What is adolescence?
Transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to interdependence
What is the definition of puberty?
Period of sexual maturation, which a person becomes capable of reproducing
Describe the adolescent’s physical development during puberty
-Begins with puberty, follows a surge of hormones which intensifies mood and triggers bodily changes
What are differences between males and females during puberty?
Females:
-Develops breasts and reaching puberty earlier today then in past
-Increased body fat, hormone-mimicking chemicals in diet and increased stress
-Mother/child attachment buffer against stress
Males:
-Stronger, more athletic during early teen years
-Self assured, independent
-Risk of alcohol use etc.
Describe the “teenage brain”
- Brain cells increase connections
- Selective pruning of unused neurons and connections
- Frontal lobes continue to develop
- Continuous growth of myelin, fatty tissue forming around axons and speeds neurotransmission, enables better communication with other brain regions
- Improved judgement, impulse control, long term planning
- Frontal lobe maturation lags
What are Piaget’s formal operations?
- Teens demonstrate ability to think logically about abstract topics
- Think about what is ideally possible, compares it to imperfect reality
- Reasoning hypothetically and deducing consequences
What are the two tasks of childhood and adolescence
1) Discerning right from wrong
2) Developing characters
What are Kohlberg’s 3 levels of Moral Thinking?
- Pre Conventional Morality
- Conventional Morality
- Post Conventional Morality
What is pre-conventional morality?
(Before age 9)
Self interest: obey rules to avoid punishment or gain concrete rewards
What is conventional morality?
(Early Adolescence)
Uphold laws and rules to gain social approval or maintain social order
What is post conventional morality?
(Adolescence and beyond)
Actions reflect belief in basic rights and self defined ethical principles
Describe adolescent moral intuition
- Quick gut feelings
- Mind makes moral judgements quickly and automatically
- Disgust and elation trigger reasoning
Describe adolescent moral action
- Involves doing the right thing and what we do depends on social influences
- Self discipline restrains one’s own impulses
- Delays gratification
What is one’s identity?
Sense of self according to Erikson, the adolescent’s task is to solidify a sense of self by testing and integrating various roles
What is one’s social identity?
The “we” aspect of our self-concept; the part of our self-concept that answers “who am i” comes from our group membership
Describe Erikson’s theory of social development
Identity vs Role Confusion
-Teenagers work at refining sense of self by testing roles and integrating them to form a single identity, or they become confused with who they are
How to adolescents form their own identity?
- Using individual’s culture try out different selves in different situations
- Adopting parent’s values and expectations
- Consistent and comfortable with who one is- an identity
- Sense of contentment with their lives
- Develops sense of intimacy
Describe parent and peer relationships
- Parent/child arguments occur more often over mundane things
- Time of diminishing parental influence and growing peer influence
What is emerging adulthood?
-Period from age 18 to mid twenties, when in Western Cultures are no longer adolescents, but not yet achieved full interdependence as adults
