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Lecture notes Adolescent Development
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Adolescent Development (AD)A combination of lecture slides and notes.
Table of contents
Exam 1 1
Lecture 1: Introduction - Nikki Lee 1
Lecture 2: Assignments introduction 5
Lecture 3: Cognitive & brain development during adolescence - Nikki Lee 5
Lecture 4: Emotional and moral development - Sheida Novin 9
Lecture 5: Self and identity - Sheida Novin 14
Lecture 6: Substance use and delinquency - Margot Peeters 18
Lecture 7: Psychopathology during adolescence - Nikki Lee 21
Exam 2 24
Lecture 8: Family relations and autonomy - Stefanie Nelemans 24
Lecture 9: Peer relationships - Tessa Kaufman 31
Lecture 10: Romantic relations and sexuality - Sheida Novin 35
Lecture 11: Schools and achievement - Dr. Astrid Poorthuis 41
Lecture 12: Media use and effects - Helen Vossen 45
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Exam 1
Lecture 1: Introduction - Nikki Lee
Part 1: What is adolescence? Conceptualisations and definitions
Research on people’s thoughts on the ‘teenage brain’.
- Results:
● The most named behaviours were negative.
○ Adults had a more negative view.
○ Adolescents were way more positive.
This negative view on adolescence has been here for a long time.
➔ “Youth are heated by Nature as drunken men by wine.” ~ Aristotle
- G. Stanley Hall named adolescence as a period of ‘storm and stress’.
● Hormonal, biologically determined = unavoidable.
- Empirical evidence of the adolescent brain:
● Increased conflicts with parents (intensity).
● Mood volatility (and negative mood).
● Increased risk behaviour.
Study in Hong Kong and China about whether they saw increased behaviours as
characteristics for adolescence.
● Hong Kong said the negative behaviours were strongly linked with adolescence.
○ China was more positive.
● If they have a negative perception of adolescents they are very likely to have
impaired development themselves.
Having these negative perceptions is influencing the development of adolescents negatively.
Defining adolescence
Adolescence = the period between the onset of sexual maturation (puberty) and the
attainment of adult roles and responsibilities.
- The transition from:
● “Child” status (requires adult monitoring).
● To “adult” status (self-responsibility for behaviour).
- Age boundaries:
● Early adolescence (10-13 years)
● Middle adolescence (14-17 years)
● Late adolescence (18-21 years)
● Young adulthood (22 – 30 years)
➢ Some sources define an extra period, the emerging adulthood (18-25
years) than young adulthood.
- Three primary changes:
1. Biological: puberty (body and brain).
2. Cognitive: abstract thinking, executive functions, social cognition.
3. Social: redefinition of an individual from child to an adult (or non-child).
- Developmental tasks:
1) Accepting one’s physical body and keeping it healthy.
2) Achieving new and more mature relationships with age mates of both sexes.
3) Achieving (emotional) autonomy from parents and other adults.
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4) Achieving a satisfying gender role.
5) Preparing for a job or career (e.g. through education).
6) Making decisions about marriage and family life.
7) Becoming socially responsible.
8) Developing a workable philosophy, a mature set of values, and worthy ideals.
‘Development doesn’t occur in a vacuum’
● Bronfenbrenner’s Ecological model explains this statement.
Part 2: The beginning of adolescence: puberty
Pubertal development
- Puberty = maturational process during which primary (e.g. testes, ovaries) and
secondary (e.g. breasts, pubic hair) sex characteristics mature resulting in capacity to
reproduce.
Five areas of change:
1. Maturation of reproductive organs, secondary sex characteristics.
2. Nervous and endocrine system.
3. Skeletal growth.
4. Body composition, change in distribution of fat and muscle.
5. Circulatory and respiratory systems.
Adolescents are more vulnerable to stressful situations.
● HPA and HPG
Changes in the brain occur during puberty:
- Limbic system
● Could explain the risk taking behaviour.
- Hypothalamus
Girls go into puberty about 2 years earlier than boys.
● The differences between boys and girls become bigger and more obvious.
Pubertal timing compared to peers
Factors influencing puberty:
● Genetics
○ The average difference in time of menarche for strangers is 19 months, for
sisters 13 months, for identical twins 2.8 months).
● Increase kisspeptin (activated by leptin and melatonin).
○ Leptin = the amount of body fat someone has.
○ Melatonin = the sensitivity to light.
■ Exposure to a lot of light causes puberty to start earlier.
■ Exposure to screen can affect this, so indirectly puberty as well.
● Research is still being done. So for now it’s a possibility.
● Nutrition.
● Health Care.
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➢ People start to go through puberty earlier, this is probably due to better
nutrition and health care.
■ Thinner people go through puberty later.
■ A lot of childhood illness → later puberty.
● Environmental stress
○ Stressful environments → earlier puberty.
■ E.g. financial stress.
■ If you’re in a harsh environment you are not likely to live a long time.
Your body will want to reproduce earlier.
● Unrelated family members of opposite sex
○ Girls growing up with a lot of boys/men.
○ They were exposed to more pheromones, so their puberty starts earlier.
→ Reproductive strategies?
Group differences: secular trend
Period with girls is a clear starting point of puberty.
● Starting your period is actually the end of puberty for girls, not the beginning.
There are cultural differences in puberty.
Male morality humps
= The idea that people who go through puberty are more likely to do risk taking →
higher risk of injuries and/or death.
● These humps are occurring more earlier in life.
What are the implications of the secular trend?
The period of adolescence is becoming longer, because puberty is starting earlier.
Measuring pubertal development
- Tanner Staging (physicians/nurses)
● Girls: Breast/pubic hair development
● Boys: Penis & Testes/pubic hair development
● 5 stages:
1. No development
2. Beginning stages and 5 = adult.
- Self report
● Line drawings of Tanner Stages
● Questionnaires e.g. Pubertal Development Questionnaire
- Visual inspection by researcher of clothed adolescent
- Hormone levels
Psychosocial effects
Why would early or late puberty have psychosocial effects?
- Early maturation - boys
● Emotional effects:
○ Increased popularity
○ Improved self-concept + self-esteem
○ Though: increase internalising problems?
● Behavioural effects:
○ Deviant friends (less supervision)
■ Parents are supervising these boys less.
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