Adolescence

Me and my friends in middle school

Definition of Adolescence

Adolescence, initiated by puberty, is the period of transition between childhood and adulthood. Early biologically oriented theories viewed adolescence as an inevitable period of storm and stress. An alternative perspective regarded the social environment as entirely responsible for the wide variability in adolescent adjustment. Contemporary research shows that adolescence is a product of biological, psychological, and social forces.

Puberty: The Physical Transition to Adulthood

Hormonal changes beginning in middle childhood initiate puberty, on average, two years earlier for girls than for boys. The first outward sign is the growth spurt. As the body enlarges, girls’ hips and boys’ shoulder broaden. Girls add more fat, boys more muscle.

Puberty changes lead to improvements in gross motor performance, which are much larger for boys than for girls. Some boys become so preoccupied with physical prowess that they use dangerous, often illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

Although girls’ involvement in high school sports has increased, they continue to receive less athletic encouragement than boys. The number of adolescents participating in regular physical activity declines from ninth to twelfth grade.

Sex hormones regulate changes in primary and secondary sexual characteristics. Menarche occurs late in the girl’s sequence of pubertal events, following the rapid increase in body size. Among boys, as the sex organs and body enlarge and pubic and underarm hair appears, spermarche takes place.

Heredity, nutrition, exercise, and overall physical health contribute to the timing of puberty. In industrialized nations, a secular trend toward earlier menarche has occurred.

Pruning of unused synapses in the cerebral cortex continues in adolescence and growth and myelination of stimulated neural fibers accelerate. These changes support adolescents’ cognitive advances and may play a role in their drive for novel experiences.

Changes occur in the way the brain regulates sleep timing, so that adolescents generally go to bed much later than they did as children. Sleep deprivation contributes to poor achievement, depressed mood, and behavior problems.

The Psychological Impact of Pubertal Events

Girls generally react to menarche with surprise and mixed emotions, but whether their feelings lean in a positive or a negative direction depends on prior knowledge and support from family members. Although boys usually know ahead of time about spermarche, they also react with missed feelings. Boys receive less social support for the physical changes of puberty than girls.

Besides higher hormone levels, negative life events and adult-structured situations are associated with adolescents’ negative moods. In contrast, teenagers feel upbeat when with peers and in self-chosen leisure activities.

Puberty is accompanied by psychological distancing between parent and child. The reaction may be a modern substitute for physical departure form the family, which typically occurs at sexual maturity in primate species and in nonindustrialized cultures.

Early maturing boys and late maturing girls, whose appearance closely matches cultural standards of physical attractive ness, have a more positive body image and usually adjust well in adolescence. In contrast, early-0maturing girls and late maturing boys, who fit in least well physically with peers, experience emotional and social difficulties. Early maturing girls, in particular, may experience lasting difficulties.

Cognitive Development

Piaget’s Theory: The Formal Operational Stage

During Piaget’s formal operational stage, adolescents engage in hypotheticodeductive reasoning. When faced with a problem, they start with a hypothesis about variables that might affect an outcome, deduce logical, testable inferences, systematically isolate and combine variables to see which inferences are confirmed.

Propositional thought also develops. Adolescents can evaluate the logic of verbal statements apart from real-world circumstances.

Erickson's Theory: Identity versus Role Confusion

Erikson’s theory regards identity as the major personality achievement of adolescence. Young people who successfully resolve the psychological conflict of identity versus role confusion construct a solid self-definition consisting of self-chosen values and goals. Cognitive changes lead adolescences’ self-descriptions to become more organized and consistent, and personal and moral values appear as key themes. New dimensions of self-esteem are also added.

For most young people, self-esteem rises over the teenage years. Adolescents vary widely in their self-esteem drops, most are girls. Authoritative parenting and schools and neighborhoods that respect the young person’s ethnicity support positive self-esteem.

In complex societies, a period of exploration is necessary to form a personally meaningful identity. Identity achievement and identity moratorium are psychologically healthy identity statuses. Long-term identity foreclosure and identity diffusion are related to adjustment difficulties.

Adolescents who use a flexible, open-minded, rational approach to grappling with competing beliefs and values and who feel attached to parents but free to voice their own opinions are likely to be advanced in identity development. Close friends assist young people in exploring options.

Schools and communities that provide rich and varied opportunities also foster identity achievement. Ethnic minority youths who construct a strong, secure ethnic identity or a bicultural identity are advantages in many aspects of emotional and social development.

My adolescence experience

During adolescence, I started growing up really fast. I was only 5 foot when I was 12, but when I was 14, I grew 5 inches and when i was 17, I was almost 6 foot. And I also went through the puberty. I remember that I was not really shocked or anything. I didn't really gain any weight, I dont know why. I started to play more and more sports and one of the reasons that I started playing sprots a lot was to get rid of my stress from all pressure that I had to really do well in classes(That is what most students in South Korea go through about grades and school things in their adolescence period). Some of my friends couldn't hand the pressure and they started doing bad things like smoking or drinking. I am really glad that I didn't really care about those things and I really thank my parents that they didn't push me hard but supported me with kindness.