Chapter 10

Question 1

Identity versus role confusion

Answer 1

Erikson’s fifth stage of development, when people wonder “Who am I?” but are confused about which of many possible roles to adopt.

Question 2

Identity achievement

Answer 2

Erikson’s term for the attainment of identity, when people know who they are as unique individuals, combining past experiences and future plans.

Question 3

Role confusion

Answer 3

When adolescents have no clear identity, instead fluctuating from one persona to another. (Sometimes called identity diffusion or role diffusion.)

Question 4

Foreclosure

Answer 4

Erikson’s term for premature identity formation, when adolescents adopt their parents’ or society’s roles and values without questioning or analysis.

Question 5

Gender identity

Answer 5

A person’s acceptance (or not) of the roles and behaviors that society associates with a particular gender.

Question 6

What is Erikson’s fifth psychosocial crisis, and how is it resolved?

Answer 6

The fifth crisis is identity versus role confusion. It is resolved with identity achievement, when people have a firm sense of who they are, sexually, religiously, vocationally, politically, and so on.

Question 7

How does foreclosure relate to identity achievement?

Answer 7

The struggle to reach one’s own identity is a difficult one.
Sometimes it is easier to accept (foreclose) the identity that one’s parents or culture assigns.

Question 8

What role do parents play in adolescent religious and political identity?

Answer 8

Parents are very influential, determining the broad strokes of religious and political identity. Adolescents may disagree about specifics (whether a particular policy or ritual is good or bad, for instance), but they rarely abandon parental examples completely.

Question 9

How does ethnic identity affect self-esteem and achievement?

Answer 9

Adolescents with a strong ethnic identity become proud of their heritage, which increases self-esteem and achievement.

Question 10

What assumptions about gender identity did most adults hold
50 years ago?

Answer 10

Most adults thought male and female were opposites, and that adolescents would identify with their biological sex.

Question 11

Does the term cisgender imply a gender binary?

Answer 11

This question could be answered yes or no, as long as the reasons reflect that the person knows that cisgender means identifying as male or female.

Question 12

Does intersectionality make identity achievement easier or harder?

Answer 12

Probably harder, since the person needs to combine all the aspects of themselves-gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and so on.

Question 13

Parental monitoring

Answer 13

Parents’ ongoing knowledge of what their children are doing, where, and with whom.

Question 14

Familialism

Answer 14

The belief that family members should support one another, sacrificing individual freedom and success, if necessary, in order to preserve family unity and protect the family.

Question 15

Peer pressure

Answer 15

Encouragement to conform to friends or contemporaries in behavior, dress, and attitude. Adolescents do many things with peers that they would not do alone.

Question 16

Coercive joining

Answer 16

When others strongly encourage someone to join in their activity, usually when the activity is not approved by authorities (e.g., drug use, bullying).

Question 17

Sexual orientation

Answer 17

A person’s romantic or sexual attraction, which can be to others of the same gender, the other gender, or every gender.

Question 18

Sexting

Answer 18

Sending sexual messages or photographs (usually of one’s naked body) via phone or computer.

Question 19

How do parent-adolescent relationships change over time?

Answer 19

The trend is for increased conflict at puberty and then reconciliation as the parents recognize the young person’s need for identity and the young person recognizes the parental experience.

Question 20

When is parental monitoring a sign of a healthy parent-adolescent relationship?

Answer 20

Parental monitoring is healthy when it comes from mutual warmth, respect, and trust.

Question 21

How do the influences of peers and parents differ for adolescents?

Answer 21

Both are important. Usually, good relationships with peers correlate with good relationships with parents.

Question 22

Why do many adults misunderstand the role of peer pressure?

Answer 22

Adults worry about when peers lead their children astray, without recognizing the powerful need for peer approval or that peers may lead adolescents toward good behavior.

Question 23

How does culture affect sexual orientation?

Answer 23

People disagree as to how much sexual orientation is innate and how much it is learned from the culture. There is no disagreement that culture has an impact: Some cultures encourage adolescents to explore every sexual orientation, and others forbid, not only same-sex orientation, but also many aspects of other-sex attraction.

Question 24

From whom do adolescents usually learn about sex?

Answer 24

Most learn about sex from peers and from their own experience.
Learning from parents and schools can be virtually nonexistent, or it can be extensive. Learning from the media is often inaccurate.

Question 25

Why do some schools teach abstinence-only sex education?

Answer 25

Adults worry about teenage sexuality, especially if it leads to disease or pregnancy, and some adults believe that teaching abstinence will prevent that. The evidence, however, disputes that.

Question 26

What are the advantages and disadvantages of technology in adolescence?

Answer 26

Adolescents have access to a much wider range of information and people than they would without the internet. This can be used for good-with more knowledge and friends, especially for isolated teens-and ill-with eating disorders, self-harm, and access to drugs and guns.

Question 27

Why might sexting be a problem?

Answer 27

It allows more sexual arousal than teens are emotionally ready for, and can be abused if a romances ends.

Question 28

How might the term digital native be misleading?

Answer 28

The term implies that “natives” understand whatever they need to know about digital communication, but some aspects of bullying, privacy, and social outreach are not understood until adulthood.

Question 29

Major depressive disorder (MDD)

Answer 29

Feelings of hopelessness, lethargy, and worthlessness that last two weeks or more.

Question 30

Suicidal ideation

Answer 30

Serious thinking about suicide, often including extreme emotions and thoughts.

Question 31

Parasuicide

Answer 31

Any potentially deadly self-harm that does not result in death. (Also called attempted suicide or failed suicide.)

Question 32

Cluster suicides

Answer 32

Several suicides committed by members of a group within a brief period.

Question 33

Adolescence-limited offenders

Answer 33

A person who breaks the law as a teenager but whose criminal activity stops by age 20.

Question 34

Life-course-persistent offenders

Answer 34

A person whose criminal activity begins in adolescence and continues throughout life; a “career” criminal.

Question 35

What is the difference between adolescent sadness and major depression?

Answer 35

Moments of sadness are common, but they do not last. Major depression lasts weeks or months, and halts socializing, schoolwork, and self-care.

Question 36

Why do many adults think adolescent suicide is more common than it is?

Answer 36

Adolescent suicides tend to be highly publicized, dramatic, and especially tragic.

Question 37

What are the gender differences in adolescent depression, suicide, and arrest?

Answer 37

Girls are more likely to be depressed, but boys are more likely to die by suicide; boys are arrested more than girls for robbery and violence, in part because their delinquency is more dramatic and public, and in part because of systemic bias in arrests.

Question 38

Why are cluster suicides more common in adolescence than in later life?

Answer 38

Peer examples are particularly powerful in adolescence, so if one teenager commits suicide, that might encourage others to do so.

Question 39

What are the similarities between life-course-persistent and adolescence-limited offenders?

Answer 39

Both may be teenagers who are arrested for the same crimes.

Question 40

Why would anyone confess to a crime they did not do?

Answer 40

They may protect someone else, or they may want interrogation to stop

Question 41

Generational forgetting

Answer 41

The idea that each new generation forgets what the previous generation learned. As used here, the term refers to knowledge about the harm drugs can do.

Question 42

Why are psychoactive drugs particularly attractive in adolescence?

Answer 42

Adolescents are influenced by each other, are attracted to risks, are less experienced, and must cope with new moods and social pressures. All these may increase drug attraction.

Question 43

Why are psychoactive drugs particularly destructive in adolescence?

Answer 43

Adolescent bodies and brains are not yet formed, so artificial stimulation can interfere with rational thinking.

Question 44

What specific harm occurs with tobacco products?

Answer 44

Tobacco impedes growth and harm the lungs.

Question 45

How has adolescent drug use changed in the past decades?

Answer 45

Use of many drugs, include tobacco, alcohol, and marijuana, has decreased, but use of e-cigs and designer drugs has increased.

Question 46

What methods to reduce adolescent drug use are successful?

Answer 46

Raising the price of drugs, and learning from peers who abused drugs, suffered, and then stopped.