Chapter 13
Physical and Cognitive Development in Adolescence
Learning Objectives
When students have studied the material in this chapter, they will be able to answer the following:
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Introduction
1. When did adolescence first emerge as a distinct period of development and how has it changed
since then?
2. How are physical, cognitive, and social development interrelated during adolescence?
3. How well does the education system meet the developmental needs of adolescents?
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Biological Changes During Adolescence
4. What factors influence the timing of puberty?
5. Explain the operation of the hormonal systems that control pubertal change.
6. Summarize the changes in appearance associated with puberty.
7. What neurological changes are associated with puberty?
8. Summarize the impacts of pubertal change on body image, social relationships, and problem
behaviors for both early- and late-maturing boys and girls.
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Changes In Thinking During Adolescence
9. What are the major cognitive advances of adolescence?
10. How did Piaget explain adolescent cognitive development?
11. What improvements in information-processing abilities occur during adolescence?
12. What impact does the social environment have on cognitive development in adolescence?
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Social Cognitive Changes Of Adolescence
13. How do cognitive advances affect adolescents’ reasoning in the social domain?
14. What does research on adolescents' moral reasoning reveal?
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An Overview Of Adolescent Physical And Cognitive Development
15. What cognitive limitations remain at the end of adolescence?
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Physical and Cognitive Development in Adolescence
Chapter Summary Outline
Note: Terms in bold print are chapter vocabulary words.
Introduction
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Adolescence, the period from roughly age 12 through the late teens, is a time of great
change, with close connections between physical and psychological development. New
cognitive skills emerge too, such as the ability to reason abstractly.
Until the early twentieth century adolescence was not regarded as a distinct developmental
period. Before then, reproductive maturity marked entry into adulthood, not into a transitional
phase.
G. Stanley Hall inspired much change in the way we perceive adolescence. Storm and stress
was his theme.
Adolescence is a longer time period than in Hall’s day, partly because of earlier puberty and
partly because of the number of years required for education.
Substages of adolescence: early adolescence (puberty to age 13), middle adolescence (ages
14 – 16), late adolescence (17 to early adulthood).
Biological Changes During Adolescence
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Puberty: Norms and Individual Differences
1. Puberty is the period during which a young person becomes capable of reproduction.
The clearest markers of this change are menarche for girls, although girls do not reach
reproductive maturity until they ovulate, and spermarche for boys, first ejaculation of
mobile sperm.
2. Rather than a single event, puberty is best thought of as an extended period that begins
during early adolescence (note: first hormonal changes can begin as early as age 7 or 8),
and the latest phases can continue into mid-adolescence, when sexual organs and other
sexual characteristics are developing rapidly.
3. There are sex differences in the timing of puberty. Onset is influenced by heredity,
nutrition, stress, and exercise.
4. There are individual differences in the timing of puberty. Normal (= 95% of the
population) menstruation begins between ages 9 and 16, and normal sperm production
between 10 and 19. There has been a trend toward earlier puberty for at least the last
100 years in industrialized countries. African-American girls are more likely to show signs
of early pubertal development before age 8.
5. Improved nutrition and health have influenced the changes in the timing of puberty.
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Hormonal Control of Puberty
1. Puberty is the final stage in a much longer process of sexual development, beginning
soon after conception when the amount of androgens determines development of male or
female sex organs. At puberty, hormones again govern sexual changes.
2. The changes of puberty are governed by hormones operating in a feedback system
involving the pituitary gland, hypothalamus, gonadotropins, and gonads. At the end
of middle childhood the brain directs the gonads to step up production of sex hormones.
3. It was once thought that the hormonal changes of puberty were triggered by body weight
(critical weight hypothesis), but the critical factor is now thought to be the proportion of fat
to body mass or some other related factor.
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Changes in Appearance at Puberty
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Chapter 13
1. In addition to the development of reproductive capacities, the physical changes of
puberty also include the emergence of secondary sex characteristics. There are five
stages of pubertal development involving these sex characteristics.
2. Acne may develop and new body odors are noted.
3. A major growth spurt occurs, 2 years earlier for females. Growth occurs near the
epiphyseal growth plates. See increases in weight, strength, and endurance.
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Neurological Changes at Puberty
1. Between childhood and adolescence the brain shows 1) decline in plasticity and 2)
increase in efficiency of brain functioning.
 Hemispheric specialization may contribute to a loss of plasticity.

Decrease in the number of synapses is likely a contributor. Between ages 10 and 14,
there is a 50 % drop in the energy being used in certain parts of the cortex.

Decrease in synapses allows for more efficient functioning of the remaining
connections.

Sleep patterns also support the idea of brain changes at puberty; deep sleep levels
reach that of adult patterns by ages 11 to 14.
Impacts of Pubertal Change
1. Some behavioral changes of adolescence are more clearly associated with pubertal
status, the timing of maturation, than with chronological age or cognitive development.
2. Puberty and Body Image
 Body image is strongly affected by puberty and its timing. In early adolescence, boys
who are more physically mature are more likely to have a positive body image and to
perceive themselves as generally more attractive than are boys who are less
physically mature.

For girls early puberty tends to be associated with a poorer body image, emphasis on
being too heavy, though they are happier with breast development. Among early
adolescent girls, those who are about average in physical development generally
have the most positive body image and the greatest feelings of attractiveness.
3. Puberty and Social Relationships
 Puberty is associated with increased interest in the opposite sex and an increased
likelihood of dating and sexual activity.

Pubertal change and the timing of puberty also affect parent-child relationships,
particularly in the area of autonomy. Parent-child conflicts are greatest with early
maturers.
4. Puberty and Problem Behaviors
 A number of studies have documented an increase in various problem behaviors at
puberty, especially in early-maturing girls. They are more likely to have children
earlier and to complete fewer years of education. Studies also have shown that early
maturing boys are more likely than late maturing boys to smoke and drink regularly,
and to experience truancy and early sexual activity.
5. Timing of Puberty and Overall Adjustment
 The timing of puberty has different effects for overall adjustment of boys and girls.
Early-maturing girls have lower self-esteem and are more at risk for emotional
problems. Late-maturing boys are less popular and less self-confident.

Early-maturing females can reach puberty at age 9 and late-maturing males can
reach puberty as late as age 19.
6. Direct and Indirect Effects of Puberty
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Physical and Cognitive Development in Adolescence

Puberty produces both unseen internal and visible external physical changes in
adolescents. The internal changes may directly affect adolescents' feelings and
behaviors through the influences of hormones. The external changes may affect
feelings and actions too, both through the impact they have on an adolescent's own
body image and through the reactions they trigger in others.
Changes in Thinking During Adolescence
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Three major cognitive advances during adolescence are:
1. An increased ability to apply logical thinking to the possible, not just to the real (deal with
necessary not just contingent truth).
2. The ability to think about relationships among mentally constructed concepts (abstract).
3. More logical and systematic thinking than in childhood. Adolescents engage in
hypothetico-deductive reasoning. Can think of hypothetical solutions to a problem.
Developmentalists are still trying to determine what underlies these cognitive changes.
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Piaget's Theory of Formal Operations
1. Piaget explained adolescents' new thinking skills as a product of their ability to use
formal operations. These cognitive structures are qualitatively different from those
acquired earlier in childhood, but they result from the same developmental processes
(equilibration, etc.).
2. Believed that formal operations could not be taught.
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Piaget's Experiments
1. Piaget's theory of formal operations is based on studies of adolescents' reasoning on
tasks related to various scientific principles. These tasks used in Piaget's experiments
demonstrated adolescents' use of one or more general cognitive abilities.
2. The Law-of-Floating-Bodies Study
Adolescents become able to see how two or more mentally constructed concepts can be
related to produce a third even more abstract concept. Thus, in the floating-bodies task,
they grasp that the ratio of weight to volume yields the concept of density.
3. The Pendulum Study
The pendulum task measures the ability to investigate the effects of a single variable
while holding all other factors constant. Adolescents systematically test each of four
relevant factors while holding the others constant and are thus able to discover the right
answer.
4. The All-Possible-Combinations Study
By mid-adolescence, children adopt a systematic approach and try all possible
combinations in order to discover which combination of five different colorless liquids
causes a yellow color to appear.
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Is Piaget's View Correct?
1. Piaget's description of adolescent thinking abilities has proven to be quite accurate, but
his explanation of these abilities has been criticized.
2. How Pervasive are Formal Operations?
 Emergent formal operations are typical in early adolescence while consolidated
formal operations are more often used in middle to late adolescence.

Many adolescents and adults do not use formal operations in routine problem
solving. Their everyday cognitive performance does not seem to match their cognitive
competence.

Formal operations are more culture-bound than earlier cognitive abilities in his theory.
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Chapter 13

Defenders of the theory say that the lack of pervasiveness of formal operations
reflects the distinction between cognitive competence (optimal ability) and congitive
performance (actual behavior in a particular situation).
3. Can Formal Operations Be Taught?
 Contrary to Piaget's predictions, some researchers have successfully taught the use
of formal operations to older elementary school children and to adolescents who
were not already using them.
4. Are Formal Operations Related to Academic Performance?
 Use of formal operations is positively related to general intelligence and to success in
school, especially in math and science.
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Other Approaches to Adolescent Cognition
1. Information-Processing Explanations
 Research on adolescents' information-processing abilities consistently indicates
continuing improvement in attention skills. Adolescents are better than younger
children at both selective attention and divided attention.

Adolescents also surpass younger children in the areas of short- and long-term
memory. Improvements may be due to increases in memory capacity (6 items by age
9).

Development of metamemory and increased sophistication in using mnemonic
strategies account for much of the improvement in memory processes. Adolescents
use more complex strategies, spontaneously, and become more planful and flexible
in their memory strategy usage. They do show some metamemory limitations such as
recognizing the most appropriate strategy.

Increase in available cognitive processing capacity called automatization may also
play a role. With more experience or practice, processes become less effortful.

Another factor: expanding knowledge base.
2. Cognitive Socialization
 Cognitive socialization refers to the influence of social environment on the
development of cognitive skills. The reason for much of the impact of social
interaction on cognitive development is that it provides a setting for trying out ideas,
responding to opposing points of view, and learning to evaluate the soundness of
arguments and evidence.
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Adolescents do not simply invent principles of logical reasoning and effective
approaches to problem solving on their own. Instead, especially during early
adolescence, discussion with others, individually or in small groups, seems to foster
the emergence of higher-order thinking skills.

Schools play the most obvious role in adolescents’ cognitive socialization. Emphasis
on test score outcomes has detracted from the development of higher-order cognitive
abilities such as critical thinking.

In a variety of subject areas, including science, math, and social studies, adolescents
in the United States show low levels of critical thinking. It is clear that critical thinking,
like formal operations, does not automatically emerge in adolescence. Adolescents
may fail to think critically for a number of reasons, both cognitive and social.
Developmental psychologist Daniel Keating believes that critical thinking may be
fostered by parents and teachers who provide specific experiences and learning
contexts for adolescents.

Television, especially commercials, has discouraged critical thinking and reasoned
decision-making.
Social Cognitive Changes of Adolescence
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Physical and Cognitive Development in Adolescence
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Adolescent Egocentrism
1. Adolescents' new abilities for abstract thought give rise to a new form of egocentrism
that includes concern about an imaginary audience, an unjustified concern that one is
the focus of others’ attention. They can think about thinking and thus can think about
what others may be thinking about them.
2. Another aspect of adolescent egocentrism is the personal fable, the belief that they are
unique and no one has ever had the same thoughts or feelings they are having. It is also
related to feelings of invincibility to risks and physical dangers.
3. Much of this is due to their more abstract thinking about topics with which they have little
experience (romantic love, sex).
4. The emergence of adolescent egocentrism may be associated with processes of identity
development as well as with cognitive changes.
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Moral Reasoning
1. Moral reasoning – the process of thinking and making judgments about the right course
of action in a given situation.
2. Piaget's Model
 Piaget discussed the development of moral reasoning within his broad theory of
cognitive development. His model included an amoral stage (through age 7), a stage
of moral realism (middle childhood), and a stage of autonomous morality (by early
adolescence). Piaget believed that moral development is a direct consequence of
both cognitive development and increased social experience.
3. Kohlberg's Model
 Kohlberg expanded on Piaget's approach to include six stages of moral development
within three broader periods: preconventional morality, conventional morality,
and postconventional or principled morality. Most adolescents and adults operate
at the level of conventional morality where moral judgments are based on internalized
standards arising from concrete experience with the world—focuses on opinions of
others or on formal laws.
4. Criticisms of Kohlberg's Model
 Piaget's and Kohlberg's models have both been criticized because of the weak
relationship between moral reasoning and moral behavior. Kohlberg's theory has also
been criticized for separating the form and content of moral reasoning, for the
reliability of his measures, for bias against women, and for being too culture-specific.
An Overview of Adolescent Physical and Cognitive Development
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Physical changes that occur during adolescence are a good example of qualitative change;
puberty produces a transformation in a young person’s physical appearance and a
reorganization of his or her functioning. These physical changes have far-reaching
implications for other areas of an adolescent’s life.
Cognitive abilities also undergo qualitative changes by the end of adolescence.
Lecture Topics
The following are lecture topic suggestions to complement Chapter 13 reading material.
Topic 1: Recent Trends in Adolescent Sexual and Contraceptive Behavior
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Research Questions: How have attitudes toward sexual behavior in general and adolescent
sexuality in particular changed over the last 70 years? How has adolescents' sexual and
contraceptive behavior changed during this time period?
Major changes in adolescent sexual and contraceptive behavior occurred between 1965 and 1995,
along with a major increase in both pregnancies and abortions among unmarried teenage girls. Some
of those trends are discussed in Chapter 14, but the topic could also be discussed in connection with
the material on physical development in Chapter 13. Chilman (1986) has summarized the results of a
large number of surveys and statistical studies related to teenage sexuality and fertility.
Research Literature:
1. Brooks-Gunn, J., & Furstenberg, F. F., Jr. (1989). Adolescent sexual behavior. American
Psychologist, 44, 249-257.
2. Chilman, C. S. (1986). Some psychosocial aspects of adolescent sexual and contraceptive
behaviors in a changing American society. In J. B. Lancaster & B. A. Hamburg (Eds.), School-age
pregnancy and parenthood: Biosocial dimensions (pp. 191-217). New York: Aldine De Gruyter.
3. Crockett, L. J., & Chopak, J. S. (1993). Pregnancy prevention in early adolescence: A
developmental perspective. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Early adolescence: Perspectives on research,
policy, and intervention (pp. 315-333). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
4. D'Augelli, A. R., & Bingham, C. R. (1993). Interventions to prevent HIV infections in young
adolescents. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Early adolescence: Perspectives on research, policy, and
intervention (pp. 353-368). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
5. Fennelly, K. (1993). Sexual activity and childbearing among Hispanic adolescents in the United
States. In R. M. Lerner (Ed.), Early adolescence: Perspectives on research, policy, and
intervention (pp. 335-352). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
6. Furstenberg, F. F., Jr., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Chase-Lansdale, L. (1989). Teenaged pregnancy and
childbearing. American Psychologist, 44, 313-320.
7. Holmbeck, G. N., Crossman, R. E., Wandrei, M. L., & Gasiewski, E. (1994). Cognitive
development, egocentrism, self-esteem, and adolescent contraceptive knowledge, attitudes, and
behavior. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 23, 169-193.
8. Holden, G. W., Nelson, P. B., Velasquez, J., & Ritchie, K. L. (1993). Cognitive, psychosocial, and
reported sexual-behavior differences between pregnant and nonpregnant adolescents.
Adolescence, 28, 557-570.
9. Hurrelman, K. (Ed.). (1994). International handbook of adolescence. Westport, CT: Greenwood
Press.
10. Koch, P. B. (1993). Promoting healthy sexual development during early adolescence. In R. M.
Lerner (Ed.), Early adolescence: Perspectives on research, policy, and intervention (pp. 293307). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
11. Moore, S. (1993). Sexuality in adolescence. New York: Routledge.
12. Nguyet, N. T. M., Maheux, B., Beland, F., & Pica, L. A. (1994). Sexual behaviors and condom
use: A study of suburban male adolescents. Adolescence, 29, 37-48.
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Methods and Results:
1. Attitudes toward sexual behavior. Attitudes toward sexual behavior in general and adolescent
sexuality in particular have changed gradually over the last 70 years. Surveys show sharp
changes in attitudes during the 1920's and again in the late 1960's, in both cases mainly in the
direction of increasingly liberal attitudes toward women's sexual behavior. Double-standard
attitudes toward nonmarital sexual behavior were commonly found through the early 1960's, with
young women believing that petting and intercourse were unacceptable outside of a love
relationship and young men taking a more permissive viewpoint. The differences between young
women's and young men's attitudes began to decline in the mid-1960's and continued to do so
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Physical and Cognitive Development in Adolescence
throughout the 1970's. In general, high school and college students' attitudes toward nonmarital
petting and intercourse became more liberal through at least 1979, with the change greater for
women than for men. There is some evidence that sexual permissiveness among youth may now
be on the decline, however.
2. Changes in adolescent sexual behavior. One recent change in adolescent sexual behavior is a
more rapid movement to intercourse, with less participation in such sexual activities as petting.
Whereas petting often substituted for intercourse in the 1950's and early 1960's, at least for white
teenagers, it is now less common for adolescents to have experienced petting but not
intercourse. The pattern for black teenagers has been different, with less use of petting as a
substitute for intercourse in the past or as an intermediate step toward intercourse in the present.
In one 1983 study of junior high school students, blacks reported no kissing and petting
experience prior to first intercourse—a sharply different pattern than that reported by whites. Until
recently, surveys from which information about adolescent sexual behavior has been obtained
have focused on black and white youth. As a consequence, information about sexual behavior
among Hispanic youth has been available only since the late 1980's (Fennelly, 1993).
Actual rates of intercourse among adolescents appear to have risen sharply since about 1967,
particularly for white females. Between 1925 and 1965, studies found an average of 10% of white
high school senior girls and 25% of white high school senior boys had experienced intercourse;
by 1979, the figures had risen to 44 % for girls and 53 % for boys. Among Hispanic adolescents,
80% of boys and nearly 60% of girls report having had intercourse by age 19. Comparable figures
for black teenagers are higher, with 73% of senior girls and over 90% of senior boys indicating
sexual experience. The 1983 study of junior high students already mentioned yielded even higher
rates of reported sexual activity, with 51% of white male ninth-graders and 91% of black male
ninth-graders claiming they had had intercourse. Such extremely high rates must be regarded
with caution, however, since exaggeration probably plays a prominent role in surveys on
adolescent sexual activity, particularly among younger adolescents.
3. Factors associated with adolescent sexual activity. Factors that increase the likelihood of sexual
activity for adolescents include sexually active friends; a permissive, risk-taking attitude toward
sex; positive orientations toward deviance and independence; low grades; low expectations of
achievement; low acceptance of parental controls; high social alienation; low religiosity; drug and
alcohol use; poor communication with parents; coming from a single-parent family; and, for girls,
a traditional sex-role orientation. Factors that decrease the likelihood of sexual activity include
positive attitudes toward education, high levels of educational achievement, clear educational
goals, high SES, and the reverse of most of the factors associated with sexual activity.
Adolescents who experience intercourse at a very early age (12 or 13) are more likely to have
serious problems of various sorts than older sexually active adolescents are.
4. Adolescent fertility rates. Although the overall rate of births to teenagers has declined in the
United States over the last 20 years, three teenage reproductive rates have greatly increased
during that time: (1) the pregnancy rate, (2) the abortion rate, and (3) the percentage of births
occurring outside of marriage. In 1979, the fertility rate for white American women aged 14 to 19
was 221 per 1000; for blacks, it was 515 per 1000. Those rates were higher than in most other
Western countries, and the rate for blacks was the highest rate for any group in 30 countries
surveyed. In contrast, the rates in Scandinavian countries were under 100 per 1000; in Japan, it
was only 17 per 1000. In the United States about half of those pregnancies ended in abortion. Of
the adolescent pregnancies that were carried to term, 31 percent of the white births and 83
percent of the black births were to unmarried mothers.
5. Adolescent contraceptive use. One reason for the high pregnancy rate among American
teenagers is their correspondingly low rate of contraceptive use. In 1979, about 45 percent of
sexually active adolescent girls in one study said they had used contraception at their first
intercourse, about one-third said they always used contraception when they had intercourse, and
about one-third said they had never used contraception. Although the percentage of
contraceptive users had increased between 1976 and 1979, the use of effective methods had
declined, with a shift away from birth control pills and toward such methods as withdrawal. About
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Chapter 13
40 percent of the girls in the study reported that they depended on male methods of
contraception, but the boys in the study expressed little concern about contraception. Because
younger adolescents are typically not consistent or effective contraceptive users, they may be at
an especially high risk for unwanted pregnancy. Indeed, whereas pregnancy rates have declined
for most age groups in recent years, the pregnancy rate among girls under age 15 has shown a
23 percent increase (Crockett & Chopak, 1993).
6. Factors associated with adolescent contraceptive use. Factors associated with failure to use
effective contraception include: youth, being single, low SES, minority group membership, fewer
years of education, not being in a steady relationship, not having experienced a pregnancy,
having intercourse sporadically, not having contraceptives when they were needed, not having
access to free and confidential family planning services, lack of communication with parents
about contraception, desire for pregnancy, ignorance of pregnancy risks, attitudes of fatalism and
powerlessness, traditional female role attitudes, low self-esteem, lack of acceptance of one's own
sexual behavior, disturbed family situation, risk-taking, pleasure-oriented attitudes, fear of side
effects, incorrect assumptions about fertility, immature levels of cognitive development, poor
problem-solving skills, lack of planfulness, and presence of siblings and friends who have babies.
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Discussion Questions: How well do the statistics presented here match your sense of what went on
in your own high school? What do you see as the major problem—the level of teenage sexual activity
or the level of teenage pregnancy? What could be done to deal with that problem?
Topic 2: Alternative Explanations for Adolescent Egocentrism
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Research Questions: What is the phenomenon of adolescent egocentrism? How prevalent is it and
what causes it?
When Elkind (1967) originated the concept of adolescent egocentrism, he tied its appearance to the
emergence of formal operations. In Elkind's formulation, the emergence of formal operational thought
allowed adolescents to conceptualize both their own thought and the thought of others, resulting in
the phenomena Elkind labeled the imaginary audience and the personal fable. However, there are
problems with Elkind's characterization of adolescent egocentrism, and recent researchers have
begun to look more closely at both the incidence of these phenomena and the developmental factors
associated with them.
Research Literature:
1. Blasi, A., & Hoeffel, E. C. (1974). Adolescence and formal operations. Human Development, 17,
344-363.
2. Elkind, D. (1967). Egocentrism in adolescence. Child Development, 38, 1025-1034.
3. Lapsley, D. K. (1990). Continuity and discontinuity in adolescent social cognitive development. In
R. Montemayor, G. R. Adams, & T. P. Gullotta (Eds.), From childhood to adolescence: A
transitional period? Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
4. O'Connor, B. P., & Nikolic, J. (1990). Identity development and formal operations as sources of
adolescent egocentrism. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 19, 149-158.
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Methods and Results: One problem with Elkind's account of adolescent egocentrism is that, as
discussed in the textbook, most adolescents do not use formal operational reasoning to any great
extent. Thus, if this type of egocentrism is indeed typical of early adolescence, it must be based on
factors other than formal operational thought. In fact, some researchers (e.g., Blasi & Hoeffel, 1974)
have argued that formal operations are not well suited to the kinds of reasoning about self, others,
and relationships that seem typical of adolescent social cognition. Blasi and Hoeffel, among others,
suggest that adolescent social reasoning may be explained strictly on the basis of concrete
operational thought.
1. Researchers who have tested subjects on both formal operational reasoning and adolescent
egocentrism have not typically found a connection between the two (Lapsley, 1990). Some have
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Physical and Cognitive Development in Adolescence
found that scores on imaginary audience and personal fable measures are the highest for
concrete operational subjects and that the appearance of formal operational thought actually
diminishes concern with the imaginary audience. Others have found no correlation at all between
measures of formal operations and of adolescent egocentrism.
2. The findings on age trends in adolescent egocentrism have also been inconsistent (Lapsley,
1990), though they must be interpreted with caution since there have been no longitudinal
studies. Some researchers have reported peaks in adolescent egocentrism in eighth or ninth
grade, as might be expected from Elkind's original proposal, while others have reported increases
through age 18, decreases from fifth or sixth grade through college, or a complete absence of
age effects. Overall, concerns with the imaginary audience and personal fable seem to be
present during adolescence more often than not, but the developmental course of these concerns
is far from clear.
3. Currently, researchers are examining links between adolescent egocentrism and various other
aspects of social cognitive development. As mentioned in the textbook, O'Connor and Nikolic
(1990) have found a connection between processes of identity formation and egocentrism in high
school and college students. Other researchers have argued for connections to Selman's stages
of interpersonal understanding and to the separation-individuation process of adolescent ego
development (Lapsley, 1990).
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Discussion Questions: Would cross-cultural research shed light on the origins of adolescent
egocentrism and possible links to cognitive development, especially formal operations? Suggest a
study that would investigate these issues cross-culturally and explain what information it might yield.
Topic 3: Antecedents of Menarcheal Age
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Research Question: How do environmental and psychological stressors interact with heredity to
influence the development of the reproductive system, specifically the timing of menarche?
Studies of menarche have shown that the timing of menarche has psychological significance for girls,
their families, and friends (e.g., Petersen, Sarigiani, & Kennedy, 1991). The timing of menarche is
influenced to a great extent by heredity, but studies of girls engaged in intensive physical training
(e.g., ballet, gymnastics) have shown that environmental factors can override genetic links (e.g.,
Brooks-Gunn & Warren, 1988). Recent research has investigated the influence on the timing of
menarche of a broad range of environmental stressors, including the family environment.
Research Literature:
1. Belsky, J., Steinberg, L., & Draper, P. (1991). Childhood experience, interpersonal development,
and reproductive strategy: An evolutionary theory of socialization. Child Development, 62, 647670.
2. Brooks-Gunn, J., & Warren, M. P. (1988). Mother-daughter differences in menarcheal age in
adolescent dancers and nondancers. Annals of Human Biology, 15, 35-43.
3. Graber, J. A., Brooks-Gunn, J., & Warren, M. P. (1995). The antecedents of menarcheal age:
Heredity, family environment, and stressful life events. Child Development, 66, 346-359.
4. Moffitt, T. E., Caspi, A., Belsky, J., & Silva, P. A. (1992). Childhood experience and the onset of
menarche: A test of a sociobiological model. Child Development, 63, 47-58.
5. Petersen, A. C., Sarigiani, P. A., & Kennedy, R. E. (1991). Adolescent depression: Why more
girls? Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 20, 247-271.
6. Steinberg, L. (1988). Reciprocal relation between parent-child distance and pubertal maturation.
Developmental Psychology, 24, 122-128.
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Chapter 13
7. Steinberg, L. (1989). Pubertal maturation and parent-adolescent distance: An evolutionary
perspective. In G. R. Adams, R. Montemayor, & T. P. Gullotta (Eds.), Biology of adolescent
behavior and development (pp. 71-97). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
8. Surbey, M. K. (1990). Family composition, stress, and the timing of human menarche. In T. E.
Zigler & F. B. Bercovitch (Eds.), Socioendocrinology of primate reproduction (pp. 11-32). NY:
Wiley.
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Methods and Results:
1. Surbey (1990) investigated the effects of family structure and life stress on the timing of
menarche. Using retrospective reports, she found that young women who experienced father
absence prepubertally reported earlier ages of menarche than those women from intact homes.
She also found that women who reported more stressful life events had experienced menarche at
an earlier age than women who had less stressful lives.
2. Steinberg (1989) speculated that individuals growing up in homes characterized by conflict and
instability are more likely to experience the onset of pubertal development earlier than individuals
who live in more optimal family environments. Indeed, Steinberg (1988) reported accelerating
effects of mother-daughter distance on the rate of pubertal development. No accelerating effects
were found for boys or for father-daughter distance.
3. Graber, Brooks-Gunn, & Warren (1995) investigated a number of possible antecedents of
menarche in girls between the ages of 10 and 14 years, including: hereditary transmission, weight
and weight for height, stressful life events, family relations, absence or presence of an adult male
in the household, and psychological adjustment.
•
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Girls in this study were part of a larger longitudinal study and were premenarcheal at the first
time of testing. At the outset of the study and annually thereafter the girls completed
questionnaires about their psychosocial functioning and development; yearly physical
examinations measured the girls' pubertal and physical development. The questionnaires the
girls completed each year measured stressful life events, family environment and relations,
and depressive affect.

In their analysis, Graber et al. explored the relation between psychosocial functioning at the
outset of the study—when all of the girls were premenarcheal—and age at menarche.
Results showed that age at menarche was predicted by breast development and family
relations but not by weight for height, presence of an adult male in the household, or stressful
events. A trend for maternal age at menarche to predict adolescent's age at menarche was
found. Depressive affect was moderately predictive of the age at menarche.

Additional analysis revealed that girls with positive family relations and low depressive affect
had the latest age of menarche (M = 13.72), whereas girls with poor family relations and high
depressive affect had the earliest ages of menarche (M = 12.66). Intermediate ages at
menarche were found for girls with positive family relations and high depressive affect (M =
13.56) and for girls with poor family relations and low depressive affect (M = 13.36).

These findings are consistent with previous studies in suggesting that psychosocial factors,
particularly family relations, are associated with subsequent age at menarche. Although the
mechanisms that link family relations to pubertal development have yet to be identified,
Graber et al. speculate that "multiple hormonal pathways may be influenced by internal and
external environments" (p. 357).
Discussion Questions: Belsky, Steinberg, and Draper (1991) have proposed an evolutionary
account of links between psychosocial stress and pubertal development. How might such an account
explain Graber et al.'s findings? Are there other theoretical perspectives that seem to be useful in
understanding the interaction of heredity and the environment in pubertal development?
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Classroom Discussion Topics and Activities
1. Adolescent Writing Samples: In order to fully appreciate changes from concrete operations to formal
operations, it is nice for students to visit http://www.teenink.com to see poems, fiction, and nonfiction
written by adolescents, ages 13 and up. Have students comment on themes and sophistication of
content, and have them analyze the samples from a Piagetian perspective. Then, have students
compare the poems read on Teen Ink with those submitted by children (mostly ages 7 – 12) to the
Poetry Zone, http://www.poetryzone.ndirect.co.uk/poems.htm. Compare and contrast the entries from
a Piagetian perspective. It would be fun to bring some samples to class to read aloud, from early
middle childhood, late middle childhood, early adolescence through to late adolescence. Do students
have their own poems saved from childhood and adolescence to share?
2. Motivating Adolescents: A practical concern of many parents and teachers is how to motivate
adolescents. This activity involves students suggesting ways to motivate adolescents based on their
own experiences and the course material on adolescent development. Students should list two ways
to motivate adolescents. Then students can be divided into groups and asked to discuss their ways to
motivate adolescents with one another. It is important to speak about external versus internal
motivational issues. Also, points about what parents can do to motivate adolescents should be
addressed. The same should be discussed about what roles educators can play in motivating
adolescents. There should be suggestions specific to homework, housework, personal hygiene, and
athletics. Have students talk about what is likely to not work well (e.g., monetary reinforcements) and
why. What worked best for them? Why?
3. Adolescents and Money: Students can form small groups and discuss adolescents and money
management. The class can then reconvene as a whole and develop a list of suggestions for helping
adolescents deal with the challenges of money management. Course material on independent
thinking and hypothetical-deductive reasoning can be integrated into the discussion. Topics of interest
are: developing a budget, saving money to meet goals, saving and investing, earning money, taxes
and inflation (examine pay stubs), use/abuse of credit, buying a car, maintaining a car, and college.
4. Stereotype Activity: Start off by asking your students how many would like to return to adolescence—
without what they know now. Very few usually raise their hands. Make note of that. Then, have your
students free associate to the word adolescence or teenager. Write down their responses on the
board or overhead projector. Point out the themes that are apparent—many students will focus on the
difficulties that we perceive to be inherent to the age period (the storm and stress issues of attitude,
hormonal influences, drugs, peer pressure). Some positive factors will be listed (getting to drive,
having spending money from a part-time job, figuring out a place to be in the world), but these will not
be the major emphasis of their free associations. Very little will be mentioned regarding changes in
cognitive functioning, if anything, which is good to point out as it pertains to Chapter 13. Have them
consider the influences of negative stereotypes on how they perceive adolescents. Ask them whether
they avoid being around “them” or roll their eyes when they see “them.” Ask whether there are
students in the class who really like adolescents. Have them comment on why. Reinforce the positive
points they bring up. One of the tasks of a course on development is to give students a sense of the
tasks for each age period. The better we understand what is really supposed to be going on and how
the behaviors we see fit these changes, the more tolerant we are of individuals in that age period.
Explain that a goal of exploring the next two chapters is to better appreciate the interesting and
wonderful changes going on during adolescence.
5. Body Image— Magazines and TV Shows for Adolescents:
•
•
Have your students look through magazines (or e-zines for adolescents) that are targeted for an
adolescent market. What is the sense they get about the messages being sent to adolescents?
Have them explore the images within the pages for a discussion of body image in America.
Have students comment on television shows that are directed to adolescents. What are the
messages they see being directed to the viewers? What about body image—how realistic are the
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Chapter 13
bodies one sees on the shows that we are “all supposed to look like to be happy.” There are
some facts and figures on body-image-related topics at http://www.focusas.com/BodyImage.html.
•
Have students discuss whether the “new, female athlete” is a more realistic body type than the
runway model look that has been so popular in Hollywood. Do they foresee any changes on the
horizon in terms of what adolescents and young adults will accept as “the” body type to have?
Are strong, fit bodies the wave of the future?
6. Memory Lane:
•
•
•
Have students consider examples from everyday life during adolescence of the capacity for
hypothetical-deductive reasoning. It is more than being good at Twenty Questions and figuring
out scientifically-based problems. It is the ability to persuade parents to let you have your own
room, new wardrobe, etc. It also is the ability to figure out how to get around “the system.” How
many used their burgeoning formal operational skills to attend a concert or a party after the
parents said “no”? How did they try to avoid getting caught? It is an intense game of planning
and hypothetically imagining roadblocks to overcome.
Have students consider the moral-ethical issues that were important to them (homelessness,
rainforest destruction, war crimes) during adolescence. How does moral thinking relate to formal
operational thought processes?
While they are thinking back, have them generate examples of their own (or perhaps some
adolescent siblings in their homes) adolescent egocentrism. Do they remember the imaginary
audience? How about the personal fable—“it can’t happen to me” issues?
7. Class Discussion—The body project: Discuss issues addressed in J. Brumberg’s (1997) book The
Body Project, an historical look at society’s changing conceptualizations of femininity. Engage the
class in a discussion of the change in ways we have treated the domain of women’s and girls’ bodies.
The author states that the more women have been allowed to show parts of their bodies publicly, the
less liberating the experience has actually been for women. Worrying about showing faces, necks,
and hands is different from the worry about a body’s attributes in a bikini. The more we can show, the
more we have to control the appearance of finer and finer details of our bodies. How has this more
public body orientation impacted the focus of adolescent females on their bodies?
8. Observational Task: Have your students make informal observations of adolescents at their place of
employment, at the mall, at a restaurant, etc. Have them casually note the estimated ages of these
adolescents on the basis of their physical development (e.g., height, weight, voice, evidence of
secondary sex characteristics). Can they note the variability in pubertal timing from these casual
observations? Are there any obvious outcomes from differences in pubertal timing—for instance, on a
playing field at school, are the early maturing males the ones in the team leadership roles? At the
mall, are the early maturing females more likely to be with a date or to be concerned with how males
attend to them? Have them make informal comments to class about their observations.
9. Four Adolescents: From the vignettes about Malcolm, Mikey, Maggie, and Meryl at the beginning of
the adolescence section of the text, have your students note evidence of formal operational thinking.
Have them write down the examples before coming to class for the lecture material on cognition in
adolescence. Also, look for examples of adolescent egocentrism. Are there examples of other
cognitive functioning demonstrated in the vignettes? Discuss these.
10. Preparation for Puberty: Have students comment on how prepared they were for the more notable
announcements of the onset of puberty—menarche and first nocturnal emission. Did preparation for
or lack of preparation for puberty have an impact on their experiences of puberty and/or on their
relationships with their family? Were there any celebrations of your transition into adolescence? Do
they remember becoming more preoccupied with their bodies? Did they feel more private about their
bodies? Was this also about the time that they kept a journal (diary)—if indeed they ever did so?
11. Memory Lane – Pubertal Timing: Have students rate (for themselves) their own passage through
puberty as early, average, or late compared to their own peer group. Then discuss as a class the
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Physical and Cognitive Development in Adolescence
relative advantages and disadvantages of early, average, and late maturation for each sex.
Encourage students to come up with as many specific examples as possible from their own
experience or the experiences of people they knew in adolescence. Along with this discussion, have
your students reflect on the popular males in 7th, 8th, or 9th grade class. What attributes did these boys
have? What about the unpopular boys (geeks)? Likely, the popular boys were early maturers while
the unpopular were late maturers. What social advantages are afforded early maturing males? Does
the same hold for early maturing females? Have students comment on their beliefs about the impact
of maturation schedules on adolescent experience. Do these effects carry over into adulthood at all?
12. Writing Activity: One way to help students check their understanding of the physical changes that
occur at puberty is to assign them to write letters explaining these changes to imaginary children
about to enter adolescence. Divide the class into mixed-sex groups and ask each group to produce
one letter to a boy and one to a girl, focusing on the changes members of each sex can expect in
their own bodies and in the feelings that accompany the physical changes. [Adapted from J. R.
Charlesworth, Jr., & J. R. Slate (1986). Teaching about puberty: Learning to talk about sensitive
topics. Teaching of Psychology, 13, 215-217.]
13. Formal Reasoning in High School: Does the current type of education offered in American high
schools foster the development of formal reasoning skills in students? What changes could be made
in American high school education to make it more likely that students will develop such skills?
Films, Videos, and Internet Resources
Films and Videos:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Adolescent Cognition: Thinking In A New Key (33 min., Davidson Films). With David Elkind.
Exploration of the many changes in cognition in adolescence.
Adolescent Development (1990, 30 min., Insight Media). Covers diverse aspects of physical, social,
and psychological development. Discusses developmental tasks, puberty, self-image, Elkind on
social cognition, formal operations, and Kohlberg’s theory of moral development.
American Adolescence (1999, 30 minutes, Films for the Humanities and Sciences). A rising divorce
rate, frequent relocation, and a fascination with TV, video games, and computers are leaving more
and more teenagers under-supervised, rootless, and isolated. Increasingly detached from traditional
values and lifestyles, these young adults face daunting obstacles without the support base enjoyed by
previous generations. This program investigates the hurdles faced by today’s teens and discusses
how their hopes, fears, and expectations will shape American society. Experts include top officers of
the Families and Work Institute, National Teen Pregnancy Prevention Research Center, and National
Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse Control.
High School Stories: One Day in America's Schools (1993, 60 min., Films for the Humanities and
Sciences). In this documentary, produced by Wisconsin Public Television, public television stations in
seven different locations across America document a day in the life of high school seniors. Explores
how classroom experiences help young people form their sense of who they are and what they want
to become.
The House of Tomorrow (1991, 57 min., Ambrose Video). Childhood Series (video 7). Features the
ways various cultures celebrate the passage from childhood to adolescence. Includes boys from
Baka and a young girl in Brazil.
The Independent Thinker (2002, 47 min., Films for the Humanities and Sciences). It takes over 12
years for the average child to acquire all the skills needed to be an independent adult—from solving
algebra equations to behaving properly in society. This program presents the story of how we learn to
think for ourselves, beginning with the development of recall and memory, then the acquisition of
language, and finally the mastering of social skills—learning to be an adult by playing at it. In various
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Chapter 13
cognitive experiments with an array of children, milestones such as abstract reasoning and spatial
memory are charmingly highlighted. A Discovery Channel Production.
•
Misunderstood Minds (2002, 1 hr. 30 min., PBS). Follow the compelling personal stories of five children
struggling with learning differences and their families in this remarkable 90-minute documentary. As
parents, educators, clinicians, and other professionals help the kids better understand their learning
profiles, they gain strategies and solutions that lead toward success both in and out of the classroom.
•

•
•
•
Moral Development (1997, 28 min., Insight Media). This video explains the concept of morality and
defines such terms as moral code, moral judgment, and moral intelligence. It presents key values that
are fundamental to most moral codes and examines the principal theories of moral development,
including psychoanalytic, sociobiological, social learning, and cognitive learning.
The Secret Life of the Brain, The Teenage Brain (2002, 30 min., PBS). This NOVA program explores
the latest knowledge we have about the underlying impacts of brain development and changes during
the adolescent years.
Shortchanging Girls, Shortchanging America (1992, 19 min., Insight Media). This program interviews
educators and business leaders to illuminate the devastating effects of gender bias in schools. It calls
upon educators to encourage girls to develop math and science skills.
Student-Directed Learning in the Alpha Program: A Middle School Approach That Works (1993, 44
min.). Documents the Alpha Program in a multiage junior high school classroom in Shelburne,
Vermont, based on collaboration and peer mentoring. Students determine their own learning goals,
either as individuals, small groups, or in whole class meetings, while teachers act as facilitators.
Teenage Mind and Body (Program 22) (1992, 30 min., Insight Media). Time to Grow Series - Focuses
on psychological and cognitive development in adolescence. Experts and teens themselves discuss
differences between teens' abilities and interests and parents' expectations, as well as moral
development and psychological changes which occur in the teenage years.
A-V Resource List Information:
•
List of providers for most of the videos listed above:
1. Ambrose Video at www.ambrosevideo.com or 800-526-4663
2. Davidson Films at www.davidsonfilms.com or 888-437-4200.
3. Films for the Humanities and Sciences at www.films.com or 800-257-5126.
4. Insight Media at www.insight-media.com or 212-721-6316.
5. Public Broadcasting Service at 1-800-949-8670 or www.shop.pbs.org
6. Yale University Films at 203-432-0148.
Additional Internet Resource Options for Chapter 13:
http://www.mhhe.com/dehart5
A variety of teaching tools for this textbook are available from the Web site for McGraw-Hill.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/brain/episode3/index.html
Information about the adolescent brain, corresponding with the NOVA program on “The Secret Life of the
Brain” (order from PBS.org).
http://www.getty.edu/artsednet/Exhibitions/Eisner/
Cognition and Creation: An Educationally Interpretive Exhibition of Student Art. Take a stroll through this
virtual gallery of student art and discover the links between student art and the stages of cognitive
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development, the value of a student exhibition as an advocacy tool to strengthen the case for arts
education, innovative ways to organize and display your students' artworks.
http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/school/page6.html
Adolescents’ choices related to schooling and work occur within the context of their cognitive, social, and
vocational development. As part of our examination of the school-to-work transition or any school-based
preparation for that transition, we included consideration of the developmental changes in basic
processes during adolescence. These include cognitive development, social cognition, and decision
making. We also have included a discussion of theoretical frameworks of adolescent vocational
development.
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2294/1999_Oct/59426460/p1/article.jhtml?term=%2BMass+%2B
media+%2Band+%2Bchildren+%2BResearch
Gender stereotyping in televised media sport coverage. From Sex Roles: A Journal of Research,
October, 1999.
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2294/2001_August/82782447/p1/article.jhtml?term=%2BMass+%
2Bmedia+%2Band+%2Bchildren+%2BResearch
He's a Laker; She's a "Looker": The consequences of gender-stereotypical portrayals of male and female
athletes by the print media.
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_0/m2250/4_40/73278366/p1/article.jhtml
The primary effects of media exposure are increased violent and aggressive behavior, increased high-risk
behaviors, including alcohol and tobacco use, and accelerated onset of sexual activity. The newer forms
of media have not been adequately studied, but concern is warranted through the logical extension of
earlier research on other media forms and the amount of time the average child spends with increasingly
sophisticated media. J. Am. Acad. Child Adolesc. Psychiatry, 2001, 40(4): 392-401.
http://www.myfuture.com/
Information about college, military, and other life opportunities for adolescents and young adults.
http://journals.cec.sped.org/EC/Articles/Article%203.pdf
Critical Social Skills for Adolescents With High Incidence Disabilities: Parental Perspectives. This
qualitative research explored parental views about critical social skills for adolescents with high-incidence
disabilities. Parents in this study shared their beliefs that emotional intelligence and character play critical
roles in the social and emotional development of their children. Findings indicate that although parents
agree that academic performance is important, they want their children to develop skills in two major
areas: (a) interpersonal and intrapersonal skills, which include skills such as communicating, listening,
interpreting, and discerning; and (b) moral development, which includes areas of character, empathy, and
perseverance/motivation. This article is only available only to members of the Council for Exceptional
Children.
http://www.anred.com/toc.html
This site gives statistics, definitions, and descriptions of eating disorders, including obesity. Links to
additional sources of information are also available.
http://www.parentsplace.com/fertility/adoptioncentral/articles/0,,166271_253105,00.html
What Children Understand About Adoption at Different Ages
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