Formal Operations

• 11 years old
• Children became capable of formal reasoning - meaning that children become able to focus on the form of an argument and not be distracted by its content
• Formal reasoning can be tested by means of syllogisms - 'all yellow cats have two heads. I have a yellow cat. How many heads does it have?' - 'two'

  Younger children became distracted by the content and answered that cats do not have two heads
• Once children can reason formally, they are capable of scientific reasoning and become able to appreciate abstract ideas