Relationships, especially close relationships, are among the most important aspects of life for most of us. Close relationships reach to the very heart of our happiness --but exactly what processes or skills, over the course of a lifetime, help us learn to relate to one another more and more deeply, and to grow past the differences and problems that might divide us? Adult Development applies the concept of complex postformal thought in order to explore how certain cognitive processes support individuals' close relationships such that those relationships grow stronger and richer over time. Complex postformal thought allows a person to deal with everyday logical contradictions by letting that person understand that "reality" and "meaning" are co-created. In this way, postformal thought enables adults to bridge two contradictory but logical positions and reach an adaptive synthesis of them through a higher-order logic. Taking this inquiry a step further, Sinnott examines the role played by postformal thought in intimate relationships -- those between spouses, partners, parents and children, siblings, and close friends. Sinnott argues that postformal thought seems to develop later in life and is somewhat akin to the concept of wisdom. Based on 30 years of research, this book diverges from typical contributions to this field by discussing positive adult development in the context of close relationships. Rather than focusing on the emergence of deficits of adulthood and particularly aging, Sinnott instead explores the cognitive processes that are important in creating and sustaining close ongoing relationships.

Adult Development: Cognitive Aspects of Thriving Close Relationships

Politics & Social Sciences

Sinnott, Jan D.

Sociology

Oxford University Press

Psychological, educational, gerontological, marketing, and other literatures all report recent research in everyday problem solving, yet few sources have made these various types of results available in one state-of-the-art volume. Everyday Problem Solving makes accessible many of these points of view for all readers, coordinates them, and provides directions from which to formulate new studies. The wide but methodical scope of this work will interest researchers, clinicians, philosophers, marketing specialists, administrators, artificial intelligence scientists, educators, guidance counselors and psychologists. Undergraduate and graduate students in these fields will also find this an invaluable source.
The collection of reports includes an examination of models from information processing theory and postformal cognitive developmental theory, and an overview of the tasks used in everyday problem solving research. Several leading theories, including Sinnott's, are applied to describe the thoughts and emotions of adults as they solve illstructured problems. Reports on applied research include: techniques of master teachers; the ways adults resolve conflicts; consumer behavior; academic intelligence; the connection of memory to problem solving; intervention strategies and the elderly.

Everyday Problem Solving: Theory and Applications

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Psychology & Counseling

Praeger

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.

Bridging Paradigms: Positive Development in Adulthood and Cognitive Aging

Cavanaugh, John C.

In this book Jan D. Sinnott synthesizes her 20 years of research on lifespan cognitive development to describe the growth of complex (or `postformal') thought in adults. She shows specifically how adults improve mentally over a lifetime and learn to think in more complex and wiser ways. Applications of postformal thought are demonstrated in such diverse areas as - family relations - adult education - personal identity - and spirituality. Chapters examine relations between postformal thought and pertinent variables such as age, health, memory, and vocabulary. Other sections deal with issues in humanistic psychology such as - guided imagery - mind - body medicine - and creative intentionality.

The Development of Logic in Adulthood: Postformal Thought and Its Applications (The Springer Series in Adult Development and Aging)

Mental Health

Springer

This interdisciplinary handbook is the first to provide an overview of research and theory about formal and informal adult learning. Jan Sinnott and a team of experts from different fields analyze and synthesize the state of the art today--how mature and aging adults learn and what their motivations are. This major reference examines important theories and models, learning in specific life contexts, the influence of aging on learning, and the future of adult lifespan learning. Extensive reference materials have been developed for students, teachers, policymakers, and practitioners to use in the fields of gerontology, psychology, education, and counseling.

Interdisciplinary Handbook of Adult Lifespan Learning

Social Sciences

Greenwood

This book is for professors, administrators, government officials, and every part of global society that has a stake in higher education or the problems faced by humanity today. It is also for students, their families, and communities who want a different performance from institutions of higher education. Its purpose is to start, stimulate, and encourage a dialogue about higher education and the way it is experienced today. We have attempted to do more than give some absolute model, wanting to provide mechanisms for ongoing dialogue-based transformation. The dialogue begins with the offering of a model of the way higher education could be reinvented. This model is built on certain assumptions about learning, work, and the environment and purpose of higher education. Within these parameters, it is acknowledged that this model is only one out of a possible hundred different ways to get to the same place.

Reinventing the University: A Radical Proposal for a Problem-Focused University (Contemporary Studies in Social and Policy Issues in Education: The David C. Anch)

Education & Teaching

Johnson, Lynn

Higher & Continuing Education

Reinventing the University: A Radical Proposal for a Problem-Focused University (Social and Policy Issues in Education)

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