Readings

Question 1

Arnett (2007)

Answer 1

• Period of identity exploration, instability, self-focus, feeling in-between, & possibilities

○ Individualization: Separating from your social groups and becoming your own person

○ Extended education and training

• Peak ages for binge drinking, illicit drug use, violence, crime, and risky sexual behavior 
• Markers of adult status
	○ Accepting responsibility for oneself
	○ Making independent decisions
	○ Financial independence 

-In most western, educated, industrialized, rich democracies (WEIRD), adult roles reached in one’s 30s

Question 2

Eccles (1991)

Answer 2

• Basic psychological needs
○ 1. Competence
○ 2. Autonomy
○ 3. Relatedness

• Personal identity, self-concepts, and achievement orientation in middle childhood
• Self-reflection + broadening social worlds → social comparison and competition → self-confidence and school engagement

○ Self-awareness, culturally-valued skills, coping, executive functions, and social cognition
- Most children before entering kindergarten tend to overthink their abilities, and so their first year hits them with reality and they learn

• Mentions erickson stressed the importance of middle childhood
• We view middle childhood as important for social competence and self-esteem
• Marked tension because of increased desire for autonomy and higher expectations from adults
○ Influences self-confidence and self-esteem

• Increasingly influenced by non-related adults (teachers, leaders in schools and formal programs)
○ Less parental control and more complex peer dynamics → desire for peer acceptance
○ Roles reflect personal qualities and achievements

• Age-segregated grouping → social comparison
○ Segregating leads to lower self-esteem
○ Eccles recommends an old-type classroom style/format

Question 3

Blakemore (2010)

Answer 3

• Merges research on adolescent brain and pubertal development

• Thesis: changes in pubertal development shape changes in brain structure and function
○ Sexual dimorphism
○ Hormones influence gray and white matter development

• Adrenarche, Gonadarche, & Growth Axis
○ Hormones’ organizational (birth) and activational (puberty) effects
○ Facilitation, reorganization, and motivation
- Facilitates sexual development and motivates engagement in sexual reproduction

Question 4

Steinberg (2005)

Answer 4

• Adolescents grow more fully conscious, self-directed, self-regulating minds
• Changing biology, cognition, emotion, behavior, & social worlds –> disjunctions or disconnects

• Protracted development of prefrontal cortex
○ Dorsolateral PFC (inhibition) & ventromedial PFC (risk/reward)

• Studying cognitive development in context reveals age differences in judgement, decision-making, & risk-taking

• Desire, emotions, & interests influence decisions
• adolescents more susceptible to peer influences on risk-taking than adults