism and dogmatism as short-term costs associated with entry into formal operations. Again, many people never outgrow this stage of reasoning.
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Formal operation is the fourth and last stage of cognitive development that starts about 11 or 12 years of age. Formal operation involves four Levels. However some adolescent are late or never fully achieve Level four abilities. These rioters are typical of those who never get beyond Level 3. Who remain at the skeptical or dogmatic stage. Resulting emotions are triggered by environmental conditions that must be defined to understand their otherwise irrational behavior.
Their illogical explanation of ‘why’ is based in their interpretations of what they only understand: their emotions. Our understanding means understanding what triggered their emotions.
Grasping the hard realities of logic come later during Level 4. Postskeptical rationalism is when some beliefs are finally understood to be more valid than others. The ability to understand perspectives. Some never achieve that cognitive level until at least their twenties. Remain victims of their own emotions. |
