Developmental Psych Exam 3 – March 26, 2021
Chapter 9
The Nature of Adolescence
- Influences on the adolescent
 Cultural
 Gender
 Socioeconomic
 Age
 Lifestyle
Physical Changes
- Puberty: a brain-neuroendocrine process that provides stimulation for rapid physical changes that
occur in early adolescence
 Sexual maturation
 Marked weight and heigh gains
 Hormonal changes
 Menarche: girl’s first menstruation
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Hormones: chemicals secreted by the endocrine glands and carried throughout the body by the
bloodstream
 Endocrine system’s role in puberty involves interaction:
o Hypothalamus: a structure in the brain that monitors eating and sex
o Pituitary gland: an important endocrine gland that controls growth and regulates
other glands
o Gonads: the testes in males, ovaries in females
 Increases in testosterone and estradiol concentrations in body
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Timing and variations in puberty
 Basic genetic program hardwired into species
o Nutrition, health, stress and other environmental factors affect timing
 Average age of menarche (period age) has declined significantly since mid-19th century
o Improved nutrition and health
 Pubertal sequence begins:
o Boys: 10-13 ½ years
o Girls: between ages 9 and 15 years
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Body image
 Preoccupation with body image is strong throughout adolescence
 Girls are less happy with their bodies and have more negative body images
 Both boys and girls body images become more positive over time
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Early and late maturation
 Early maturing boys view themselves more positively and have more successful peer
relations
 Late-maturing boys report a stronger sense of identity in their 30s
 Early-maturing girls show greater satisfaction early but less satisfaction later
o Early maturation predicted a stable higher level of depression for adolescent girls
o More likely to smoke, drink, be depressed due to early maturation
o More likely to have an eating disorder
o More struggle for earlier independence
o Have older friends
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Brain
 Cortex-induced plasticity
o Certain brain linkages mature earlier than others
 Corpus callosum: fibers connecting left and right brain hemispheres
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o Thickens in adolescence, improves information processing
Amygdala: seat of emotions
o Almost completely developed by early adolescence
Prefrontal cortex: involved in reasoning, decision-making and self-control
o Matures between approximately 18-25 years
o Has not matured to the point of controlling strong emotions
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Adolescent sexuality
 Developing a sexual identity
o Learning to manage sexual feelings
o Developing new forms of intimacy
o Learning skills to regulate sexual behavior
 Sexual identity includes:
o Activities
o Interests
o Styles of behavior
o Indication of sexual orientation
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Different developmental pathways for gay and lesbian adolescents What’s different between?
 Diverse patterns of initial attractions
 Some struggle with same-sex attractions in childhood
 Gradual recognition of same-sex orientation
Timing of adolescent sexual behaviors
 Becoming sexually active
 Role of oral sex
 Sexual risk-taking
 Many adolescents are not emotionally equipped to handle sexual experiences
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Adolescent Sexuality
- Contraceptive use
 Two kinds of risks of teens having sex
o Unintended, unwanted pregnancy
o Sexually transmitted infections
 Adolescents are increasing their use of contraceptives
- Sexually transmitted infections (STIs): contracted primarily through sexual contact
 Including oral-genital and anal-genital contact
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Adolescent pregnancy
 U.S. has one of the highest rates of teen pregnancy in the industrialized world
 Decline overall in adolescent pregnancy in the U.S.
 Ethnic variations in rates of teenage pregnancy
Health and social risks WHAT ARE THE RISKS OF TEEN PREGNANCY?
 Low birth weight, neurological problems, childhood illness
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 Mothers drop out of school and never catch up economically
Sex education what are schools teaching?
 Abstinence-only or contraceptive knowledge programs
 Contraceptive knowledge programs do not increase commonness of sexual intercourse
o More likely to reduce adolescent pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections
Adolescent Health
- Poor health habits linked to early death in adulthood begin during adolescence
 Early formation of health eating patterns and exercise can delay or prevent disability and
mortality from many diseases
- Nutrition and exercise
 Increasing numbers of overweight adolescents in recent decades
 Individuals become less active as they reach and progress through adolescence
 Exercise linked to positive physical outcomes exercise can help you be healthy long run
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Sleep patterns
 Only 30% of U.S. adolescents sleep 8 or more hours a night
 Inadequate sleep on school nights
 Sleep deficits experiences, try to make up on weekends
Leading causes of death in adolescents WHAT CAUSES DEATH IN TEENS?
 Unintentional injuries
 Homicide
 Suicide
Substance use and abuse
 Illicit drug use has declined in recent decades
o Marijuana as mist widely used drug, use rates on the increase
o Alcohol and cigarette consumption has declined
 Special concerns for adolescents who begin to use drugs early in adolescence or even
childhood
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Parents and peers play role in substance use
o Educational success as a strong buffer for drug problems
Eating disorders
 Anorexia nervosa: relentless pursuit of thinness through starvation
o Main characteristics
 Weight less than 85% of what is considered normal for a person’s age and
height
 An intense fear of gaining weight that does not decrease with weight loss
 Having a distorted image of their body shape
 Amenorrhea
o 10 times more likely to occur in females than males
 Bulimia nervosa: individual consistently follows a binge-and-purge patterns
o Preoccupied with food
o Intense fear of becoming overweight
o Depressed or anxious
o Distorted body image
o Typically fall within a normal weight range
Adolescent Cognition
- Piaget’s Formal Operational stage (ages 11+)
 More abstract thought start thinking more and using imagination
o Make-believe situations, abstract proportions, hypothetical events
 Increased verbal problem-solving ability
 Think about thought itself
 Thoughts of idealism and possibilities
 More logical thought
o Hypothetical-deductive reasoning: creating a hypothesis and deducing its
implications
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Adolescent egocentrism: heighted self-consciousness of adolescents
 Imaginary audience: adolescents’ belief that others are interested in them as they
themselves are
o Attention-getting behaviors
 Personal fable: involves a sense of uniqueness and invincibility
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Information processing
 Executive functioning: managing one’s thoughts to engage in goal-directed behavior and
exercise self-control
o Increased cognitive control
o Increased decision making
Schools
- Transition to middle or junior high school
 Drop in school satisfaction
 Occurs simultaneously with a host of other developmental changes
 Tog-dog phenomenon: move from top position in elementary school to lowest position in
middle or junior high school
 Positive elements of transition: (growing up)
o Feeling more grown up
o More subjects to select from
o More opportunities to spend with peers and locate compatible friends
o Increased independence from direct parental monitoring
o More intellectually challenging work
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Effective schools for young adolescents
 Develop smaller communities that lessen impersonality of middle schools
 Lower student-counselor ratios to 10-to-1
 Involve parents and community leaders
 Integrate several disciplines in a flexible curriculum
 Boost students’ health and fitness with more programs
 Provide public health care
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High schools
 Critiques include:
o Low expectations for success
o Inadequate standards for leaning
o Lack of pathways to create identity
o Graduating without adequate reading, writing and mathematical skills
o Dropout rates
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Service learning
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Promotes social responsibility and service to the community
Takes education out into the community
Linked to higher grades, increased goal setting, higher self-esteem, serving as a volunteer in
the future
Chapter 10
Identity
- Identity is a self-portrait composed of many pieces WHAT DOESN IDENTITY CONSIST OF?
 Vocation/career
 Political views
 Religious beliefs
 Relationship
 Achievement/intellectual
 Sexual
 Cultural/ethnic
 Interests
 Personality
 Physical
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Erikson’s stages – identity versus confusion WHAT ERIKSON STAGE IS THIS?
 Psychosocial moratorium: gap between childhood security and adult autonomy
o Relatively free from responsibility, able to try on new identities
o Experimentation with different roles and personalities
 Adolescents who cope with conflicting identities emerge with a new sense of self
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Marcia’s 4 statuses of identity:
 Identity crisis
 Identity diffusion
 Identity foreclosure
 Identity moratorium
Identity does not remain stable throughout life
 “MAMA”: repeated cycles of moratorium to achievement
Key changes in identity are more likely to take place in emerging adulthood than in adolescence
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Ethnic identity: enduring aspect of the self that includes:
 Sense of membership is in ethnic group
 Attitudes and feelings related to the membership
Many adolescents develop a bicultural identity
 Identity in some ways with their ethnic group and in other ways with majority culture
 May consciously confront their ethnicity for the first time as adolescents
Positive ethnic identity is related to positive outcomes for ethnic minority adolescents
Families
- Parental monitoring and management
 Managerial roles of parents, supervising adolescents’ choice of:
o Social settings
o Activities
o Friends
o Academic efforts
 Low parental monitoring is associated with negative mental health outcomes, predicts
deliquesce and substance use
 When parents engage in positive parenting practices, adolescents are more likely to disclose
information be more open with their parents!
 Higher levels of parental monitoring reduced negative peer influence on adolescent risktaking
 Parental snooping was a relatively infrequence parental monitoring technique and is an
indicator of problems in adolescent and family functioning
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Autonomy and attachment
 Adolescents competing needs for autonomy and control, independence and connection
 Push for autonomy self-controlling
o May puzzle and anger many parents
o Ability to attain autonomy is acquired through appropriate adult reactions to desire
for control
o Adolescents gradually acquire ability to make mature decisions on their own
o Boys are granted more autonomy than girls boys vs girls?
 Role of attachment
o Securely attached adolescents are less likely to have emotional difficulties and to
engage in problem behaviors
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Parent-adolescent conflict
 Increases in early adolescence, does not reach tumultuous proportions
 Remains somewhat stable during the high school years
 Higher level of conflict was linked to higher anxiety, depression and aggression and lower
self-esteem
o Lessens as adolescent reaches 17 to 20 years of age
 Everyday conflicts serve a positive developmental function
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Old model of parent-adolescent relationships:
o Adolescents detach themselves from parents, move into a world of autonomy apart
from parents want to get away from their parents honestly
New model:
o Parents as important attachment figures and support systems while adolescents
explore a wider, more complex social world
Peers
- Friendships
 Most teens prefer a smaller number of friendships that are more intense and more intimate
 Friends become increasingly important in meeting social needs:
o Needs for tenderness (secure attachment)
o Companionship
o Social acceptance
o Intimacy
o Sexual relations
 Positive friendships are related to a list of positive outcomes
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Peer pressure
 Young adolescents conform more to peer standards than children do
 Boys were more likely to be influence by peer pressure involving sexual behavior than were
girls
Cliques and crowds
 Cliques: small groups averaging 5 or 6 individuals
o Usually, same age and sex
o Engage in similar activities
 Crowds: larger than cliques and less personal
o Membership based on reputation
o May not spend much time together
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Dating and romantic relationships
 Three stages of romantic relationships WHAT ARE THESE 3 STAGES?
o Ages 11-13: entry into romantic attractions and affiliations
o Ages 14-16: exploring romantic relationships
o Ages 17-19: consolidating dyadic romantic bonds
 Variations on three stages include early and late bloomers
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Dating for gay/lesbian youth
 May date other-sex peers, which can help clarify their sexual orientation or disguise it from
others date opposite sex peers while in the closet
 Many have same-sex experiences with peers who are “experimenting”
Sociocultural contexts and dating
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 Values, beliefs and traditions dictate the age at which dating begins
Dating and adjustment
 Romantic experiences linked with measures of adolescent adjustment
Culture and Adolescent Development
- Cross-culture comparisons
 Traditions and changes in adolescence around the globe
o Health
o Gender
o Family
o Peers
 Rite of passage: ceremony that marks an individual’s transition from one status to another
o Focus on transition to adult status
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Ethnicity
 Immigration
o High rates of immigration contributing to the growth of U.S. ethnic minorities
o Immigrants experience stressors uncommon to longtime residents
 Language barriers
 Dislocation and separations from support networks
 Dual struggle to preserve identity and acculturate
 Changes in SES status
 Undocumented status
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Adolescent media use has increased dramatically in the past decade
 Media multitasking
 Mobile media
 Digitally mediated communication
o Email
o Text/instant messaging
o Social networking sites
o Chat rooms
Adolescent Problems
- Juvenile delinquency
 Adolescent who breaks the law or engages in illegal behavior
 Males more likely to engage in delinquency than females
 Rates among minority groups and lower-SES youth are especially high
 Causes of delinquency what can lead to a delinquent child
o Lower class culture
o Parents less skilled in discouraging antisocial behavior
o Siblings and delinquent peers
o Academic success and delinquency
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Depression and suicide
 Rates of major depressive disorder range from 15-20% of adolescents
 Factors contributing to depression
o Genes
o Gender differences
o Certain family factors
o Poor peer relationships
 Combination of drug therapy and cognitive behavioral theory effective in treating
adolescent depression
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Suicide
 3rd leading cause of death in 10- to 19-year-olds in the U.S.
 More adolescents contemplate or attempt it unsuccessfully than actually commit it
 Females are more likely to attempt suicide, but males are more likely to succeed
 Suicidal adolescents often have depressive symptoms
Interrelation of Problems and Successful Prevention/ Intervention Programs
- Four problems that affect the most adolescents:
 Drug abuse
 Juvenile delinquency
 Sexual problems
 School-related problems
- Problem behaviors are often interrelated
 Adolescents at highest risk experience multiple problems
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Successful intervention programs include:
 Intensive individualized attention
 Community-wide multiagency collaborative approaches
 Early identification and intervention
Chapter 11
The Transition from Adolescence to Adulthood
- Emerging adulthood: transition from adolescence to adulthood
 Occurs from approximately 18 to 25 years of age
 Characterized by experimentation and exploration
 Appears in cultures where assuming adult roles and responsibilities is postponed
- Key features
 Identity exploration, especially in love and work
 Istability, self-focused, and feeling in-between
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Age of possibilities, in which individuals have an opportunity to transform lives
Markers of becoming an adult
 Holding a full-time job
 Economic independence
 Taking responsibility for oneself
Transition from high school to college
 Top-dog phenomenon
 Movement to a larger, more impersonal school structure
 Increased focus on achievement and assessment
 Interaction with more diverse set of peers
Physical Development
- Physical performance and development
 Peak physical performance typically occurs between 19 and 26
 Muscle tone and strength usually begin to show signs of decline around age 30
 Lessening of physical abilities in the 30s
 Body’s fatty tissue increases in mid- to late 20s
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Health
 Emerging adults have more than twice the mortality rate of adolescents
 Few chronic health problems
 Increase in bad health habits, inadequate sleep
o 70% of college students do not get adequate sleep
o 50% report daytime sleepiness
 Eating and weight
o Obesity – linked to increased risk of hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease
and mental health problems
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Exercise
o Aerobic exercise: sustained exercise that stimulates heart and lungs
o Exercise benefits both physical and mental
Substance abuse
 Reduced drug and alcohol use by mid-20s
 Binge drinking increases during college years
o Reached peak around 21-22 years
o Extreme binge drinking: 10 or more drinks in a row
 Problems of binge drinking
o Missing classes
o Physical injuries
o Trouble with police
o Unprotected sex
Sexuality
- Sexual activity in emerging adulthood
 Most individuals are sexually active and unmarried
 Patterns of heterosexual behavior:
o Males have more casual sexual partners
o Female’s report being more selective
o Casual sex is more common in emerging adulthood than in late 20s
o “Hooking up” is non-relational sex
o “Friends with benefits” – friendship and sexual intimacy without exclusive romantic
relationship
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Sexual orientation and behavior
 Heterosexual attitudes and behavior
o Americans fall into three categories:
 1/3 have sex twice a week or more, 1/3 a few times a month and 1/3 a few
times a year or not at all
o Married couples have sex more often than non-cohabiting couples
o Most Americans do not engage in kinky sex
o Adultery is the exception rather than the rule
o Men think about sex more than women do
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Sources of sexual orientation
 Sexual orientation as a continuum
o From exclusive male-female relations to exclusive same-sex relations
o Some individuals are bisexual – attracted to both sexes
 Women are more likely to change sexual patterns and desires than men
o (women) More likely to have sexual experiences with same and opposite sex,
regardless or identification as heterosexual or lesbian
 Sexual orientation likely a combo of genetic, hormonal, cognitive and environmental factors
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Attitudes and behavior of lesbians and gay males
 Many gender differences that appear in heterosexual relationships occur in same-sex
relationships
 Lesbians and gays experience life as a minority
o Development of bicultural identity
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Sexually transmitted infections (STIs): diseases contracted primarily through sex
 HIV
o Virus breaks down and overpowers immune system
o Leads to AIDS
 Effective strategies for protecting against HIV
o Know your risk status and that of your partner
o Obtain medical examinations
o Have protected sex
o Do not have sex with multiple partners
Cognitive Development
- Piaget’s view
 Adolescents and adults think qualitatively in the same way
 Individuals consolidate formal operational thinking during adulthood
- Postformal thought:
 Reflective, relativistic and contextual
 Provisional
 Realistic
 Recognized as being influenced by emotion
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Creativity
 Early adulthood is a time of great creativity for some people
o Most creative products created in the 30s
 Declines in creativity depend on field involved
Careers and Work
- Developmental changes
 Career decision-making becomes less idealistic
 Choosing a major in college
 By early to mid-20s, many have completed education and enter full-time occupation
 From mid-20s in, individuals often work hard to ascend career ladder and improve financial
standing wanting to get more experience and more money
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Finding a path to a purpose
 Consideration of purpose is missing in young adults’ achievements and career development
 Only 20% of 12–22-year-old have a clear vision of where they want to go in life
 Students focus only on short-term goals
o Don’t explore the big, long-term picture of what they want to do in life
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Impact of work
 Influences on financial standing, housing, how time is spent, where people live, friendships
and health
 Identity defined through work
 Most individuals spend 1/3 of their lives at work
 Stressful working conditions
 Workers’ changing expectations about workplace
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Work during college
 Changing number of college students who hold jobs
 Working can pay or help offset some costs of schooling
o But can also restrict students’ opportunities to learn
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Occupational outlook
 Shifting number of jobs opening as economic conditions change
 U.S. government-published Occupational Outlook Handbook updates job projections every
2 years
o Jobs that require college degrees are amongst the highest paying
Unemployment
 Produces stress regardless of whether the job loss is temporary, cyclical or permanent
 Linked to physical and mental problems, marital difficulties and homicide
Dual-earner couples
 Special challenged in balancing work and family life
 Adaptive strategies to coordinate work and manage family
 Gender equality strived for, but inequalities still persist
Chapter 12
Stability and Change from Childhood to Adulthood
- Experiences in the early adult years important in determining what the individual is like later in
adulthood
 Unfolding of social relationships and emotions
 Attachment plays an important part in socioemotional development
o Romantic partners as secure base to obtain comfort and security
- Adult attachment
 Secure attachment style: positive view of relationships, easy to get close to others, not
overly concerned/stressed about relationships
 Avoidant attachment style: hesitant about getting involved in romantic relationships, tend
to distance themselves from partner
 Anxious attachment style: demand closeness, less trusting, more emotional, jealous,
possessive
- Majority of adults have secure attachment style
Love and Close Relationships
- Intimacy
 Self-disclosure and sharing of private thoughts
 Intimacy, identity and independence demands are central to adulthood
- Erikson’s stage of intimacy versus isolation
 Intimacy is finding oneself while losing oneself in another person
 Failure to achieve intimacy results in social isolation
- Friendship
 Adulthood brings opportunities to form new friendships
 Gender differences in adult friendships
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Romantic and affectionate love
 Romantic love: passionate love, or eros
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o Strong components of sexuality and infatuation
o Often predominates in early parts of love relationships
Affectionate love: companionate love
o Desires to have the other person near, based on deep, caring affection
Consummate love: strongest form of love
o Involves dimensions of passion, intimacy and commitment
Adult Lifestyles
- Single adults
 Dramatic rise in the percentage of single adults
o Cohabitation and postponing marriage
 Common problems
o Forming intimate relationships with other adults
o Confronting loneliness
o Finding a place in a society that is marriage-oriented
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Advantages to being a single adult
 Time to make decisions about one’s life course
 Time to develop personal resources to meet goals
 Freedom to make autonomous decisions
 Pursue one’s own schedule and interests
 Opportunities to explore new places and new experiences
 Privacy
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Cohabitation
 Living together in a sexual relationship without being married
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 Seen as a precursor to marriage, ongoing lifestyle
Common problems:
 Disapproval and emotional strain
 Difficulty owning property jointly
 Uncertain legal rights upon dissolution of relationship
How does prior cohabitation affect marriage?
 Lower marital satisfaction and higher rates of divorce
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Married adults
 Changing views
o Personal fulfillment goals – inside and outside marriage
o Changing norms of male-female equality
o Increasingly high expectations for marriage
 Marital trends
o Declining marriage rates in the US in recent years
o Highest ages for first marriages in US history
 In 2010, 28.7 years for men and 26.5 years for women
o More marriage partners meeting online
o Marriages in adolescent more likely to end in divorce
o Average duration of marriage is just over 9 years
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Benefits of a good marriage
 Happily married people live longer, healthier lives
o Enhanced longevity of men more so than women
 Feel less physical and emotional stress
o Fewer physical ailments and psychological problems
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Divorced adults
 US has one of the highest divorce rates in the world
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o Declining numbers in recent decades
Factors leading to divorce:
o Youthful marriage
o Low educational level
o Low-income level
o No religious affiliation
o Having divorced parents
o Having a baby before marriage
Partner characteristics leading to divorce:
 Alcoholism
 Psychological problems
 Domestic violence
 Infidelity
 Inadequate division of household labor
Divorce typically takes place in early marriage when does divorce take place?
 Between years 5-10 of marriage
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Remarried adults
 Approximately 50% remarry within 3 years of divorce
 Men remarry sooner than women
 Remarriage occurs sooner for partners who initiate a divorce
 Recent decline in remarriage rate in US
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Gay and lesbian adults
 Increasing number of legalized same-sex marriages
 Similar to heterosexual relationships in love, joy, satisfactions and conflicts
 Increasing number are creating families including children
Misconceptions:
 Masculine/feminine roles are uncommon
 Preferences for long-term, committed relationships
Special concerns for stigma, prejudice and discrimination
Transgender
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Challenges in Marriage, Parenting and Divorce
- Making marriage work
 7 principles of a working marriage, including:
o Establishing love maps
o Nurturing fondness and admiration
o Turning towards each other instead of away
o Letting your partner influence you
o Creating shared meaning
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Becoming a parent
 Mixed emotions and romantic illusions about having a child
 Parenting requires interpersonal skills, emotional demands
o Little formal education for these tasks
 Age of having children has been increasing
o In 2012, average age for women was 26 for having kids
 US women having fewer children overall
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Advantages of having children early (in 20s):
 More physical energy
 Fewer medical problems with pregnancy and childbirth
 Less built-up expectations for children
Advantages of having children later (in 30s):
 More time to achieve life goals
 More mature
 Better establishes careers
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Strategies for divorced adults
 Thinking of divorce as a chance to grow personally, develop more positive relationships
 Making decisions carefully
 Focusing more on the future than the past
 Using strengths and resources to cope with difficulties
 Not expecting to be successful and happy in everything you do
Gender, Communication and Relationships
- Rapport talk: language of conversation
 Way of establishing connections and negotiating relationships
- Report talk: designed to giver information
 Includes public speaking
- Men and women have different preferences for communication
 Women prefer rapport talk, men prefer report talk