Developmental Psychology

Chapter 11

1. Nature of Adolescence

Adolescence

•1904 G. Stanley Hall: “Storm-and-Stress” view that adolescence is turbulent time charged

with conflict and mood swings

•1988 Daniel Offer & Colleagues: self images of adolescences in US, Australia,

Bangladesh, Hungary etc. at least 75% displayed healthy self image. Were happy and

enjoyed life, perceived themselves to exercise self-control, valued work and school, feel

confident about sexual selves, expressed positive feelings towards their families

•Many adults measure current perceptions of adolescences by their memories of their own

adolescents

•Most adolescents negotiate the lengthy path to adult maturity successfully, but too large a

group does not (Lerner, Roeser&Phelps, 2009)

•Ethnic, cultural, gender, socioeconomic, age & lifestyle differences influence actually life

trajectory of every adolescent

2. Physical Changes

Adolescence

PUBERTY

PUBERTY: period of rapid physical maturation involving hormonal and bodily changes that

occurs primarily during early adolescence

Sexual Maturation, Height and Weight

•Male pubertal characteristics typically develop in this order: increase in genital size,

appearance of straight pubic hair, voice change, first ejaculation

•Female pubertal characteristics: breast enlarge, pubic hair, grows in height and hips

become wider

MENARCHE: girl’s first menstruation (comes rather late in pubertal years.

•Growth spurt occurs 2 years earlier for girls (11.5 years old)

Hormonal Changes

HORMONES: powerful chemical substances secreted by the endocrine glands and

carried through the body by the bloodstream.

•Testosterone: hormone associated in boys with development of genitals, an increase in

height and change in voice

•Estradiol: type of estrogen, in girls, associated with breast, uterine, and skeletal

development

•Testosterone levels increased 18 folds in boys but only 2 folds in girls during puberty.

Estradiol increased 8 folds in girls but 2 folds in boys

•Boys (9-14) with higher concentration of testosterone in boys rated themselves as more

socially competent

•Hormonal effect does not only account for adolescent development

•In one study, social factors were better predictors of young adolescent girls’ depression

and anger than hormonal factors

•Hormone-behavior link is complex

2. Physical Changes

Adolescence

Time and Variations in Puberty

•US children mature up to a year earlier than children in EU countries

•The basic genetic program for puberty is wired into the species but nutrition, health, and

other environmental factors also affect puberty’s timing and makeup

•Boys: begin as early as 10 years old and as 13.5 years old, end as early as 13 years old

and as late as 17 years old

•Girls, around 9-15 years old

•African American girls develop earlier than non-Latino White girls

PRECOCIOUS PUBERTY: describes the very early onset and rapid progression of

puberty

•Judith Blakemore; precocious puberty is usually diagnosed when the onset of puberty

happens before 8 years of age in girls and before 9 years of age in boys

•Precocious puberty is treated by medically suppressing gonadotropic secretions, which

temporarily halts pubertal change

•For children under these treatments, they will have short stature, early sexual capability

and potential for engaging in age-inappropriate behavior

Body Image

•Early adolescents are more dissatisfied with their bodies than late adolescents

•Girls are less happy with their bodies and have more negative body images than boys

throughout puberty

•Boys become more satisfied as they move through puberty, probably because their

muscle mass increases

2. Physical Changes

Adolescence

Early and Late Maturation

•Adolescents who mature earlier or later than their peers perceive themselves differently

Berkeley Longitudinal Study: (boys)

•early-maturing boys perceived themselves more positively and had more successful peer

relation than did their late-maturing counterparts

•When late-maturing boys were in their 30s, they developed stronger sense of identity

than early-maturing counterparts

•Late-maturing boys had more time to explore life’s options or because the early-maturing

boys continue to focus on their advantageous physical status instead of on career

development and achievement

•But at least during adolescence, it is advantageous to be early-maturing rather than late-

maturing

Berkeley Longitudinal Study: (girls)

•Early and mate maturation have been linked with body image

•In 6th grade, early maturing girls show greater satisfaction of their figures than late-

maturing girls, but by 10th grade, late-maturing girls are more satisfied (early-maturing

makes girls shorter and stockier)

•Early maturation increases girls’ vulnerability to a number of problems: more likely to

smoke, drink, depressed, eating disorder, struggle for earlier independence, older friends

2. Physical Changes

Adolescence

BRAIN

•The results from pruning by the end of adolescence individuals will have “fewer, more

selective, more effective neuronal connections than they did as children”

•Pruning indicates that activities adolescents choose to engage in and not to engage in

influence which neural connections will be strengthened and which will disappear

CORPUS CALLOSUM: where fibers connect the brain’s left and right hemispheres,

thickens in adolescence, this improves adolescents’ ability to process information

AMYGDALA: seat of emotions which will mature earlier than prefrontal cortex

•Charles Nelson’s view: adolescents are capable of very strong emotions, their prefrontal

cortex hasn’t adequately developed to the point at which they can control these passions

(like their brains don’t have the brakes to slow down their emotions)

•Recent study shows that experiences can stimulate changes in the brain. Prefrontal

cortex thickened and more brain connections formed when adolescents resisted peer

pressure

ADOLESCENT SEXUALITY

•Adolescence is a time of sexual exploration and experimentation of sexual fantasies and

realities

•Although most adolescents experience times of vulnerability and confusion, more will

develop mature sexual identity

Recent Study:

•Adolescents who view more sexual content on TV are more likely to initiate sexual

intercourse earlier than their peers who view less sexual content on TV

•Adolescent girls across a 3-year period revealed a link between watching sex on TV and

subsequent higher risk of pregnancy

2. Physical Changes

Adolescence

Developing a Sexual Identity

•Mastering emerging sexual feelings and forming sense of sexual identity involve learning

to manage sexual feelings, developing new forms of intimacy and learning the skills to

regulate sexual behavior to avoid undesirable consequences

•Adolescent's sexual identity involves activities, interests, styles of behavior and an

indication of sexual orientation

•Even though some adolescents who are attracted to individuals of their same sex fall in

love with these individuals, others claim that their same-sex attractions are purely physical

Timing of Adolescent Sexual Behaviors

•Timing of sexual behavior is culturally varied, African American and inner-city

adolescents report being more sexually active whereas Asian American adolescents are

less likely to be sexually active

•Studies have found: (1) by 12th grade, 63% of the students have experienced sexual

intercourse, (2) 35% US high school students are sexually active

•Dramatic increase in oral sex during adolescence

Risk Factors in Adolescent Sexual Behavior

•Early sexual activity is lined with risky behaviors such as drug use, delinquency, and

school-relate problems

•Alcohol use, early menarche, poor parent-child communication linked to early sexually

intimate behavior in girls

•Having sex in early adolescence social factors (SES, parenting, peer, academic

achievement factors

•% of sexually active young adolescents is higher in low-income areas of inner cities

•Having older sexually active siblings or pregnant/parenting teenage sisters places

adolescents at an elevated risk of adolescent pregnancy

•Earlier onset of sexual intercourse linked to lower level of parental monitoring

•Better academic achievement was a protective factor in keeping boys and girls

2. Physical Changes

Adolescence

Contraceptive Use

•Encounter unintended, unwanted (1) pregnancy, (2) sexually transmitted infections

•Younger adolescents are less likely than older adolescents to take contraceptive

precautions

•US adolescents use condom less than their counterparts in Europe

Sexually Transmitted Infections

SEXUALLY TRANSMITTED INFECTIONS (STIs): contracted primarily through sexual

contact (including oral-genital, anal-genital contact)

Adolescent Pregnancy

•US remains to have one of the highest adolescent pregnancy and childbearing rates in

industrialized world

•Latin and African American adolescent girls who have child are more likely than non-

Latina Whites to have second child during adolescence

National Longitudinal Survey of Youth:

•Daughters of teenage mothers were 66% more likely to become teenage mothers

themselves

•Risks that increased the likelihood that daughters of teenage mothers would become

pregnant included low parental monitoring and poverty

Study Outcome:

•Infants born to adolescent mothers: LBW, infant mortality, neurological problems and

childhood illness

•Longitudinal study: children of women who had their first birth during their teens had

lower achievement test scores and more behavioral problems than did children whose

mothers had their first birth as adults

•Adolescent mothers are more likely to come from low-SES backgrounds

•Adolescents benefit from age-appropriate family-life education

2. Physical Changes

Adolescence

Reducing Adolescent Pregnancy

•Sex education programs that emphasize contraceptive knowledge do not increase the

incidence of sexual intercourse and are more likely to reduce the risk of adolescent

pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections than abstinence-only programs

3. Issues in Adolescent Health

Adolescence

ADOLESCENT HEALTH

Nutrition & Exercise

•USE adolescents decreased their intake of fruits and vegetables from 1999

•Study: frequent intake of fast food increase when they reached 20 for males but remained

for females

•Eating regular family meals during early adolescence was linked to healthy eating habits

5 years later

•Adolescents become less active as they reach and progress, but boys are more likely to

engage in moderate vigorous exercise than were girls

•Physical activity increase until 13 years old for boys and girls but declined through 18

years of age

•Non-Latino white boys exercised the most, African American girls the least

•Regular exercise has positive effect on their weight (reduced triglyceride levels, lower

blood pressure, lower incidence of type II diabetes)

•Low levels of exercises were related to depressive symptoms in young adolescents

Sleep Patterns

•% of adolescents getting 8 hours or more of sleep decreased as they got older, they tend

to feel more tired, cranky and irritable, fall asleep in school, depressed mood, drink

caffeinated beverage)

•Older adolescents tend to be sleepier than young adolescents because their biological

clocks undergo a shift as they get older, delaying their period of sleepiness by about one

hour

•Carskadon research concluded that schools should start a bit later and they reported that

test scores have improved for high schools students but not for middle school students

•Early start times are likely to be more stressful for older than younger adolescents

3. Issues in Adolescent Health

Adolescence

Leading Causes of Death in Adolescence

•Accidents, homicide and suicide

SUBSTANCE USE AND ABUSE

•US still has one of the highest rates of adolescent drug use

•A consistent sex difference occurs in binge drinking, with males engaging in this activity

more than females

•Smoking is likely to begin in grades 7-9, regular factors for becoming regular smoker in

adolescence include having a friend who smoked, a weak academic orientation, and low

parental support

•Alarming trend of painkillers used in US

The Roles of Development, Parents, Peers, and Education

•Longitudinal study: early onset of drinking was linked to increased risk of heavy drinking

in middle age

•Parental monitoring is liked with lower incidence of problem behavior by adolescents,

including substance abuse

•The more frequently adolescents were at dinner with their family, the more likely they

were to have fewer adolescent problems (less substance abuse problems)

•Middle school students revealed that having friends in their school’s social network and

having fewer friends who use substances were related to lower level of substance use

•Jerald Bachman: early educational achievement considerably reduced the likelihood that

adolescents would develop drug problems, including alcohol abuse, smoking and abuse of

various illicit drugs

3. Issues in Adolescent Health

Adolescence

Can Families reduce drinking and smoking in young adolescents?

Experiment

1. Assign families to Family Matters program, will receive 4 mailings of booklets

2. 1st booklet: focus on negative consequences of adolescent substance abuse to family

3. 2nd booklet: emphasized supervision, support, communication skills, attachment, time

spent together, educational achievemet etc.

4. 3rd booklet: asked parents to list things that they do that might inadvertently encourage

their child’s use of tobacco or alcohol

5. 4th booklet: what child can do to resist peer and media pressures

Results: conducted 3 months, interview with parents and adolescents. Family Matter

program reported lower alcohol and cigarette use both at 3 months and again 1 year

after program has completed

3. Issues in Adolescent Health

Adolescence

EATING DISORDERS

Anorexia Nervosa

ANOREXIA NERVOSA: eating disorder that involves the relentless pursuit of thinness

through starvation

1. Weight less than 85 % of what is considered normal for their age and height

2. Intense fear of gaining weight that does not decrease with weight loss

3. Distorted image of body shape

• Begin early to middle adolescent

• 10 x more likely to occur in females than males

• Mostly from non-Latino White adolescent or young adult females from well-educated,

middle- and upper-income families and are competitive and high achieving

• Family therapy is often the most effective treatment of adolescent girls with anorexia

nervosa

Bulimia Nervosa

BULIMNIA NERVOSA: eating disorder in which the individual consistently follows a binge-

and-purge pattern

• Have strong fear of becoming overweight, are depressed or anxious, have distorted

body image

• Study revealed: they overvalued their body weight and shape, and this overvaluation is

linked to higher depression and lower self-esteem

• Typically begins in late adolescence or early adulthood

4. Adolescent Cognition

Adolescence

PIAGET’S THEORY

Formal Operational Stage

•Can conjure up make-believe situations, abstract propositions, and events that are purely

hypothetical, can try to reason logically about them

•Increased tendency to think about thought itself

•Engage in speculation about ideal characteristic, thoughts are often fantasy flights into

future possibilities

HYPOTHETICAL-DEDUCTIVE REASONING: creating hypothesis and deducing its

implications, steps that provide ways to test the hypothesis

Evaluating Piaget’s Theory

•There is much more individual variation than Piaget envisioned, only 1/3 young

adolescents is a formal operational thinker

•Education in logic of science and mathematics promotes the development of formal

operational thinking

•Agrees that cognitive development is not as stage-like as Piaget thought

•Children can be trained to reason at a higher cognitive stage, some of these abilities

emerge earlier than Piaget thought

ADOLESCENT EGOCENTRISM

ADOLESCENT EGOCENTRISM: heightened self-consciousness of adolescents

David Elkind (1) Imaginary audience (2)personal fable

IMAGINARY AUDIENCE: their beliefs that others are as interested in them as they

themselves are, as well as attention-getting behavior, attempts to be noticed

PERSONAL FABLE: part of their egocentrism involving a sense of uniqueness and

invincibility/ invulnerability

4. Adolescent Cognition

Adolescence

•Due to sense of invulnerability, adolescents engage in risky behaviors

INFORMATION PROCESSING

•Deanna Kuhn: later years of childhood and continuing in adolescence, individuals

approach cognitive levels that may or may not be achieved

•Supports the argument that adolescents are producers of their own development to a

greater extent than are children

•Most important cognitive change is improvement in executive functioning (involves

higher-order cognitive activities such as reasoning, making decisions, monitoring thinking

critically, and monitoring one’s cognitive process)

Decision Making

•Older adolescents are described as more competent than younger adolescents who in

turn are more competent than children

•Social context plays a key role: adolescents’ willingness to make risky decisions is more

likely to occur in contexts where substances and other temptations are readily available

•Research shows: presence of peers in risk-taking situations increases the likelihood that

adolescents will make risky decisions

DUAL-PROCESS MODEL: decision making is influenced by 2 cognitive systems (1)

analytical, (2) experimental-which competes with each other

•Emphasizes that it is the experiential system that benefits adolescents’ decision making

instead of analytical one

•Adolescents just need to know that there are some circumstances that are so dangerous

that they need to be avoided at all costs

•Get adolescents to engage in more role playing and peer group problem solving to

improve their decision making skills

4. Adolescent Cognition

Adolescence

Critical Thinking

•Critical thinking increased with age but still occurred in only 43% of even the 11th grade,

many adolescents showed self-serving biases in their reasoning

•Cognitive changes that allow improved critical thinking include the following:

1. ncreased speed, Automacity, Capactiy of informationg processing, which free cognitive

resources for other purposes

2. More breadth of content knowledge in variety of domains

3. Increased ability to construct new combinations of knowledge

4. Greater range and more spontaneous use of strategies or procedures for applying or

obtaining knowledge, such as planning, considering alternatives, and cognitive

monitoring

5. Schools

Adolescence

TRANSITION TO MIDDLE OR JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL

•Transition from 6th grade to 7th grade (elementary junior high school), adolescents’

perceptions of the quality of their school life plunged in the 7th grade

•Transition to middle or junior high school is less stressful when students have positive

relationships with friends

TOP-DOG PHENOMENON: moving from being the oldest, biggest, and most powerful

students in elementary to being the youngest, smallest and least powerful students in

middle school

EFFECTIVE SCHOOLS FOR YOUNG ADOLESCENTS

•Carnegie Corporation concluded that most young adolescents attended massive,

impersonal schools

•Recommended that nation should develop smaller ‘communities’ or ‘houses’ to lessen the

impersonal nature of large middle schools

•Experts are still finding that middle schools through the nation need a major redesign if

they are to be effective in educating adolescents

HIGH SCHOOL

•Critics stress that in many high schools expectations for success and standards for

learning are too low

•Too often, high schools foster passivity and that schools should create a variety of

pathways for students to achieve an identity

•Students drop out for many reasons:

•Not liking school or being expelled

•Economic reasons

•Personal reasons (pregnancy)

5. Schools

Adolescence

•Most effective programs to discourage dropping out of high school is to provide early

reading programs, tutoring, counseling, and mentoring

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation:

•Keeping students at risk for dropping out of school with the same teachers through their

high school years (teachers get to know students better, have better relationship and

monitors better)

EXTRACURRICULAR ACTIVITIES

•Participation in extracurricular activities is linked to higher grades, school engagement,

less likelihood of dropping out of school, improved probability of going to college, higher

self-esteem, and lower rates of depression

•Gains more benefit from breadth of extracurricular activities than focusing on one

•High-quality ECA likely to promote positive adolescent development (increasing school

connectedness, challenging and meaningful activities, opportunities for improving skills)

SERVICE LEARNING

SERVICE LEARNING: promotes social responsibility and service to community

•Become less self-centered

•More strongly motivated to help others

•Giving students some degree of choice in service activities in which they participate

•Providing students opportunities to reflect about their participation

•Benefits recipients too

•Increase higher grades, goal setting, higher self-esteem