Exam 1 Flashcards
Adolescence
a period of life course between the time puberty begins and the time adult status is approached; does not end until emotional, physical, and sexual maturity is reached
Puberty
set of biological changes involved in reaching physical and sexual maturity
What are the stages of adolescence?
- Early (11-14)
- Middle (15-17)
- Late (18+)
Differentiate the terms used to describe adolescence
- teenager/teen: someone in teen years (13-19)
- juvenile: legal term of someone who is not legally an adult yet (usually anyone up to 18)
- youth: usually refers to the upper age range of adolescents
Identify the approaches used to study adolescence
- Social/Cultural (focuses on cultural conditions such as socioeconomic status and ethnicity affecting teens)
- Biological (focuses on physical growth and sexual maturation that occurred during puberty)
- Cognitive (focuses on qualitative/quantitative changes in attention, memory, and intelligence)
- Psychosexual (focuses on development of self)
- Social Relationships (focuses on social interactions such as in friendships and romantic relationships)
Describe world’s adolescent population
- 25% of world’s population
- Most are Asian
- Americans only make up 3.5%
- More live in India than any other nation
Describe changes in the American adolescent population
Although adolescents in the U.S are steadily increasing, they now make up a smaller proportion of the total population because people are living longer and birth rates are dropping. More and more American adolescents are of Hispanic or Asian descent
What are the adolescent cohorts that have existed since the early 1900s?
- The Lost Generation (1883-1900)
- The G.I Generation (1901-1924)
- The Silent Generation (1925-1942)
- The Baby Boomers (1943-1960)
- Generation X (1961-!981)
- Millennials (1980-2000)
- Generation ? (after 2000)
What are the societal changes affecting today’s youth?
- New communication tools/technology
- Changing Economy
- Need fir prolonged education
- Family Changes
- Shifting sexual values/practices
- Evolving concerns for health and safety
- Prolonging of Adolescence
Describe the factors prolonging the length of adolescence
More skills needed to get good job, increased societal permissiveness toward premarital sexual activity, inexpensive, effective birth control, parents more willing to continue to support their children for longer are causing youth to take longer to complete their education, settle on a career, move out of their parents house, marry and have children
Outline the impact of changing family patterns on adolescents
- Later age at marriage leads to smaller family size which allows the children more attention and care and greater opportunity for higher education although there are fewer siblings for them to interact with
- Rise in cohabitation affects adolescents in that they are more likely to be raised by nonmarried, cohabiting couples than in the past and they are more likely to cohabit themselves
Differentiate the methods used to determine correlation and causation
- true experiment: participants are randomly assigned to conditions
- quasi-experiment: preexisting groups of individuals are studied
Identify the research design used to learn about developmental change
- cross-sectional: compares a group of ppl who are one age with a group of ppl who are another age
- longitudinal research: begins with a single group of subjects and follows them as they age and mature
- cross-sequential: modern hybrid in which subjects of different ages are tracked over time; eliminates issues from other 2 designs
What are the reasons for renewed interest in the biological view of adolescents?
- environment (“epigenetics”) how genes interact with environment resulting in phenotypes and how they come together to shape environment
- human genome (DNA and genetic contributions to development
- brain development (better methods of brain imaging)
Who is the father of adolescent psychology?
Stanley Hall