take your learning a step further by testing your criticalthinking skills on this pattern recognition exercise. Post yourresponses here.

When we progress to higher levels of cognitive functioning, wedo not spend all our time at these higher levels. Piaget himselfonce observed that he spent only a fraction of each day in formaloperational thought processes. This suggests that even as adults,we do not entirely leave preoperational thought behind.

To help you understand preoperational thought processes inchildren, see if you can recognize examples or traces ofpreoperational thought in everyday adult behavior in the itemsbelow. Identify the characteristic of preoperational thought thatthey illustrate.

1. Following an especially heated argument with an elderlyrelative, you shout that you would like nothing better than to havehim get out of your life for good. Several days later your relativedies, leaving you feeling intensely guilty that you caused hisdeath.

2. Your roommate complains that you are a sucker for deceptivepackaging in the grocery store because you always choose tallerbottles and cans over shorter, wider ones.

3. A friend from high school started an Internet businessseveral years ago and has become one of the wealthiest, mostsuccessful entrepreneurs in the nation. Whenever you see her, youtalk about her business ventures and fantasize about her materialsuccess, imagining her house, her car, she hired help. (“What mustit be like to live in such luxury” is the way you put it.)

4. One day you learn that this same wealthy friend has becomeactive in a community organization that serves the mentallychallenged and their parents. You are told that her work withmentally challenged children consumes most of her weekends and asubstantial part of her income and that she lives in modestcircumstances. You find this hard to believe, and you suspect thatsomehow she is profiting from her involvement.