Features of Social Dilemmas Solving in Older Adolescents with Different Levels of Intellectual Abilities ¹¹³³

We discuss one of the aspects of social competence formation in older teens relevant in the light of the requirements of the second generation of Federal Educational Standards. The general hypothesis: Features of reasoning and decision-making in senior teenagers in social dilemmas are related to the level of their intellectual abilities and have sex specificity. The subject of the study was the relationship of intellectual abilities of students in grades 9-10 (N = 115, 65% were girls, 35% were boys) and their activity and critical reasoning, categorical position in solving social dilemmas. We revealed that verbal intelligence in older adolescents is positively related to criticality argument. Verbal intelligence relationship with the activity of reasoning and categorical position on social dilemmas was gender-specific. Girls with higher verbal intelligence have higher activity and low categorical reasoning; boys have higher categorical position. We conclude that verbal intellectual abilities are the cognitive basis of the processes of social cognition in older teens.

Keywords: late adolescence, intelligence, social cognition, social dilemmas, reasoning, decision making, active reasoning, critical reasoning, categorical position

Column: Developmental Psychology

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17759/pse.2015200205