Adolescent development – Literature
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Ge and Natsuaki – Explanations for early pubertal timing effects on developmental psychopathology ............ 2
Steinberg and Scott – Developmental immaturity, diminished responsibility and the juvenile death penalty ... 3
Hardy and Carlo – Moral identity................................................................................................................... 6
Kaufman, Baams and Dubas – Microaggressions and depressive symptoms in sexual minority youth............. 7
Van Ouytsel, Walrave & Ponnet – Sexting within adolescents’ romantic relationships ................................... 9
Valkenburg & Piotrowski – How media attract and affect youth................................................................... 10
Nieuwenhuijzen et. all – Clustering health-compromising behaviour and delinquency .................................. 14
Mason et. all – Growth in adolescent delinquency and alcohol use in relation to young adult crime, alcohol use
disorder, and risky sex ................................................................................................................................. 15
Koning, de Looze & Harakeh – Parental alcohol-specific rules effectively reduce adolescents’ tobacco and
cannabis use ................................................................................................................................................ 15
Barzilay et. all – The interpersonal theory of suicide .................................................................................... 16
Morgan et. all – Incidence, clinical management, and mortality risk following self-harm among children and
adolescents .................................................................................................................................................. 17
Whitlock – Self injury.................................................................................................................................. 18
Arnett – The new life stage of emerging adulthood: implications for mental health ...................................... 19
, Ge and Natsuaki – Explanations for early pubertal timing effects on
developmental psychopathology
Researchers have accumulated substantial evidence that early pubertal maturation constitutes a significant
risk factor for psychopathology. Adolescents who undergo pubertal maturation earlier than their same-age,
same-sex peers are more likely to have several detrimental outcomes, including problem behaviours, substance
use, and emotional distress in adolescence and adulthood. There are four emerging lines of thinking for
explaining why early puberty exerts its influence on externalizing and internalizing psychopathologies.
The hormonal influence hypothesis
Several researchers maintain that the rise in the adrenal and gonadal hormones at puberty increases risks for
developing psychopathologies. Two components of puberty, adrenarche and gonadarche, are important in the
study of hormonal influence on risk for psychopathology. Adrenarche, which typically occurs between ages 6
and 9, refers to the maturation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis; in this period, adrenal
androgens begin to rise. There is some evidence to suggest that adrenal androgens are related to dominance,
depression, and antisocial conduct. Gonadarche, which begins at approximately ages 9 to 11, involves the
maturation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis. Hormones of the HPG axis, gonadotropins and
sex steroids, increase rapidly during the pubertal transition. Individual differences in concentration in
testosterone and oestradiol are related to negative affect, behaviour problems, and aggressive tendencies.
Several potential pathways have been discussed. One possible pathway that has been well studied in animal
models is pubertal hormones, particularly gonadal hormones, organizing neural circuits in the developing
adolescent brain and leading to behavioural consequences. Another related possibility is that pubertal hormones
are linked to psychopathology via alterations in stress sensitivity. Finally, physical changes at puberty, which
are the external manifestation of underlying endocrine developments, call forth actual or perceived social
reactions, which in turn are associated with psychopathology.
Hormonal alterations occur regardless of when puberty occurs. What is less clear, however, is what happens
to behaviours if the timing of hormonal increases is accelerated, and secretions are initiated earlier. One
theoretical possibility is that the developing brain’s sensitivity to pubertal hormones decreases with time,
marking early maturation as a potential correlate of behaviour. Although it is intuitively appealing to directly
ascribe the rise of psychopathology at puberty to a surge of hormonal activities, the empirical findings for such
a link in humans are fragmented and equivocal. Many forms of psychopathology are age related; so are
hormonal changes and puberty. As ‘being older’ connotes myriad other risk factors in addition to rising
hormones, isolating the real effect of hormones requires testing the effects of individual variations in hormonal
levels on psychopathology controlling for age.
The maturation disparity hypothesis
According to this hypothesis, it is the gap between physical and psychosocial maturities that places early
(physical) maturers at risk for developing psychopathology. Developmental change is sequential; thus,
chronologically ordered developmental tasks in childhood must be completed successfully before the transition
to adolescence to ensure normative adjustment. Because early maturers experience a briefer prelude to pubertal
change than do their peers, they might be less well prepared socially and cognitively for the biological and
psychosocial challenges at puberty. From this view, the higher rates of psychopathology among early maturers
are expected because their slow-developing neurocognitive systems are mismatched with the fast-approaching
social and affective challenges at the onset of puberty; early maturers’ consolidation of self-regulatory skills in
both cognitive and emotional domains lag the social and emotional demands they face at the onset of puberty.
Despite its plausibility, this hypothesis has more often been implied rather than directly tested. One reason
for its relative neglect, we speculate, involves the conceptual difficulty in defining psychological ‘(im)maturity’.
Furthermore, there exist empirical difficulties in demonstrating such effects, for it requires researchers to show
that cognitively and emotionally immature ‘early bloomers’ are at the highest risk for internalizing and
externalizing problems.
The contextual amplification hypothesis
This hypothesis focusses on the interaction effect between puberty processes and social contexts. The rapid
biological changes at puberty, coupled with adverse contexts, exacerbate these problems. It is reasoned that
contextual circumstances can either facilitate or impede early puberty effects through the opportunities, norms
, and expectations, and implicit reward and punishment structures that the contexts provide. Adaptation is
particularly difficult for children who negotiate an early pubertal transition in a stressful social environment
because new challenges at the entry to puberty and a widening array of social stressors may overtax their
relatively undeveloped coping resources. Researchers inferred that risks of girls’ early maturation could arise
particularly in mixed-sex contexts because their sensitivity to peer norms and pressures from boys is heightened
at puberty.
Although the essence of the contextual amplification hypothesis lies in the moderating role of context, the
picture becomes murkier when considering multiple pathways and influences together. Better methodological
design and statistics are required to tease apart their complex web of effects.
The accentuation hypothesis
This hypothesis proposes that demanding life transitions characterized by high novelty, ambiguity, and
uncertainty – early physical maturation being an example – tend to accentuate, rather than diminish, previous
emotional and behavioural difficulties during those periods. This is because transitional events call forth an
individually coherent and consistent way of approach and response that is likely to reveal each person’s most
salient disposition. Early puberty is viewed as a precipitator that magnifies pre-existing individual differences.
Empirical testing of this theoretically elegant hypothesis is not an easy task. Because its essence is the
temporal order and timing of events, a rigorous examination of this hypothesis requires a longitudinal design
based on a large representative sample, with detailed assessment of dispositional vulnerabilities before the onset
of puberty and assessment of psychopathological outcomes after puberty onset. Choosing psychopathological
outcomes with increasing variances over time presents a challenge.
Although not a focus of this paper, sex and ethnic differences add considerable complexities when testing
these hypotheses because (a) early maturation effects have been consistently observed for girls but the results
are mixed for boys; (b) in adolescence, girls are more likely than boys to manifest internalizing
psychopathology, while boys show more externalizing problems; (c) girls and boys undergo different hormonal
changes at puberty; (d) the two sexes differ in the sequence, timing, and manifestation of growth in primary and
secondary sex characteristics, weight, and height, as well as in body composition; and (e) there are racial/ethnic
differences in rates of physical maturation.
The four emerging explanations discussed in this article provide a conceptual basis for further studies of
explanatory mechanisms. Although each of these explanations emphasizes a single dimension, they are by no
means independent of each other, and they can help piece together the web of pathways from pubertal timing
to developmental psychopathology.
Steinberg and Scott – Developmental immaturity, diminished responsibility
and the juvenile death penalty
Several events have occurred that suggest re-examination of the constitutionality of the juvenile death
penalty. First, the Supreme Court ruled that the execution of mentally retarded offenders violates the U.S.
Constitution. Second, three Supreme Court justices took the unusual step of urging reconsideration of the
constitutional status of the juvenile death penalty, suggesting considerable dissatisfaction at the highest level
with current doctrine. Finally, after the apprehension of the Washington-area serial snipers prosecutors vied for
the right to try the case in their jurisdiction. This highly publicized case has focused national attention on the
debate over the juvenile death penalty. The question of whether juveniles should be punished like adults is
important to discussions about sentencing guidelines, the transfer of juvenile offenders into the adult criminal
justice system, and the incarceration of juveniles in adult facilities. Recent shifts in juvenile justice policy and
practice toward the harsher treatment of youthful offenders are grounded in concerns about public protection
and the belief that there is no good reason to exercise leniency with young offenders. This article argues that
emerging knowledge about cognitive, psychosocial, and neurobiological development in adolescence supports
the conclusion that juveniles should not be held to the same standards of criminal responsibility as adults.
The starting point for this argument is the core principle of penal proportionality. Proportionality holds that
fair criminal punishment is measured not only by the amount of harm caused or threatened by the actor but also
by his or her blameworthiness. As a preliminary matter, it is important to distinguish between excuse and
mitigation, two constructs that are distinct within the law but that are often blurred in laypersons’ discussions
of crime and punishment. Excuse refers to the complete exculpation of a criminal defendant; he or she bears no
