Formal Operational Stage

The formal operational stage is the fourth and final stage of cognitive development in Piaget's theory. This stage, which follows the Concrete Operational stage, commences at around 11 or 12 years of age (puberty) and continues into adulthood. In this stage, individuals move beyond concrete experiences and begin to think abstractly, reason logically, and draw conclusions from the information available as well as apply all these processes to hypothetical situations.
Definition -The formal operational stage (Piaget, 1927) begins at about age 11. As adolescents enter this stage, they gain the ability to think in an abstract manner, the ability to combine and classify items in a more sophisticated way, and the capacity for higher-order reasoning

Article - At about the age of twelve, our brains function at a higher level known as formal operational stage. During this stage, people shift from understanding concrete, logical material to more intangible concepts. Individuals begin to comprehend hypothetical situations, scientific thinking such as deducing and higher levels of logic such as systematic reasoning. Systematic thinking involves testing the different possible pathways and predicting both the outcome of a solution and the consequences through logic. An example of this would be if a child is given a broken toy – a child in concrete operational stage may alter multiple aspects of the toy, aimlessly adjusting the parts; whereas a child in formal operational stage will alter one piece at a time indicating that they understand the relationship between the different parts.  Another large aspect of this stage of cognitive development includes understanding complex reversibility. For example: a child may understand the joke – What is both a fish and goldfish? A goldfish. Formal operational thinkers can easily answer this question – but scientists argue that so can most 7-year-olds.