Psychological Sciences
Education and Behavioral Sciences
Ph.D. - West Virginia University, Life-Span Developmental Psychology
M.A. - West Virginia University, Life-Span Developmental Psychology
B.A. - St. Bonaventure University, Psychology
Paul Klaczynski has been on faculty in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Northern Colorado since 2007.
My research focuses on the development of critical thinking and the effects of beliefs
stereotypes on children's, adolescents', and
adults' decisions, judgments, and reasoning. Within this broad area, I am interested
in several specific belief systems—including, but
not limited to, beliefs about gender, occupations, and obesity—and how reliance on
erroneous beliefs and stereotypes leads to biased
reasoning and judgments (known as "motivated," "belief-based," and "critical thinking"
reasoning biases).
The focus of several recent studies has been on "developmental reversals": Counterintuitive
age trends wherein children reason and
make better judgments than adolescents and adults. We have found that, when adolescent
and adults reason and make decisions,
they often rely on misleading beliefs, stereotypes, and unreliable hearsay information,
but children based their thinking on more reliable
statistical (numerical) evidence. As a consequence, children are—at least under certain
conditions—better critical thinkers. This line of
research has led to an interest in identifying individual differences variables that
let us predict which adolescents and adults reason
best. Our findings indicate that adolescents and adults who are (a) more flexible
thinkers, (b) have greater "metacognitive
awareness" (for example, attend to their answers and strive for consistency), and
(c) focus more on numerical than on social
evidence typically perform well. These findings do not diminish the importance of
the developmental reversals we have found; instead,
they have allowed us to show that children only outperform adults (and adolescents)
whose beliefs are entrenched and who are unable
(or unwilling) to consider different perspectives and ways of thinking.
We have studied developmental reversals in domains relevant to contemporary social
issues including (but not limited to), gender,
juvenile delinquency, career decisions, and obesity. In two recent studies of judgments
regarding gender and obese peers, our team
has found what appears to be an age-related increase in the "metacognitive gap." In
evaluating the judgments they made of different
stereotype-relevant problems, children's evaluations correspond closely to their actual
responses. However, despite being more likely to
respond incorrectly, adolescents and adults are also more likely to believe that they
based their responses on sound logic. This is
what I have called the "metacognitive gap"—a contradiction in "thinking about one's
own thinking" that, under some conditions,
increases with age. This phenomenon reveals a developmental pattern difficult to explain
on the basis on most theories of critical
thinking and cognitive development.
Related to this research, I have also conducted several investigations of cross-cultural
similarities and differences in preschoolers',
children's, and adolescents' perceptions of gender, obesity, and dieting/body image
discrepancies, and how these perceptions relate to
numeracy and open-mindedness.
The core of my teaching philosophy is straightforward: Regardless of whether it is
geared toward memorization, improvements in critical
thinking, or both, learning is an active process that evolves in, and interacts with,
the subcultures of a university and its classrooms. I
rely on an apprenticeship metaphor of teaching and see students are “novices” at various
levels of preparedness for acquiring the
“tools” of my trade. Through appropriate scaffolding, active guidance, encouragement
to engage in self-initiated learning activities, and
individualized feedback, I hope to assist learners construct increasingly higher-order
understandings of topical material. An essential
goal of facilitating the construction of these understandings is that their use is
not tightly tied to the classroom; rather, students’
knowledge constructions should be sufficiently abstract that they transfer to other
arenas (e.g., other classes, interactions with children,
etc.).
The effective teacher should therefore engage the intellectual curiosity of students
by creating an atmosphere of dialogue in which
students are guided toward increasingly accurate understandings of the "trade" and
toward applying those understandings beyond the
walls of the classroom. Active participation on both the teacher's and the student's
part is essential as knowledge and understanding
are created. Teaching thus represents the nexus of teacher, student, context, and
course material.
Over the course of multiple interactions, students are challenged by the teacher and
guided in their thinking through appropriate
feedback and a willingness to openly contemplate issues. In the ideal, the emergent
outcome of this dialog is an active, independent
learner—a student who is interested in the pursuit of knowledge, who understands the
constructive nature of knowledge and knowing,
and who strives toward achieving these goals without direct tuition.
Holland, J. D., & Klaczynski, P. A. (2009). Intuitive decision making during adolescence.
The Prevention Researcher, 16,
8-11.
Klaczynski, P. A. (2009). Cognitive and social cognitive development: Dual-process
research and theory. J. B. St. T. Evans
& K. Frankish (Eds.), In two minds: Psychological and philosophical theories of dual processing (pp. 265-292). Oxford, UK:
Oxford University Press.
Klaczynski, P. A., Daniel, D, B., & Keller, P. S. (2009). Appearance idealization,
body esteem, causal attributions, and ethnic
variations in the development of obesity stereotypes. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 30, 537-551.
Amsel, E., Klaczynski, P. A., Johnston, A., Bench, S., Close, J., Sadler, E., & Walker,
R. (2008). A dual-process account of the
development of scientific reasoning: The nature and development of metacognitive intercession
skills. Cognitive Development,
23, 451-471.
Klaczynski, P. A. (2008). There’s something about obesity: Culture, contagion, rationality,
and children’s responses to drinks
‘‘created’’ by obese children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 99, 58-74.
Klaczynski, P. A., & Lavallee, K. L. (2005). Reasoning biases as mediators of the
relationship between cognition and identity:
A dual-process perspective. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 92, 1-24.
Jacobs, J. E., & Klaczynski, P. A. (Eds.) (2005). The development of decision making in children and adolescents. Mahwah,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Klaczynski, P. A. (2005). Metacognition and cognitive variability: A two-process model
of decision making and its
development. In J. E. Jacobs & P. A. Klaczynski (Eds.), The development of decision making in children and adolescents (pp.
39-76). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Klaczynski, P. A. (2004). A dual-process model of adolescent development: Implications
for decision making, reasoning, and
identity. In R. V. Kail (Ed.), Advances in child development and behavior, vol. 31 (pp. 73-123). San Diego, CA: Academic
Press.
Klaczynski, P. A., & Cottrell, J. E. (2004). A dual-process approach to cognitive
development: The case of children’s
understanding of sunk cost decisions. Thinking & Reasoning, 10, 147-174.
Klaczynski, P. A., Goold, K. W., & Mudry, J. J. (2004). Culture, obesity stereotypes,
self-esteem, and the “thin ideal”: A social
identity perspective. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 33, 307-317.
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