Need an argumentative essay on Cognitive Development Throughout the Lifespan. Needs to be 5 pages. Please no plagiarism.Download file to see previous pages... Specifically, this paper will offer an ov

Need an argumentative essay on Cognitive Development Throughout the Lifespan. Needs to be 5 pages. Please no plagiarism.

Specifically, this paper will offer an overview of the development of each, detail what enhances each and slows decline in each, then compare the three domains to one another with regards to these factors. Intelligence Intelligence development, according to Butterfield (1986) is fostered whenever the individual is posed a problem for which a solution is not presented or readily known, especially if the solution is typically acquired at a later age (Butterfield, 1986, p. 47). Intelligent action is a part of this development, and intelligent action consists of an interaction of base knowledge, strategies, metacognitive understanding and executive routines. These processes combine to form the basis for intelligent action, according to Butterfield (1986). Butterfield also states that any one of these factors cannot account for intelligent action, in that all four actions combine to produce intellectual development and active intelligence (p. 48). Thus, intelligence develops in solving problems which have been uniquely presented to the individual, especially if these problems are above the present cognitive abilities and level of the individual. Moreover, intelligence has many domains, according to Carroll (1986). Carroll sees intelligence as embracing three domains – academic and technical. practical and social (Carroll, 1986, p. 51). The academic domain of intelligence encompasses schoolwork, professions and occupations. The practical domain of intelligence encompasses everyday issues regarding one’s daily affairs, planning a life’s work, making a living and planning a course of action. Social intelligence deals with the interactions with others. Problems arise in each of these domains – social, academic, and practical, and Carroll states that intelligence dictates how one is able to solve these problems successfully (Carroll, 1986, p. 51). As for what environmental and inborn factors enhance the development of intelligence, the classic debate is whether intelligence is a result of nature or nurture. Seligman (1992) states that, while the debate is indeed complex and fraught with passions and peril, there is one issue on which all serious scholars agree – there is not a single gene which shapes one’s intelligence. The scholars who believe in the hereditability of intelligence state that 50,000 different genes are responsible for the shaping of intelligence. That said, the rest of the debate is steeped with passion, simply because humans need to believe that everybody has equal inborn ability. This has been the underpinning of democracy, and humans also have a need to believe that inequalities may be reversed with the proper amount of nurture. On the other hand, the nature side of the argument implies a less than egalitarian society. Still, certain experts do state that intelligence is largely inherited, and some scholars believe that the inheritability factor of intelligence is up to .7 – which means that 70 percent of intelligence is inherited (nature), and 30 percent is nurture (Seligman, 1992, p. 74). Indeed, one study bears out the notion that intelligence might be more the result of nurture. This study concerned Tennessee mountain children who were tested in 1930 and 1940. The kids tested in 1940 tested 10 points higher than the kids in 1930.