Developmental Psychology

Adolescence
Adolescents try on one face after another, seeking to find a face of their own. Their generation of young people is the fragile cable by which the best and the worst of their parents’ generation is transmitted to the present. In the end, there are only two lasting bequests parents can leave youth—one is roots, the other wings. This section contains two chapters: “Physical and Cognitive Development in Adolescence” and “Socioemotional Development in Adolescence.”

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chapter 11
PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN ADOLESCENCE
chapter outline
1 The Nature of Adolescence

Learning Goal 1 Discuss the nature of adolescence.

2 Physical Changes

Learning Goal 2 Describe the changes involved in puberty, as well as changes in the brain and sexuality during adolescence.

Puberty

The Brain

Adolescent Sexuality

3 Issues in Adolescent Health

Learning Goal 3 Identify adolescent problems related to health, substance use and abuse, and eating disorders.

Adolescent Health

Substance Use and Abuse

Eating Disorders

4 Adolescent Cognition

Learning Goal 4 Explain cognitive changes in adolescence.

Piaget’s Theory

Adolescent Egocentrism

Information Processing

5 Schools

Learning Goal 5 Summarize some key aspects of how schools influence adolescent development.

The Transition to Middle or Junior High School

Effective Schools for Young Adolescents

High School

Extracurricular Activities

Service Learning

image1 ©Image Source/Getty Images

Fifteen-year-old Latisha developed Page 338a drinking problem, and she was kicked off the cheerleading squad for missing too many practice sessions—but that didn’t make her stop drinking. She and her friends began skipping school regularly so they could drink.

Fourteen-year-old Arnie is a juvenile delinquent. Last week he stole a TV set, struck his mother and bloodied her face, broke some streetlights in the neighborhood, and threatened a boy with a wrench and hammer.

Twelve-year-old Katie, more than just about anything else, wanted a playground in her town. She knew that the other kids also wanted one, so she put together a group that generated funding ideas for the playground. They presented their ideas to the town council. Her group attracted more youth, and they raised money by selling candy and sandwiches door-to-door. The playground became a reality, a place where, as Katie says, “People have picnics and make friends.” Katie’s advice: “You won’t get anywhere if you don’t try.”

Adolescents like Latisha and Arnie are the ones we hear about the most. But there are many adolescents like Katie who contribute in positive ways to their communities and competently make the transition through adolescence. Indeed, for most young people, adolescence is not a time of rebellion, crisis, pathology, and deviance. A far more accurate vision of adolescence is that it is a time of evaluation, decision making, commitment, and carving out a place in the world. Most of the problems of today’s youth are not with the youth themselves, but with needs that go unmet. To reach their full potential, adolescents need a range of legitimate opportunities as well as long-term support from adults who care deeply about them (Miller & Cho, 2018; Ogden & Haden, 2019).

image2 Katie Bell (front) and some of her volunteers. ©Ronald Cortes

topical connections looking back
In middle and late childhood, physical growth continues but at a slower pace than in infancy and early childhood. Gross motor skills become much smoother and more coordinated, and fine motor skills also improve. Significant advances in the development of the prefrontal cortex occur. Cognitive and language skills also improve considerably. In terms of cognitive development, most children become concrete operational thinkers, long-term memory increases, and metacognitive skills improve, especially if children learn a rich repertoire of strategies. In terms of language development, children’s understanding of grammar and syntax increases, and learning to read becomes an important achievement.

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Adolescence is a transitional period in the human life span, linking childhood and adulthood Page 339. We begin the chapter by examining some general characteristics of adolescence and then explore the major physical changes and health issues of adolescence. Next, we consider the significant cognitive changes that characterize adolescence and conclude the chapter by describing various aspects of schools for adolescents.

1 The Nature of Adolescence
LG1 Discuss the nature of adolescence.

As in development during childhood, genetic/biological and environmental/social factors influence adolescent development. During their childhood years, adolescents experienced thousands of hours of interactions with parents, peers, and teachers, but now they face dramatic biological changes, new experiences, and new developmental tasks. Relationships with parents take a different form, moments with peers become more intimate, and dating occurs for the first time, as do sexual exploration and possibly intercourse. The adolescent’s thoughts become more abstract and idealistic. Biological changes trigger a heightened interest in body image. Adolescence has both continuity and discontinuity with childhood.

There is a long history of worrying about how adolescents will “turn out.” In 1904, G. Stanley Hall proposed the “storm-and-stress” view that adolescence is a turbulent time charged with conflict and mood swings. However, when Daniel Offer and his colleagues (1988) studied the self-images of adolescents in the United States, Australia, Bangladesh, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Japan, Taiwan, Turkey, and West Germany, at least 73 percent of the adolescents displayed a healthy self-image. Although there were differences among them, the adolescents were happy most of the time, they enjoyed life, they perceived themselves as able to exercise self-control, they valued work and school, they felt confident about their sexual selves, they expressed positive feelings toward their families, and they felt they had the capability to cope with life’s stresses—not exactly a storm-and-stress portrayal of adolescence.

Public attitudes about adolescence emerge from a combination of personal experience and media portrayals, neither of which produces an objective picture of how normal adolescents develop (Feldman & Elliott, 1990). Some of the readiness to assume the worst about adolescents likely involves the short memories of adults. Many adults measure their current perceptions of adolescents by their memories of their own adolescence. Adults may portray today’s adolescents as more troubled, less respectful, more self-centered, more assertive, and more adventurous than they were.

image3Growing up has never been easy. However, adolescence is not best viewed as a time of rebellion, crisis, pathology, and deviance. A far more accurate vision of adolescence describes it as a time of evaluation, of decision making, of commitment, and of carving out a place in the world. Most of the problems of today’s youth are not with the youth themselves. What adolescents need is access to a range of legitimate opportunities and to long-term support from adults who care deeply about them. What might be some examples of such support and caring? ©Regine Mahaux/The Image Bank/Getty Images

However, in matters of taste and manners, the young people Page 340of every generation have seemed unnervingly radical and different from adults—different in how they look, in how they behave, in the music they enjoy, in their hairstyles, and in the clothing they choose. It would be an enormous error, though, to confuse adolescents’ enthusiasm for trying on new identities and enjoying moderate amounts of outrageous behavior with hostility toward parental and societal standards. Acting out and boundary testing are time-honored ways in which adolescents move toward accepting, rather than rejecting, parental values.

Negative stereotyping of adolescence has been extensive (Jiang & others, 2018; Petersen & others, 2017). However, much of the negative stereotyping has been fueled by media reports of a visible minority of adolescents. In the last decade there has been a call for adults to have a more positive attitude toward youth and emphasize their positive development. Indeed, researchers have found that a majority of adolescents are making the transition from childhood through adolescence to adulthood in a positive way (Seider, Jayawickreme, & Lerner, 2017). For example, a recent study of non-Latino White and African American 12- to 20-year-olds in the United States found that they were characterized much more by positive than problematic development, even in their most vulnerable times (Gutman & others, 2017). Their engagement in healthy behaviors, supportive relationships with parents and friends, and positive self-perceptions were much stronger than their angry and depressed feelings.

image4 ©RubberBall Productions/Getty Images

Although most adolescents negotiate the lengthy path to adult maturity successfully, too large a group does not. Ethnic, cultural, gender, socioeconomic, age, and lifestyle differences influence the actual life trajectory of each adolescent (Green & others, 2018; Hadley, 2018; Kimmel & Aronson, 2018; McQueen, 2017; Ruck, Peterson-Badali, & Freeman, 2017). Different portrayals of adolescence emerge, depending on the particular group of adolescents being described. Today’s adolescents are exposed to a complex menu of lifestyle options through the media, and many face the temptations of drug use and sexual activity at increasingly young ages (Johnston & others, 2018). Too many adolescents are not provided with adequate opportunities and support to become competent adults (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, 2018; Edalati & Nicholls, 2018; Lo & others, 2017; Loria & Caughy, 2018; Miller & Cho, 2018; Umana-Taylor & Douglass, 2017).

Recall that social policy is the course of action designed by the national government to influence the welfare of its citizens. Currently, many researchers in adolescent development are designing studies that they hope will lead to wise and effective social policy decision making (Duncan, Magnuson, & Votruba-Drzal, 2017; Galinsky & others, 2017; Hall, 2017).

Research indicates that youth benefit enormously when they have caring adults in their lives in addition to parents or guardians (Frydenberg, 2019; Masten, 2017; Masten & Kalstabakken, 2018; Ogden & Hagen, 2019; Pomerantz & Grolnick, 2017). Caring adults—such as coaches, neighbors, teachers, mentors, and after-school leaders—can serve as role models, confidants, advocates, and resources. Relationships with caring adults are powerful when youth know they are respected, that they matter to the adult, and that the adult wants to be a resource in their lives. However, in a survey, only 20 percent of U.S. 15-year-olds reported having meaningful relationships with adults outside their family who were helping them to succeed in life (Search Institute, 2010).