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126 Development of thinking
Thus, adolescents can understand and develop theories and participate in
societal questions and ideologies of adults. This is often motivated by the
wish to change – or, hypothetically, to destroy – society in order to create a
better one.
Complex thinking
Thinking in formal operations is more complex than in concrete operations.
Thinking in concrete operations tends to focus on one aspect of a thing – usually,
the most obvious one – whereas formally operational thinkers are more likely to
see a variety of aspects of an idea or situation. Complex thinking is necessary to
understand a metaphor or sarcasm. Metaphors are complex because they have
more than one meaning. Poems and novels are replete with metaphors – so to
speak, they have a second, less obvious meaning. One example from T.S. Eliot’s
poem “A Dedication to My Wife” (1957a):
No peevish winter wind shall chill
No sullen tropic sun shall wither
The roses in the rose garden which is ours and ours only.
Here, the concrete level is embodied in the hard conditions of the rose garden
in winter, but this image has a second meaning as well: the poet’s optimism
that the love between him and his second wife will survive life’s vicissitudes –
as the roses do. In this case, it was a “May -December romance”, since Eliot’s
second wife Valerie, his secretary at Faber & Faber, was 38 years younger than
he was. Eliot thought that with Valerie he could be happy for the first time in
his life.
Adolescents can comprehend such complex meanings. Children have no
clue. When children and adolescents are questioned regarding a metaphor,
their divergence in understanding becomes clear. The saying “One bad apple
spoils the barrel” was presented for interpretation to both children and ado-
lescents. An 11 -year -old wrote, “There is a big barrel of apples, and a woman
picks up one bad one out that is rotten, and there are worms in it, and the
worms go to all the other apples”. An adolescent wrote, “One bad comment
can spoil the entire conversation” (Duthie et al. 2008, quoted in Arnett and
Hughes 2012, 87).
Pre
-adolescents also have similar difficulties in understanding sarcastic
remarks such as “That’s a nice dress” or “Your new haircut looks great”. Is this
only meant literally as a compliment, or does it mean its opposite? Adolescents
love TV shows that are ironic and sarcastic, such as The Simpsons, or magazines
such as MAD. Their conversations are often marked by irony and sarcasm, such
as when text messages imitate the formal language of adults, including salutations
and “Yours truly” – even though they find these funny.
Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence
The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents
- Titel
- Psychoanalytic Perspectives on Puberty and Adolescence
- Untertitel
- The Inner Worlds of Teenagers and their Parents
- Autor
- Gertraud Diem-Wille
- Verlag
- Routledge
- Datum
- 2021
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- CC BY 4.0
- ISBN
- 978-1-003-14267-6
- Abmessungen
- 16.0 x 24.0 cm
- Seiten
- 292
- Kategorien
- International
- Medizin