Adolescent Development Flashcards
What is adolescence?
Period between childhood and adulthood
Period of physical changes related to general maturity
Period of sexual, cognitive, social and emotional maturity
What is puberty?
Period of sexual maturity
When is adolescence?
Age between 10-19 according to WHO
Different answer depending on time and culture
Why is adolescence considered a distinct biological stage?
Specific behaviours universal across cultures (risk taking, self-consciousness, peer influence, self-regulation)
Adolescent period in non-human animals (animals exhibit similar behaviours to human adolescents)
Evident across history
What does it mean that in adolescence there is a move to formal operational thinking?
Ability to engage in abstract thinking, recognise other people’s mental stages and perspectives
Emerging ability to conceptualise thought of self others
Which psychologist came up with the theory of adolescent egocentrism?
Elkind (1966)
What is childhood egocentrism?
Oblivious to other people’s views
What is adolescence egocentrism?
Aware of other people’s view but assume own views are universal, assume that what’s interesting to them is interesting to everyone
What are the characteristics of adolescence egocentrism?
Focus on mental life becomes excessive
Imaginary audience
Illusion of transparency
Self-consciousness
Personal fable and private god
Risk-taking
What does it mean that the focus of mental life becomes excessive?
Awareness that can reflect upon thoughts and feelings (i.e. metacognition)
Become more aware of one’s own inner world
Extreme preoccupation with one’s thoughts and feeling
What is the imaginary audience?
False belief others scrutinising and observing everything about you the way you do
Negative and/or positive
Adolescent = centre of attention
Relate to physical and physiological transformation
What is the illusion of transparency?
Feeling that everyone knows what you’re thinking or feeling
Overestimate degree that others can “read” you
Illusion that inner states and feelings “leak out” and can easily be detected
Stressful
What is the self-consciousness in adolesence?
Imaginary audience responsible
Feel shame or seek privacy due to constant feeling of being observed and criticised
What is the personal fable and private god?
Inflated notion of self-importance arising from false assumption that they are everyone’s centre of attention
Belief that one’s special or chosen so indestructible
Feeling placed on earth to fulfil special mission
Preferential relationship with private god that will protect them from harm
What is risk-taking in adolescence?
Involved in risk-taking behaviours (substance abuse, dangerous activities, unprotected sex) and assume that can’t be harmed as have special status (and protected by divine force)
How is adolescent egocentrism developed?
Become more aware of one’s own inner world
Realisation that thoughts are thoughts not reflection of reality
Thoughts come into focus as object of reflection
Excessive focus on one’s own mental life
How does an adolescence move to adulthood?
Compare themselves to reality and realise not same
Experience stands in contrast with “theory” - that people are overly interested in us, etc
Clash between inner beliefs or predictions and reality
What was the method of Somerville et al’s (2013) study into self-consciousness?
69 participants (8-22 years) completed fMRI scanning
During the scan, participants told that a camera was embedded in scanner
Didn’t complete any tasks
Camera cycled through three states
- OFF = resting state
- warming up = anticipation condition
- ON = evaluation condition
When camera was “on”, participants told peer of same age and sex was monitoring camera feed
Self-report questionnaire, brain activity and skin conductance measured
What were the results of Somerville et al’s (2013) study into self-consciousness?
When thought they were observed, adolescents
Reported greater feelings of embarrassment compared to children and adults
Heightened levels of physiological response (skin conductance)
Greater brain activation in areas thought to be related to social cognition and emotion evaluation in adolescents (MPFC)
Adolescents were more self-conscious compared to other age groups
- self-consciousness related to age-depended sensitivity of brain systems
What was the method of Weil et al’s (2013) study into the focus on mental life?
Investigated how metacognitive ability (reflect on one’s thoughts and behaviours) develops in adolescence
56 participants (11-41 years) performed a perceptual task (Gabor patches)
After each trial asked participants to rate their performance - how confident they were that they chose the right answer
What were the results of Weil et al’s (2013) study into the focus on mental life?
Older participants better at judging own behaviours (adolescents)
In adults, about the same
In adolescents, females better than males at judging own performance
In adults, gender differences even out
Ability to identify accuracy levels in perceptual task (metacognitive ability) increased with age (young adolescents worst compared to late adolescents and adults)
Metacognitive ability may relate to increased egocentricity, sense of self and developing self-awareness
What was the method of Alberts et al’s (2007) study into personal fable?
119 students (mean age = 13 years)
Measures = personal fable (invulnerability, speciality) and risk-taking
Questionnaire
- invulnerability = “I know I get away with a lot of stuff other kids get in trouble for”
- speciality = “When my parents or friends tell me that they know how I feel, I don’t believe that they really do”
What were the results of Alberts et al’s (2007) study into personal fable?
Personal fable scores increased with age (adolescents scored higher compared to pre-adolescent students)
Males scored higher than females in invulnerability dimension of personal fable
Significant correlation between personal fable and risk-taking
What is the “new look” model for the imaginary audience?
Imaginary audience and personal fable are adaptive coping mechanisms used by adolescents in their attempt to deal with stressful developmental aim of separation-individuation
Separating from family unit to become own individual
Galanaki and Christopoulos (2011)
Does the imaginary audience account for sex differences?
No
Females might be more likely to have stronger social pressures and concerns, experience objectification, have more extreme focus on appearances and mental health issues
What are the two theories for why adolescents engage in more risk-taking behaviours?
Social influence
Brain development
What was the method of Knoll et al’s (2015) study on social influence on risk perception?
563 participants (children, adolescents, adults) presented with some risk scenarios and asked to rate how risky they were (crossing the street on a red light)
Participants then shown ratings of other people for same scenarios (teens or adults)
Participants then asked to re-rate scenarios
What were the results of Knoll et al’s (2015) study on social influence on risk perception?
Initial ratings
- children rated scenarios as more risky compared to other age groups
- adolescents and adults didn’t differ in risk ratings
Social influence
- all age groups influenced by others’ ratings
- children and adults influenced more adult ratings
- adolescents more strongly influenced by other adolescent ratings
What was Gardner and Steinberg’s (2005) study on peer influence on risk taking?
Three groups - adolescents, youths, adults
Task - driving simulation game, participants completed the task alone or in presence of a peer
Alone condition - all age groups took similar risks
Peer condition
- adolescents and young people took more risks compared to alone
- adults’ performance was the same
Findings consistent with the idea that peer acceptance and fitting in (i.e. social factor) may play crucial role in risk-taking behaviour in adolescents
Findings in line with real world data
Adolescents more likely to take risks in “hot contexts”
What are “hot contexts”?
Situations where high emotional stakes
How have risk-taking and the limbic system been shown to be related?
Adolescents show higher risk-taking behaviours than children and adults
Show higher sensitivity to reward than adults - linked to limbic system
Limbic system hypersensitive in adolescence
Highest sensitivity to reward may overshadow negative consequences - linked to personal fable
What is the limbic system?
Collection of structures in brain related to emotion, memory, feelings of pleasure, reward
What is the dual-system model?
Prefrontal regions associated with planning, decision-making, inhibitory control and general executive functioning still developing during adolescence
Overactive limbic system and underactive pre-frontal cortex
Hypersensitive limbic system coupled with later maturation of prefrontal cortex may be responsible for adolescent behaviour
Theory assumes adolescent characteristics such as risk-taking, sensation seeking and sensitivity to reward due to these brain development changes
Oversimplistic?
