the involved manners wherein adults structure their thinking based upon the complex nature of adult life. It is a further development upon Jean Piaget's concept of formal operations, that are cultivated in adolescence to adult cognition, and comprises a comprehension of the relative, nonabsolute nature of insight- an approval of contradiction as a basic factor of reality- the capacity to break down contrasting ideas, emotions, and encounters into more concise, all-encompassing wholes- and the capacity to solve both ill-and well-defined dilemmas.