The Psychology of Adolescence: The Case of Kate

In Robert Cormier's (1979, p. 117) novel, After the First Death, a central character is an 18 year-old woman named Kate who "was not heroic, her life had not been a rehearsal for heroic deeds." Filling in as a substitute driver on a bus transporting young children, Kate experiences a traumatic encounter with determined terrorists at whose hands she ultimately dies. In this brief report, Kate's identity crises will be examined within the descriptive framework of cognitive development proposed by Jean Piaget.

Piaget (1958) described the last stage of cognitive development, attained at about the age of 15, formal operational thought. He asserted that at this point, an adolescent begins to build systems or theories in the largest sense of the term about philosophy, morality, love, and the world at large. In the case of Kate, the initial realization that she has become part of a terrorist attack leads her to experience shock, revulsion, and then terror (Cormier, 1979).

Initially, Kate attempts to "gather her strength and c