Question

Political movements often are led by a combination of late adolescents or young adults and older adults. According to cognitive-developmental theory, why would this tend to be the case?

Answer 1

According to Piaget and Kohlberg’s theory of cognitive moral development, adolescents and young adults are at a stage of life where they are concerned with establishing an identity of their own as unique individuals who nonetheless experience feeling sof belongingness towards a group such a strong their peers, interpersonal relationships, religious or ethnic community, gender, political movements etc. more important is the fact that their identity negotiations are influenced by the level of their cognitive reasoning and thinking about morally pertinent issues in their lives. Thus, unlike the earlier stage of childhood, adolescents and adults have more interpersonal engagements with others and the are able to look at things from a universal ethical reasoning rather than their own egocentric beliefs about ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. Thus, it is after adoescence that moral values such as ‘justice’, ‘equality’, etc. begin to acquire more volume and depth and therefore adolescents and young and older adults are more likely to partipate in political and other mass movements from the perspective of cognitive developmental approach.