Adolescence

Adolescence

1. Physical

   • Puberty
     • Rapid physical maturation involving hormonal and bodily changes
       • variation in puberty in indivs
     • Body mass
       • menarche
         • >=48kg
         • 17% fat
     • Not a single, sudden event, a process
     • Hormonal Changes
       • Endocrine system
         • Hypothalamus
           • control centre in brain, eating, sex
         • pituitary gland
           • signals gonadotropins to make hormones
         • Gonads
           • testes (male), ovaries (female), makes hormones
         • Pituitary gland sends signals through gonadotropins to make hormones, then the hypothalamus detects when optimal level in reached, pit glands maintain gonadotropin. The concentration of hormones, testosterone/estradiol causes physical change.
         • Indiv have both testosterone & estradiol, just one dominates
       • Does not account for puberty alone, social factors significant
     • Height, weight, sexual maturation
       • growth spurt
         • starts at 9 (F), 11 (M)
       • Early maturing boys higher self-esteem, late maturing more satisfies in 30s
       • Early maturing girls more problems in school, higher independence, popularity with boys
         • But @15/16yo, late maturing F more satisfied, taller & thinner
   • Body Image
     • High preoccupation, dissatisfaction
     • Girls more dissatisfied as fat content increases, boys more satisfied as muscle mass increases
   • Sexuality
     • experimentn sexual fantasies
     • Incorporating sexuality into identity
     • adults clamp down, protect adol girls
     • or promote early marriage
     • Interest in sex is normal, most teens have healthy sexual attitudes
     • sexual identity
       • manage sexual feelings
       • learning to regulate sexual behav
       • Necking, petting, oral sex, intercourse
         • Pregnancy
           • girls have lower achievement scores, less mature, low-income bckgd
       • males engage 1 yr earlier than females
   • Brain
     • Amygdale: processing emotions
     • pre-frontal cortex: high lvl cog functioning
     • Adol amygdale more pronounced activity than pre-frontal cortex
   • Health Problems
     • substance abuse
     • eating disorders
       • Anorexia nervousa
         • Less than 85% normal weight
         • intense fear of gaining weight
         • distorted body image
       • Bulimia
         • usually normal weight
         • binge & purge
         • preoccupied w food
         • depressed/anxious

2. Cognition

   • Piaget's Formal Operational Thought
     • Adol can consider hypothetical situatn & possibilities, try to reason logically about it.
     • able to verbal problem solve, as compared to previous stage need to see concrete elements
     • think more about thought itself, extended speculation and comparison to ideal standards
     • able to do hypothetical deductive reasoning, with hypotheses, & prob solving
     • 1 out of 3 young adolescent is a formal operational thinker
   • Egocentrism
     • Imaginary audience
       • belief that others are as interested in them as they are themselves
       • "on stage": main actors w others as audience
     • Personal Fable
       • sense of uniqueness & invincibility
       • sense that no one understands how they really feel
       • craft fantasy about themselves
   • Info-Processing
     • Decision-making: Generate options, examine situations, anticipating consequences of decisions, credibility of sources
     • Critical Thinking: increased speed, automaticity, capacity
       • More breadth of knowledge in many domains
       • able to construct new combinations of knowledge
       • better strategies for applying/ obtaining knowledge
   • School Transition
     • mainly stressful
     • Puberty & Body image concerns
     • emergence of formal operational thought
     • responsibility, independence from parents
     • small classroom to bigger school structure, more teachers
     • increased focus on achievement
     • top- dog phenomenon

3. Socio-emotional

   • Self-esteem
     • females esteem dropped in adol
       • more negative in body image than boys
   • Erikson's Identity v.s identity confusion
     • interested in finding identity & future
     • Psychological Moratorium
       • worldviews become important to the individual
       • Marks the gap btwn security of childhood, autonomy of adult
       • Adol experiment with roles and identities, emerging w new self
       • if no resolution, identity confusion
         • withdraw
         • lose identity in crowd
   • Marcia's Identity Statuses
     • I Diffusion
       • no crisis yet, not interested, not commited
     • I Foreclosure
       • handdown commitment, no crisis yet
     • I Moratorium
       • midst of crisis, commitments vague
     • I Achievement
       • undergone crisis, made commitment
     • Forming Identity
       • confidence in parental support
       • Sense of industry
       • self-reflective perspective on future
       • Individuality
         • self-assertion
         • Separateness
       • Connectedness
         • Mutuality, sensitivity, respect for others
         • Permeability
           • openness to others' views
   • Family Influence
     • Democratic Parents
       • Encourage participation in family decision making
       • Foster identity achievement
     • Autocratic
       • Foster identity foreclosure
     • Permissive
       • identity diffusion
   • Emotional Turmoil: Intensity out of proportion to events
   • Families
     • Adol will desire to attain autonomy & control
     • wise adult relinquishes control, continues to guide teen
       • transitions take time 10-15yrs
     • Attachment
       • Secure
         • Better relations, bad behaviour less likely
         • Able to engage close rships
     • parents may see teens as noncompliant, oppositional, resistant to Parental standards
   • Friendship
     • Increase in psychological importance and intimacy of close friends
     • Cliques
       • small groups, same sex, same age, in-group identity
     • Crowds
       • larger group structure, less personal than cliques
       • crowd membership influences self esteem
   • Dating
     • to explore how attractive they are
     • how to interact romantically
     • how dating looks to peer group
   • Problems
     • delinquency
       • adol devt restricted from acceptable social roles
       • Feel like they cannot measure up
     • Depression & Suicide
       • girls more depressed than boys
     • Reducing (Dryfoos)
       • Intensive individualised attention
       • Community-wide multi-agency collaborative approaches
       • Early identification and intervention

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