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12-2: Adolescent Cognitive Development
Finish Middle Childhood Social and Emotional Development
Parenting Style
Divorce and Parent absence
Siblings relations
School
Biological Changes in Adolescences
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Norms
Hormones
Appearance
Neurological Changes
Body image/social relationships
Thinking in Adolescence
Piaget’s Theory
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Pendulum Problem, All possible combinations, Inertia
How pervasive is Formal Operations
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Other approaches to Adolescent cognition
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Adolescent egocentrism
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Moral Reasoning
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Reminder about Piaget’s theory
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Kohlber’s theory
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Giligan
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The Family
Parent-child relationships change markedly
during this time.
 Parents give children more responsibilities.
 Parents no longer explicitly, continuously direct
children.
 The hallmark of effective parenting is keeping
track of children’s whereabouts and providing
supervision & direction when needed.
 Parents influence by how they supervise.
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Parenting Styles
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Baumrind
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Authoritative
Authoritarian
Permissive
Maccoby and Martin
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Frequency of conflict over goals
Balance of resolution
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Parenting Styles & Child Development
Authoritative parents rely on discipline techniques
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based on reasoning.
Their children score higher on agency.
Agency:
The tendency to take initiative, rise to
challenges, and try to influence events.
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Girls high on agency tend to have
argumentative interactions with parents,
especially fathers.
Argumentative interactions are not associated
with increased agency for boys.
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Several factors encourage harmonious parentchild relationships:
 understanding legitimacy of parents’ authority
 grasping that parents have more experience
 grasping parents’ decisions are usually
intended for children’s own good
 empathy shown by caring, responsive parents
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Family Violence, Conflict, & Divorce
Factors that promote good outcomes for
children after divorce:
 ongoing contact with both parents
 an end to parental conflict
 cooperation between parents regarding
child care
 custodial parent’s emotional well-being
 good relationships in any stepfamilies
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Sibling Relationships
Sibling and peer relationships differ in
important ways:
 There is usually a greater age disparity
between friends.
 One of the siblings tends to get more
power and privileges.
 In middle childhood, friendships rarely
cross gender boundaries.
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Sibling Relationships
Emotional Qualities of Sibling Relationships
 Competition for parents’ attention and
approval is common.
 Sibling strife based on social comparison
intensifies after about age 8.
 Rate of conflict is higher with siblings
than with peers.
 Younger siblings see older ones as
controllers and facilitators.
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Sibling Relationships
Factors influencing quality of sibling
relationships:
 closeness in age
 gender composition
 stress
 personalities
 preferential treatment by parents
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Sibling Relationships
Emotional ambivalence common among
siblings offers important learning:
 When siblings fight, they cannot simply
end their relationship.
 They can provide mutual support.
 Older siblings may be assigned the role
of caring for younger siblings.
 Adopting role of boss may help older
siblings practice leadership skills.
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The School
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School provides important context for
socialization in cultural values.
Family & school factors affect school
achievement & adjustment.
School achievement & adjustment
predict later mental health.
After-care arrangements are important,
with impact depending to some extent
on socioeconomic status.
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Adolescence
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Early
Middle
adolescence
adolescence
from beginning of ages 14-16
puberty to about
age 13
Late
adolescence
17 to early
adulthood
most of the major
physical changes
of adolescence
and
accompanying
changes in
relationships with
parents and peers
continued
preparation for
adulthood, often
in college or
other educational
settings
increasing
independence,
preparation for
adult occupations
or further
education
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Biological
Changes During
Adolescence
Puberty: Norms & Individual Differences
Puberty:
The period during which a child changes from a
sexually immature person to one who is
capable of reproduction.
Menarche:
The onset of menstruation.
Spermarche:
The first ejaculation of mobile sperm.
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Puberty: Norms & Individual Differences
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In the U.S. & Europe, average age of
menarche is 12.5 years.
Ovulation does not usually begin until
several months after menarche.
Most boys in the U.S. reach spermarche
by age 14.
Puberty is not a single event, but a more
extended period when sexual organs &
other characteristics develop rapidly.
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Puberty: Norms & Individual Differences
Onset of puberty is influenced by:
 heredity
 nutrition
 stress
 family conflict
 exercise
 disease
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Hormonal Control of Puberty
Pituitary gland
Hypothalamus
A small gland at the base of the brain
that plays a major role in regulating
other glands’ hormonal output.
Part of the brain that regulates many
body functions, including production of
pituitary hormones.
Gonadotropins
Pituitary hormones that affect hormone
output by the gonads.
Gonads
The sex glands: Testes in men and
ovaries in women.
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Changes in Appearance at Puberty
Secondary sex characteristics:
Physical features that differentiate adult
males from adult females but are not
directly involved in reproduction.
Pheromones:
Chemical scents used by members of the
same species to communicate a
message, such as readiness to mate.
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Stages of Puberty
Female Breast Development
1
Elevation of papilla (nipple) only.
2
Breast buds appear.
3
Breast & areola continue to enlarge.
4
Areola & papilla elevate above the mound of the
breast to form a secondary mound.
5
Papilla continues to project, but areola recesses
to general contour of the breast.
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Stages of Puberty
Male Genital Development
1
2
Penis, scrotum, & testes stay in same proportion
as early childhood.
Scrotum & testes enlarge; scrotum darkens.
3
Penis grows, primarily in length.
4
Growth of penis includes width & enlargement
of glans.
5
Genitals attain adult size & shape.
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Neurological Changes at Puberty
Between childhood and adulthood, the
brain shows two major changes:
1.
decline in plasticity
2.
increase in efficiency
Plasticity:
Ability of brain regions to take on
new functions.
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Neurological Changes at Puberty
Changes that may contribute to loss of
plasticity:
1.
hemispheric specialization
2.
decrease in number of synapses
Hemispheric specialization:
Process by which certain brain
functions become localized in either
the right or left side of the brain.
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Impacts of Puberty Change
Puberty and Body Image
 Boys who are more physically mature
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have more positive body image
perceive themselves as more attractive
have athletic advantage
Girls who are more physically mature
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have poorer body image and
tend to think themselves too heavy
because of increase & redistribution of fat
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Impacts of Puberty Change
Puberty and Social Relationships
 increased interest in opposite sex
 increased likelihood of dating & sex
 conflicts with mothers often increase
 increasing feelings of autonomy from
their parents
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Impacts of Puberty Change
Puberty and Problem Behaviors
Various problem behaviors become more
common at puberty, especially for earlymaturing girls, who show more:
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truancy
academic trouble
drug and alcohol use
running away
shoplifting
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Timing of Puberty and
Overall Adjustment
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Early-maturing girls tend to have lower
self-esteem.
Long-term effects of early maturation for
girls are not completely clear.
Late-maturing boys tend to be less
popular and less self-confident.
Early-maturing boys are often viewed as
more competent, poised, & successful.
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Direct and Indirect
Effects of Puberty
Puberty produces both unseen internal and
visible external physical changes.
 Through hormones, internal changes directly
affect:
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feelings
behaviors
sexual desire
External changes affect these too, through
their impact on body image and reactions they
trigger in others.
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Changes in
Thinking During
Adolescence
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Major cognitive changes:
1.
2.
3.
Applying logical thinking to the possible
(what might exist), not just to the real (what
does exist).
Ability to think about relationships among
mentally constructed concepts.
More logical & systematic thinking.
Hypothetico-deductive thinking:
Ability to think of hypothetical solutions to a
problem and to formulate a systematic plan for
deducing which of these solutions is correct.
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Cognitive Development in adolescence
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Piaget’s approach
Alternatives to Piaget
Adolescent egocentrism
Moral development
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Piaget’s approach
Kohlbergs approach
Critiques of Kohlberg
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Piaget’s Theory of Formal Operations
Propositional logic (formal operations) involves
combining individual statements (propositions) to
reach logical conclusions.
 Formal operations allow them to think more
abstractly and systematically.
 They are able to think about logical implications
in a problem, whether grounded in reality or not.
Formal operations:
In Piaget’s theory, a set of principles of formal
logic on which the cognitive advances of
adolescence are based.
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Piaget’s Experiments
Piaget had youngsters of different ages
conduct science experiment with an
apparatus or set of materials to test their
reasoning abilities.
The Law of Floating Bodies Study
 The Pendulum Study
 The All Possible Combinations Study
 Discovering inertia by negations
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Is Piaget’s View Correct?
Contrary to Piaget’s expectations, training
in formal operations is effective under
some circumstances, perhaps because it
encourages the display of already
existing competencies rather than
teaching entirely new skills.
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Other Approaches to
Adolescent Cognition
Research on adolescents’ informationprocessing abilities indicates continuing
improvement in attention and memory
skills, due to:
 increased capacity
 improved cognitive strategies
 automatization of basic mental processes
 expanded knowledge base
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Selective
attention
Focusing attention on relevant
information despite distractions.
Divided
attention
Paying attention to two tasks at the
same time.
Automatization Tendency for basic cognitive
processes to become less effortful
and more automatic with practice.
Cognitive
socialization
The influence of social environment
on development of cognitive skills.
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Social Cognitive
Changes of
Adolescence
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Adolescent
Teenagers’ assumption they
egocentrism are the focus of everyone’s
attention and that their
experiences, thoughts, &
feelings are unique.
Imaginary
Teenagers’ unjustified concern
audience
they are the focus of others’
attention.
Personal
Teenagers’ exaggerated belief
fable
in their own uniqueness.
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Moral Reasoning
Moral reasoning:
Thinking & making judgments about the morally
right course of action in a given situation.
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3.
Piaget’s Model
Amoral stage, until about age 7.
Moral realism, treating morality as absolute
and moral constraints as unalterable.
Autonomous morality, seeing morality as
relative to the situation, usually attained in
late childhood or early adolescence.
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Moral Reasoning
Kohlberg’s Model
Preconventional morality
1.
Obedience & punishment orientation
2.
Hedonistic & instrumental orientation
Conventional morality
3.
Good-boy, nice-girl orientation
4.
Authority or law-and-order orientation
Postconventional (principled) morality
5.
Social contract orientation
6.
Hierarchy of principles orientation
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Stage theories of moral reasoning have
been criticized because of:
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weak connection between
moral thought & moral action
methods used to assess
moral reasoning
possible gender biases
possible cultural biases
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weak connection between moral
thought & moral action
Hartshorne & May (1928)
Prentice, Moral development and
delinquency
Follow up on individuals who dropped out
of the Milgram experiment
Froming, Moral Development and
conformity
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Methods used to assess moral reasoning
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Kurtines & Grief (1974) reliability
James Rest—
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Changes in the scoring manual
Objective Test of Moral Reasoning
Gender Differences -Carol Giligan (1982) claimed women focus more
on caring and men more on justice.
Wark & Krebs (1996) found the opposite from
Giligan—that women were more advanced
Cuture—traditional cultures score lower
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Overview
Major cognitive advances of adolescence include:
 Logical thinking is now
applied to the possible,
not just the real.
 Ability to think about
relationships among
concepts emerges.
 Adolescents’ thinking
become even more
logical and systematic.
Photo copyright © 2003 Travis Langley, Henderson State University
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