Adolescence

Adolescence

1. "Maturational Deviance Hypothesis"

   • Maturing at different times leads to adjustment problems
     • Fails to explain difference between girls and boys
   • Early-Maturing Girls
     • More conflict with parents
     • Depression
     • Eating disorders
     • Risky behaviours
     • Less popular
   • Early-Maturing Boys
     • Popular
     • More positive self-concept
     • Sporty
     • Academic achievement

2. Biological Transitions

   • Myelination
     • More effective transmission
     • Increase in white matter
   • Hormones
     • Cause physiological changes
       • Lead to changes in behaviour
         • Modifies brain structure
   • Synaptic pruning
     • Decrease in grey matter

3. Timing of Puberty

   • Not stable over time
   • Link to improved nutrition?
     • But Netherlands same, despite war (famine)
   • Family effects
     • Girls with absent father mature faster
       • Biological & environmental reasons
   • Social environment
     • Effects stronger in co-ed schools

4. "Storm & Stress"

   • Hall, 1904
     • Moods
     • Conflicts
     • Risky behaviours
     • Universal
   • Arnett, 1999
     • Some mood disruptions
     • Increased conflict in early adolescence
       • Not to extent of stereotype
     • Likely but not inevitable

5. Developmental Contextualism

   • Bronfenbrenner, 1979
   • Not in a vacuum
     • Need to take into account the ecology of human development
   • Timing of events is critical
     • Internal & external
   • Reciprocal Influence
     • Adolescent & family context
     • Combinations
       • E.g. sensitive disposition and unsympathetic family
       • "Goodness of fit"
   • Adolescents are active agents in shaping development

6. Focal Model

   • Coleman
   • Most cope well
   • Concerns about diff issues reach peaks at diff points
     • Relationships
     • Conflicts with parents
     • Fears of peer rejection
   • Not stages
   • Overlap -> "storm & stress"
     • Spread over number of years = successful adaptation
     • Deal with more than 1 = problem

7. Cognitive Abilities

   • Piaget
     • Concrete -> Formal Operational thinking
       • Abstract concepts
       • Hypothetical & deductive thought
     • Solve more complex problems
       • Can take into account more than one variable
       • Analogical Reasoning
       • Deductive reasoning
         • Specific conclusions from general principles
       • Inductive reasoning
         • General conclusions from specific principles
     • Findings not always replicated
       • Not universal
       • Role of experience & training
         • Reasoning is domain-specific
       • Cross-generational gains
         • Flynn effect
         • Environmental effects
   • Info-Processing View
     • Processing capacity increases with age
       • Same kind of knowledge but better processing
     • Generate a variety of strategies
       • Over time, less efficient strategies are replaced by more effective ones
     • Attention & memory improve
     • Meta-cognition
       • Ability to take into account more info
   • Executive Control View
     • Brain structure changes in areas concerned with emotional regulation, response inhibition, planning & monitoring
       • Frontal
     • Able to organise facts better
     • Biological explanation of info-processing view

8. Social Cognition

   • Adolescent Egocentrism
     • Elkind, 1967
     • Fail to differentiate between own/others' thoughts
     • Imaginary audience
       • Self-consciousness
       • Concern about appearance
   • Emotional egocentrism
   • Desire for friends
     • Need for trusted friendships
   • Personal fable
     • Link to risk-taking
       • Hero doesn't die

9. Moral & Political Thought

   • More complex moral reasoning
     • Accelerated by parental intervention
   • Growth of political thinking
     • Shift from concrete to abstract reasoning
     • Decline in authoritarian solutions
   • Broader ideology emerges
     • Later adolescence
   • Affected by SES and political stance of parents
     • Mirror political thinking
   • Kohlberg
     • 6 Stages
     • 3 levels
       • 1) Preconventional
       • 2) Conventional
       • 3) Postconventional