Adolescence and adulthood Flashcards
How do we define adolescence?
Adolescence is a developmental phase marked by biological and social changes.
Puberty is a biological phenomenon characterised by hormonal changes that bring sexual maturity for reproduction. Brain maturation of frontal cortex 20-30s.
Social factors are characterised by legal age boundaries: , marriage, voting, driving, drinking. Social rituals and cultural expectations. Adolescence is culture-dependent.
No clear offset of adolescence.
What facilitates the onset of puberty?
Increasing levels of growth hormones, gonadal steroids and adrenal androgens trigger a host of noticeable physiological changes that have become to be identified with pubertal maturation, such as the typical teenage growth spurts and amplified sexual dimorphism.
Is there any critical period?
In social learning - manifests as a heightened sensitivity to peers
Maturity gap theory (Moffitt, 1993)
Based on assumption that there is a gap between biological and social maturity at adolescence (Schleger & Barry, 1991), confirned by evidence concerning brain development by Steinberg, 2008.
This gap leads to deliquent behaviour in adolescence; if adolescence is not motivated to overcome it, their behaviour is reinforced or follows behaviour of role modelz. Earlier biological maturity makes the gap more obvious.
What creates maturity gap in adolescent brain? And what are the consequences?
While grey matter development begins to slow down, white matter development is still ongoing at a steady pace, leading to a change in the relative proportion of the two, including the temporary imbalance referred to as the maturity gap.
As a consequence of this maturity gap, so the prevailing view argued, adolescents essentially experience a deficit in cognitive control, which leads to more impulsive, emotionally driven decisions, less regard for long-term consequences, and inadequate concern for risk.
Start of sexual attraction/mating behaviours?
Age 9 – 10 years: Why this age?
related to adrenarche = early stage of sexual maturation not linked to HPG-axis but to adrenal cortex
increased level of androgens which get metabolised to T and estradiol (Herdt & McClintock, 2000)
What are the consequences of differences in maturation rate?
AKA Maturational Deviance Hypothesis
Because physical bodily changes produce emotional instability (Sorenson, 1973), appearance is a major concern.
Maturational Deviance Hypothesis: if maturation rates deviate from the norm – inadequacy and stress.
It is not the maturation per se, it is the extent to which adolescents feel differently from their peers, about the differences in their maturation, compared to their peers
Evidence: normal maturing girls in dance schools had more personality and eating problems than late-maturing girls (Brooks-Gunn & Warren, 1985)
Early/normal maturing girl and late maturing boys have it most difficult.
How does social interaction change?
Less interaction with parents but still important source of support and influence
Peer relationships encompass
friends (provide companionship, alliances, help, intimacy, validation, and emotional security)
cliques (3-5 peers with common interests)
crowds (larger groups defined by age / class / neighbourhood encourage socialization, sometimes into deviant behavior)
What is a typical belief regarding image and sense of self for adolescents - egocentrism?
Adolescents believe that they are constantly observed by peers (imaginary audience) - self-conscious
Personal fables or narratives - adolescents believe they are unique and original, sense of invulnerability
‘Nobody understands me’ or ‘I am invincible’
Adolescents underestimate, adults overestimate how much they will be liked (Rodman et al. , 2017).
They also adjust their liking of the other depending on the feedback they receive - if person likes me, I like them back, if they don’t, I don’t like them. Adults, however, remain unaffected.
Self-image of adolescents suffers but increases in adulthood.
What characterises adolescent cognition? (Piaget)
Adolescents are at peak of processing speed
They learn to reason formally
Piaget’s Formal-Operational Stage (11+): Thinking is
systematic, rule-based, abstract, hypothetical
But: large individual and cross-cultural differences
Tasks:
Balance-Scale task
Pendulum task
Combination-of-Liquids task
Hypothetical-deductive reasoning
According to Erikson’s model, what is the conflict during adolescence?
Identity vs. Role Confusion (adolescence, 13 - 19 years)
Marcia (1966; 2002), based on Erikson:
Identity diffusion: no crisis yet, no commitment to a vocation or set of beliefs
Foreclosure: no crisis yet, but a commitment to certain goals and beliefs based on choices of others
Moratorium: active search for identity, commitment postponed
Identity achievement: crisis resolution results in commitment to specific adult occupation / ideology / role.
But: Do all adolescents go through an identity crisis? Can one have more than one identity crisis?
Are adolescents less or more likely to commit fundamental attribution error?
Adolescents are less likely to commit fundamental attribution error as they are able to revise social biases (Gopnik et al., 2017) (blame the situation/ the context, rather than a personal trait)
Why is adolescence defined as ‘Storm and stress’
the idea that adolescence is more difficult in some ways than other periods of life and difficult for adolescents as well as for the people around them.
- Conflict with parents. Adolescents have a tendency
to be rebellious and to resist adult authority. In particular,
adolescence is a time when conflict with parents is especially high. - Mood disruptions. Adolescents tend to be more
volatile emotionally than either children or adults. They
experience more extremes of mood and more swings of
mood from one extreme to the other. They also experience
more frequent episodes of depressed mood. - Maturity gap (worsened by the secular trend)
Risk behavior. Adolescents have higher rates of
reckless, norm-breaking, and antisocial behavior than either children or adults. Adolescents are more likely to
cause disruptions of the social order and to engage in
behavior that carries the potential for harm to themselves
and/or the people around them.
This is not an all-inclusive list of the possible elements
of adolescent storm and stress. Occasionally, storm and
stress has been discussed in terms of other elements such as
school difficulties (Eccles et al., 1993) and self-image
(Offer & Offer, 1975).
What structural changes in the brain occur during adulthood
Reduction in brain size; degeneration follows front-to-back gradient.
Brain changes are affected by hypertension, vascular changes, oxidative stress, inflammation and corticosteroids (stress).
Volumetric and neurotransmitter changes in prefrontal cortex.
Hippocampus (learning, memory) declines more abruptly after age 60.
Amygdala (emotional control, anger) function remains intact but shows a diminished response to negative emotional stimuli.
White matter volume declines after age 70 - demyelination
Why there does not appear to be a strong link between white matter volumes and cognitive performance ?
Differences in cognitive reserve = brain’s capacity to buffer effects of insults.
Structural loss in some areas can be compensated for by recruitment of other areas.
