Adolescence

1. Adolescence • Transition period – child to adult • G. Stanley Hall – developmental psychologist • Adolescence as storm and stress, new idea (1904) • What is it to you? Storm and stress? Revelry?

2. Growth • Growth spurts are regulated by hypothalamus, telling the pituitary to secrete growth hormones.

3. Puberty Landmarks • first period for girls (menarche) • first ejaculation by boys (spermarche). • Feelings associated?

5. Physical Development and self-esteem in Adolescence • Early developing boys tend to develop high self-esteem • Early developing girls, low self-esteem. • Why?

6. Gender and Adolescence • Girls often go through a "dumb period" at the onset of puberty • IQ drops temporarily and self-esteem plummets. • In extreme cases girls may begin to "starve away" puberty and become anorexic.

7. Good News • During late adolescence people report relatively high self-esteem: they rebound from the middle school lows. • Focus also becomes less egocentric as formal operational thinking takes hold. • Connections? • Which did you prefer? Now or middle school?

8. Family Tensions • Adolescence is marked by an increase in peer influence and a reduction in parental influence • Individuation: creating an independent identity in the world (Jung) • How does this explain relationships with parents?

10. Cognitive development • Teens become more formal operational in their thinking • Is it all a matter of maturation?

11. Lawrence Kohlberg’s Levels of Moral development • Kohlberg agreed with Piaget, but went further in describing moral reasoning

13. Preconventional (Before 9) based on rewards and punishments. • Will I get into trouble?

14. Conventional : Early adolescence, rules are rules, right and wrong.

15. Postconventional (formal operational). Larger universal issues of morality and right and wrong, justice and fair play enter the process. What’s right?

16. Moral questions • You go through the checkout at Harris Teeter and give a ten dollar bill and receive change for a 20? • Is cheating wrong? • Do you copy homework? • Do you ask for questions on a test? • Would you mark that you’d given money to church/charity to receive money back on your taxes?

17. Kohlberg Critics • There is a discrepancy between moral thought and action

18. cognitive dissonance: we act to reduce the discomfort we feel when two of our thoughts are inconsistent • Smoking and cancer • End of the world cult members

19. Social influence and expediency will change behavior that is reasoned to be moral. • Have you ever cheated because you saw others cheating? • Is cheating right? Why or why not? • Have you ever cheated?

20. Cultural Criticisms • postconventional reasoning appears mainly in • Educated • Western middle and upper class • Males • value individualism.

21. Interdependent/collectivist cultures • respect group norms more than western individualistic cultures and therefore are less likely to post-conventional moral reason. • Group cohesion more important than individual codes. • African, Asia, Middle East more interdependent in thinking.

22. Moral Development, and Gender • while men tend to make judgments based on their view of justice, women tend to make decisions based on relationships. • Ex: Who chooses a movie? Who’s likely to cave first in arguments?

23. Other Kohlberg Complaint: Haidt’s Social Intuitionist • Are there some things that are viscerally disgusting, or innately immoral? • Do they require moral reasoning? • Examples?

24. Social Intuitionist Theory • Moral paradoxes

25. Stereotyping and the Aggressive Mustache • What ideas of self-concept are at play? • Self-fulfilling prophecy

26. Erik Erikson: Social Development • psychosocial task to complete at each level of development throughout our lifetimes. • If we do not achieve one level, it creates problems in our lives.

28. Stage 1: Trust vs Mistrust • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEHW8oTj0BA

29. Stage 2: Autonomy vs. Shame and doubt • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqLMcyUFrSA

30. Stage 3: Initiative vs. Guilt • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j9nZ4j1yLmk

31. Stage 4: Industry vs. Inferiority • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR4BzUfA17o

32. Stage 5: Identity vs. role confusion • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-8MmqM-glQ

33. Stage 6: Intimacy vs. isolation

34. Stage 7: Generativity vs. stagnation • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pc6e5igbUds

35. Stage 8: Integrity vs. despair • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mIysXLiA5s0

36. Adolescent Development: Erikson • teens are developing a sense of identity • trying on a series of roles until they find one that fits. • What happens when the roles interact? Family dynamics? • They then can move onto forming close relationships.

37. Gender Bias in Kohlberg • Gilligan complains that girls are more concerned with relationships and therefore develop identity through their relationships

38. Gilligan’s Stages of Ethic Care

39. Marcia’s Levels of Identity Achievement • Extends Erikson’s work • identity determined by choices and commitments rather than social traits • Marcia believed that teens fall into four categories in their search for identity

40. Marcia’s Stages of Development • Diffused: not really searching, living day to day, no direction. • Foreclosed: a little parent, unquestioning, never searched for personal identity. • Moratorium: actively searching and trying on new roles routinely. • Achieved: developed a separate and unique identity they feel comfortable with.

41. Teens and Sex • 80% of Americans will have sex before they leave adolescence. • 50% will have sex before leaving HS • 50% of teen sex acts occur without condoms. • Pregnancy is high because of ignorance, guilt, alcohol and mass media’s influence.

42. Teen groups • Boys tend to have larger and more fluid groups than girls. • Also more openly competitive…lots of joining…. • Girls spend more time with their friends than boys, closer relationship, smaller groups. • More intimate in relationships. More likely to pray

43. Gender Differences • In all stages, women prefer social groups to individualism. • Women who are close to their mothers are more likely to have very close girl-friends.

44. Males • More likely: • To stare at people when angry, criticize, • Interrupt others in conversation, particularly women • Perceive friendliness as a “come on.”

45. Adulthood • Stages of adulthood are less clear cut than with children and adolescence. • Development have more to do with the social clock • which varies from culture to culture: • people marry later now than before • Events (often random) drive developmental change • marriage, children, job changes, deaths, “empty nest”, etc.

46. Early Adulthood: Marriage • 90% of the world’s adult population lives in pair bonds. • As many as 1/2 of Western marriages end in divorce, although most remarry. • Children lower the level of marital satisfaction, particularly in working women. • The most successful marriages are those where positive interactions outnumber negative 5 to 1.

47. Marriage • Love is most enduring when two have similar interests and values, and share emotional intimacy (self-disclosure). • Called companionate love. • Life partners come from random events and mere-exposure effect • which is why id. twins often aren’t attracted to their twin’s spouse. • People who live together before marriage are more likely to divorce.

48. How well do you know your partner?

49. Adulthood: Jobs • Having a satisfying job is a predictor of feelings of life satisfaction (integrity) • Most people do not work in jobs they choose in college • Work for feeling of competence and satisfaction, not money. • Stay at homes and working women have equal levels of life satisfaction.