Chapter 6 Definitions: Adolescence Flashcards
Menarche
The start of menstruation
- Most obvious sign of puberty in girls
- Wealthier countries = earlier menstruation
Secular Trend
A pattern of change occurring over several generations
- e.g: early start of puberty because nutrition has improved over centuries
- Occurs when physical characteristic changes over the course of several generations
Primary Sex Characteristics:
characteristics associated with the development of the organs and structures of the body that directly relate to reproduction
- e.g in girls: changes in the vagina and uterus
Secondary Sex Characteristics:
The visual signs of sexual maturity that do not directly involve the sex organs
- e.g in girls: development of breasts and pubic hair
Timining of Puberty: Early Maturation
- For boys large plus
- more successful athlete because of larger size
- more popular and more positive self concept
- DOWNSIDE:
- Sturggle more in school
- get into or try more drugs
- more responsible in adulthood but lack humour
- Negative for girls (body changes makes them feel uncomfortable)
- although popularity enhances
Timing of puberty: Late Maturation
- Boys fare worse than girls
- Boys considered less attractive because of body size, at a disadvantage in sports activities. Might suffer socially
- Grow up insertive and insightful
Girls: suffer fewer emotional problems
Anorexia Nervosa
A severe eating disorder in which individuals refuse to eat, while denial that they behaviour and appearance may be out of the ordinary (skeletal)
- have a distorted image of themselves
Bulimia
And eating disorder characterized by binges on large quantities of food, followed by purges of the for through throwing up or laxatives
Addictive Drugs:
Drugs that produce a biological or psychological dependence in users, leading to increasingly powerful cravings for them
- body cannot function in its absence once addiction occurs, causes physical changes in nervous system
Signs of drug abuse:
- Identification with drug culture (collection of beer cans
- Signs of physical deterioration ( bloodshot eyes, dilated pupils)
- Dramatic Changes in school performance (mark downturn in grades)
- Changes in behaviour (change in friends and money)
Piagets Formal Operational Stage:
The stage where people develop the ability to think abstractly
- use formal principles of logic for abstract rather than concrete thoughts
- Formal reasoning
- use PROPOSITIONAL THOUGHT: Reasoning that uses abstract logic in the absence of concrete examples
- e.g: all men are mortals
- —-> Socrates is a man
- —-> therefor socrates is mortal (conclusion)
Consequences of cults using Formal Operations:
- The ability to reason abstractly changes adolescence daily behaviour
- Before they may have blindly accepted rules and order by parents, where now their increased reasoned abilities can lead to strenuous questioning.
- Become more argumentative
Information Processing Perspective:
The model that seeks to identify the way that individuals take in, use, and store information
- One of the main reasons for adolescents advances in mental abilities is the growth of metacognition
Metacognition:
Knowledge people have about their own thinking processes, and their ability to monitor their cognition
- Adolescence can better gauge how long they need to memorize given material for a test
Adolescent Egocentrism:
A state of self absorption in which the world is viewed from ones own point of view
- Quick to find faults with others behaviours
- World is seen as focused on ones self
Imaginary Audience:
An adolescents belief that his or her own behaviour is a primary focus of others attention and concerns
- Other people pay as much attention to them as they do themselves
Identity-versus- identity-confusion stage
- The period during which teenagers seek to determine what is unique and distinctive about themselves
- Erikson
- “trying on” different roles
Marcia’s 4 categories of identity
- Identity Achievement
- Identity Foreclosure
- Moratorium
- Identity Diffusion
- Identity Achievement
- The status of adolescents who commit to a particular identity following a period of crisis during which they consider various alternatives
- Successfully explored and thought through what they want to do
- committed to a particular identity
- Psychologically healthier
- Higher in a achievement
- Identity Foreclosure
- The status of adolescents who prematurely commit to an identity without adequately exploring alternatives
- Accepted others decisions about what is best for them (going into the family business)
- Not necessarily happy
- Have rigid strength
- Moratorium
- The status of adolescence who have done a lot of exploring alternative but have not yet committed themselves.
- Experience high anxiety and experience psychological conflict
- Tend to settle on an identity only after a struggle.
- Identity Diffusion
- Status of adolescence who consider various identity alternatives, but never commit to one or never even consider identity options in any conscious way
- Neither explore nor commit
- Shift from one thing to the next
- Lack of commitment impairs ability to form a close relationship
MAMA
Moving between moratorium and identity achievement -> selecting a career without much thought in early adolescence and then reassess
Autonomy
Having an independence and a sense of control over ones life
- Normal part of adolescence
Generation Gap:
A divide between parents and adolescence in attitudes, values, aspirations and world views
- Parents and teenagers often see things differently
Reference group:
Groups of people with whom one compares oneself
- Teenagers compare themselves to other teenagers like them
- Set of norms or standards
Clique
Groups of from 2 - 12 people whose members have frequent social interactions with one another
-e.g: fine 9
Crowds
Larger groups than cliques, composed of individuals who share particular characteristics but who might not interact with one another
- e.g: Nerds or Jocks in high school
Sex Cleavage:
Sex segregation in which boys interact primarily with boys and girls primarily with girls
- As children enter adolescence, their social groups are composed almost universally of same sex friends
Controversial adolescents
- Children who are likes by some peers and are disliked by others
- High popular with some groups and not so much with others
Rejected Adolescents
Children who are actively disliked, and who’s peers may react to them in an obviously negative manner
Neglected Adolescence
Children who receive relatively little attention from their peers in the form of either positive or negative interactions
Peer Pressure:
The influence of ones peers to conform to their behaviour and attitudes
Undersocialized Deliquesce
- Adolescent delinquents who are raised with little disciplines or with harsh uncaring parental supervision
- Weren’t reached proper social behaviour
Socialized Deliquence
- Adolescent delinquents who know and subscribe to the norms of society and who are fairly normal psychologically
