Adolescence Flashcards
A transitional period in the human life span, linking childhood and adulthood.
Adolescence
What factors influence adolescent development?
- Genetic/Biological Factors
- Environmental/Social Factors
A view that adolescence is a turbulent time charged with conflict and mood swings.
Storm-and-stress
What percentage of adolescents displayed a healthy image?
At least 73% of the adolescents.
What influences public attitudes about adolescence?
A combination of personal experience and media portrayals.
The course of action designed by the national government to influence the welfare of its citizens.
Social Policy
They can serve as role models, confidants, advocates, and resources.
Caring adults
A brain-neuroendocrine process occurring primarily in early adolescence that provides stimulation for rapid physical changes.
Puberty
What are the typical male pubertal characteristics in order of development?
- Increase in penis and testicle size
- Appearance of straight pubic hair
- Minor voice change
- First ejaculation
- Appearance of kinky pubic hair
- Onset of maximum growth in height and weight
- Growth of hair in armpits
- More detectable voice changes
- Growth of facial hair
What are the typical female pubertal characteristics in order of development?
- Either the breasts enlarge or pubic hair appears.
- Hair appears in the armpits
- Grows in height
- Hips become wider than the shoulder
- First menstruation (Menarche)
- Female’s breasts have become more fully rounded
• peak of the growth spurt during puberty occurs two years earlier for girls (11½) than for boys (13½).
• during early adolescence, girls tend to outweigh boys, but by about age 14 boys begin to surpass girls.
Pubertal growth spurt
_________ are powerful chemical substances secreted by the endocrine glands and carried through the body by the bloodstream.
Hormones
A hormone associated in boys with genital development, increased height, and deepening of the voice.
Testosterone
A type of estrogen associated in girls with breast, uterine, and skeletal development.
Estradiol
dominates in male pubertal development
Testosterone
in female pubertal development
Estradiol
Experiences that are linked to earlier pubertal onset include nutrition, an urban environment, low socioeconomic status, adoption, father absence, family conflict, maternal harshness, child maltreatment, and early substance use.
Timing and variations in puberty
Adolescents are preoccupied with their bodies and develop images of what their bodies are like.
Gender differences characterize adolescents’ perceptions of their bodies.
Body image
Adolescents who mature earlier or later than their peers perceive themselves differently. Early and late maturation have been linked with body image.
Early and late maturation
→ This identity development may have occurred because the late-maturing boys had more time to explore life’s options, or because the early-maturing boys continued to focus on their advantageous physical status instead of on career development and achievement.
→ In the early high school years, late-maturing boys had a more negative body image than early-maturing boys.
→ In sum, early maturation often has more
favorable outcomes in adolescence for boys, especially in early adolescence.
→ However, late maturation may be more favorable for boys, especially in terms of identity and career development.
Early and late maturation in boys
→ They are more likely to smoke, drink, be
depressed, have an eating disorder, engage in delinquency, struggle for earlier independence from their parents, and have older friends.
→ Their bodies are likely to elicit responses from males that lead to earlier dating and earlier sexual experiences.
→ Onset of menarche before 11 years of age was linked to a higher incidence of distress disorders, fear disorders, and externalizing disorders in females.
→ Early maturation predicted a stable higher level
of depression for adolescent girls.
→ Early-maturing girls had higher rates of
depression and antisocial behavior as middle-aged adults, mainly because their difficulties began in adolescence and did not lessen over time.
→ Early-maturing girls tend to have sexual
intercourse earlier and to have more unstable sexual relationships, and they are more at risk for physical and verbal abuse in dating.
→ Early-maturing girls are less likely to graduate from high school and tend to cohabit and marry earlier.
Early and late maturation in girls
where fibers connect the brain’s left and right hemispheres, thickens in adolescence, and this improves adolescents’ ability to process information.
Corpus Callosum
the highest level of the frontal lobes involved in reasoning, decision making, and self-control.
→ However, the prefrontal cortex doesn’t finish maturing until the emerging adult years, approximately 18 to 25 years of age, or later.
Prefrontal cortex
which is the seat of emotions and where rewards are experienced, matures much earlier than the prefrontal cortex and is almost completely developed in early adolescence.
Limbic system
limbic system structure that is especially involved in emotion.
Amygdala
The increased connectedness (referred to as __________) is especially prevalent across more distant brain regions.
Brain networks
-in which connections between development, the brain, and cognitive or socioemotional processes are studied.
Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience & Developmental Social Neuroscience
is a time of sexual exploration and experimentation, of sexual fantasies and realities, of incorporating sexuality into one’s identity.
Adolescence
Sexual arousal emerges as a new phenomenon in adolescence and it is important to view sexuality as a normal aspect of adolescent development.
Developing sexual identity
A number of leading medical organizations and experts have recommended that adolescents use long-acting reversible contraception (LARC).
Contraceptive use
