Journal of Education and Psychology

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the general development trajectory of postformal thinking beliefs. Subjects were 644 people, ranging from late adolescence to adulthood (age 16 to 80 years). A questionnaire was used as a data collection tool for the confirmatory research. Planned-contrasts and the testing of percentage difference were used for data analysis. The results were as follows: (1) The developmental timing of relativistic thinking was later than the timing of formalistic thinking, the developmental timing of dialectical thinking was later than the timing of relativistic thinking; (2) The percentage of formalistic thinkers in the late adolescence age group (16-23 years) was higher than the early adulthood age group’s (24-40 years) and the middle, late adulthood age group’s (41-80 years), the percentage of relativistic thinkers in the early adulthood age group was higher than the middle, late adulthood age group’s, the percentage of dialectical thinkers in the middle, late adulthood age group was higher than the late adolescence age group’s and the early adulthood age group’s. The author discusses the possible reasons of the research findings and also proposed suggestions on future research

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