Summary
Summary book Adolescence (development)
- Course
- Institution
- Book
A summary of all the required reading material for Exam 1, including the introduction, Chapters 1,2,3,8,9, and 13.
[Show more]
Connected book
Book Title:
Author(s):
- Edition:
- ISBN:
- Edition:
More summaries for
-
Summary readings for exam 2 Adolescent Development
-
Literature Adolescent Development
-
Book summary Adolescent Development UU exam 2 (200500046)
Seller
Follow
martinepietersen
Content preview
Notes book AdolescenceIntroduction
The boundaries of adolescence
Adolescence: the stage of development that begins with puberty and ends when individuals make
the transition into adult roles, roughly speaking, from about age 10 until the early 20s.
Adolescence is a time of growing up, moving from the immaturity of childhood into the maturity of
adulthood, of preparation for the future. Adolescence is a period of transitions: biological,
psychological, social, and economic. Individuals become more interested in sex, are more
sophisticated and can make own decisions. They become more aware, independent and are more
concerned about what the future holds.
There are a variety of boundaries we draw between childhood and adolescence and adolescence and
adulthood.
Perspective Adolescence begins Adolescence ends
Biological Onset of puberty Becoming capable of sexual
reproduction
Emotional Detachment from parents Attaining separate sense of
identity
Cognitive Emergence of advanced Consolidation of advanced
reasoning abilities reasoning abilities
Interpersonal Shift in interest from parents Development capacity for
to peers mature intimacy with peers
Social Training for adult work, family Full attainment of adult status
and citizen roles and privileges
Educational Entrance into junior high Completion of formal
school schooling
Legal Attainment of juvenile status Attainment of majority status
Chronological Attainment designated age Attainment designated age
adolescence (10 years) adulthood (+- 21 years)
Cultural Entrance period training for Completion of ceremonial rite
ceremonial rite of passage of passage
But determining the beginning and ending of adolescence is more a matter of opinion than of an
absolute fact.
There are different phases in adolescence:
1. Early adolescence (ages 10-13)
2. Mid adolescence (ages 14-17)
3. Late adolescence (ages 18-21)
What is most striking about the transition from adolescence to adulthood is just how many different
pathways there are. An American study found three distinct groups; early starters, employment
focused, and education focused.
A framework for studying adolescent development
This book uses a framework for studying adolescence, based on a model suggested by John Hill
(1983). The model has three basic components:
1. The fundamental changes of adolescence
2. The contexts of adolescence
3. The psychosocial developments of adolescence
,The fundamental changes of adolescence
This encompasses biological, cognitive, and social dimensions. According to Hill three features of
adolescent development give the period its special significance:
1. The onset of puberty > biological
2. The emergence of more advanced thinking abilities > cognitive
3. The transition into new roles in society > social
These three sets of changes are universal, all adolescents go through them.
Biological transitions are also referred to as puberty. This involves the changes in young person’s
physical appearance, like breast development in girls and body hair in boys and increase in height for
both. Another important thing is de ability to conceive children.
Cognitive transitions refer to the processes that underlie how people think. Compared to children,
adolescents are much better able to think about hypothetical situations and abstract concepts, such
as friendship. These changes in thinking result from the maturation of various brain regions and
systems.
Social transitions: all societies distinguish individuals between children and mature, for example by
reaching the age of maturity. Not until adolescence, individuals are permitted to drive, vote or marry.
Such changes in rights and privileges constitute the social changes. In some cultures, the social
changes of adolescents are marked by a formal ceremony- a rite of passage. This marks an
individual’s transition from one social status to another.
The contexts of adolescence
Although all adolescents experience the transitions of the period, the effects of these changes are
not uniform for all young people. This is because the psychological impact of the biological, cognitive,
and social changes is shaped by the environment in which the changes take place. Psychological
development is an interplay between a set of three basic, universal changes and the context in which
they are experienced. It is impossible to generalize about the nature of adolescence without
considering the surroundings and circumstances in which young people grow up.
- The ecological perspective on human development (Bronfenbrenner 1979).
This is a perspective on development that emphasizes the broader context in which development
occurs.
In modern societies there are four main contexts in which young people spend time:
1. Families
a. Adolescence is a time of dramatic change in family relationships. It is important to
understand how these changes affect young people’s psychological development
2. Peer groups
a. Peers play an increasingly important role in the socialization and development of
teenagers, but has the rise of peer groups been a positive or negative influence on
teenagers’ psychological development
3. Schools
a. Schools tend to occupy, socialize, and educate adolescents. But what should schools
do to help prepare adolescents for adulthood and how should schools be structured
4. Work and leisure (and media)
a. Some of the most important influences outside of home and school are part-time
jobs, extracurricular activities, and mass/social media. To what extent do these
forces influence adolescents’ attitudes, beliefs, and behavior?
,Psychological development in adolescence
Social scientists use the word psychosocial to describe aspects of development that are both
psychological and social in nature, such as developing a sense of sexuality, because it involves
psychological change (in individuals’ emotions) and changes in the individual’s relationships.
The most important psychosocial developments that we face as we grow and change:
1. Identity: discovering and understanding who we are as individuals, involving self-
conceptions, self-esteem, and the sense of who one is.
2. Autonomy: establishing a healthy sense of independence, becoming less emotionally
dependent on parents, learning to function independently, and establishing a personal code
of values and morals.
3. Intimacy: forming close and caring relationships with others, concerning the formation,
maintenance, and termination of relationships.
4. Sexuality: expressing sexual feelings and enjoying physical contact with others.
5. Achievement: being successful and competent members of society, concerning behaviors
and feelings in evaluative situations.
Psychosocial problems also appear in this period of life. Although most adolescent move through the
period without major upheaval, this stage in life is the most common time for first serious difficulties.
Three sets of problems are often associated with adolescence:
1. Alcohol and drug use and abuse
2. Delinquency and other externalizing problems
3. Depression and other internalizing problems
Theoretical perspectives on adolescence
The study of adolescence is not only based on empirical research but also on theories of
development.
- Nature: due to biological factors
- Nurture: due to environmental factors
But how much is due to nature and how much due to nurture. From most biological to most
environmental, the theoretical-perspective continuum:
Biosocial > Organismic > Learning > Sociological > Historical/Anthropological
Biosocial theories
Theorists who have taken a biological view of adolescence stress the hormonal and physical changes
of puberty as driving forces. Biosocial theories are far at the biological end of the continuum.
- Hall’s Theory of Recapitulation
He believed that the development of an individual paralleled the development of the human species.
Infancy was equivalent to the time during our evolute when we were more like animals than humans.
Adolescence was seen as a transitional and turbulent time that paralleled the evolution of our
species from primitive ‘savages’ into civilized adults.
The development was determined primarily by instinct, biological and genetic forces and hardly
influenced by the environment.
The most important legacy of Hall’s view is the belief that the adolescence is a period of storm and
stress. He said that the best way to do for society is to find ways of managing the young person’s
hormones and difficulties.
- Dual systems Theories
These theories stresses changes in the anatomy and activity of the brain. These theories are also
called the maturational imbalance theories, which stress the simultaneous development of two
different brain systems:
1. The one that governs the wats in which the brain processes rewards, punishment, and social
and emotional information.
, 2. The other one that regulates self-control and advanced thinking abilities such as planning or
logical reasoning.
The arousal of the first system takes place in early adolescence, while the second system is still
maturing. This creates a maturational imbalance. The main challenge of adolescence, according to
this view, is to develop better self-regulation, so that the imbalance doesn’t create problems.
Organismic theories
Like biosocial theorists, organismic theorists also recognize the importance of biological changes, but
organismic theories also take in account the ways in which contextual factors interact with and
modify these biological forces.
- Freudian Theory (Sigmund Freud)
For Freud, development was best understood in terms of the psychosexual conflicts that arise at
different points in development. Puberty temporarily throws the adolescent into a period of
psychosocial crisis by reviving old conflicts over sexual urges that had been buried in the unconscious
(including feelings toward parents). His daughter emphasized that adolescents need to break away
from their parents to develop normally.
- Eriksonian Theory (Erik Erikson)
He also believed that internal, biological development moved the individual from one developmental
stage to the next. But unlike Freud, he stressed the psychosocial, rather than the psychosexual,
conflicts faced by the individual at each point in time. Erikson proposed eight stages in psychosocial
development, each characterized by a specific crisis that arises because of the interplay between
internal forces of biology and the demands of society.
According to Erik the challenge of adolescence is to resolve the identity crisis.
- Piagetian Theory (Jean Piaget)
For Piaget, development was best understood by examining changes in the nature of thinking. He
believed that as children mature, they pass through disinstict stages of cognitive development. In his
theory, adolescence marks the transition from concrete to abstract thought. The development in
abstract thinking is influenced by both the internal biological changes and by changes in the
intellectual environment encountered by the individual.
Learning theories
At the center of the continuum, between biological and environmental are the learning theories.
Those are the theories of adolescence that emphasize the ways in which patterns of behavior are
acquired through reinforcement and punishment or through observation and imitation. Learning
theorists have little to say specifically about adolescence, because they assume that the basic
processes of human behavior are the same during adolescence as during other periods of the life
span.
- Behaviorism (Skinner)
Behaviorists emphasize the processes of reinforcement and punishment as the main influences on
adolescent behavior. Skinner’s theory was about operant conditioning. Within this framework,
reinforcement is the process through which behavior is made more likely to occur again whereas
punishment is the process through which a behavior is made less likely to occur again. Adolescent
behavior is the product of the various reinforcements and punishments their exposed to.
- Social learning Theory (Bandura & Walters)
Social learning theorists also emphasize the ways in which adolescents learn how to behave, but they
place more weight on the processes of observational learning and imitating. Adolescents learn how
to behave by watching and modelling those around them. Social learning approaches explain how
adolescents learn by watching their parents, peers, and figures in the media.
The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:
Guaranteed quality through customer reviews
Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.
Quick and easy check-out
You can quickly pay through credit card or Stuvia-credit for the summaries. There is no membership needed.
Focus on what matters
Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!
Frequently asked questions
What do I get when I buy this document?
You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.
Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?
Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.
Who am I buying these notes from?
Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller martinepietersen. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.
Will I be stuck with a subscription?
No, you only buy these notes for $12.64. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.
Can Stuvia be trusted?
4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)
76669 documents were sold in the last 30 days
Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy study notes for 14 years now