9-10 dep 2000

genetics.

A major influence on the age of onset of menarche is:

puberty

Constantly being in a stressful environment has been found to result in earlier _____.

phase delay

Fernando, who is a teenager, is wide awake at 11:30 p.m. but half-asleep most of the morning. His hormones are causing a(n) _____ in sleep-wake patterns.

primary

Jazmine is pregnant. The parts of Jazmine's body that are directly involved in reproduction are called the _____ sex characteristics.

puberty

Madison's father drinks a lot and hits his wife in front of Madison. She worries that her father will hit her. Madison is 11 years old and just had her first period. Her relatively early _____ is most likely the outcome of Madison living in a stressful home environment with her father.

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Printed Page 339 9.4 Teaching and Learning What does our knowledge of adolescent thought imply about education? Which curricula and school structures (single-sex or co-ed, large or small, public or private) are best for 11- to 18-year-olds? Since adolescents differ, "some students thrive at school, enjoying and benefitting from most of their experiences there; others muddle along and cope as best they can with the stress and demands of the moment; and still others find school an alienating and unpleasant place to be..." (Eccles & Roeser, 2011, p. 225). Given personal and cultural variations, no specific school curriculum, structure, or teaching method is best for everyone. Various scientists, nations, schools, and teachers try many strategies, some based on opposite, but logical, hypotheses. To analyze these, we begin with definitions and facts. Teaching and Learning

hypothalamus; pituitary gland

Puberty begins with a hormonal signal from the _____ to the _____.

core

The pubertal growth spurt proceeds from the extremities to the _____.

proceeds from the extremities to the core.

The pubertal growth spurt:

seems to have stopped in developed nations.

The secular trend in growth:

circadian rhythm

What is the name of the brain rhythm that responds to the environment and occurs approximately every 24 hours?

All of these answers are correct.

What statement is true about muscle strength for boys?

maturation of the testes

Which of the following is a primary sex characteristic?

Early-maturing girls tend to have _____self-esteem than late-maturing girls.

lower (or lower)

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Printed Page 356 10.1 Identity Psychosocial development during adolescence is often considered the search for self-understanding. Self-expression and self-concept become increasingly important, as the egocentrism described in Chapter 9 illustrates. Each young person wants to know, "Who am I?" According to Erik Erikson, life's fifth psychosocial crisis is identity versus role confusion: Negotiating the complexities of finding one's own identity is the primary task of adolescence (Erikson, 1968). He said this crisis is resolved with identity achievement, when adolescents have reconsidered the goals and values of their parents and culture, accepting some and discarding others, discerning their own identity. The result is neither wholesale rejection nor unquestioning acceptance of social norms (Côté, 2009). With their new autonomy, teenagers maintain continuity with the past so they can move into the future. Identity

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Printed Page 356 10.1.1 Not Yet Achieved Erikson's insights have inspired thousands of researchers. Notable among them was James Marcia, who described and measured four specific ways young people cope with this stage of life: (1) role confusion, (2) foreclosure, (3) moratorium, and finally (4) identity achievement (Marcia, 1966). The opening three will be described here. First, however, you need to know about an historical change. Over the past half-century, major psychosocial shifts have lengthened the duration of adolescence and made identity achievement more complex (Côté, 2006; Kroger et al., 2010; Meeus, 2011). Although Marcia's way stations on the road to identity achievement still seem evident, the path is longer and more circuitous. Indeed, several aspects of the search for identity, especially for sexual and vocational identity, have become more arduous than when Erikson wrote about them. Adolescents still seek identity, but developmentalists believe that this crisis is rarely resolved by age 18: "Studies among adults revealed that identity is a life-long process" (Meeus, 2011, p. 88). Role confusion is the opposite of identity achievement. Characterized by lack of commitment to any goals or values, role confusion is sometimes called identity diffusion, to emphasize that some adolescents seem diffuse, unfocused, unconcerned about their future (Phillips & Pittman, 2007). Even the usual social demands—such as putting away clothes, making friends, completing school assignments, and thinking about college or career—are beyond role-confused adolescents. Instead, they might sleep too much, immerse themselves in video games or mind-numbing television, and turn from one flirtation to another. Their thinking is disorganized, they procrastinate, they avoid issues and actions (Côté, 2009). Not Just a Uniform Adolescents in moratorium adopt temporary roles to postpone achieving their final identity. High school students like these have signed up for an ROTC (Reserve Officers Training Corps) class, but few of them go on to enlist in the United States Marine Corps. MITCH WOJNAROWICZ/THE IMAGE WORKS Identity foreclosure occurs when young people accept traditional values (Marcia, 1966; Marcia et al., 1993). They might follow roles and customs transmitted from their parents or culture, never having explored alternatives. Or they might foreclose on an oppositional, negative identity—the direct opposite of whatever their parents want—again without thoughtful questioning. Fore-closure is comfortable. For many, it is a temporary shelter, a time for commitment to a particular identity, which might be followed by more exploration (Meeus, 2011). A more mature shelter is moratorium, a time-out that includes some exploration, either in breadth (trying many things) or in depth (examining a single path after making a tentative commitment that may change) (Meeus, 2011). Societies provide many opportunities for moratoria, such as college or military service, allowing adolescents to postpone identity achievement. Moratorium is most common at about age 19, although it can occur earlier or later (Kroger et al., 2010). Not Yet Achieved

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Printed Page 357 10.1.2 Four Arenas of Identity Formation Erikson (1968) highlighted four aspects of identity: religious, political, vocational, and sexual. Terminology and timing have changed, yet each still merits elaboration. RELIGIOUS IDENTITY Few adolescents totally reject religion if they've grown up following a particular faith, partly because religion provides meaning as well as coping skills (King & Roeser, 2009). Religion was considered "very" or "pretty" important by 55 percent of U.S. high school seniors in 2009, with another 20 percent considering religion not important (Aud et al., 2011b). Past parental practices influence religious identity, although some adolescents express that identity in ways that their parents did not anticipate. Same Situation, Far Apart: Chosen, Saved, or Just Another Teenager? An Orthodox Jewish boy lighting Hanukkah candles in Israel and an evangelical Christian girl at a religious rally in Michigan are much alike, despite distance and appearance. Many teenagers express such evident religious devotion that outsiders consider them fanatics. HANAN ISACHAR/GETTY IMAGES JIM WEST/THE IMAGE WORKS A Religious Life These young adolescents in Ethiopia are studying to be monks. Their monastery is a haven in the midst of civil strife. Will the rituals and beliefs also provide them with a way to achieve identity? ROB HOWARD/CORBIS For example, a Muslim girl might start to wear a headscarf, or a Catholic boy might study for the priesthood, or a Baptist teenager might join a Pentecostal youth group. Although parents might object, in the broad perspective, these initiatives are relatively minor: Almost no young Muslim converts to Judaism, and almost no Baptist teenager becomes Hindu. Adolescents question specific beliefs as their cognitive processes allow more reflection, but few have a crisis of faith unless unusual circumstances propel it (King & Roeser, 2009). Usually, religious questioning is part of the search for identity, although the process currently lasts long past the teen years (Alisat & Pratt, 2012). POLITICAL IDENTITY Parents are also influential in the development of political identity. In the twenty-first century in the United States, party identification is weakening among adults, with more saying they are independents rather than Republicans or Democrats (Pew Research Center, 2009b). Their teenage children reflect this; some proudly say they do not care about politics, in which case their apolitical stance is likely to continue in adulthood (Côté, 2009). That itself is a political identity, although not one Erikson anticipated. A word here about terrorism and extremism. People who are relatively young (under age 30) are often on the front lines of revolutions or are disciples within groups that their elders consider cults. Fanatical political and religious movements have much in common: The age range of most new adherents is one of them (L. L. Dawson, 2010). However, adolescents are rarely drawn to these groups unless personal loneliness or family background (such as a parent's death caused by an opposing group) compels them. It is a myth that every teenager is potentially a suicide bomber or willing martyr. This topic also brings up identity politics, the tendency to identify with and vote for people of one's own race, religion, ethnicity, or sex (Bernstein, 2005; McClain et al., 2009). Identity politics is more like foreclosure than achievement because it precludes questioning and rational analysis. Although identity politics can be observed at any age, especially when a candidate is the first of one's own group to run for office, youth seem less swayed by ethnic loyalties than are their elders. For example, younger North Americans are more likely to approve of interracial dating, to welcome neighbors of other groups, to favor gay marriage, and to oppose any law that results in economic inequality. One type of identity politics, however, does seem attractive to the young: generational. They might reject an older member of their ethnic group in favor of a candidate of a different background who is younger than 30. This does not mean that adolescents ignore ethnicity entirely. Especially in a multicultural society such as the United States, most adolescents identify proudly with their background, often claiming that several labels describe them (such as African, Black, and American). One study found that the typical adolescent endorsed three such labels, with bicultural adolescents considering ethnic identities more central to themselves than monocultural adolescents did (Marks et al., 2011). Ethnic and generational identity overlap with political identity, but they do not determine it. Few adolescents proudly label themselves as members of a political party, as their parents might do. Same Situation, Far Apart: And If They Were Boys? Signs of gender identity vary from place to place, evident in the bare arms and uncovered heads of these girls in Randolph, New Jersey (left), which would horrify the girls in Sarabaya, Indonesia (right). By contrast, signs of sexual identity may be universal: Girls everywhere laugh together and hold each other in ways their male classmates do not. THE STAR-LEDGER/BILL PERLMAN/THE IMAGE WORKS TOM COCKREM/LONELY PLANET MAGES/GETTY IMAGES VOCATIONAL IDENTITY Vocational identity originally meant envisioning one-self as a worker in a particular occupation. This made sense a century ago, when most girls became wives and mothers, not employees, and most men became farmers, small businessmen, or factory workers. Those few in professions were generalists (doctors were general practitioners, lawyers handled all kinds of cases, teachers were usually unmarried women who taught all subjects). Decades ago, adolescents needed to establish a vocational identity so they could decide whether to stay in high school and aim for college. Obviously, definitive early vocational identity is no longer needed. No one is expected to be prepared for a lifetime career by age 16. In the United States, the proportion of 16- to 19-year-old males in the labor force (employed or looking for a job) declined from 61 to 35 percent between 1980 and 2010 (Aud et al., 2011a). No teenager can make a wise, permanent choice among the tens of thousands of possible future careers. This does not mean that future goals are irrelevant, however. As explained in Chapter 9, adolescents are more likely to be engaged in their education if they believe they are learning valuable, necessary skills. A specific vocational identity takes years to establish, but wanting to become a self-sufficient adult with a steady job motivates many young people. Although some adults hope that part-time employment during high school will keep teenagers out of trouble, the opposite is more likely. Specifics depend on the time commitment and work tasks (Staff & Schulenberg, 2010). Working during vacations or for a few hours during the school week is harmless, but adolescents who work more than 20 hours a week during the school year tend to quit school, fight with parents, smoke cigarettes, and hate their jobs—in adulthood as well as adolescence (see Figure 10.1). FIGURE 10.1 Don't Think About It There was a time when high school employment correlated with saving for college and lifetime success. No longer. The surprise is that even wanting a full-time job (and the extra income that would bring) reduces achievement—or is it the other way around? These are z-scores, or standard scores, which show the difference from the group average. A z-score of 2 is a dramatic difference; a z-score of 3 is extreme. Source: Staff et al., 2009. Typically, employed teens spend their wages on clothes, cars, drugs, and concerts, not family support or college savings. Grades fall: Work hours interfere with homework, after-school activities, and school attendance. Only a tiny and shrinking minority—alienated from school but appreciated, mentored, and promoted at work—benefit from intense teenage employment. SEXUAL IDENTITY Achieving sexual identity is also a lifelong task, in part because norms and attitudes shift over time (see Figure 10.2). Increasing numbers of young adults are single, gay, or cohabiting, providing teenagers with new role models. A half-century ago, Erikson and other theorists thought the two sexes were opposites (P. Y. Miller & Simon, 1980). Adolescence was once a time for "gender intensification," when people increasingly identified either as male or female. No longer (Priess et al., 2009). FIGURE 10.2 Young and Old Everyone knows that attitudes about same-sex relationships are changing. Less well known is that cohort differences are greater than the shift over the first decade of the twenty-first century. Source: Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, July 31, 2012. Who and Where? As Erikson explained in 1968, the pride of self-discovery is universal for adolescents: These could be teenagers anywhere. But a closer look reveals gay teenagers in Atlanta, Georgia, where this march could not have occurred 50 years ago. ZUMA PRESS/NEWSCOM As you remember from Chapter 6, for social scientists sex and sexual refer to biological characteristics, whereas gender refers to cultural and social attributes. The distinction between biology and culture is not always obvious, since the body is affected by behavior and vice versa. Nonetheless, Erikson's term sexual identity has been replaced by gender identity (Denny & Pittman, 2007), which refers primarily to a person's self-definition as male or female. Gender identity often (but not always) begins with the person's biological sex and leads to a gender role, one that society considers appropriate for that gender. Gender roles once meant that only men were employed; they were called breadwinners (good providers) and women were called housewives (married to their houses). When women entered the labor market in big numbers in about 1970, gender roles expanded but remained distinct, as with secretary/businessman, nurse/doctor, pink collar/blue collar). Now vocational roles are increasingly unisex, although debate still rages as to whether one sex is better suited for certain roles. One controversy is whether the male/female ratio of engineers (about 10:1) is the result of sex or gender. During childhood, both sexes seem similar in math and science performance. A shift occurs during adolescence such that far fewer girls study math, physics, or engineering in college. There are dozens of plausible explanations, from hormones to role models, from social prejudice to personal preference (Eccles, 2010). In every chosen profession, traditional gender roles are becoming less rigid. For example, currently in the United States about 20 percent of engineering degrees are earned by women (Chronicle of Higher Education, 2011a). That is double the past ratio, although still far from equal. It is apparent that gender identity and gender roles are much more complicated than once thought (Perry & Pauletti, 2011). Adolescents still experience strong sexual drives as their hormone levels increase, yet each generation holds different conceptions of appropriate gender identity (Bussey, 2011). As Erikson recognized, many adolescents are understandably confused regarding when, how, and with whom to express their sexual drives. This complicates achievement of gender identity. Some adolescents foreclose by exaggerating male or female roles; others seek a moratorium by avoiding all sexual contact. Complexities of sexual and gender experiences are further discussed later in this chapter. As Erikson famously recognized, adolescents experience an identity crisis, asking, "Who am I?" Identity achievement is arduous and takes years. Many adolescents experience role confusion or sidestep the anxiety via foreclosure or moratoria. In establishing religious and political identity, adolescents usually follow parental examples. Achieving vocational identity and sexual identity is more complicated than 50 years ago, partly because the number of careers and the variety of gender identities has increased. Four Arenas of Identity Formation HighlightAdd Note

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Printed Page 361 10.2 Relationships with Others Adolescence is often characterized as a time for personal rebellion and raging hormones. That perspective overlooks the reality that most teenagers are powerfully influenced by many people. Social influences include teachers, grandparents, and other relatives, as well as popular musicians, actors and actresses, sports stars, and other luminaries. Here we focus on the two most important powerful influences, parents and peers. Not only are these impactful social influences, but each also affects the other. When adolescents have a supportive, affectionate relationship with their parents, they tend to have similar relationships with their peers; when they fight with their parents, they are likely to fight with peers. This anger spillover is reciprocal; a conflict with a friend makes it likely that a teen will soon conflict with a parent. The direction is more often reversed—a fight at home typically precedes a fight with friends (Chung et al., 2011). Relationships with Others

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Printed Page 361 10.2.1 Parents Parent-adolescent relationships affect every aspect of adolescent development. Disputes are common because the adolescent's drive for independence, arising from biological as well as psychological impulses, clashes with the parents' desire to maintain control (Eisenberg et al., 2008; Laursen & Collins, 2009). Normally, parent-adolescent conflict, especially between mothers and daughters, peaks in early adolescence. It usually manifests as bickering—repeated, petty arguments (more nagging than fighting) about routine, day-to-day concerns such as cleanliness, clothes, chores, and schedules (Eisenberg et al., 2008). Some bickering may indicate a healthy family, since close relationships almost always include conflict (Smetana et al., 2004). One of the reasons for conflict is that both generations misjudge the other: Parents think their off-spring have more negative thoughts than the children have, and adolescents imagine much more intrusive control than the parents intend (Sillars et al., 2010). THE NEW YORKER COLLECTION 2001 BARBARA SMALLER FROM CARTOONBANK.COM. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Both generations would benefit if they were more explicit. For instance, if the argument is only about the dirty socks on the floor, the solution is easy: The teenager can put them in the laundry. However, if the fight is not really about socks but about parents dictating personal habits, of course the child resists. With time, parents gradually grant more autonomy, and "friendship and positive affect [emotional state] typically rebound to preadolescent levels" (Collins & Laursen, 2004, p. 337). By age 18, many teenagers appreciate their parents, who have learned to allow more independence (Masche, 2010). In Chapter 6, you learned that authoritative parenting is usually best for children and that uninvolved parenting is worst. This holds true for adolescents. Although teenagers may say they no longer need their parents, neglect is always destructive. One example is Joy. When she was 16, her stepfather said: "Teens all around here [are] doing booze and doing drugs.... But my Joy here ain't into that stuff" (quoted in C. Smith, 2005, p. 10). In fact, however, Joy was smoking pot, drinking alcohol, and having sex with her boyfriend. She said she overdosed on a bunch of stuff once, pills or some prescription of my mom's—I took the whole bottle. It didn't work. I just went to sleep for a long time.... They never found out...pretty pitiful. [quoted in C. Smith, 2005, p. 12] Adolescent Rebellion Some cultures value social harmony above all else. In those places, adolescents virtually never contradict their parents. Bickering is rare. That raises a question: Could the adolescent rebellion that Western developmentalists and parents take for granted be a social construction, a cultural artifact (Russell et al., 2010)? Might teenage rebellion result from a competitive economy, or U.S. admiration of rugged individualism, rather than a universal consequence of the pubertal hormones (Larson & Wilson, 2004)? A multicultural perspective has shown that what adolescents and parents expect from one another varies by culture (Brown & Bakken, 2011). For example, Japanese youth expect autonomy in their musical choices but want parents to help them with romance (Hasebe et al., 2004), whereas U.S. teenagers resent parental interference in selecting friends or lovers (Kakihara & Tilton-Weaver, 2009). In Chile, adolescents usually obey their parents even when they disagree, but if they do something their parents might not like, they keep it secret (Darling et al., 2008). By contrast, some U.S. adolescents provoke an argument by boldly proclaiming ideas that they know their parents disapprove of (Cumsille et al., 2010). The belief that adolescents must rebel in order to become healthy adults was expressed by Anna Freud (Sigmund's daughter, herself a prominent psychoanalyst), who wrote that adolescent resistance to parental authority was "welcome...beneficial...inevitable." She explained: We all know individual children who, as late as the ages of fourteen, fifteen or sixteen, show no such outer evidence of inner unrest. They remain, as they have been during the latency period, "good" children, wrapped up in their family relationships, considerate sons of their mothers, submissive to their fathers, in accord with the atmosphere, idea and ideal of their childhood background. Convenient as this may be, it signifies a delay of their normal development and is, as such, a sign to be taken seriously. [A. Freud, 1958/2000, p. 263] Contrary to Freud's views, many psychologists, most teachers, and almost all parents are quite happy with well-behaved, considerate teenagers. In many Asian cultures, filial devotion (a child's feeling of obligation to his or her parents) is assumed, which curbs adolescent rebellion (Russell et al., 2010). Open disagreement is considered a sign of disrespect, and thus bad parenting. Perhaps expecting teenagers to rebel creates a generation gap, making life more difficult for both generations. A young person might try drugs, for instance, believing "you're only young once," and a parent might accept uncontrolled behavior as an instance of "sowing wild oats." Both generations might follow those aphorisms when, instead, stricter guidelines and expected cooperation would better protect teenagers and create a happy home. The opposing perspective also makes sense. Those cultures that value family harmony, in which parents expect acquiescence instead of rebellion, might undermine teenagers rather than help them. If parents punish the first signs of independence, the young person might leave home and suffer the dangers of the street. Or the opposite might occur, with adolescents so docile that they never grow up but instead continue to live at home at age 30, still expecting Mother to do laundry, monitor activities, give permission. When a 15-year-old comes home past midnight, is it time for the parents to ease up or to punish? The answer depends partly on whether rebellion is healthy, necessary for an independent adulthood...or not. CLOSENESS WITHIN THE FAMILY More important than either family conflict or personal independence may be family closeness, which has four aspects: Communication (Do family members talk openly with one another?) Support (Do they rely on one another?) Connectedness (How emotionally close are they?) Control (Do parents encourage or limit adolescent autonomy?) No developmentalist doubts that the first two aspects—communication and support—are helpful, perhaps even essential. Patterns set in place during childhood continue, ideally buffering some of the turbulence of adolescence (Cleveland et al., 2005; Laursen & Collins, 2009). As you saw in earlier chapters, discussion leads to more ethical behavior and supportive families, aiding development at every age. Regarding the other two aspects, connectedness and control, consequences vary and observers differ in what they see. How do you react to this example, written by one of my students? I got pregnant when I was sixteen years old, and if it weren't for the support of my parents, I would probably not have my son. And if they hadn't taken care of him, I wouldn't have been able to finish high school or attend college. My parents also helped me overcome the shame that I felt when...my aunts, uncles, and especially my grandparents found out that I was pregnant. [I., personal communication] My student is grateful to her parents, but others might wonder whether her early motherhood gave her parents too much control, requiring dependency instead of autonomy. Indeed, might they unconsciously have created conditions (inadequate supervision and unfamiliarity with contraception) that encouraged her to become pregnant? If so, the emotional closeness that seems helpful may in fact not be. A longitudinal study of pregnant adolescents found that most (but not all) young mothers and their children fared best if the adolescents' parents did not take over child care (Borkowski et al., 2007). Taking over meant taking too much control and implied that the mother was incapable of mothering. A related issue is parental monitoring—that is, parental knowledge about each child's whereabouts, activities, and companions. When parental knowledge is the result of a warm, supportive relationship, children are likely to become confident, well-educated adults, avoiding drugs and risky sex (G. M. Barnes et al., 2006; Fletcher et al., 2004). However, monitoring is more complex than the broadcast question, "Do you know where your teenager is?" The complexity is that some adolescents happily tell parents about their activities, whereas others are secretive (Vieno et al., 2009). Most are selective, omitting things their parents would not approve of (Brown & Bakken, 2011). Thus, monitoring is a good sign if it indicates mutual trust (Kerr et al., 2010). However, monitoring may be harmful when it derives from suspicion. Too much criticism and control might stop dialogue instead of improve the first crucial items in the list above, communication and support (Tilton-Weaver et al., 2010). Overly restrictive and controlling parenting correlates with many adolescent problems, including depression (Brown & Bakken, 2011). Finding the right balance between freedom and control has the added complication of the particular personality of the child. As one scholar notes, "deft parental steering" is useful, but if "an adolescent is engaged in more than minor delinquent behavior, a much more structured and rule-based approach may be needed" (Capaldi, 2003, pp. 175-176). Parents HighlightAdd Note

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Printed Page 364 10.2.2 Peer Power Adolescents rely on peers to help them navigate the physical changes of puberty, the intellectual challenges of high school, and the social adjustments of leaving childhood. Peers are much more useful for those three challenges than parents are. Friendships are important at every stage, but during early adolescence peers have increased power because popularity is also coveted (LaFontana & Cillessen, 2010). Adults are sometimes unaware of adolescents' desire for respect from their contemporaries. I did not recognize this at the time with my own children, when the following scenarios played out in our home: Our oldest daughter wore the same pair of jeans to tenth grade, day after day. She washed them each night by hand and asked me to put them in the dryer early each morning. My husband was bewildered. "Is this some weird female ritual?" he asked. Years later, she explained that she was afraid that if she wore different pants each day, her classmates would think she cared about her clothes and then criticize her choices. Our second daughter, at 16, pierced her ears for the third time. When I asked if this meant she would do drugs, she laughed at my naiveté. I later noticed that many of her friends had multiple holes in their earlobes. At age 15, our third daughter was diagnosed with cancer. My husband and I weighed conflicting opinions from four physicians; each explained how a particular course of treatment would minimize the risk of death. She had her own priorities: "I don't care what you choose, as long as I keep my hair." Our youngest, in sixth grade, refused to wear her jacket (it was new; she had chosen it), even in midwinter. Not until high school did she tell me her reason: She wanted her classmates to think she was tough. ESPECIALLY FOR Parents of a Teenager Your 13-year-old comes home after a sleepover at a friend's house with a new, weird hairstyle—perhaps cut or colored in a bizarre manner. What do you say and do? (see response, page 366) All of my daughters, each in her own way, sought her peers' acceptance. That led them to care about their appearance in ways I did not understand. Another aspect of peer interaction that adults might not realize is how often friends connect with each other. Social interaction was once obvious—teenagers would "hang out" at the local park or tie up the telephone line. Now, texting has become the favorite way to communicate, with the average texter sending or receiving 60 messages a day (Pew Research Center, 2012a). PEER PRESSURE Peers have power during adolescence—power that can lead to constructive, destructive, or neutral behavior, as evident in the examples above. More generally, adults sometimes fear peer pressure, that is, that peers will push an adolescent to try drugs, break the law, or do other things the child would never do alone. This fear ignores the fact that "friends generally encourage socially desirable behaviors" (Berndt & Murphy, 2002, p. 281), such as playing sports, studying, quitting cigarettes, applying to college. OBSERVATION QUIZ There are dramatic differences among teenagers in these two nations as well. What three can you see? (see answer, page 366) Same Situation, Far Apart: Friends Together Teenagers in the middle of the United States (Illinois) and in the middle of Sudan (Khartoum) prefer to spend their free time with peers (these are all 15- to 17-year-olds), not with adults. Generational loyalty is stronger during these years than during any other stage of life. PVSTOCK.COM/ALAMY MARCO DI LAURO/GETTY IMAGES Peers are probably more helpful than harmful (Audrey et al., 2006; Nelson & DeBacker, 2008), especially in early adolescence, when biological and social stresses can be overwhelming. In later adolescence, teenagers are less susceptible to peer pressure, either positive or negative (Monahan et al., 2009). To understand the role of peers, it is useful to understand how adolescents organize themselves. A cluster of close friends who are loyal to one another and who exclude outsiders is called a clique. A larger group of adolescents who share common interests but who are not necessarily friends is a crowd. Cliques and crowds provide control, guidance, and support via comments, exclusion, and admiration (B. Brown & Larson, 2009). A crowd may exhibit small signs of identity (a certain brand of backpack, a particular greeting) that adults do not notice but that members of other crowds do (Strouse, 1999). Crowds—such as the "brains," "jocks," "skaters," or "goths"—may be based on ethnicity or on some personal characteristic or activity. Crowds encourage certain values. For instance, one U.S. study found that "tough" and "alternative" crowds felt that teenagers should question every adult rule, whereas the "prep" crowd thought that parental authority was usually legitimate (Daddis, 2010). One European study found that students with the highest grades were dismissive of those who devoted themselves to sports or those who were disaffected from school, who reciprocated by disliking the honors crowd (Laursen et al., 2010). Peers facilitate romance. Partners, especially in early adolescence, are selected partly because having that partner increases one's status with friends. If the leader of a girls' clique pairs with the leader of a boys' clique, the unattached members of the two cliques may pair with each other as well. That allows easy double or triple dating but also explains why adolescent romantic partners often have less in common, in personality and attitudes, than adult couples do (Zimmer-Gembeck & Ducat, 2010). Peers are also helpful when romances end. Adolescents may despair at rejection, contemplating revenge or suicide (Fisher, 2006). In such cases, peer support can be a lifesaver. Adolescents rely on friends to hear every detail of a romantic interaction, to provide audience and advice, to soften breakups and encourage new loves (Mehta & Strough, 2009). Friends are usually of the same sex and same sexual orientation but not necessarily so; the crucial factor is that the friend is willing to listen and encourage. Instant Connections Ignoring the rides at Coney Island, these two girls lean on each other; both have blue bracelets, tight jeans, sleeveless shirts, and, most important, texts to read and send. As with their use of the car and the telephone, teens have taken an adult invention (the Internet was originally developed for military use) and turned it into a tool for increasing peer support. FRANCES ROBERTS/ALAMY SELECTING FRIENDS Because friends need to be sympathetic to the intricacies of one another's relationships to each parent, peer, and partner, friends typically share values and background. For instance, family loyalty is a core value for teenagers from some backgrounds but not for others: In order to be a receptive listener when teenagers complain about their parents, a confidant should have the same core values. One specific example is ethnic identity, the formation of which is a major task for adolescents. The larger society promotes stereotypes and prejudice, and parents may counter with racial socialization (Umana-Taylor et al., 2010). Yet each young person needs to find his or her own ethnic identity, distinct from social stereotypes and from his or her parents' self-concept (A. J. Fuligni et al., 2009). To accomplish that, it is useful to have friends from the same ethnicity. For example, if a teen is dating someone from another group and needs to vent about a particular incident, a friend of the same ethnicity already understands the historical, social, and practical complications. For many other aspects of ethnic identity, peers are pivotal (Whitehead et al., 2009). In large schools with many ethnic groups, ethnic crowds attract those who seek to avoid isolation while establishing their identity—a difficult process (Kiang et al., 2010). At the same time, students of all groups explore relationships with other groups. Ideally, the adults encourage appreciation of each group and also model interethnic friendships. The fact that peers are often beneficial does not mean that friends always encourage good behavior, though. Young people can lead one another into trouble. Collectively, peers sometimes provide deviancy training, whereby one person shows another how to circumvent adult restrictions (Dishion et al., 2001). However, innocent teens are not routinely corrupted by deviant friends. Adolescents choose their friends and models—not always wisely, but never randomly. There is a developmental progression here: The combination of "problem behavior, school marginalization, and low academic performance" at age 11 leads to gang involvement two years later, deviancy training two years after that, and violent behavior at age 18 or 19 (Dishion et al., 2010, p. 603). But this cascade is not inevitable; adults can help disengaged 11-year-olds instead of blaming their friends years later. RESPONSE FOR Parents of a Teenager (from page 364) Remember: Communicate, do not control. Let your child talk about the meaning of the hairstyle. Remind yourself that a hairstyle in itself is harmless. Don't say "What will people think?" or "Are you on drugs?" or anything that might give your child reason to stop communicating. To further understand the impact of peers, two concepts are helpful: selection and facilitation. Teenagers select a clique whose values and interests they share, abandoning former friends who follow other paths. Peers then facilitate destructive or constructive behaviors. It is easier to do the wrong thing ("Let's all skip school on Friday") or the right thing ("Let's study together for the chem exam") if close friends are doing it, too. Both selection and facilitation can work in any direction. One teenager joins a clique whose members smoke cigarettes and drink beer, and together they take the next step, perhaps sharing a joint. Another teenager chooses friends who enjoy math puzzles, and they might all enroll in AP calculus together. As one student explains: [Companionship] makes me excited about calculus. That is a hard class, but when you need help with calculus, you go to your friends. You may think no one could be excited about calculus, but I am. Having friends in class with you definitely makes school more enjoyable. [Hamm & Faircloth, 2005, p. 72] ANSWER TO OBSERVATION QUIZ (from page 365) (1) The U.S. friends are of both sexes; it's all boys in Sudan. (2) Recreational use of inner tubes in the United States; inner tubes are used only for tires in Sudan. (3) The boys in Sudan are comparing cell phones, which would be unlikely in the United States. There are also many differences in clothing—too many to enumerate. Thus, adolescents select and then facilitate, choose and are chosen. Happy, energetic, and successful teens have close friends who themselves are high achievers, with no major emotional problems. The opposite also holds: Those who are drug users, sexually active, and alienated from school choose compatible friends and support one another in continuing on that path (Crosnoe & Needham, 2004; Kiuru et al., 2010). Adolescents are influenced by many other people, especially in the years right after puberty begins, when independence is particularly difficult. Parents and their adolescents often bicker, mutual communication and support are always helpful. Closeness and control are more controversial. Parental monitoring is usually an element of a close, involved parent-child relationship, but may be a sign of suspicion and secrecy. Peer influences are typically positive, although peers sometimes provide training and encouragement for deception and deviancy. Peer Power

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Printed Page 367 10.3 Sexual Interactions Watch Me Fall Adolescent boys in a skate park were videotaped in two circumstances: with an attractive female stranger sitting on a bench nearby and with no one watching. (The camera was hidden.) The boys took more risks, and fell more often, with the female observer present (Ronay & von Hippel, 2010). COURTESY RICHARD RONAY As explained in Chapter 9, the hormones of puberty awaken sexual interest. Teenage romance can increase despair, and early sex can be problematic, as soon described. But we also need to remember that adolescent sexual impulses are normal and that they can be joyous and instructive, preparing young people for healthy adult relationships. In several ways, teenagers today are sexually healthier than teenagers once were: Teen births have decreased in every nation. For example, between 1960 and 2010, the adolescent birth rate in China was cut in half (reducing the United Nations' projections of the world's population in 2050 by about 1 billion). In the United States, the birth rate per thousand 15- to 17-year-old girls was 39 in 1991; it was 15.4 in 2011, about one birth per 65 girls that age (Hamilton et al., 2012). The birth rate for older teens of every ethnic group has also decreased (see Figure 10.3). FIGURE 10.3 More Education, Fewer Births In some developing nations, women are still expected to have a baby before age 20. However, in most developed nations, including the United States, young women of every ethnic group are expected to begin college—hard to do with a baby. Other data find that the most marked decline in U.S. teenage pregnancy is among immigrant women, who now aspire to jobs and degrees, not housework and babies. Source: Hamilton et al., 2012. The use of protection has risen. Contraception, particularly condom use among adolescent boys, has increased markedly worldwide since 1990 (Santelli & Melnikas, 2010). The U.S. Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that 67 percent of sexually active ninth-grade boys used a condom during their most recent intercourse (MMWR, June 8, 2012). Rates are even higher in most European nations. Teen abortions are less common. In the United States, the abortion rate for women younger than 20 is about half the rate it was two decades earlier (MMWR, February 25, 2011). For all these, cohort and culture are crucial. For most of the twentieth century, North American youth reported sexual activity at younger and younger ages. This trend has reversed. In 1991, 54 percent of U.S. high school students said they had had intercourse, but in 2011 only 47 percent did. Rates varied by state culture: from 37 percent in Hawaii to 58 percent in Mississippi (MMWR, June 8, 2012). During the same period, the double standard (with boys expected to be more sexually active than girls) decreased, and today boys and girls are quite similar in reported sexual activity. Both sexes are much more knowledgeable about sexual matters, which may be the underlying reason for all the trends above. Sexual Interactions

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Printed Page 368 10.3.1 Romance Pin It on Him Boutonniere, corsage, formal shirt with matching tie, bare arms—all are common at U.S. high school proms. Yet these sights are unknown to most 17-year-olds in other nations. Despite such cultural oddities and this once-in-a-lifetime moment, Mariel West and John Felczak are evidence of a worldwide phenomenon: sexual attraction in late adolescence. JIM WEST Decades ago, an Australian named Dexter Dunphy (1963) described the sequence of male-female relationships during childhood and adolescence: Groups of friends, exclusively one sex or the other A loose association of girls and boys, with public interactions within a crowd Small mixed-sex groups of the advanced members of the crowd Formation of couples, with private intimacies Dunphy recognized, and later data from many nations confirm, that culture affects the timing and manifestation of each step, but not the sequence. Youth worldwide (and even the young of other primates) avoid the other sex in childhood and are attracted to them after puberty, with romantic partnerships gradually forming. This universal pattern suggests that physiological maturation governs this sequence. In modern developed nations, where puberty begins with hormones at about age 10 and enduring partnerships occur much later, each of Dunphy's four stages typically lasts several years. Early, exclusive romances are more often a sign of social trouble than of maturity, especially for girls (Eklund et al., 2010, Hipwell et al., 2010). UNDERSTANDING THE NUMBERS Sometimes people say that "numbers do not lie," but exactly what do the numbers reflect? Answer When it comes to teen sex, they may reflect shame, pride, and norms, which might affect adolescents' answers on even confidential questionnaires. A 2011 survey (MMWR, June 8, 2012) reports that most high school boys in Philadelphia have had sex (69 percent overall) while in San Francisco many boys say they have not (28 percent overall). However, the range from place to place for sex is almost twice as great as the range for having been offered illegal drugs in school. Perhaps social desirability is less likely to affect drug offering than sex. For drugs, Philadelphia (29 percent) and San Francisco (32 percent) are closer to the median of 32 percent. Might social norms affect adolescents' answers on sex, making Philadelphia artificially high and San Francisco artificially low? SEXUAL INTERCOURSE Early intercourse presages psychosocial problems later on. A study of 3,923 adult women in the United States found that those who voluntarily had sex before age 16 were more likely to divorce later on, whether or not that early sex resulted in pregnancy and whether or not they married their first sexual partner. The same study found that adolescents of any age whose first sexual experience was unwanted (either "really didn't want" or "had mixed feelings about") were also more likely to later divorce (Paik, 2011). Contrary to adult suspicions, many teenage romances do not include intercourse. In the United States in 2011, even though one-third of all high school students said they were sexually experienced by the tenth grade, another one-third of graduating seniors were virgins (see Figure 10.4). Norms vary markedly from crowd to crowd, school to school, city to city, nation to nation. For instance, less than half as many high schoolers in San Francisco as in Philadelphia say they are currently sexually active (20 versus 45 percent) (MMWR, June 8, 2012). FIGURE 10.4 Many Virgins For 30 years, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey has asked high school students from all over the United States dozens of confidential questions about their behavior. As you can see, about one-third of all students have already had sex by the ninth grade, and about one-third have not yet had sex by their senior year—a group whose ranks have been increasing in recent years. Other research finds that sexual behaviors are influenced by peers, with some groups all sexually experienced by age 14 and others not until age 18 or older. Source: MMWR, June 8, 2012. Regarding sex-related impulses, some experts believe that boys are more influenced by hormones and girls by culture (Baumeister & Blackhart, 2007). Perhaps. It does seem true that girls are more concerned than boys about the depth of the romance (Zani & Cicognani, 2006). Girls hope their partners say, "I'll love you forever"; boys like to hear, "I want you now." However, everyone is influenced by hormones and society, biology and culture. All adolescents have sexual interests (biology), which produce behaviors that teenagers in other nations would not engage in (culture) (Moore & Rosenthal, 2006). Since only girls can become pregnant, and since they fare better as mothers if the fathers are supportive, their wish for long-term commitment may be a consequence of that social reality. If this is so, the gender difference (girls' wanting love versus boys' seeking sex) may disappear as contraception makes unwanted pregnancy rare. On the other hand, the reason for that male-female difference may be rooted in genes and hormones: If so, it will continue, no matter how foolproof contraception becomes. SAME-SEX ROMANCES Selecting a sexual partner is also a combination of biology and culture. This is obvious in sexual orientation, which refers to the direction of a person's erotic desires. One meaning of orient is to "turn toward"; thus, sexual orientation refers to whether a person is romantically attracted to (turned on by) people of the other sex, the same sex, or both sexes. That basic orientation seems primarily biological, but culture is involved as well. Same Situation, Far Apart: Shared Joy Adults sometimes call teenage romances "puppy love," as if couples were too immature and playful to experience true affection. Some adults assume that lust, not love, connects teen boys and girls. But as these couples in Los Angeles (left) and Estonia (right) show, strong emotional connections supersede sexual contact. HILL STREET STUDIOS/GARY KIOUS/GETTY IMAGES © ANDREAS MEICHSNER/VISUM/THE IMAGE WORKS It is not known how many adolescents are romantically oriented toward people of their own sex, partly because sexual orientation can be strong, weak, acted upon, secretive, or unconscious. Relying on self-reports is bound to underestimate prevalence. Research in the United States indicates that boys who identify as male and girls who identify as female (no issue with gender identity) and who are attracted to people of their same sex, develop happily as long as society accepts them. However, well-being is diminished and drug use increases in those adolescents who are bisexual or are confused about their sexuality (Rieger & Savin-Williams, 2012). That may be cultural; adolescents who are uncertain about their sexuality may, someday, no longer be distressed. Sexual orientation seems to be cognitive, not simply biological, which complicates it for adolescents (Perry & Pauletti, 2011). Obviously, for every aspect of teen sexuality, culture and cohort are powerful. This is particularly true for those who are not heterosexual. Many gay youth date members of the other sex to hide their true orientation. Binge drinking, drug addiction, and suicidal thoughts are more common among them, with bisexual youth particularly vulnerable (MMWR, June 10, 2011). Behavior does not always conform to sexual orientation. Among sexually active teenagers in New York City, 10 percent had had same-sex partners—but many of those teenagers (38 percent) identified as straight (Pathela & Schillinger, 2010). In that study, those most at risk of sexual violence and sexually transmitted infections were neither those whose sexual experiences were exclusively same-sex nor exclusively other-sex, but those who had had partners of both sexes. Sexual orientation should not be confused with gender identity. An increasing number of adolescents feel that they do not identify with their biological sex. In some places, it may be possible for these children to be treated as a member of the opposite sex by adopting different clothing and friends—or even, in adolescence, by trying hormone treatments. But others may not be able to transition to another gender as easily and may suffer from feeling they do not match their biological sex. These children may be diagnosed with gender dysphoria, a new DSM-5 diagnosis that describes the distress individuals may feel as a consequence of feeling that they are in "the wrong body." Adults who care about adolescent health are advised to ask about sexual behavior—which may differ from gender identity or sexual orientation (Pathela & Schillinger, 2010). When and with whom a person becomes sexually active depends on a cascade of factors, including age at puberty, parenting practices, peer pressure, culture, and dating relationships (Longmore et al., 2009). Sexual impulses are normal and healthy during adolescence, but, as explained next, they may lead to trouble as well. Romance

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Printed Page 370 10.3.2 Possible Problems As you read, teen births and abortions are declining worldwide. Furthermore, adolescents are more informed about sexuality than they were a few generations ago, and, at least in the United States, fewer teenagers are sexually active in the twenty-first century than at the end of the twentieth. However, several problems are apparent. ADOLESCENT PREGNANCY The U.S. rate of adolescent pregnancy is lower than it was, but it is still higher than that of any other developed nation. If a pregnant teenager is younger than 16 (most are not), complications—including spontaneous or induced abortion, high blood pressure, stillbirth, preterm birth, and a low-birthweight newborn—are more likely. What Next? Monica, here with her dog Rosie, is a mom-to-be—as are 13 percent of her female classmates at Timkin High School in Canton, Ohio. She is one of the fortunate ones; already a senior, she will probably graduate. Her child may not be as fortunate. Teenagers typically welcome their unplanned babies but tend to have trouble raising them. This child will reach puberty before Monica is 30; their mutual immaturity will increase the child's risk of depression, delinquency, and another teen pregnancy. AP TONY DEJAK The risks to the mother decrease after age 16, but children of young parents (even as "old" as 17 or 18) have more medical, educational, and social problems. From a developmental perspective, each child is born not only to the mother but also to the family. In former generations, more family support was forthcoming. Since most teen mothers were married (more than 80 percent in 1960, about 6 percent in the United States in 2009), most fathers were legally committed to the children of teenage mothers. Furthermore, unlike in the current job market, most such fathers could find employment. In addition, 50 years ago few grandmothers on either side of the family were in the labor force; they often helped with child care. Currently, some unmarried fathers and some employed grandmothers are committed to the children of teenage mothers, but on average family support is much less available than it once was. Many reasons for the problems faced by babies born to adolescents arise from the society, not the physical immaturity of the mother. Poverty and lack of education correlate with teenage pregnancy and with every problem just mentioned (Santelli & Melnikas, 2010). Beyond that, no matter what their SES, younger pregnant teenagers are often malnourished and postpone prenatal care (Borkowski et al., 2007). SEXUAL ABUSE Sexual abuse is another hazard, given that puberty occurs at younger ages than a century ago, yet preteens are limited in their mental maturity. Sexual abuse is particularly likely if the parent-child relationship is strained. In that case, adolescents do not ask for help and parents doubt that a relative or family friend could be an abuser—even though child sexual abusers are often family members (Kinnear, 2007). Child sexual abuse is defined as any activity (including fondling and photographing) that sexually stimulates an adult and that involves a juvenile. The most common time for sexual abuse is when the first signs of puberty occur, with girls particularly vulnerable—although boys are also at risk. Child sexual abuse is often rationalized by the abuser as relatively harmless, especially if it does not include intercourse or if a young teenager does not object. Yet research finds that the victims may be affected for many years. Prevalence studies find national variations in rates. For instance, relatively low child sexual abuse rates are reported from Asia, and relatively high rates are reported for girls in Australia and boys in Africa (Stoltenborgh et al., 2011). International differences are affected by definitions and by the cultural willingness of adults to report past abuse (Hillberg et al., 2011). However, researchers worldwide agree that sexual abuse is not rare, that it is more likely than other forms of maltreatment to occur across the SES spectrum, and that rates increase at puberty. (See Table 10-1 for U.S. sexual abuse data.) For example, a careful study of the general population in England found that 2.8 percent of the women and 0.8 percent of the men experienced unwanted intercourse before adulthood; an additional 8.3 percent of the women and 4.5 percent of the men were abused via sexual contact that did not include intercourse (Bebbington et al., 2011). The former were more likely to have psychological disorders as adults, but even those with nonpenetrating abuse later experienced increased rates of psychological problems. As with other studies, this research found that sexual abuse was equally prevalent among all ethnic and income groups, but not among all age groups. The experience was more likely to occur in adolescence than earlier, and it was more likely to occur for those born after 1940 (Bebbington et al., 2011). Again, this may not reflect actual rates of past abuse: Older adults may be less likely to recognize, remember, or report sexual abuse. No matter what criteria are used, developmentalists conclude that the long-term harm from child sexual abuse is worse than the harm from other forms of maltreatment that are more obvious. Since good research on this topic is difficult, and since some adults tend to minimize the effects, the following may help explain this conclusion. Consequences of Sexual Abuse Puberty not only increases the odds of sexual abuse, but it can also make the emotional consequences worse because young adolescents experience some sexual impulses and responses (even to unwanted sex), but they have not yet developed a firm sense of their sexual identity (Graber et al., 2010). For example, an 11-year-old girl who is sexually abused might conclude that she is a bad person because she attracts sexual attention, or that all men are abusive, or that her value as a human being depends on her sexuality. The long-term harm from abuse varies depending on the victim, the family, and the community, as well as on whether the abuse was an isolated instance or continued for years (more common). Nonetheless, virtually every adolescent problem—including early pregnancy, drug abuse, eating disorders, and suicide—is more frequent in those who have been sexually abused. Consider what you have just read about the importance of supportive family and helpful peers, and then think of how sexual abuse undercuts those connections. Typically, abuse occurs at home, is perpetrated by an adult, and is allowed to continue by people who are supposed to protect the child. For example, two sisters, La Tanya and Tichelle, were repeatedly sexually abused by their mother's live-in boyfriend. When they told their mother, she turned him out—only to let him back in again and again. The mother bought a lock for the girls' bedroom door, but the abuser broke the lock, not once but three times. Rescue finally came when a school social worker suspected that something was wrong, and La Tanya told her. The abuser was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to 85 years in prison. Later, the mother said that not making him leave permanently was the greatest mistake of her life (Bazelon, 2006). The consequences extend far beyond the event. Young people who are sexually exploited typically fear sex and devalue themselves lifelong. Those two girls did manage to find outside help, but even as adults they are plagued by their former abuse. La Tanya has nightmares that cause her to wake up and compulsively check all the locks, all the while recalling her abuser's "black shotgun with a light brown barrel." La Tanya and Tichelle are just two cases. In other instances, no long-term consequences are apparent, especially when the abuse stopped quickly and the child felt protected. Remember from Chapter 1 that a single case is not conclusive. Scientific research is needed on a group of victims, ideally over several years, with a control group. Fortunately, at least one such study has been conducted—a 23-year study of 84 reported victims (aged 6 to16, all girls) of child sex abuse (Trickett et al., 2011). In order to isolate the effects of abuse, the researchers also traced the development of girls from similar backgrounds (SES, ethnicity, etc.) who were not sexually abused. Sadly, after confidential interviews, 14 of those initially selected for the control group were found to have been sexually abused, although that had not been reported to authorities. Other studies also find that sexual abuse often goes unreported. Those participants who had not reported their abuse were excluded from the final comparison group. Although both victims and controls moved residences frequently in adolescence and adulthood (including some who went to homeless shelters and some who moved in with distant relatives in other states, leaving no forwarding addresses), the researchers were extraordinarily dedicated. They maintained contact with almost all the participants, keeping in touch (e.g., sending them birthday cards) even when funding temporarily stopped (Trickett et al., 2011). Thus, because many guidelines for good longitudinal research were followed, the results of this study are probably valid—and definitely tragic. Although prosecutors often center on immediate biological harm (infections, pregnancy, physical abuse), this study found that the long-term cognitive and psychosocial effects of sex abuse were much worse. To be specific, school achievement and language development were impaired lifelong. Intellectual problems were apparent throughout adolescence (often years after police action stopped the abuse). In adulthood, many former victims suffered new physical and sexual abuse, severe depression, drug addiction, and obesity. Since these women were compared with a control group from families with similar structures, incomes, and neighborhood, the conclusions were not confounded by environmental variables. This study also found that harm extended to the next generation. Some of the 84 women had children, who also experienced cognitive and emotional problems. Of their 78 babies, 3 died in infancy, and 9 were permanently removed from their mothers. These rates were many times higher than those for the control group, who themselves had higher rates of child death or foster care than the national averages—probably because they and the abuse victims were often from dysfunctional neighborhoods. Only the most severely abused or neglected children are removed from their parents. Many others suffer while remaining with their mothers. Thus, the fact that 9 of the surviving children were removed indicates that many of the other 66 children were also impaired by having mothers who had been sexually abused. Remember that the HPA (hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal) system regulates puberty and many other physiological responses. Many abuse victims show signs of a breakdown in the HPA regulatory system, which alters their cortisol responses. That produces heightened stress reactions in early adolescence but then abnormally low stress responses in adulthood (Trickett et al., 2011). Other research finds that girls who have been sexually abused tend to experience earlier puberty, partly because of the dysregulation of the HPA axis (Mendle et al., 2011). As you remember from Chapter 9, early puberty for girls often leads to many other problems. Another study also finds that childhood sexual abuse correlates, in adulthood, with difficulty recognizing and expressing emotions, yet feeling depressed overall (Thomas et al., 2011). Many studies indicate that the emotional consequences of childhood sexual abuse—night terrors, dangerous risk-taking, serious addiction, suicidal depression—may linger lifelong. This may be the worst consequence of all: The brains of sex abuse victims may be forever changed, causing distressing flashbacks (such as night-mares of a man suddenly entering the bedroom), impulses (such as the urge to suffocate a lover), and fears (such as fear of being alone) that never disappear. INFECTIONS AND DISEASES Teen pregnancy, abortions, intercourse, and sexual abuse are less common than they were a decade ago, perhaps because sex education happens earlier and is more interactive than previously. However, one major problem of teenage sex shows no signs of abating: sexually transmitted infections (STIs). STIs were earlier called sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) or venereal disease (VD), terms that refer to any infection transmitted through sexual contact. One reason for the name change is that diseases may be long-lasting, caused partly by factors that are hard to avoid (such as cancer or heart disease), whereas infections are transmitted from one person to another and are more likely to be cured if treated promptly. There are hundreds of STIs, each with distinct symptoms, treatment, and consequences (James, 2007) (see Appendix A). By calling them infections, perhaps people will be more likely to seek diagnosis and treatment. Those who have sexual intercourse before age 16 are twice as likely to become infected as are those who begin sexual activity after age 19 (Ryan et al., 2008). One reason is biological. Fully developed women have some natural biological defenses against STIs; this is less true for pubescent girls (World Health Organization, 2005). In addition, if symptoms appear, teens are reluctant to seek diagnosis or alert their partners. Infections continue and spread as a result. In cultures or families in which teenage sex is forbidden, adolescents avoid treatment for STIs until pain requires it. Adolescents with same-sex partners are especially reluctant to carry condoms or find treatment if their community considers their sexuality shameful. Internationally, French teenagers are among the most likely to use condoms, as well as other protective measures simultaneously (called dual use), whereas teens in the United States are least likely to do so (Higgins & Cooper, 2012; Nic Gabhainn et al., 2009) (see Table 10-2). One reason may be that most French high schools (including Catholic ones) provide free, confidential medical care and condoms; by contrast, providing either one is illegal at many U.S. schools. The emphasis of sex education in France is on health protection, not sex avoidance. Worldwide, sexually active teenagers have higher rates of the most common STIs—gonorrhea, genital herpes, and chlamydia—than do sexually active people of any other age group (World Health Organization, 2005). Ominously, the rate of new HIV infections does not seem to be abating among adolescents (Benton, 2011). Possible Problems

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Printed Page 374 10.3.3 Sex Education Adolescents typically have strong sexual urges but minimal logic when it comes to pregnancy and disease. That might be expected, given the power of intuitive thought and the differential maturation of the limbic system and prefrontal cortex. They do not know what is normal and what is dangerous, and they do not think logically unless they must. Without guidance, millions of teenagers worry that they are oversexed, undersexed, or deviant, unaware that thousands, maybe millions, of people are just like them. Indeed, "students seem to waffle their way through sexually relevant encounters driven both by the allure of reward and the fear of negative consequences" (Wagner, 2011, p. 193). Obviously, they have much to learn. Where do they learn it? LEARNING FROM THE MEDIA One source of sex information is the media. Sexual content appears almost seven times per hour on the TV shows most watched by teenagers (Steinberg & Monahan, 2011). That content is almost always enticing: Almost never does a television character develop an STI, deal with an unwanted pregnancy, or mention (much less use) a condom. Print media that teenagers read is no better. One study found that men's magazines convince teenage boys that manliness means many sexual conquests (Ward et al., 2011). ESPECIALLY FOR Sex Educators Suppose adults in your community never talk to their children about sex or puberty. Is that a mistake? (see response, page 376) Sex on TV, in film, and in music is controversial (R. L. Collins et al., 2011; Steinberg & Monahan, 2011). Although there is a correlation between adolescent exposure to media sex and adolescent sexual initiation, that correlation may reflect selection, not cause. Perhaps teenagers watch sexy TV because they are sexually active, not vice versa. One analysis concludes that "the most important influences on adolescents' sexual behavior may be closer to home than Hollywood" (Sternberg & Monahan, 2011, p. 575). LEARNING FROM PARENTS Home is where sex education begins. Every study finds that parental communication is influential (Longmore et al., 2009). Ideally, parents are the best sex educators, because they know their children well and can have private conversations that allow teens to ask personal questions. However, many parents wait too long to discuss sex, are silent about crucial aspects, and know little about their adolescents' romances. Three studies of quite different groups illustrate the problem. Mexican American mothers told their teenagers, "Cuidate" ("Take care of yourself"), which their teenagers interpreted as advice about overall health, not condoms. When teens became pregnant, their mothers wondered why (Moncloa et al., 2010). Parents of 12-year-old girls were asked whether their daughters had hugged or kissed a boy "for a long time" or hung out with older boys (signs that sex information is urgently needed). Only 5 percent of the parents said yes, as did 38 percent of the girls (O'Donnell et al., 2008). African American and Hmong American 14- to 19-year-olds rarely tell their parents about their romances. For example, one girl said she and her girlfriend were going to the movies (true) but omitted that they would meet their boy-friends there (Brown & Bakken, 2011). What exactly should parents tell their children? That is the wrong question, according to a longitudinal study of thousands of adolescents. Those teens who became sexually active and who were most likely to develop an STI had parents who had told them about sex, warning them to stay away from it. This is not communication; it is the kind of parental lecture that many teenagers ignore. The same study found that adolescents were more likely to remain virgins if they had a warm relationship with their parents—specific information was less important than was open communication, enabling the adolescents to ask questions and get honest answers (Deptula et al., 2010). LEARNING FROM PEERS Adolescent sexual behavior is strongly influenced by peers, especially when parents are silent, forbidding, or vague. Many younger adolescents discuss details of romance and sex with close friends, seeking advice and approval (Laursen & Mooney, 2007). Often the boys brag and the girls worry. Sometimes two inexperienced partners teach each other. However, the lessons from a sexual partner are more about pleasure and techniques than about consequences and protection. Only about half of U.S. adolescent couples discuss how they will avoid pregnancy and disease before they have sex (Ryan et al., 2007). LEARNING AT SCHOOL Most northern European nations begin sex education in elementary school. By middle school, students learn about sexual responsibility, masturbation, same-sex romance, oral and anal sex—subjects rarely covered in U.S. classes. Rates of teenage pregnancy in most European nations are less than half those in the United States; perhaps curriculum is the reason. CARTOONSTOCK.COM Many U.S. sex educators wish teachers would be more forthcoming about sex. However, probably the entire culture, not just the curriculum, is relevant. For instance, in Russia, few schools include sex education—and yet their official rate of HIV is far lower than that in the United States (Gevorgyan et al., 2011) (although some reports claim the official rate underestimates actual prevalence). Within the United States, the timing and content of sex education varies by state and community, a result of local culture expressed via school curriculum. Some high schools provide comprehensive education, free condoms, and medical treatment; others provide nothing. Some schools begin sex education in the sixth grade; others wait until the end of high school. This is a crucial difference: When sex education precedes sexual experiences, adolescents are more likely to delay sexual activity. Specific information and attitudes influence the success of the curriculum—some programs have no impact (Kirby & Laris, 2009). A massive experiment in sex education involved "abstinence-only" curricula, as was U.S. federal policy until 2009. It is true, of course, that abstaining from sex (including oral sex) prevents STIs and pregnancy, but longitudinal data four to six years after adolescents had participated in abstinence-only programs revealed that the programs did not succeed. RESPONSE FOR Sex Educators (from page 374) Yes, but forgive them. Ideally, parents should talk to their children about sex, presenting honest information and listening to the child's concerns. However, many parents find it very difficult to do this because they feel embarrassed and ignorant. You might schedule separate sessions for people older than 30, for emerging adults, and for adolescents. To be specific, about half the students in both experimental (abstinence-only) and control groups had had sex by age 16. The number of partners and use of contraceptives were the same with and without the special curriculum (Trenholm et al., 2007). Students in the control groups knew slightly more about preventing disease and pregnancy, but that knowledge neither slowed nor hastened their sexual initiation. Overall, according to a controlled nationwide study of sex education in the United Kingdom, whether an adolescent becomes sexually active depends more on family, peers, and culture than on information from classes (Allen et al., 2007). The success of sex education is measured not by whether adolescents can learn facts (most pass multiple-choice tests) but by whether their knowledge affects their behavior (Kirby & Laris, 2009). Often it does not. Adolescent sexual interactions are healthier than they were a few decades ago, with fewer unwanted pregnancies, fewer abortions, and more contraception use. Biological impulses at puberty lead to sexual interest, but culture strongly affects behavior, including whether a teenager becomes sexually active and with whom. Sex education varies dramatically from nation to nation and, in the United States, from school to school. Adolescents benefit from parental discussion of sexual matters, but many parents are unable or hesitant to talk openly and honestly about sex with their children. Sex Education

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A major influence on the age of onset of menarche is _____.

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An organic chemical substance produced in the body and conveyed via the bloodstream is called a _____.

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Identity 1. Adolescence is a time for self-discovery. According to Erikson, adolescents seek their own identity, sorting through the traditions of their families and cultures. 2. Many young adolescents foreclose on their options without exploring possibilities, experience role confusion, or reach moratorium. Identity achievement takes longer for contemporary adolescents than it did half a century ago, when Erikson first described it. 3. Identity achievement occurs in many domains, including religion, politics, vocation, and sex. Each of these remains important over the life span, but timing, contexts, and terminology have changed. Relationships with Others 4. Parents continue to influence their growing children, despite bickering over minor issues. Ideally, communication and warmth remain high within the family, while parental control decreases and adolescents develop autonomy. 5. There are cultural differences in the timing of conflicts and particulars of parental monitoring. Too much parental control, with psychological intrusiveness, is harmful, as is neglect. Parents need to find a balance between granting freedom and providing guidance. 6. Peers and peer pressure can be beneficial or harmful, depending on particular friends, cliques, and crowds. Adolescents select their friends, including friends of the other sex, who then facilitate constructive and/or destructive behavior. 7. Crowds and cliques are evident in high schools; they are necessary to help adolescents develop their values and life habits. Peers may be particularly crucial for ethnic-minority and immigrant adolescents, who need to establish their own ethnic identity—one not quite corresponding with the messages they have received from society or their parents. Sexual Interactions 8. Current youth may have healthier sexual relationships than did youth a generation ago. Teen pregnancy and abortion are lower, contraception use is higher, and sexual intercourse, at least in the United States, occurs at later ages. 9. Puberty triggers sexual interest, but cultures and crowds have a major influence on how, when, and to whom those interests are expressed. Early, exclusive sexual relationships are a sign of emotional immaturity. 10. Some youth are oriented toward same-sex romance; others have sexual relationships with both sexes. Depending on the family, culture, and cohort, sexual-minority youth may experience depression and other problems. 11. Problems with adolescent sexuality include adolescent pregnancy (higher in the United States than elsewhere) and STIs (higher in adolescence than later). 12. Sexual abuse is more likely to occur in early adolescence than at other ages, and it can harm a victim's brain and psychological development lifelong. Girls are most often the victims; the perpetrators are most often family members. 13. Sex education occurs in many ways, with parents the most powerful influence but often the least informed. Schools vary in scope and success of sex education. Sadness and Anger 14. A few adolescents become seriously depressed. Many adolescents (especially girls) think about suicide, and some attempt it. Few adolescents actually kill themselves; most who do so are boys. 15. Lawbreaking as well as momentary rage are common; boys are more likely to be arrested for violent offenses than are girls. Adolescence-limited offenders should be prevented from hurting themselves or others. Life-course-persistent offenders are aggressive in childhood and may continue to be so in adulthood. Drug Use and Abuse 16. Most adolescents experiment with drugs, especially alcohol and tobacco, although such substances impair growth of the body and the brain. National culture has a powerful influence on which specific drugs are used as well as on the frequency of use. Age, gender, community, and parental factors are also influential. 17. Prevention and moderation of adolescent drug use and abuse are possible. Antidrug programs and messages need to be carefully designed to avoid a backlash or generational forgetting.

Excess weight results in earlier puberty.

In what way does weight affect puberty?

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Printed Page 376 10.4 Sadness and Anger Adolescence is usually a wonderful time, perhaps better for current teenagers than for any prior generation. Nonetheless, troubles plague about 20 percent of today's adolescents. Distinguishing between normal moodiness and serious pathology is complex. Adolescent emotions change day to day, even minute by minute. For a few, negative emotions become intense, chronic, even deadly. Sadness and Anger

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Printed Page 376 10.4.1 Depression The general trend from late childhood through adolescence is toward less confidence, with more moments of emotional despair and anger than when younger—as well as more moments of happiness (Neumann et al., 2011). A dip in self-esteem at puberty is reported in children of every ethnicity and gender (Fredricks & Eccles, 2002; Greene & Way, 2005; Kutob et al., 2009). Some studies report rising self-esteem thereafter (especially for African American girls and European American boys), but variations are many, as are individual differences. On average, self-esteem is lower in girls than in boys, lower in Asian Americans than African Americans, lower in younger adolescents than older adolescents (Bachman et al., 2011). Many studies report a gradual rise in self-esteem from early adolescence through at least age 30, but all find notable variability as well as some continuity, as you would expect since genes remain the same as age increases. That means that seriously depressed adolescents cannot be promised "you'll feel better soon"—depression may ease, but it rarely disappears completely (Huang, 2010). All studies find that parents and peers affect self-esteem (Hall-Lande et al., 2007) and that some communities have lower rates of depression because they promote strong and supportive relationships between teenagers and adults. One factor in an individual's level of self-esteem may be the adolescents' own neurological propensity (differential sensitivity again). Cultural contexts are influential as well. One cultural norm is familism, the belief that family members should sacrifice personal freedom and success to care for one another. Familism (in Spanish, familismo) is particularly strong among Mexican Americans, for whom family solidarity cushions the strains of poverty, parenthood, and prejudice (Behnke et al., 2008). For Latin American youth, self-esteem and ethnic pride rise after puberty, especially if familism is strong, because their new maturity enables them to contribute to their families. However, if a Latino family is characterized by fighting and fragmentation, adolescents' self-esteem is reduced even more than in similar, non-Latino families (Smokowski et al., 2010). Especially for gay adolescents, family rejection increases the rate of suicide (Saewyc, 2011). Adolescents of any background with low self-esteem turn to drugs, sex, self-harm, and dieting—all of which deepen depression (Biro et al., 2006; Trzesniewski et al., 2006). CLINICAL DEPRESSION Some adolescents sink into clinical depression, a deep sadness and hopelessness that disrupts all normal, regular activities. The origins and causes, such as certain alleles of particular genes and early insecure attachment, predate adolescence. Then puberty—with its myriad physical and emotional ups and downs—plunges some into despair. The rate of clinical depression more than doubles during this time, to an estimated 15 percent, affecting about 1 in 5 girls and 1 in 10 boys. It is not known whether the reasons for these gender differences are primarily biological, psychological, or social (Alloy & Abramson, 2007). Obviously, sex hormones differ, but girls also experience social pressures from their families, peers, and cultures that boys do not. Perhaps the combination of biological and psychosocial stresses causes some to slide into depression. Genes matter as well. For instance, adolescent girls are especially likely to be depressed if their mothers are belligerent, disapproving, and contemptuous. However, some girls seem genetically protected. They have equally difficult mothers, but they escape depression, probably because they are innately less vulnerable (Whittle et al., 2011). One study found that the short allele of the serotonin transporter promoter gene (5-HTTLPR) increased the rate of depression among girls everywhere but increased depression among boys only if they lived in communities of low SES (Uddin et al., 2010). It is not surprising that certain genes make depression more likely, but the gender-specific neighborhood correlation is puzzling. Perhaps boys become depressed only if they see no future job prospects, and that is more likely in poor neighborhoods. The hypothesis that hope for the future relates to teen depression comes from a provocative experiment in India, where depression is much higher in females than in males. Indian villages were randomly chosen to have an unusual requirement: It was mandated that a certain number of women had to be elected to leadership positions in those villages. The results showed that the adolescent girls in those villages had higher aspirations, did less domestic work, and had more education. Apparently, the new female role models changed their image of themselves (Beaman et al., 2012). A cognitive explanation has been offered for gender differences in depression. Rumination—talking about, remembering, and mentally replaying past experiences—is more common among girls than boys. If unpleasant incidents are replayed, rumination may lead to depression (Ayduk & Kross, 2008). In some cases, close mother-daughter relationships may be harmful: When mothers and daughters ruminate about the mother's problems, daughters often become depressed (Waller & Rose, 2010). Adolescent depression is expressed in many ways, including eating disorders, school alienation, and sexual risk taking, all already discussed. In addition, an increasing number of depressed adolescents turn to self-harm, specifically, cutting themselves to draw blood, or burning themselves to relieve anxiety. Cutting and burning are not intended as suicide attempts, and they temporarily halt the emotions that triggered self-abuse. However, such actions may become addictive, leading to deeper depression. That deeper depression links to suicide (Asarnow et al., 2011). SUICIDE Serious depression can lead to thoughts about killing oneself (called suicidal ideation), to a specific plan, to an attempt, or to death. The 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Survey revealed that more than one-third (36 percent) of U.S. high school girls felt so hopeless that they stopped doing some usual activities for two weeks or more, and almost one-fifth (19 percent) seriously thought about suicide. The corresponding rates for boys were 22 percent and 13 percent (MMWR, June 8, 2012). Suicidal ideation can lead to parasuicide, also called attempted suicide or failed suicide. Parasuicide includes any deliberate self-harm that could have been lethal. Parasuicide is the best word to use because "failed" implies that death is success! "Attempt" is likewise misleading because, especially in adolescence, the difference between attempted and completed suicide is often luck, timing, and medical response. As you see in Figure 10.5, parasuicide can be categorized according to those who require medical attention (surgery, pumped stomach, etc.) and those who do not, but any parasuicide needs to be taken seriously. Parasuicide is a flashing warning that, if there is a next time, the person may die. Among U.S. high school students in 2011, 10 percent of the girls and 6 percent of the boys said they had tried to kill themselves in the past year (MMWR, June 8, 2012). FIGURE 10.5 Sad Thoughts Completed suicide is rare in adolescence, but serious thoughts about killing oneself are frequent. Depression and parasuicide are more common in girls than in boys, but rates are high even in boys. There are three reasons to suspect the rates for boys are underestimates: Boys tend to be less aware of their emotions than girls are, boys consider it unmanly to try to kill themselves and fail, and completed suicide is also higher in males than in females. Source: MMWR, June 8, 2012; National Center for Health Statistics, 2012e. While suicidal ideation during adolescence is common, completed suicides are not. The U.S. annual rate of completed suicide for people aged 15 to 19 (in school or not) is less than 8 per 100,000, or 0.008 percent. Rates for those under 15 are much lower. Adolescents are less likely to kill themselves than adults are. Nothing to Do Compared with most other Americans, these three adolescents are at higher risk of diabetes, alcoholism, unemployment, and suicide. They live on the Rosebud Sioux Reservation in South Dakota. The suicide rate among Native American teenagers is more than three times as high as the rate for U.S. adolescents overall. KEVIN MOLONEY/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX Many people mistakenly think suicide is more frequent in adolescence for four reasons: The rate, low as it is, is higher than it appeared to be decades ago (see Appendix A). Statistics on "youth" often include emerging adults, aged 18 to 25, whose suicide rates are higher than those of adolescents. Adolescent suicides capture media attention, and people of all ages make a logical error (called base rate neglect), noticing the published cases and not considering the millions of nonsuicidal youth. Parasuicide may be more common in adolescence than later. Gender differences in suicide are dramatic. Depression and parasuicide are more common among females (see Figure 10.5), but completed suicide is higher for males (except in China). For instance, among U.S. 15- to 19-year-olds, three times as many boys kill themselves as girls (National Center for Health Statistics, 2012e). A major reason is method: Males typically jump from high places or shoot themselves (immediately lethal), whereas females often swallow pills or cut their wrists (allowing time for possible intervention or second thoughts). Another explanation is that girls talk about their emotions, allowing friends and families to help them. Rumination may increase depression but decrease suicide. Boys withdraw; their warning signs are less obvious. Because they are more emotional than analytical, adolescents are particularly affected when they hear about a suicide, either via media reports or from peers (Insel & Gould, 2008). That makes them susceptible to cluster suicides, a term for several suicides within a group over a brief span of time—a few weeks or months. If a high school student's "tragic end" is sentimentalized, that elicits suicidal ideation among his or her peers. Media attention increases the risk. ESPECIALLY FOR Journalists You just heard that a teenage cheerleader jumped off a tall building and died. How should you report the story? (see response, page 380) Wealth and education decrease the incidence of many disorders, but not of suicide—quite the opposite. The reason may be news reports that typically highlight the lost potential of a suicidal adolescent (e.g., "Honor Student Kills Self"). This may encourage cluster suicides among, say, other honor students. Or adolescents from high-SES families may not know how to cope with a failing grade or a broken relationship. Since 1990, rates of adolescent suicide have fallen in the United States, especially among high-SES teenagers. One reason may be that parents spot problems and involve their teens in psychotherapy, which often includes antidepressant use—which relieve the desperate sadness that some adolescents feel (Gentile, 2010). Depression

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Printed Page 379 10.4.2 Delinquency and Disobedience Like low self-esteem and suicidal ideation, bouts of anger are common in adolescence. In fact, the moody adolescent could be both depressed and delinquent because externalizing and internalizing behavior are more closely connected in adolescence than at any other age (Loeber & Burke, 2011). That is why teenagers jailed for assault (externalizing) are suicide risks (internalizing). Externalizing actions are obvious. Many adolescents slam doors, defy parents, and tell friends exactly how badly other teenagers (or siblings or teachers) have behaved. Some teenagers—particularly boys—"act out" by breaking laws. They steal, damage property, or injure others. Girls who cut or burn themselves also have neurological patterns similar to those of externalizing boys: They experience the anger and turn it on themselves (Crowell et al., 2012). Hope and Anger Adolescents and young adults everywhere demonstrate against adult authority, with varied strategies and results. In Cairo's Tahrir Square (left), this young man flashes the peace sign hours before President Mubarak's resignation, but the 2011 "Arab Spring" in other nations was not as successful. French students (right) protested cuts in high school staff, but their demands were resisted by the government. Worldwide, social change is fueled by youthful aspirations—sometimes leading to victory, sometimes to despair., and often (as in Egypt) with high emotions that seem unrealistic later on. The French students (right) seem to have lost all hope—a sign of political despair. ALAMY PHILIPPE WOJAZER/REUTERS Before further discussing juvenile rebellion, we should emphasize that adolescents who commit serious crimes are unusual. Most teenagers usually obey the law, with moments of hot anger (loud profanity) or minor rebellion (smoking a joint), but nothing more. Dozens of longitudinal studies confirm that increased anger after puberty is normal, but anger is usually expressed in acceptable ways. For a few, anger explodes: They break something or hurt someone. And a few of that few have been aggressive throughout childhood, becoming worse after puberty. BREAKING THE LAW Both the prevalence (how widespread) and the incidence (how frequent) of crime increase during adolescence and continue at high levels in emerging adulthood. Arrest statistics in every nation reflect this, although some nations have much higher arrest rates overall than others. Confidential self-reports reveal that virtually every adolescent boy breaks the law at least once before age 20. If all lawbreaking is considered—including buying cigarettes or beer, having sex with someone underage, skipping school, and breaking a curfew—girls are lawbreakers, too. Only about one-fourth of young lawbreakers are caught, and most of them are released with a warning (Dodge et al., 2006). Not all adolescent crimes are victimless. One study of 1,559 urban seventh-graders (both sexes, all races, from parochial as well as public schools), found that more than three-fourths had committed at least one harmful offense (stolen something, damaged property, or hurt someone physically). The same study, however, found that less than one-third had committed five or more such acts (Nichols et al., 2006). RESPONSE FOR Journalists (from page 379) Since teenagers seek admiration from their peers, be careful not to glorify the victim's life or death. Facts are needed, as is, perhaps, the inclusion of warning signs that were missed or cautions about alcohol abuse. Avoid prominent headlines or anything that might encourage another teenager to do the same thing. Our understanding of statistics on convictions may benefit from research on interrogation of suspects as well as from what we know about teenagers. In the United States, about 20 percent of confessions are false: Innocent people confess to crimes. This is especially likely in adolescence, partly because of brain immaturity and partly because young people want to please adults—including the police (Owen-Kostelnik et al., 2006; Steinberg, 2009). Knowing this, some jurisdictions record all interrogations and train police officers in the special attributes of adolescents (Lassiter & Meissner, 2010). For example, younger teens are more egocentric and thus might take full blame for something they did not actually do. CAUSES OF DELINQUENCY Two clusters of factors, one from childhood (primarily brain-based) and one from adolescence (primarily contextual), predict delinquency. Knowing this allows prevention to focus on causes. Some Want Her Dead But Florida law did not allow 15-year-old Morgan Leppert to be executed for murdering a 63-year-old man when she and her 22-year-old boyfriend, Toby, stole the man's car. Instead, she was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Developmentalists agree that teenage criminals are not like adult ones, but they also wonder why Morgan's mother let Toby sleep in Morgan's bedroom when she was just 14. AP PHOTO/PATRICK C. LEONARD The first of these clusters includes a short attention span, hyperactivity, inadequate emotional regulation, slow language development, low intelligence, early and severe malnutrition, autistic tendencies, maternal cigarette smoking, and being the victim of severe child abuse, especially if it includes blows to the head. Most of these factors are more common among boys than girls, which may be one reason the male/female ratio in U.S. prisons is 13:1. Any of these signs of neurological impairment (either inborn or caused by early experiences) increases the risk that a child will become a life-course-persistent offender (Moffitt et al., 2001). As the term implies, a life-course-persistent offender is someone who breaks the law before and after adolescence as well as during it. The second cluster of factors that predict delinquency encompasses risk factors that are primarily psychosocial. They include having deviant friends; having few connections to school; living in a crowded, violent, unstable neighborhood; not having a job; using drugs and alcohol; and having close relatives (especially older siblings) in jail. These factors are more prevalent among low-income, urban adolescents, but certainly not exclusive to them. At any income level, an adolescent who experiences several of these risks is likely to become an adolescence-limited offender, someone whose criminal activity starts at puberty and stops by age 21 (Moffitt, 2003). Adolescence-limited offenders break the law with their friends, facilitated by their chosen antisocial clique. More boys than girls are in this group, but some lawbreaking cliques include both sexes (the gender gap in lawbreaking is narrower in late adolescence than earlier or later) (Moffitt et al., 2001). ESPECIALLY FOR Police Officers You see some 15-year-olds drinking beer in a local park when they belong in school. What do you do? (see response, page 382) The criminal records of both types of teenagers may be similar. However, if adolescence-limited offenders can be protected from various snares (e.g., quitting school, entering prison, drug addiction, early parenthood), they may outgrow their criminal behavior. This is confirmed by other research: Few delinquent youth who are not imprisoned continue breaking the law in early adulthood (Monahan et al., 2009). This does not mean that adolescence-limited lawbreaking should be ignored. Antisocial behavior is dangerous, especially to other adolescents, who are victimized three times as often as adults (Baum, 2005). Adolescents are more likely to be killed by another adolescent than to kill themselves. Fortunately, maturation puts an end to adolescence-limited lawbreaking. By contrast, life-course-persistent offending begins in childhood and continues in adulthood with more crime, less education, lower income, unhappy marriages, and violence (Huesmann et al., 2009). It extends to the next generation: If life-course-persistent offenders have children, those children are likely to become lawbreakers themselves, partly for genetic reasons but primarily because they were mistreated by their parents before and after birth. One way to prevent adolescent crime is to analyze earlier behavior patterns and stop delinquency before the police become involved. Three pathways can be seen (Loeber & Burke, 2011): Stubbornness can lead to defiance, which can lead to running away—runaways are often victims as well as criminals (e.g., prostitutes, petty thieves). Shoplifting can lead to arson and burglary. Bullying can lead to assault, rape, and murder. Each of these pathways demands a different response. The rebelliousness of the stubborn child can be channeled or limited until more maturation and less impulsive anger prevail. Those on the second pathway require stronger human relationships and moral education. RESPONSE FOR Police Officers (from page 381) Avoid both extremes: Don't let them think this situation is either harmless or horrifying. You might take them to the police station and call their parents. These adolescents are probably not life-course-persistent offenders; jailing them or grouping them with other lawbreakers might encourage more crime. Those on the third pathway present the most serious problem. Bullies need to be stopped and helped in early childhood, as already discussed. If that does not occur, and a teenager is convicted of assault, rape, or murder, then arrest, conviction, and jail might be the only options. In all cases, intervention is more effective earlier than later (Loeber & Burke, 2011). Adolescent crime in the United States and many other nations has decreased in the past 20 years. Murder statistics provide a solid measure because neither victims nor the police can affect whether an offense is counted. In the United States, only half as many juveniles under age 18 are currently arrested for murder than was the case in 1990. Although these data are solid, explanations are not. Possibilities include: fewer school dropouts (more education means less crime); wiser judges (using community service and drug treatment to prevent escalation); better policing (arrests for misdemeanors are up, alerting parents); smaller families (parents attend more to each child); better contraception and legal abortion (wanted children less often become criminals); more immigrants (who are more law-abiding); less lead poisoning (reducing impulsivity); stricter drug laws (binge-drinking and use of crack are down). The emotions of adolescents often include marked depression and anger, sometimes pathological, sometimes not. Clinical depression is more common in teenage girls than boys; experts disagree as to whether this is primarily caused by hormones, rumination, or society. Breaking the law is common among adolescents, with more arrests during these years than later. Some offenders are adolescence-limited—they stop breaking the law at adulthood; some are life-course-persistent—they become criminal adults. Delinquency and Disobedience

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Printed Page 319 9.1 Puberty Puberty refers to the years of rapid physical growth and sexual maturation that end childhood, producing a person of adult size, shape, and sexuality. The forces of puberty are unleashed by a cascade of hormones that produce external growth and internal changes, including heightened emotions and sexual desires. This process normally starts between ages 8 and 14 and follows the sequence outlined in At About This Time. Most physical growth and maturation ends about four years after the first signs appear, though some individuals add height, weight, and muscle until age 20 or so. For girls, the observable changes of puberty usually begin with nipple growth. Soon a few pubic hairs are visible, then peak growth spurt, widening of the hips, the first menstrual period (menarche), full pubic-hair pattern, and breast maturation (Susman et al., 2010). The average age of menarche among normal-weight girls is about 12 years, 8 months (Rosenfield et al., 2009), although variation in timing is quite normal. For boys, the usual sequence is growth of the testes, initial pubic-hair growth, growth of the penis, first ejaculation of seminal fluid (spermarche), appearance of facial hair, peak growth spurt, deepening of the voice, and final pubic-hair growth (Biro et al., 2001; Herman-Giddens et al., 2001; Susman et al., 2010). The typical age of spermarche is just under 13 years, close to the age for menarche. Puberty

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Printed Page 320 9.1.1 Unseen Beginnings Just described are the visible changes of puberty, but the entire process begins with an invisible event, a marked hormonal increase. Throughout adolescence, hormone levels correlate with physiological changes and self-reported development (Shirtcliff et al., 2009). Hormones are body chemicals that regulate hunger, sleep, moods, stress, sexual desire, immunity, reproduction, and many other bodily reactions, including puberty. The process begins deep within the brain when biochemical signals from the hypothalamus signal another brain structure, the pituitary. The pituitary produces hormones that stimulate the adrenal glands, located above the kidneys, which produce more hormones. Many hormones that regulate puberty follow this route, known as the HPA (hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal) axis (see Figure 9.1). FIGURE 9.1 Biological Sequence of Puberty Puberty begins with a hormonal signal from the hypothalamus to the pituitary gland. The pituitary, in turn, signals the adrenal glands and the ovaries or testes to produce more of their hormones. Another hormonal sequence is called the HPG (hypothalamus-pituitary-gonad) axis. In adolescence, gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH) is released by the hypothalamus, causing the pituitary to release gonadotropins (LH & FSH), which in turn activate the gonads. As a result, the gonads enlarge and increase their production of sex hormones, chiefly estradiol in girls and testosterone in boys. These sex hormones affect the body's shape and function, producing additional hormones that regulate stress and immunity (E. A. Young et al., 2008). Estrogens (including estradiol) are female hormones and androgens (including testosterone) are male hormones, although the adrenal glands produce both hormones in both sexes. A dramatic increase in estrogens or androgens at puberty produces mature ova or sperm, released in menarche or spermarche. This same hormonal rush awakens interest in sex and makes reproduction biologically possible, although peak fertility occurs four to six years later. Sexual interest leads to joyful actions and emotions, as well as many potential problems for the person and society. Sex is powerfully influenced by family and culture; for that reason, it is discussed in the next chapter. ESPECIALLY FOR Parents of Teenagers Why would parents blame adolescent moods on hormones? (see response, page 324) Hormonal increases affect psychopathology in sex-specific ways (Naninck et al., 2011; Steiner & Young, 2008). Psychological disorders in both sexes increase at adolescence, but males are twice as likely as females to become schizophrenic, whereas females are twice as likely to become depressed. Same Situation, Far Apart: Eye Openers Nature grows eyelashes straight, but adolescent girls want them curly. The main difference between these two settings is not the goal but the equipment. Girls in Pinellas Park, Florida, have large mirrors and metal tools designed for lash curling—both are rare in Beijing, China. ST. PETERSBURG TIMES/LARA CERRI/THE IMAGE WORKS REUTERS/JASON LEE Unseen Beginnings

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Printed Page 322 9.1.2 Body Rhythms I Covered That Teachers everywhere complain that students don't remember what they were taught. Maybe schedules, not dreamers, are to blame. PURESTOCK/GETTY IMAGES The brain of every living creature responds to the environment with natural rhythms that rise and fall by the hours, days, and seasons. Some biorhythms are on a day-night cycle of biological activity that occurs approximately every 24 hours; this cycle is called the circadian rhythm (circadian means "about a day"). The hypothalamus and the pituitary regulate the hormones that affect the biorhythms of stress, appetite, sleep, and so on. Hormones of the HPA axis at puberty cause a phase delay in sleep-wake cycles, making many teens wide awake and hungry at midnight but half asleep with little appetite or energy all morning. By contrast, many older adults are naturally alert in the morning and sleepy at night because of their circadian rhythms. Biology (circadian rhythms) and culture (parties and technology) work to make teenagers increasingly sleep-deprived with each year of high school (Carskadon, 2011). Not only does insufficient sleep decrease learning and well-being, but so does an uneven sleep schedule (more sleep on weekends, erratic bedtimes) (Fuligni & Hardway, 2006; Holm et al., 2009). Parents who yell at their wide-awake teenagers to turn off the bedroom lights at midnight often must also drag those same children out of bed at 6 A.M. to get ready for school. Many high schools begin before 8 A.M., even though the evidence finds that a later start time improves adolescent learning (Kirby et al., 2011). Sleepy teenagers are more likely to have many problems. They doze in school (see Figure 9.2), fall asleep while driving, develop eating and mood disorders (depression, conduct disorder, anxiety), have poor relationships with their parents, and abuse substances (partly to wake up or to sleep), thereby jeopardizing their health (risking future obesity, diabetes, and heart disease) (Mueller et al., 2011; Patrick & Schulenberg, 2011; Roenneberg et al., 2012). FIGURE 9.2 Dreaming and Learning? This graph shows the percentage of U.S. students who, once a week or more, fall asleep in class or are too tired to exercise. Not shown are those who are too tired overall (59 percent for high school students) or who doze in class "almost every day" (8 percent). Source: National Sleep Foundation, 2006. Body Rhythms

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Printed Page 322 9.1.3 Age and Puberty Parents have a very practical concern: "When will adolescence begin?" Some fear precocious puberty (sexual development before age 8) or very late puberty (after age 16), but both are rare (Cesario & Hughes, 2007). Quite normal are increased hormones any time from ages 8 to 14, with the precise age affected by genes, gender, body fat, and stress. GENES AND GENDER About two-thirds of the variation in age of puberty is genetic, evident not only in families but also in ethnic groups (Ge et al., 2007; Susman et al., 2010; van den Berg & Boomsma, 2007). African Americans reach puberty about seven months earlier than European or Hispanic Americans, whereas Chinese Americans average several months later (see Figure 9-3 and Figure 9-4). FIGURE 9.3 Usually by Age 13 The median age of menarche (when half the girls have begun to menstruate) differs somewhat among ethnic groups in the United States. (The best signal of puberty is menarche in girls, but similar timing variability is apparent in boys of these ethnic groups.) This data is a decade old, but more recent data is similar, with one exception: Mexican American girls who were born in the U.S. now reach puberty at about 12.4, not 12.9 years of age. The reason is probably more body fat. Source: Chumlea et al., 2003. FIGURE 9.4 Almost Always by Age 14 This graph shows the age of menarche for the earliest and latest 10 percent of girls in three U.S. ethnic groups. Note that, especially for the slow developers (those in the 90th percentile), ethnic differences are very small. Source: Chumlea et al., 2003. Both 12 The ancestors of these two Minnesota 12-year-olds came from northern Europe and West Africa, respectively. Their genes have dictated some differences between them, including the timing of puberty, but these differences do not determine their friendship. SKJOLD PHOTOGRAPHS/THE IMAGE WORKS Ethnic differences are apparent on other continents as well. For instance, northern European girls reach menarche at 13 years, 4 months, on average; southern European girls do so at 12 years, 5 months (Alsaker & Flammer, 2006). Genes on the sex chromosomes have a marked effect. In height, the average girl is about two years ahead of the average boy. However, the female height spurt occurs before menarche, whereas for boys, the increase in height is relatively late, occurring after spermarche (Hughes & Gore, 2007). Thus, when it comes to hormonal and sexual changes, girls are only a few months ahead of boys. The sixth-grade boy with sexual fantasies about the taller girls in his class is neither perverted nor precocious; his hormones are simply ahead of his visible growth. BODY FAT Another major influence on the onset of puberty is body fat, at least in girls. Heavy girls reach menarche years earlier than malnourished ones do. Most girls must weigh at least 100 pounds (45 kilograms) before they experience their first period (Berkey et al., 2000). Worldwide, urban children are more often overfed and underexercised than rural children. That is probably why puberty starts earlier in the cities of India and China than it does in more remote villages, a year earlier in Warsaw than in rural Poland, and earlier in Athens than in other parts of Greece (Malina et al., 2004). RESPONSE FOR Parents of Teenagers (from page 321) If something causes an adolescent to shout "I hate you," to slam doors, or to cry inconsolably, the parents may decide that hormones are the problem. This makes it easy to disclaim personal responsibility for the teenager's anger. However, research on stress and hormones suggests that this comforting attribution is too simplistic. Body fat also explains why youth reach puberty at age 15 or later in some parts of Africa, although their genetic relatives in North America mature much earlier. Similarly, malnutrition may explain why puberty began at about age 17 in sixteenth-century Europe. Puberty has occurred at younger ages every century since then. This is one result of the secular trend: More food has allowed biological advances. Over most of the twentieth century, each generation experienced puberty a few weeks earlier and grew a centimeter or so taller than did the preceding one (Floud et al., 2011). Not so, currently; the secular trend stopped at about 1990 in developed nations. One hormone causes increased body fat and then triggers puberty: leptin, which stimulates the appetite (Terasawa et al., 2012). Leptin levels in the blood show a natural increase over childhood, peaking at puberty (Rutters et al., 2008). Curiously, leptin affects appetite in females more than it does in males (Geary & Lovejoy, 2008), and body fat is more closely connected to the onset of puberty in girls than in boys. ESPECIALLY FOR Parents Worried About Early Puberty Suppose your cousin's 9-year-old daughter has just had her first period, and your cousin blames hormones in the food supply for this "precocious" puberty. Should you change your young daughter's diet? (see response, page 326) In fact, the well-established finding that body fat precipitates puberty may not be true for boys in nations where malnutrition is rare: One study found that, unlike girls, U.S. boys who are heavy in childhood reach puberty later, not earlier, than others (J. M. Lee et al., 2010). STRESS Stress affects the sexual-reproductive system by making reproduction more difficult in adulthood and by hastening (not delaying) the hormonal onset of puberty. Thus, puberty arrives earlier if a child's parents are sick, addicted, or divorced, or if the neighborhood is violent and impoverished. Why would stress trigger puberty? It would be better if stress delayed puberty. Then stressed young teens would look and act childlike, evoking adult protection, not lust or anger. Delayed puberty would be especially beneficial in conflicted or single-parent homes. But the opposite occurs—a paradox that has puzzled many scientists, as the following explains. Stress and Puberty The connection between stress and puberty is provocative. Is stress really a cause of earlier puberty? Perhaps it is only a correlate, and a third variable is the underlying reason that children under stress experience earlier puberty. A logical third variable would be genes. For instance, women who are genetically programmed for early menarche are also likely to have early sex. That makes them vulnerable to teenage pregnancy, and if they marry while they are immature, the marriages are likely to be turbulent. The fact that their children experience early puberty would then be the result not of the conflicted marriage, but of genes, inherited from their mother. However, although genes affect age of puberty, careful research finds that stress is a cause, not merely a correlate, of early menarche. For example, a group of sexually abused girls began puberty seven months earlier, on average, than did a matched comparison group (Trickett et al., 2011). It seems that stress hormones, particularly cortisol, cause puberty. One longitudinal study followed 756 children from infancy to adolescence. Those who were harshly treated (rarely hugged, often spanked) in childhood also experienced earlier puberty. This study found that harsh parenting correlated with earlier puberty for daughters, not sons—especially daughters who cried a lot as infants, which suggests that they were sensitive to stress (Belsky et al., 2007). This means that genes probably have some impact, via differential sensitivity (see Chapter 1). In this study, nature influenced earlier puberty only for some children, and only when nurture was stressful. A follow-up study of the same girls at age 15, controlled for genetic inheritance, found that harsh treatment in childhood not only speeded up puberty but also increased sexual risk. Those girls had more sex partners, pregnancies, and sexual infections, but they did not take more risks overall: They were not more likely to use drugs or commit crimes (Belsky et al., 2010), which suggests that stress targets sexual hormones more than other genetic or environmental factors that increase adolescent rebellion. If stress is a cause of early puberty, there must be some reason. One explanation comes from evolutionary theory: Maturing quickly and breeding promiscuously would enhance reproductive fitness more than would delaying development, mating cautiously, and investing heavily in parenting. The latter strategy, in contrast, would make biological sense, for virtually the same reproductive-fitness-enhancing reasons, under conditions of contextual support and nurturance. [Belsky et al., 2010, p. 121] This evolutionary explanation seems in accord with the facts (Ellis et al., 2011). In past stressful times, for species survival, stressed adolescents needed to replace themselves before they died. Of course, natural selection would postpone puberty during extreme famine (so that pregnant girls or their newborns would not die of malnutrition). However, natural selection would favor genes that hastened puberty for well-fed girls whose families and tribes were in conflict. In that case, a new generation could be born before too many young adults were killed. By contrast, in more peaceful times and families, puberty could occur later, allowing children to benefit from years of nurturance from their parents and grandparents. For that reason, genes could have evolved to respond differentially to war and peace—again, differential sensitivity. Of course, this evolutionary rationale no longer applies. Today, early sexuality and reproduction are more likely to destroy societies than to protect them. However, the genome has been shaped over millennia; the timing of puberty takes centuries to change. Age and Puberty

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Printed Page 325 9.1.4 Too Early, Too Late Is She Ready? For what? Her face and body are developed, but her mind is not. This Australian girl is 13 years old. SHARONLEIGHTPHOTOGRAPHY.BLOGSPOT.COM/GETTY IMAGES Few adolescents care about speculation regarding hormones or evolution. Only one aspect of pubertal timing matters to them: their friends' schedules. No one wants to be first or last. GIRLS Sympathize with the early-maturing girl. If she has visible breasts at age 10, boys tease her. She must fit her developing body into a school chair designed for smaller children; she might hide her breasts in bulky sweaters; she might refuse to undress for gym. Early-maturing girls tend to have lower self-esteem, more depression, and poorer body image than do other girls (Compian et al., 2009). Some early-maturing girls have older boyfriends, attracted by their womanly shape and girlish innocence. Having an older boyfriend boosts status—but also increases the risk of drug and alcohol use, eating disorders, and relational bullying, as well as the chances of becoming a victim of physical violence (often from that same boyfriend) (DeRose et al., 2011; Schreck et al., 2007). BOYS There was a time when early-maturing boys became leaders in high school and successful men (M. C. Jones, 1965; Taga et al., 2006). Since about 1960, however, the risks associated with early male maturation have outweighed the benefits. For the past few decades, early-maturing boys have been more aggressive, law-breaking, and alcohol-abusing than later-maturing boys (Biehl et al., 2007; Lynne et al., 2007). As a result, they have more trouble with parents, schools, and the police. For both sexes, early puberty correlates with sexual activity and teenage parenthood, which lead to depression and other psychosocial problems (B. B. Brown, 2004; Siebenbruner et al., 2007). Not only is early puberty stressful for boys, but the speed of change adds to the problems. If puberty is both early and quick, boys are especially likely to become depressed (Mendle et al., 2010). In adolescence, male depression may appear as anger: That fuming, flailing 12-year-old boy may actually be more sad than mad. Boys who reach puberty late also have problems, becoming more anxious, depressed, and afraid of sex than are other boys (Lindfors et al., 2007). Every adolescent wants to hit puberty "on time," and that is a wise hope. For both sexes, early and late puberty increase the rate of almost every adolescent problem. Too Early, Too Late

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Printed Page 326 9.1.5 Growing Bigger and Stronger For every child, puberty begins a growth spurt—an uneven jump in the size of almost every body part. Growth proceeds from the extremities to the core (the opposite of the earlier proximodistal growth). Thus, fingers and toes lengthen before hands and feet, hands and feet before arms and legs, arms and legs before the torso. Many pubescent children are temporarily big-footed, long-legged, and short-waisted. SEQUENCE: WEIGHT, HEIGHT, MUSCLES As the bones lengthen and harden (visible on X-rays) children eat more and gain weight. Exactly when, where, and how much they gain depends on heredity, hormones, diet, exercise, and gender. For instance, at age 17, the average girl has twice the percentage of body fat as her male classmate, whose increased weight is mostly muscle (Roche & Sun, 2003). A height spurt follows the weight spurt. Then, a year or two later, a muscle spurt occurs. Thus, the pudginess and clumsiness of early puberty are usually gone by late adolescence. (The young teen who took nutritional supplements or lifted weights could have simply waited a year or two.) Lungs triple in weight; consequently, adolescents breathe more deeply and slowly. The heart doubles in size and the heartbeat slows, decreasing the pulse rate while increasing blood pressure (Malina et al., 2004). Red blood cells increase in both sexes, but dramatically more so in boys, which aids oxygen transport during intense exercise. Endurance improves: Some teenagers can run for miles or dance for hours. Both weight and height increase before muscles and internal organs do: Athletic training and weight lifting should be tailored to an adolescent's size the previous year, to protect immature muscles and organs. Sports injuries are the most common school accidents. Injuries increase at puberty, partly because the height spurt precedes increases in bone mass, making young adolescents particularly vulnerable to fractures (Mathison & Agrawal, 2010). Only one organ system, the lymphoid system (which includes the tonsils and adenoids), decreases in size; thus, teenagers are less susceptible to respiratory ailments. Consequently, mild asthma often disappears at puberty (Busse & Lemanske, 2005), and teenagers have fewer colds than younger children do. This is aided by growth of the larynx, which gives deeper voices to both sexes, dramatically noticeable in boys. SKIN AND HAIR Another organ system, the skin, becomes oilier, sweatier, and more prone to acne. Thus, the child who, a year earlier, resisted every bath often washes and scrubs several times a day. Hair also changes. During puberty, hair on the head and limbs becomes coarser and darker. New hair grows under arms, on faces, and over sex organs. Visible facial and chest hair is sometimes considered a sign of manliness, even though hairiness in either sex depends on genes as well as on hormones. RESPONSE FOR Parents Worried About Early Puberty (from page 324) Probably not. If she is overweight, her diet should change, but the hormone hypothesis is speculative. Genes are the main factor; she shares only one-eighth of her genes with her cousin. Although everyone's hair changes texture at puberty, many teenagers fashion their head hair to indicate gender and autonomy. To become more attractive, many adolescents spend considerable time, money, and thought on their visible hair—growing, gelling, shaving, curling, straightening, highlighting, brushing, combing, styling, dyeing, wetting, drying, etc. In many ways, hair is more than a growth characteristic; it becomes a display of sexuality. And if parents dislike the styling choices their teens make, it also becomes a sign of independence. Growing Bigger and Stronger

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Printed Page 326 9.1.5 Growing Bigger and Stronger For every child, puberty begins a growth spurt—an uneven jump in the size of almost every body part. Growth proceeds from the extremities to the core (the opposite of the earlier proximodistal growth). Thus, fingers and toes lengthen before hands and feet, hands and feet before arms and legs, arms and legs before the torso. Many pubescent children are temporarily big-footed, long-legged, and short-waisted. SEQUENCE: WEIGHT, HEIGHT, MUSCLES As the bones lengthen and harden (visible on X-rays) children eat more and gain weight. Exactly when, where, and how much they gain depends on heredity, hormones, diet, exercise, and gender. For instance, at age 17, the average girl has twice the percentage of body fat as her male classmate, whose increased weight is mostly muscle (Roche & Sun, 2003). A height spurt follows the weight spurt. Then, a year or two later, a muscle spurt occurs. Thus, the pudginess and clumsiness of early puberty are usually gone by late adolescence. (The young teen who took nutritional supplements or lifted weights could have simply waited a year or two.) Lungs triple in weight; consequently, adolescents breathe more deeply and slowly. The heart doubles in size and the heartbeat slows, decreasing the pulse rate while increasing blood pressure (Malina et al., 2004). Red blood cells increase in both sexes, but dramatically more so in boys, which aids oxygen transport during intense exercise. Endurance improves: Some teenagers can run for miles or dance for hours. Both weight and height increase before muscles and internal organs do: Athletic training and weight lifting should be tailored to an adolescent's size the previous year, to protect immature muscles and organs. Sports injuries are the most common school accidents. Injuries increase at puberty, partly because the height spurt precedes increases in bone mass, making young adolescents particularly vulnerable to fractures (Mathison & Agrawal, 2010). Only one organ system, the lymphoid system (which includes the tonsils and adenoids), decreases in size; thus, teenagers are less susceptible to respiratory ailments. Consequently, mild asthma often disappears at puberty (Busse & Lemanske, 2005), and teenagers have fewer colds than younger children do. This is aided by growth of the larynx, which gives deeper voices to both sexes, dramatically noticeable in boys. SKIN AND HAIR Another organ system, the skin, becomes oilier, sweatier, and more prone to acne. Thus, the child who, a year earlier, resisted every bath often washes and scrubs several times a day. Hair also changes. During puberty, hair on the head and limbs becomes coarser and darker. New hair grows under arms, on faces, and over sex organs. Visible facial and chest hair is sometimes considered a sign of manliness, even though hairiness in either sex depends on genes as well as on hormones. RESPONSE FOR Parents Worried About Early Puberty (from page 324) Probably not. If she is overweight, her diet should change, but the hormone hypothesis is speculative. Genes are the main factor; she shares only one-eighth of her genes with her cousin. Although everyone's hair changes texture at puberty, many teenagers fashion their head hair to indicate gender and autonomy. To become more attractive, many adolescents spend considerable time, money, and thought on their visible hair—growing, gelling, shaving, curling, straightening, highlighting, brushing, combing, styling, dyeing, wetting, drying, etc. In many ways, hair is more than a growth characteristic; it becomes a display of sexuality. And if parents dislike the styling choices their teens make, it also becomes a sign of independence. Growing Bigger and Stronger

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Printed Page 327 9.1.6 Sexual Maturation The body characteristics that are directly involved in conception and pregnancy are called primary sex characteristics. During puberty, every primary sex organ (the ovaries, the uterus, the penis, and the testes) increases dramatically in size and matures in function. By the end of the process, reproduction is possible. At the same time as maturation of the primary sex characteristics, secondary sex characteristics develop. Secondary sex characteristics are bodily features that do not directly affect fertility (hence, they are called secondary) but that visually signify masculinity or femininity. One secondary characteristic is shape. At puberty, males widen at the shoulders and grow about 5 inches taller than females, while girls develop breasts and a wider pelvis. Breasts and broad hips are often considered signs of womanhood, but neither is required for conception; thus, they are secondary, not primary, sex characteristics. Secondary sex characteristics are important psychologically, if not biologically. Consider breasts. Many adolescent girls buy "minimizer," "maximizer," "training," or "shaping" bras in the hope that they can conform their breasts to an idealized body image. During the same years, many boys are horrified to notice a swelling around their nipples—a normal and temporary result of the erratic hormones of early puberty. Hormones begin the sequence of biological changes known as puberty, affecting every body function, including appetite, sleep, and reproductive potential. Although many similarities are evident in how boys and girls experience puberty, timing differs, with girls beginning between 6 months and 2 years ahead of boys, depending on the specific pubertal characteristic. The onset of puberty depends on genes, gender, body fat, and stress, with the normal hormonal changes beginning at any time from 8 to 14 years. Puberty changes every part of the body and every aspect of sexuality; weight gain precedes increases in height, muscles, and sexuality. Sexual Maturation

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Printed Page 327 9.1.6 Sexual Maturation The body characteristics that are directly involved in conception and pregnancy are called primary sex characteristics. During puberty, every primary sex organ (the ovaries, the uterus, the penis, and the testes) increases dramatically in size and matures in function. By the end of the process, reproduction is possible. At the same time as maturation of the primary sex characteristics, secondary sex characteristics develop. Secondary sex characteristics are bodily features that do not directly affect fertility (hence, they are called secondary) but that visually signify masculinity or femininity. One secondary characteristic is shape. At puberty, males widen at the shoulders and grow about 5 inches taller than females, while girls develop breasts and a wider pelvis. Breasts and broad hips are often considered signs of womanhood, but neither is required for conception; thus, they are secondary, not primary, sex characteristics. Secondary sex characteristics are important psychologically, if not biologically. Consider breasts. Many adolescent girls buy "minimizer," "maximizer," "training," or "shaping" bras in the hope that they can conform their breasts to an idealized body image. During the same years, many boys are horrified to notice a swelling around their nipples—a normal and temporary result of the erratic hormones of early puberty. Hormones begin the sequence of biological changes known as puberty, affecting every body function, including appetite, sleep, and reproductive potential. Although many similarities are evident in how boys and girls experience puberty, timing differs, with girls beginning between 6 months and 2 years ahead of boys, depending on the specific pubertal characteristic. The onset of puberty depends on genes, gender, body fat, and stress, with the normal hormonal changes beginning at any time from 8 to 14 years. Puberty changes every part of the body and every aspect of sexuality; weight gain precedes increases in height, muscles, and sexuality. Sexual Maturation

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Printed Page 327 9.2 Nutrition All the changes of puberty depend on adequate nourishment, yet many adolescents do not consume enough vitamins or minerals. Teenagers often skip breakfast; eat at midnight; guzzle down soda; and munch on salty, processed snacks. One reason is that their hormones affect their diurnal rhythms, including their appetites; another reason is that they seek independence, which may mean refusing to sit down to a family dinner. Cohort and age are crucial factors. In the United States, each new generation seems to eat worse than the previous one, and each 18-year-old consumes a more unbalanced diet than he or she did at age 10 (N. I. Larson et al., 2007). In 2011, only 15 percent of high school seniors ate the recommended three or more servings of vegetables a day (MMWR, June 8, 2012). Nutrition

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Printed Page 327 9.2.1 Diet Deficiencies Deficiencies of iron, calcium, zinc, and other minerals are especially common after puberty. Because menstruation depletes iron, anemia is more likely among adolescent girls than among people of any other age or gender. This is true everywhere, especially in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, where teenage girls rarely eat iron-rich meat and green vegetables. Diet Worldwide, adolescent obesity is increasing. However, parental responses differ. These girls eat breakfast at Wellspring, a California boarding school for overweight teenagers. Tuition is $6,250 a month, exercise is more than 10,000 steps a day (tracked with a pedometer), and fat consumption is less than 20 grams a day (normal is more than 60 grams). STEPHAN GLADIEU/GETTY IMAGES Specific data on young women in developing nations is not available because no large-scale studies have been done that include laboratory analysis of blood iron. However, research in Saudi Arabia involving 18- to 23-year-old college women (usually in good health, never pregnant, and from wealthy families), found that, despite these advantages, half had insufficient iron, and many of them were clinically anemic (Al-Sayes et al., 2011). Boys may also be iron deficient if they push their bodies in physical labor or sports: Muscles need iron for growth and strength. The cutoff for anemia is higher for boys than for girls because males require more iron to be healthy (Morón & Viteri, 2009). Many adolescents of both sexes in every nation spurn iron-rich foods in favor of iron-poor chips, sweets, and fries. Coffee, tea, and soda reduce iron absorption. Similarly, although the daily recommended intake of calcium for teenagers is 1,300 milligrams, the average North American teen consumes fewer than 500 milligrams a day. In 2011, only 15 percent of U.S. twelfth graders drank even three glasses of milk daily (MMWR, June 8, 2012). In the twenty-first century, the beverage most often consumed by U.S. 2- to 18-year-olds is soda (Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2010), with 11 percent of high school students drinking three or more glasses of soda each day (MMWR, June 8, 2012)! About half of adult bone mass is acquired from ages 10 to 20, which means many contemporary teenagers will develop osteoporosis (fragile bones) because of too little calcium and too much soda, day in and day out. Osteoporosis is a major cause of disability in late adulthood. Diet Deficiencies

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Printed Page 328 9.2.2 Body Image One reason for poor nutrition among teenagers is anxiety about body image—that is, a person's idea of how his or her body looks. Few teenagers welcome every physical change in their bodies. Instead, they exaggerate imperfections (as did the three girls in the anecdote that opened this chapter) and sacrifice future health to improve current body image. For example, much of the soda consumed every day is diet soda—low on calories but high in ingredients that correlate with poor health later on (Gardner et al., 2012). Girls diet because they want to be thinner, partly because boys tend to prefer thin girls (Halpern et al., 2005). Boys want to look taller and stronger, a concern that increases from ages 12 to 17, partly because girls value well-developed muscles in males (D. Jones & Crawford, 2005). In both sexes and in adolescents of all ethnicities, dissatisfaction with body image correlates strongly with low self-esteem (van den Berg et al., 2010). Thus, as the hormones of puberty awaken sexual interest, both sexes become less happy with their own bodies and more superficial in what they admire in the other sex. This is true worldwide. A longitudinal study in Korea found that, as in the West, body image dissatisfaction began in early adolescence and increased until age 15 or so (Kim & Kim, 2009). In many nations, the ideal body type is tall and thin, and the ideal facial appearance is Anglo-Saxon. Of course, few Anglo-Saxon youth achieve the media ideal, but the discrepancy is particularly cruel far from England. A longitudinal study in China found that adolescents in that country had anxieties about weight gain similar to those of U.S. teenagers (Chen & Jackson, 2009). Body Image

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Printed Page 329 9.2.3 Eating Disorders Girl or Woman? Hannah, here age 16, has been suffering from anorexia since she was 9. Some clinicians suggest that starving oneself is a destructive way to avoid the womanly body that develops at puberty. CHRISTOPHER LAMARCA/REDUX One result of dissatisfaction with body image is that many teenagers, mostly girls, eat erratically or ingest drugs (especially diet pills) to lose weight; others, mostly boys, take steroids to increase muscle mass. Eating disorders are rare in childhood but increase dramatically at puberty, accompanied by distorted body image, food obsession, and depression (Bulik et al., 2008; Hrabosky & Thomas, 2008). Individuals sometimes switch from obsessive dieting to overeating and back again. Obesity, which is a problem at every age, is discussed primarily in other chapters. Here we describe two other eating disorders that are common in adolescence and early adulthood. ANOREXIA Some women (and occasionally men) suffer from anorexia nervosa, a disorder characterized by severe calorie restriction, or a cycle of bingeing followed by purging, that can lead to death by organ failure or suicide for between 5 and 20 percent of sufferers. If someone's body mass index (BMI) is 17 or lower, and if she (less often, he), has a fixation with their weight—believing themselves to be overweight despite all the evidence to the contrary—anorexia is suspected. According to DSM 5, anorexia is officially diagnosed when three symptoms are present: Significantly low body weight for developmental stage (BMI of 17 or lower) Intense fear of weight gain Disturbed body perception and denial of the problem The DSM-5 introduces a new diagnostic category, binge-eating disorder, in part to recognize that bingeing is sometimes associated with anorexia. Although anorexia existed in earlier centuries, the disease was undiagnosed until about 1950, when some high-achieving, upper-class, young women became so emaciated that they died. Soon anorexia became evident among younger women (the rate spikes at puberty and again in emerging adulthood), among men (especially wrestlers, runners, and dancers), and in every nation and ethnic group (Chao et al., 2008). Certain alleles increase the risk of anorexia (J. K. Young, 2010), but context is crucial. The disorder seems related to cultural pressure to be thin. BULIMIA About three times as common as anorexia is bulimia nervosa, sometimes called the binge-purge syndrome. People with bulimia overeat compulsively, wolfing down thousands of calories within an hour or two, and then purge via vomiting or laxatives. UNDERSTANDING THE NUMBERS You read that anorexia is diagnosed when a person' BMI is 18 or lower, or when a person loses 10 percent of her body weight in two months. According to the BMI chart in the appendix, this means that a 4′10″ person who weights 90 pounds is anorexic, as is a 4′10″ person weighing 150 pounds (obese) who loses 15 pounds in 9 weeks. However, someone 6′4″ weighing only 156 pounds is not anorexic. In all three cases, the diagnosis may be wrong. Why? Answer Since muscle weighs more than fat, if that 6′4″ person is muscular,he or she may indeed be anorexic. Genes and body fat may exempt the other two. These numbers all raise alarms; individual factors need to be considered before a diagnosis can be confirmed. Most are close to normal in weight and therefore unlikely to starve. However, they risk serious health problems, including damage to their gastrointestinal systems and cardiac arrest from electrolyte imbalance (Shannon, 2007). They also risk compulsive disorders and depression, including thoughts of suicide (Parylak et al., 2011). According to DSM-IV, 1 to 3 percent of female teenagers and young adults in the United States are clinically bulimic. They have the following three symptoms: Binging and purging at least once a week for three months Uncontrollable urges to overeat Sense of self inordinately tied to body shape and weight Many experts think that eating disorders are much more widespread than DSM statistics portray. For instance, in 2011 among U.S. high school students, 17 percent of the girls had eaten nothing for at least one 24-hour period in the past month, as had 7 percent of the boys (MMWR, June 8, 2012). Adolescent diets are often deficient, especially in calcium and iron. Body-image worries are common, leading many adolescent girls to skip eating for a day and many boys to take steroids. Some adolescents develop serious eating disorders, starving themselves (anorexia nervosa) or binging and purging (bulimia nervosa). Eating Disorders

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Printed Page 330 9.3 Thinking, Fast and Slow The body changes just reviewed are dramatic, but even more life-changing are the intellectual advances during adolescence. Teenagers no longer think like children, but they do not yet think like adults. We begin with the neurological changes of adolescence and then explore the cognitive ones that maturation brings. Same People, But Not the Same Brain These brain scans are part of a longitudinal study that repeatedly compares the proportion of gray matter from childhood through adolescence. Gray matter is reduced as white matter increases, in part because pruning during the teen years (the last two pairs of images here) allows intellectual connections to build. As the authors of one study that included this chart explain, teenagers may "look like an adult, but cognitively they are not there yet" (K. Powell, 2006, p. 865). NITIN GOGTAY ET AL./NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, USA Thinking, Fast and Slow

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Printed Page 331 9.3.1 Brain Development Like the other parts of the body, different parts of the brain grow at different rates (Blakemore, 2008). The limbic system, including the amygdala (where intense fear and excitement originate) matures before the prefrontal cortex (where planning, emotional regulation, and impulse control occur). As a result, the instinctual and emotional areas of the adolescent brain develop ahead of the reflective, analytic areas. Furthermore, pubertal hormones target the amygdala directly, whereas the cortex responds more to age and experience than to hormones. Thus, early puberty means emotional rushes, unchecked by caution. This is evident via brain scans. Emotional control, revealed by fMRI studies, is not fully developed until adulthood (Luna et al., 2010). When compared with 18- to 23-year-olds, 14- to 15-year-olds show heightened arousal in the brain's reward centers, making them seek excitement and pleasure (Van Leijenhorst et al., 2010). CAUTION NEEDED The fact that the prefrontal cortex is the last to mature may explain something that has long bewildered adults: Many adolescents are driven by the excitement of new experiences and sensations—forgetting the caution that their parents have tried to instill (Steinberg, 2008). Laurence Steinberg is a noted expert on adolescent thinking. He is also a father. When my son, Benjamin, was 14, he and three of his friends decided to sneak out of the house where they were spending the night and visit one of their girlfriends at around two in the morning. When they arrived at the girl's house, they positioned themselves under her bedroom window, threw pebbles against her windowpanes,.... The boys set off the house's burglar alarm, which activated a siren and simultaneously sent a direct notification to the local police station, which dispatched a patrol car. When the siren went off, the boys ran down the street and right smack into the police car, which was heading to the girl's home.... One of the boys was caught by the police and taken back to his home, where his parents were awakened and the boy questioned. ....After his near brush with the local police, Ben had returned to the house out of which he had snuck, where he slept soundly until I awakened him with an angry telephone call, telling him to gather his clothes and wait for me in front of his friend's house. On our drive home, after delivering a long lecture about what he had done and about the dangers of running from armed police in the dark when they believe they may have interrupted a burglary, I paused. "What were you thinking?" I asked. "That's the problem, Dad," Ben replied, "I wasn't." [Steinberg, 2004, pp. 51, 52] Steinberg agrees with his son. As he expresses it, "The problem is not that Ben's decision-making was deficient. The problem is that it was nonexistent" (Steinberg, 2004, p. 52). He points out a characteristic of adolescent thought: When emotions are intense, especially when friends are nearby, the logical part of the brain shuts down. This neurological shutdown in certain contexts is not reflected in questionnaires that ask teenagers to respond to hypothetical dilemmas. On those tests, most teenagers think carefully and answer correctly. They have been taught the risks of sex and drugs in biology or health classes in school, and they circle the right answers on multiple-choice tests. However, the prospect of visiting a hypothetical girl from class cannot possibly carry the excitement about the possibility of surprising someone you have a crush on with a visit in the middle of the night. It is easier to put on a hypothetical condom during an act of hypothetical sex than it is to put on a real one when one is in the throes of passion. It is easier to just say no to a hypothetical beer than it is to a cold frosty one on a summer night. [Steinberg, 2004, p. 53] ESPECIALLY FOR Parents Worried About Their Teenager's Risk Taking You remember the risky things you did at the same age, and you are alarmed by the possibility that your child will follow in your footsteps. What should you do? (see response, page 334) Ben reached adulthood safely. Some other teenagers, with less cautious police or less diligent parents, do not. Ideally, research on adolescent brains will help protect teens from their dangerous impulses (Monastersky, 2007). Brain immaturity is not the origin of every "troublesome adolescent behavior," but it is true that teenage brains have underdeveloped "response inhibition, emotional regulation, and organization" (Sowell et al., 2007, p. 59) because their prefrontal cortexes are immature. The normal sequence of brain maturation (limbic system at puberty, then prefrontal cortex by the early 20s) combined with the early onset of puberty means that, for contemporary teenagers, emotions rule behavior for years (Blakemore, 2008). The limbic system, unchecked by the slower-maturing prefrontal cortex, makes powerful sensations—loud music, speeding cars, strong drugs—compelling. It is not that the prefrontal cortex shuts down completely. In fact, it continues to mature throughout childhood and adolescence, and, when they think about it, adolescents are able to assess risks better than children are (Pfeifer et al., 2011). However, when they think about it is crucial. The thoughtful parts of the adolescent brain are less synchronized with the limbic system than they were earlier in life, and thus emotions from the amygdala are less modulated than they once were (Pfeifer et al., 2011). The balance and coordination among the various parts of the brain is off kilter, not the brain itself (Casey et al., 2011). Same Situation, Far Apart: Danger Ahead They may be far apart in SES, but both think like the teenagers they are. He ignores the risk and she ignores the road. YELLOW DOG PRODUCTIONS/GETTY IMAGES ZAYAN.1904/GETTY IMAGES When stress, arousal, passion, sensory bombardment, drug intoxication, or deprivation is extreme, the adolescent brain is flooded with impulses that might shame adults. Teenagers brag about being so drunk they were "wasted," "bombed," "smashed"—a state most adults try to avoid and would be ashamed to admit. Unlike adults, some teenagers choose to spend a night without sleep, go through a day without eating, exercise in pain, or play football after a mild concussion. RISK AND REWARD Every decision, from whether to eat a peach to where to enroll in college, requires balancing risk and reward, caution and attraction. For everyone, experiences, memories, emotions, and the prefrontal cortex help us choose to avoid some actions and perform others. Neurological research finds that the reward parts of adolescents' brains (the parts that respond to excitement and pleasure) are far stronger than the inhibition parts (the parts that urge caution) (Van Leijenhorst et al., 2010). The parts of the brain dedicated to analysis may be immature until years after the first hormonal rushes and sexual urges, while teenagers have access to fast cars, lethal weapons, and dangerous drugs. Adults do not realize the risks that their children take, not only because the teenagers do not confide in their parents, but also because they themselves are sometimes illogical (Kahneman, 2011). My friend asked her next-door neighbor, who gave his son a red convertible for high school graduation, "Why didn't you just give him a loaded gun?" One example of the cautious part of the brain being overwhelmed by the emotions of the moment comes from teens sending text messages while they are driving. In a survey, 64 percent of U.S. 16- to 17-year-olds said they had been in a car when the driver was texting—a practice that occurs in every state and nation even though it is illegal in many of them (Madden & Lenhart, 2009). More generally, despite faster reflexes and better vision than at later ages, by far the most common cause of teenage death is motor-vehicle crashes. Thoughtless impulses and poor decisions are almost always to blame. Extensive research finds that four measures have saved hundreds of lives of teenage drivers: (1) requiring more time between issuing a learner's permit and granting a full license, (2) no driving at night, (3) no teenage passengers, and (4) zero tolerance for alcohol and driving (Fell et al., 2011). Note that it is problems in the brain—not the reflexes, senses, or muscles—that cause adolescent injuries: Teenagers are usually quicker and stronger than adults. Brain Development

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Printed Page 333 9.3.2 Thinking About Oneself Every Detail Appearance has always been significant to young adolescents, but each cohort is distinct. Thin, waxed eyebrows, blue hair and nails, and a checkered shirt over stripes would all have been anathema to this girl's grandmother at age 15, who might have examined her rosy cheeks in a large, living room mirror. PICTURE PARTNERS/ALAMY During puberty, young people center many of their thoughts on themselves, in part because maturation of the brain heightens self-consciousness (Sebastian et al., 2008). It is typical for young adolescents to think deeply (but not always realistically) about their own emotions regarding adults, education, friends, and the future. One reason adolescents spend so much time talking on the phone, e-mailing, and texting is that they like to ruminate about each nuance of whatever they have done, might have done, and could do. "He said, she said, and I should've said." EGOCENTRISM Young adolescents not only think intensely about themselves but also think about what others think of them. Together these two aspects of thought are called adolescent egocentrism, first described by David Elkind (1967). Ego-centrism dominates in early adolescence, but it appears at times throughout the teen years, especially when the young person enters a new school or new peer group or goes off to college. In egocentrism, adolescents regard themselves as unique, special, and much more socially significant (i.e., noticed by everyone) than they actually are. For example, it is unlikely that adolescent girls are especially attracted to boys with pimples and braces, but Edgar did not realize this, according to his older sister: Now in the 8th grade, Edgar has this idea that all the girls are looking at him in school. He got his first pimple about three months ago. I told him to wash it with my face soap but he refused, saying, "Not until I go to school to show it off." He called the dentist, begging him to approve his braces now instead of waiting for a year. The perfect gifts for him have changed from action figures to a bottle of cologne, a chain, and a fitted baseball hat like the rappers wear. [adapted from Eva, personal communication, 2007] Egocentrism leads adolescents to interpret everyone else's behavior as if it were a judgment on them. A stranger's frown or a teacher's critique could make a teenager conclude that "No one likes me" and then deduce that "I am unlovable" or even claim that "I can't leave the house." More positive casual reactions—a smile from a sales clerk or an extra-big hug from a younger brother—could lead to "I am great" or "Everyone loves me" or similarly distorted self-perception. Given the rapid mood changes of adolescence, such conclusions are usually short-lived, susceptible to reversal with another offhand remark. FANTASY Elkind named several aspects of adolescent egocentrism, among them the personal fable and the invincibility fable, which often appear together (Alberts et al., 2007). The personal fable is the belief that one is unique, destined to have a heroic, fabled, even legendary life. Some 12-year-olds plan to star in the NBA, or become billionaires, or cure cancer. In some adolescent minds, there is no contradiction between the personal fable and invincibility, the idea that, unless fate wills it, they will not be hurt by fast driving, unprotected sex, or addictive drugs. If they take risks and survive without harm, they feel invincible, not relieved. In every nation, those who volunteer for military service—knowing or even hoping that they will be sent into combat—are more likely to be under age 20 than over it. Young recruits take risks more often than older, more experienced soldiers (Killgore et al., 2006). Another example comes from online chat rooms. Young teenagers reveal personal information to electronic "friends," oblivious to the dangers inherent in such revelations (McCarty et al., 2011). Egocentrism creates an imaginary audience in the minds of many adolescents. They believe they are at center stage, with all eyes on them, and they imagine how others might react to their appearance and behavior. The imaginary audience can cause teenagers to enter a crowded room as if they are the most attractive human beings alive. They might put studs in their lips or blast music for all to hear, calling attention to themselves. The reverse is also possible: Unlike Edgar, they might avoid scrutiny lest someone notice a blemish on their chin or make fun of their braces. Many a 12-year-old balks at going to school with a bad haircut or the wrong shoes. Thinking About Oneself

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Printed Page 334 9.3.3 Formal Operational Thought Adolescents move past concrete operational thinking (discussed in Chapter 7) and consider abstractions. Jean Piaget described a shift to what he called formal operational thought, including "assumptions that have no necessary relation to reality" (Piaget, 1972, p. 148). One way to distinguish formal from concrete thinking is to compare curricula in primary school and high school. For example, in math, younger children multiply real numbers, such as 4 × 3 × 8; adolescents multiply unreal numbers, such as (2x) (3y) or even (25xy2)(3zy3). In social studies, younger children learn about other cultures by reading about daily life or experiencing aspects of the culture themselves—drinking goat's milk or building an igloo, for instance. Adolescents can hypothesize how gross national product and fertility rate might affect global politics. RESPONSE FOR Parents Worried About Their Teenager's Risk Taking (from page 332) You are right to be concerned, but you cannot keep your child locked up for the next decade or so. Since you know that some rebellion and irrationality are likely, try to minimize them by not boasting about your own youthful exploits, by reacting sternly to minor infractions to nip worse behavior in the bud, and by making allies of your child's teachers. PIAGET'S EXPERIMENTS Piaget and his colleagues devised a number of tasks to assess formal operational thought (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958). In one experiment (diagrammed in Figure 9.5), children of many ages balance a scale by hooking weights onto the scale's arms. To master this task, they must realize that the weights' heaviness and distance from the center interact reciprocally to affect balance. FIGURE 9.5 How to Balance a Scale Piaget's balance-scale test of formal reasoning, as it is attempted by (a) a 4-year-old, (b) a 7-year-old, (c) a 10-year-old, and (d) a 14-year-old. The key to balancing the scale is to make weight times distance from the center equal on both sides of the center; the realization of that principle requires formal operational thought. The concept of balancing (that a heavy weight close to the center could be balanced by a lighter weight farther from the center on the other side) was completely beyond the 3- to 5-year-olds. By age 7, children could balance the scale by putting the same amount of weight on each arm, but they didn't realize that the distance from the center mattered. A Proud Teacher "Is it possible to train a cockroach?" This hypothetical question, an example of formal operational thought, was posed by 15-year-old Tristan Williams of New Mexico. In his award-winning science project, he succeeded in conditioning Madagascar cockroaches to hiss at the sight of a permanent marker. (His parents' logical reasoning about having 600 cockroaches living in their home is not known.) AP PHOTO/LAS CRUCES SUN-NEWS, VLADIMIR CHALOUPKA By age 10, children thought about location, but used trial and error, not logic. Finally, by about age 13 or 14, some children hypothesized and tested the reciprocal relationship between weight and distance and developed the correct formula (Piaget & Inhelder, 1969). In all of Piaget's experiments, "in contrast to concrete operational children, formal operational adolescents imagine all possible determinants...[and] systematically vary the factors one by one, observe the results correctly, keep track of the results, and draw the appropriate conclusions" (P. H. Miller, 2011, p. 57). HYPOTHETICAL-DEDUCTIVE REASONING One hallmark of formal operational thought is the capacity to think of possibility, not just reality. "Here and now" is only one of many alternatives, including "there and then," "long, long ago," "nowhere," "not yet," and "never." As Piaget said: The adolescent...thinks beyond the present and forms theories about everything, delighting especially in considerations of that which is not... [Piaget, 1972, p. 148] Adolescents are primed to engage in hypothetical thought, reasoning about if-then propositions that do not reflect reality. For example, consider this question (adapted from De Neys & Van Gelder, 2009): If all mammals can walk, And whales are mammals, Can whales walk? Younger adolescents often answer "No!" They know that whales swim, not walk, so the logic escapes them. Some adolescents answer "Yes." They understand the concept of if. Possibility no longer appears merely as an extension of an empirical situation or of action actually performed. Instead, it is reality that is now secondary to possibility. [Inhelder & Piaget, 1958, p. 251; emphasis in original] Because of this new ability, many adolescents sharply criticize their parents, their school, their society. They "naively underestimate the practical problems involved in achieving an ideal future for themselves or for society" (P. H. Miller, 2011, p. 59). In developing the capacity to think hypothetically, adolescents gradually become capable of deductive reasoning, or top-down reasoning. Deductive reasoning begins with an abstract idea or premise and then uses logic to draw specific conclusions (Galotti, 2002; Keating, 2004). Impressive Thinking "Correlating Genetic Signature with Surface Sugar Expression in Vibrio vulnificus" is the title of Shilpa Argade's winning science project about a sometimes deadly bacteria. Like many other high school seniors, she is capable of deductive reasoning, but she does not always think that way. PHOTO BY JOHN GIBBINS, SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE/ZUMA PRESS © 2009 By contrast, during the primary school years, children accumulate facts and personal experiences (the knowledge base), asking what and why. The result is inductive reasoning, or bottom-up reasoning, with many specific examples leading to general conclusions. ESPECIALLY FOR Natural Scientists Some ideas that were once universally accepted, such as the belief that the sun moved around the Earth, have been disproved. Is it a failure of inductive or deductive reasoning that leads to false conclusions? (see response, page 338) RACISM: AN EXAMPLE By adolescence, almost every American knows that racism exists—and opposes it. However, children tend to think the core problem is the prejudice of individuals. Using inductive reasoning, they think that the remedy is to reduce racism among those people who express it, believing there will be less prejudice as individuals become more tolerant. By contrast, as children become adolescents, they think, deductively, that racism is a society-wide problem that requires policy solutions. That is formal operational thinking. This interpretation arises from a study of adolescent agreement or disagreement with policies to remedy racial discrimination (Hughes & Bigler, 2011). Not surprisingly, most (not all) students in an interracial U.S. high school recognized disparities between African and European Americans and believed that racism was a major cause. What was surprising to the researchers is that age made a difference. Among those who believed there were marked inequalities, more older adolescents (age 16 to 17) supported systemic solutions (e.g., affirmative action and desegregation) than did younger adolescents (age 14 to 15). The authors of the study wrote that "during adolescence, cognitive development facilitates the understanding that discrimination exists at the social-systemic level...[and that] racial awareness begins to inform views of race-conscious policies during middle adolescence" (Hughes & Bigler, 2011, p. 489). In thinking about race and many other examples, many adults do not reason at the formal operational level. Piaget probably overestimated the prevalence of this fourth period of intelligence in adulthood. Many contemporary scholars believe there are two modes of thinking, and that most people, most of the time, do not use formal operational thought (Barrouillet, 2011). Formal Operational Thought

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Printed Page 336 9.3.4 Two Modes of Thinking The fact that adolescents and adults can use hypothetical-deductive reasoning does not necessarily mean that they do use it (Kuhn & Franklin, 2006). Adolescents particularly find it much easier and quicker to forget about logic and instead to follow their impulses. For adults as well as adolescents, at least two modes characterize thought. In adolescence, abstract logic is counterbalanced by the increasing power of intuitive thinking. A dual-process model of adolescent cognition has been formulated (Albert & Steinberg, 2011). (See Infographic 9, page 337.) Various scholars choose different terms and sometimes distinct definitions of the two processes of thinking. These two processes have been called: intuitive/analytic, implicit/explicit, creative/factual, contextualized/decontextualized, unconscious/conscious, hot/cold, gist/quantitative, emotional/intellectual, experiential/rational, or system 1/system 2. The thinking described by the first of each paired term (intuitive, implicit, creative, contextualized, unconscious, hot, gist, emotional, experiential, system 1) is preferred in everyday life. Sometimes, however, circumstances and experience compel people to use the second mode, when deeper thought is demanded. Because of the discrepancy between the maturation of the limbic system and the prefrontal cortex, adolescents are particularly likely to use intuition, not analysis (Gerrard et al., 2008). Intuitive thought begins with a belief, assumption, or general rule (called a heuristic) rather than with logic. Intuition is quick and powerful; it feels "right." VISUALIZING DEVELOPMENT Thinking in Adolescence There are two ways to use logic—deductively and inductively. Younger children, as concrete operational thinkers, make conclusions on the basis of their own experiences and what they have been told. This is called inductive, or bottom-up, reasoning. Adolescents can also think deductively, from the top down. SOURCES & CREDITS LISTED ON P. SC-1 Analytic thought is the formal, logical, hypothetical-deductive thinking described by Piaget. It involves rational analysis of many factors whose interactions must be calculated, as in the scale-balancing problem. When the two modes of thinking conflict, people sometimes use one mode and sometimes the other. Experiences and role models influence the choice. For example, one study found that when adolescents enter a multicultural high school, some rely on old stereotypes and others reassess their thoughts to consider new perspectives. Which of these two modes of thinking predominates depends on their specific experiences and on the attitudes of the adults in the school (Crisp & Turner, 2011). COMPARING INTUITION AND ANALYSIS Paul Klaczynski has conducted dozens of studies comparing the thinking of children, young adolescents, and older adolescents (usually 9-, 12-, and 15-year-olds) (Holland & Klaczynski, 2009; Klaczynski, 2001, 2011; Klaczynski et al., 2009). In one, he presented 19 logical problems. For example: Timothy is very good-looking, strong, and does not smoke. He likes hanging around with his male friends, watching sports on TV, and driving his Ford Mustang convertible. He's very concerned with how he looks and with being in good shape. He is a high school senior now and is trying to get a college scholarship. Based on this [description], rank each statement in terms of how likely it is to be true.... The most likely statement should get a 1. The least likely statement should get a 6. _____ Timothy has a girlfriend. _____ Timothy is an athlete. _____ Timothy is popular and an athlete. _____ Timothy is a teacher's pet and has a girlfriend. _____ Timothy is a teacher's pet. _____ Timothy is popular. In ranking these statements, most adolescents (73 percent) made at least one analytic error, ranking a double statement (e.g., popular and an athlete) as more likely than a single statement included in it (popular or an athlete). They intuitively jumped to the more inclusive statement, rather than sticking to logic. In many other studies, adults often make the same mistake, called the conjunction fallacy (Kahneman, 2011). Klaczynski found that almost all adolescents were analytical and logical on some of the 19 problems but not on others. Logical thinking improved with age and education, although not with IQ. In other words, being smarter as measured by an intelligence test did not advance logic as much as did having more experience, in school and in life. Klaczynski (2001) concluded that, even though teenagers can use logic, "most adolescents do not demonstrate a level of performance commensurate with their abilities" (p. 854). PREFERRING EMOTIONS What would motivate adolescents to use—or fail to use—their formal operational thinking? Klaczynski's participants had all learned the scientific method in school, and they knew that scientists use empirical evidence and deductive reasoning. But they did not always think like scientists. Why not? RESPONSE FOR Natural Scientists (from page 336) Probably both. Our false assumptions are not logically tested because we do not realize that they need testing. Dozens of experiments and extensive theorizing have found some answers (Albert & Steinberg, 2011; Kahneman, 2011). Essentially, analytic thought is more difficult than intuition, and it requires examination of comforting, familiar prejudices. Once people of any age reach an emotional conclusion (sometimes called a "gut feeling"), they resist changing their minds. As people gain experience in making decisions and thinking things through, they become better at knowing when analysis is needed (Milkman et al., 2009). OBSERVATION QUIZ She is alone here, but what sign do you see that suggests she is part of a team who built this robot? (see answer, page 342) Impressive Connections This robot is about to compete in the Robotics Competition in Atlanta, Georgia. Much more impressive are the brains of the Oregon high school team (including Melissa, shown here) who designed the robot. AP PHOTO/GREGORY SMITH For example, in contrast to younger students, older adolescents are more suspicious of authority and more likely to consider mitigating circumstances when judging the legitimacy of a rule (Klaczynski, 2011). Both suspicion of authority and awareness of context signify advances in reasoning, but both also complicate simple issues. Uneven brain development characterizes adolescence, with the limbic system developing faster than the prefrontal cortex. Young adolescents are often egocentric, thinking of themselves as invincible, and performing for an imaginary audience. Adolescents are also capable of logical, hypothetical thought, what Piaget described as formal operational thinking. Both emotional intuition and logical analysis are stronger in adolescence than earlier in life. Adolescents usually prefer the former because it's faster and easier. Two Modes of Thinking

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Printed Page 340 9.4.1 Definitions and Facts Each year of schooling advances human potential, as recognized by leaders and scholars in every nation and discipline. As you have read, adolescents are capable of deep and wide-ranging thought, no longer limited by personal experience; yet they are often egocentric, impulsive, and intuitive. The quality of education matters: A year can propel thinking forward or can have little impact (Hanushek & Woessmann, 2010). Secondary education—traditionally grades 7 through 12—denotes the school years after elementary or grade school (known as primary education) and before college or university (known as tertiary education). Adults are healthier and wealthier if they complete secondary and tertiary education. Even such a seemingly unrelated condition as serious hearing loss in late adulthood is twice as common among those who never graduated from high school as it is among high school graduates (National Center for Health Statistics, 2010). This statistic comes from the United States, but data on almost every ailment, from every nation and ethnic group, confirm that high school graduation correlates with better health. Some of the reasons are indirectly related to education (e.g., income and place of residence), but even when such factors are taken into account, health improves with education. More important for nations is another fact: Global economic growth depends on highly educated workers. Partly because political leaders recognize that educated adults advance national wealth and health, every nation is increasing the number of students in secondary schools. Education is compulsory until at least age 12 almost everywhere (UNESCO, 2008), and several national leaders (including President Obama in 2012) advocate compulsory education until age 18 or high school graduation, whichever comes first. Often two levels of secondary education are provided. As the age of puberty has decreased, junior high schools have been replaced by middle schools, created to educate 10- to 13-year-olds (grades 6, 7, and 8), followed by high schools, grades 9 to 12. Each level grapples with particular problems. Definitions and Facts

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Printed Page 340 9.4.1 Definitions and Facts Each year of schooling advances human potential, as recognized by leaders and scholars in every nation and discipline. As you have read, adolescents are capable of deep and wide-ranging thought, no longer limited by personal experience; yet they are often egocentric, impulsive, and intuitive. The quality of education matters: A year can propel thinking forward or can have little impact (Hanushek & Woessmann, 2010). Secondary education—traditionally grades 7 through 12—denotes the school years after elementary or grade school (known as primary education) and before college or university (known as tertiary education). Adults are healthier and wealthier if they complete secondary and tertiary education. Even such a seemingly unrelated condition as serious hearing loss in late adulthood is twice as common among those who never graduated from high school as it is among high school graduates (National Center for Health Statistics, 2010). This statistic comes from the United States, but data on almost every ailment, from every nation and ethnic group, confirm that high school graduation correlates with better health. Some of the reasons are indirectly related to education (e.g., income and place of residence), but even when such factors are taken into account, health improves with education. More important for nations is another fact: Global economic growth depends on highly educated workers. Partly because political leaders recognize that educated adults advance national wealth and health, every nation is increasing the number of students in secondary schools. Education is compulsory until at least age 12 almost everywhere (UNESCO, 2008), and several national leaders (including President Obama in 2012) advocate compulsory education until age 18 or high school graduation, whichever comes first. Often two levels of secondary education are provided. As the age of puberty has decreased, junior high schools have been replaced by middle schools, created to educate 10- to 13-year-olds (grades 6, 7, and 8), followed by high schools, grades 9 to 12. Each level grapples with particular problems. Definitions and Facts

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Printed Page 340 9.4.2 Middle School Many developmentalists find middle schools to be "developmentally regressive" (Eccles & Roeser, 2010, p. 13); that is, they push children's intellectual growth backwards. The average grades on report cards fall, achievement tests show less learning each year, and students are less motivated to study and learn. Does this matter for later achievement? One team believes so: "Long-term academic trajectories—the choice to stay in school or to drop out and the selection in high school of academic college-prep courses versus basic-level courses—are strongly influenced by experience in grades 6-8" (Snow et al., 2007, p. 72). As achievement slows down, behavioral problems rise. Puberty itself is part of the problem. Evidence shows that for non-human animals, especially when under stress, learning slows down at puberty (McCormick et al., 2010). The same is probably true for humans. However, many experts do not believe the biological or psychological stresses of puberty are the main reasons learning suffers in early adolescence. Instead, they blame the organizational structure of many middle schools (Meece & Eccles, 2010). ESPECIALLY FOR Middle School Teachers You think your lectures are interesting and you know you care about your students, yet many of them cut class, come late, or sleep through it. What do you do? (see response, page 343) To be specific, unlike in primary school, in which each teacher is responsible for one classroom of children, middle school teachers are not connected to any small group. Instead they specialize in an academic subject, taught to hundreds of students each year. This makes them impersonal and distant: Their students learn less and risk more because no single teacher is aware of their actions (Crosnoe et al., 2004). Same Situation, Far Apart: No Romance Here Young adolescents around the globe, such as these in California (left) and Pakistan (right), attend middle school, but what they learn differs. Many North American schools encourage collaboration and hands-on learning (these girls are dissecting a squid), whereas many south Asian schools stress individual writing. Note that both classrooms are single sex—unusual in the United States but standard in many developing nations. What do students learn from that? MARMADUKE ST. JOHN/ALAMY IMAGEBROKER/ALAMY It is ironic that just when egocentrism leads young people to feelings of shame or fantasies of stardom (the imaginary audience), many middle schools require them to change rooms, teachers, and classmates every 40 minutes or so. That makes public acclaim and personal recognition difficult. Since public acclaim is elusive, many middle school students seek acceptance from their peers. Bullying increases, appearance becomes important, status symbols are displayed (from gang colors to expensive shoes), and sexual conquests are flaunted, with boys bragging and girls gaining status if they have older boyfriends. Values change: In fourth grade, the "coolest" peers are good students; by eighth grade, cool peers are not involved in school but likely to be antisocial (unkind, antagonistic to adults) (Galván, et al., 2011). Of course, much depends on the cultural context, but almost every middle school student seeks peer approval in ways that adults disapprove of (Véronneau & Dishion, 2010). MOTIVATION A cognitive perspective on development highlights the academic disengagement typical of middle school students, trying to uncover causes and effective prevention. Several causes have already been suggested: puberty, alienation from teachers, reliance on peers. But an additional reason may be an adolescent's assumptions about his or her potential. Some students prevent feelings of failure by avoiding effort. They blame a low grade on "I didn't study," rather than on "I am stupid." The students' understanding of their own ability and how to achieve what they wish is key. If they believe in the entity approach to intelligence (i.e., that ability is innate, a fixed quantity present at birth), then they think it hopeless to study, especially in subjects that do not come easily. All they can do is accept their deficiencies, whether in math, or writing, or languages. They are convinced that they are innately stupid in some ways and always will be. This entity belief reduces stress but also reduces achievement. By contrast, if students believe in the incremental approach to intelligence (i.e., that ability increases if they work on it), then they will pay attention, participate in class, study, complete their homework, and so on. That is called mastery motivation. This is not just a hypothesis. In the first year of middle school, students with entity beliefs do not achieve much, whereas those with mastery motivation show achievement gains (Blackwell et al., 2007). In one study, some students in their first year of middle school took part in a program in which they were taught eight lessons designed to convey the idea that being smart was incremental. For instance, they were taught ways to "Grow Your Intelligence," as one segment of the program was called. Especially if they had formerly held the entity theory of intelligence, those students showed achievement gains while students in other classes did not (Blackwell et al., 2007). ANSWER TO OBSERVATION QUIZ (from page 339) The flag on the robot matches her T-shirt. Often teenagers wear matching shirts to signify their joint identity. Teachers themselves were surprised at the effect. Among the typical comments was a teacher explaining that a boy who never puts in any extra effort and doesn't turn in homework on time, actually stayed up late working for hours to finish an assignment early so I could review it and give him a chance to revise it. He earned a B+...he had been getting C's and lower. [quoted in Blackwell et al., 2007, p. 256] The concept that skills and intelligence can be mastered motivates the learning of social skills as well as academic subjects (Olson & Dweck, 2008). This makes it particularly important in adolescence, when peers are so important. The contrast between the entity and incremental approaches is apparent not only for individual adolescents, but also for teachers, parents, schools, and cultures. If a school is structured so that children individually compete with each another rather than work in cooperative groups, then individuals who score low are likely to cope by endorsing the entity theory (Eccles & Roeser, 2011). By contrast, when teachers and students believe in mastery, they are supportive of each other's learning (Patrick et al., 2011). According to international comparisons, educational systems that track students into higher or lower classes, that expel students who are not learning, and that allow competition between schools for the brightest students (all reflecting entity, not incremental, theory) are also school systems with lower average achievement and a larger gap between student scores at the highest and lowest quartiles (OECD, 2011). Before condemning all middle schools, however, remember that adolescents vary in every aspect of development, including motivation. A study of student emotional and academic engagement from the fifth to the eighth grade found that, as expected, the overall direction was less engagement. Yet, a distinct group (about 18 percent) was highly engaged throughout, and only a few (about 5 percent) decreased drastically in engagement from grades 5 to 8. The disengaged students were often minority boys from low-income families (Li & Lerner, 2011). That finding should alert teachers to choose those young boys for various roles and responsibilities—engaging them before they have a chance to disengage. Middle School

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Printed Page 340 9.4.2 Middle School Many developmentalists find middle schools to be "developmentally regressive" (Eccles & Roeser, 2010, p. 13); that is, they push children's intellectual growth backwards. The average grades on report cards fall, achievement tests show less learning each year, and students are less motivated to study and learn. Does this matter for later achievement? One team believes so: "Long-term academic trajectories—the choice to stay in school or to drop out and the selection in high school of academic college-prep courses versus basic-level courses—are strongly influenced by experience in grades 6-8" (Snow et al., 2007, p. 72). As achievement slows down, behavioral problems rise. Puberty itself is part of the problem. Evidence shows that for non-human animals, especially when under stress, learning slows down at puberty (McCormick et al., 2010). The same is probably true for humans. However, many experts do not believe the biological or psychological stresses of puberty are the main reasons learning suffers in early adolescence. Instead, they blame the organizational structure of many middle schools (Meece & Eccles, 2010). ESPECIALLY FOR Middle School Teachers You think your lectures are interesting and you know you care about your students, yet many of them cut class, come late, or sleep through it. What do you do? (see response, page 343) To be specific, unlike in primary school, in which each teacher is responsible for one classroom of children, middle school teachers are not connected to any small group. Instead they specialize in an academic subject, taught to hundreds of students each year. This makes them impersonal and distant: Their students learn less and risk more because no single teacher is aware of their actions (Crosnoe et al., 2004). Same Situation, Far Apart: No Romance Here Young adolescents around the globe, such as these in California (left) and Pakistan (right), attend middle school, but what they learn differs. Many North American schools encourage collaboration and hands-on learning (these girls are dissecting a squid), whereas many south Asian schools stress individual writing. Note that both classrooms are single sex—unusual in the United States but standard in many developing nations. What do students learn from that? MARMADUKE ST. JOHN/ALAMY IMAGEBROKER/ALAMY It is ironic that just when egocentrism leads young people to feelings of shame or fantasies of stardom (the imaginary audience), many middle schools require them to change rooms, teachers, and classmates every 40 minutes or so. That makes public acclaim and personal recognition difficult. Since public acclaim is elusive, many middle school students seek acceptance from their peers. Bullying increases, appearance becomes important, status symbols are displayed (from gang colors to expensive shoes), and sexual conquests are flaunted, with boys bragging and girls gaining status if they have older boyfriends. Values change: In fourth grade, the "coolest" peers are good students; by eighth grade, cool peers are not involved in school but likely to be antisocial (unkind, antagonistic to adults) (Galván, et al., 2011). Of course, much depends on the cultural context, but almost every middle school student seeks peer approval in ways that adults disapprove of (Véronneau & Dishion, 2010). MOTIVATION A cognitive perspective on development highlights the academic disengagement typical of middle school students, trying to uncover causes and effective prevention. Several causes have already been suggested: puberty, alienation from teachers, reliance on peers. But an additional reason may be an adolescent's assumptions about his or her potential. Some students prevent feelings of failure by avoiding effort. They blame a low grade on "I didn't study," rather than on "I am stupid." The students' understanding of their own ability and how to achieve what they wish is key. If they believe in the entity approach to intelligence (i.e., that ability is innate, a fixed quantity present at birth), then they think it hopeless to study, especially in subjects that do not come easily. All they can do is accept their deficiencies, whether in math, or writing, or languages. They are convinced that they are innately stupid in some ways and always will be. This entity belief reduces stress but also reduces achievement. By contrast, if students believe in the incremental approach to intelligence (i.e., that ability increases if they work on it), then they will pay attention, participate in class, study, complete their homework, and so on. That is called mastery motivation. This is not just a hypothesis. In the first year of middle school, students with entity beliefs do not achieve much, whereas those with mastery motivation show achievement gains (Blackwell et al., 2007). In one study, some students in their first year of middle school took part in a program in which they were taught eight lessons designed to convey the idea that being smart was incremental. For instance, they were taught ways to "Grow Your Intelligence," as one segment of the program was called. Especially if they had formerly held the entity theory of intelligence, those students showed achievement gains while students in other classes did not (Blackwell et al., 2007). ANSWER TO OBSERVATION QUIZ (from page 339) The flag on the robot matches her T-shirt. Often teenagers wear matching shirts to signify their joint identity. Teachers themselves were surprised at the effect. Among the typical comments was a teacher explaining that a boy who never puts in any extra effort and doesn't turn in homework on time, actually stayed up late working for hours to finish an assignment early so I could review it and give him a chance to revise it. He earned a B+...he had been getting C's and lower. [quoted in Blackwell et al., 2007, p. 256] The concept that skills and intelligence can be mastered motivates the learning of social skills as well as academic subjects (Olson & Dweck, 2008). This makes it particularly important in adolescence, when peers are so important. The contrast between the entity and incremental approaches is apparent not only for individual adolescents, but also for teachers, parents, schools, and cultures. If a school is structured so that children individually compete with each another rather than work in cooperative groups, then individuals who score low are likely to cope by endorsing the entity theory (Eccles & Roeser, 2011). By contrast, when teachers and students believe in mastery, they are supportive of each other's learning (Patrick et al., 2011). According to international comparisons, educational systems that track students into higher or lower classes, that expel students who are not learning, and that allow competition between schools for the brightest students (all reflecting entity, not incremental, theory) are also school systems with lower average achievement and a larger gap between student scores at the highest and lowest quartiles (OECD, 2011). Before condemning all middle schools, however, remember that adolescents vary in every aspect of development, including motivation. A study of student emotional and academic engagement from the fifth to the eighth grade found that, as expected, the overall direction was less engagement. Yet, a distinct group (about 18 percent) was highly engaged throughout, and only a few (about 5 percent) decreased drastically in engagement from grades 5 to 8. The disengaged students were often minority boys from low-income families (Li & Lerner, 2011). That finding should alert teachers to choose those young boys for various roles and responsibilities—engaging them before they have a chance to disengage. Middle School

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Printed Page 342 9.4.3 School Transitions Every transition is stressful. The most difficult times are the first year of middle school, the first year of high school, and the first year of college. The larger and less personal the new institution is, and the more egocentric the student is, the more difficult the transition. STRANGERS IN SCHOOL When students enter a new school with classmates and customs unlike those in their old school, minority students (who may have been the majority in their neighborhood or nation) often feel alienated, fearing failure (Benner & Graham, 2007). It is not diversity per se that is difficult; it is the sudden unfamiliar circumstances. One particular problem is stereotype threat, the anxiety-producing idea that other people are judging you in stereotyped ways (Aronson & Dee, 2012). Stereotype threat may be disconnected from actual stereotyping, as it describes a person's own perceived fear that other people are judging him or her as deficient for being Black or White, male or female, rich or poor. This idea is further explained in Chapter 11. RESPONSE FOR Middle School Teachers (from page 341) Students need both challenge and involvement; avoid lessons that are too easy or too passive. Create small groups; assign oral reports, debates, role-plays, and so on. Remember that adolescents like to hear each other's thoughts and their own voices. A study of the transition from middle to high school confirmed that personal relationships are crucial. Students are less likely to drop out if they have friends in the new school and teachers who encourage learning (Langenkamp, 2010). School policies (e.g., class placement, group discussions) can facilitate such relationships. Students already at risk of emotional problems may be pushed over the edge by the transition; anxiety, depression, and quitting may result. Worse psychological disorders may occur. As one expert notes: Depression, self-injury behavior, substance abuse, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia have striking developmental patterns corresponding to transitions in early and late adolescence. [Masten, 2004, p. 310] Of course, transitions are not the only cause of adolescent pathology; hormones, body changes, sexual experiences, family conflict, and cultural expectations also contribute. In addition, puberty may activate genes that predispose a person to mental disorders (Erath et al., 2009), and the sequence of brain development may cause emotional difficulties. Nonetheless, for many reasons, adolescent newcomers to a school community need extra support to learn well. To eliminate one transition, some school systems and even some nations (e.g., Finland) have children attend the same institution from first through eighth or ninth grade. In the United States, the timing of when children leave primary school varies by school district. When the change occurs early, after fourth grade (but not after fifth, sixth, or seventh) or not until after eighth grade, children seem to learn more (Schwartz et al., 2011). Some small private schools eliminate transitions by having one school from kindergarten through twelfth grade. This may facilitate learning, or it may make it more difficult for graduates to adjust to college, to the workplace, to a new community. A school that is too large might also pose difficulties, especially for students entering from more intimate schools. Some research suggests that school enrollment should be 600 or fewer students, although many urban high schools boast more than a thousand students. When schools are that large, many students are strangers to each other, and the principal cannot know everyone by name. For most (though not all) students, engagement decreases as school size increases (Weiss et al., 2010). However, school size may be less problematic than school organization, such as having many different students for each teacher (too impersonal) and weak school norms, loyalty, and spirit (a problem for large schools) (Gottfredson & DiPietro, 2011). CYBER DANGER Bullying decreases each year of elementary school, perhaps because students learn from classmates and teachers that there are better ways to interact with other children. However, many studies find that bullying increases in the first year of middle school and again in the first year of high school. Puberty itself increases sexual interest and impulses, as you just read, yet many adolescents are uncertain about their urges. One result is an increase in teasing and harassment, sometimes bullying. This occurs between the sexes as well as within them, with girls likely to bully other girls they perceive as sexual rivals, and boys likely to bully other boys they perceive as gay. Beyond that, many students new to a larger school feel they need to assert themselves. Furthermore, contemporary students are digital natives, having grown up with iPods, cell phones, and high-speed broadband. However, some students, especially bully-victims (see Chapter 8), engage in, and suffer from, cyberbullying (Tokunaga, 2010)—that is, any bullying that uses technology. Usually, those most involved are already bullies or victims or both. Suicide Device The social media capabilities of high schooler Yuriko and his cell phone (shown here) drove him to thoughts of suicide. Fortunately, he got help to stop the mental torture he suffered from cyberbullying—a problem that may be worse in Japan because social reputation is crucial. For the same reason, young adolescents are particularly vulnerable to cyberbullying. REUTERS/YURIKO NAKAO In many ways, cyberbullying is similar to other forms of harassment—harmful to everyone, as it undermines learning in bullies, bystanders, and particularly in victims (Marsh et al., 2010; P. K. Smith et al., 2008; Schneider et al., 2012). It is another form of relational bullying, designed to harm social interactions, with girls being cyberbullies as often as boys. Although the causes of all forms of bullying seem similar, each carries its own sting. For example, the impact of cyberbullying is worse when the self-image is forming, the imaginary audience is looming, and impulsive thinking often supersedes analytic thinking in early adolescence. With technology, rumors and insults spread far and wide, with immediate reach, day and night, and impulses can be actualized at the touch of a button (Englander et al., 2009). The ease of posting photos makes it even worse: It is hard to deny visual evidence of oneself drunk, naked, or crying. All forms of bullying are affected by the school climate. When students consider their school a good place to be—with supportive teachers, friendly students, opportunities for growth (clubs, sports, theater, music), and so on—those with high self-esteem are not only less likely to engage in cyberbullying, but they also disapprove of it (Gendron et al., 2011). That reduces the incidence overall. However, when the school climate is negative, those with high self-esteem are often bullies (Gendron et al., 2011). As with other forms of bullying, the victim and bystanders can stop cyberbullying, in this case by deleting messages unread and thus unspread (Parris et al., 2012). School Transitions

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Printed Page 344 9.4.4 High School As we have seen, adolescents can think abstractly, analytically, hypothetically, and logically—as well as personally, emotionally, intuitively, and experientially. The curriculum and teaching style in high school often require the former mode of thinking. Students who need more individualized, personal attention may struggle. THE COLLEGE-BOUND From a developmental perspective, the fact that high schools emphasize analytic, deductive thinking makes sense since many 15- to 18-year-olds are capable of abstract logic. Instead of teaching their pupils formal operational thinking, high school teachers typically assume that the students have already mastered it (Kuhn & Franklin, 2006). The United States is trying to raise standards so that all high school graduates will be college-ready. One way to accomplish this has been to increase the number of students who take classes that are assessed by externally scored exams, either the IB (International Baccalaureate) or the AP (Advanced Placement). Such classes have high standards and satisfy some college requirements. Same Situation, Far Apart: How to Learn Although developmental psychologists find that adolescents learn best when they are actively engaged with ideas, many school systems find that teenagers are easier to control when they are taking tests (left, Winston-Salem, United States) or reciting scripture (right, Kabul, Afghanistan). © WILL & DENI MCINTYRE/CORBIS MELANIE STETSON FREEMAN/THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR/GETTY IMAGES Unfortunately, merely taking such classes does not necessarily lead to college readiness (Sadler et al., 2010). In 2010, although 17 percent of U.S. students took AP exams, about one-third of them failed. Far fewer take the IB exams, and very few of them are granted the highest scores. In 2010, only one graduate in nine earned college credit based on an AP or IB exam—and that was an improvement over prior years (Gewertz, 2011). Most U.S. high school students are required to pass a high-stakes test in order to graduate. (Any exam for which the consequences of failing are severe is called a high-stakes test.) No state required such tests for graduation two decades ago. Testing Students in the United States take many more tests than they did even a decade ago. This includes several high-stakes tests—not only the tests to earn a high school diploma, but also tests to get into college (the SAT and ACT, achievement and aptitude); tests to earn college credits while in high school; and tests to get into high school, middle school, fourth grade, and even gifted kindergarten classes. These tests often carry high stakes not only for the students who repeat a grade if they fail, but also for teachers and schools. Teachers sometimes earn extra pay or tenure, or are fired, based on what their students have learned in a year, and schools are sometimes granted more resources, or are shut down, because of test scores. The impact of these tests on learning is controversial, with data supporting both sides. Some argue that adolescents study harder and learn more if they know a high-stakes test is coming. From 2000 to 2008, some states have seen an increase in the percentage of students who pass high-stakes tests, but other states have decreasing graduation rates (Zhang, 2009). Overall, high school graduation rates in the United States are inching upwards, with 72 percent of ninth-grade students staying in school to graduate four years later (see Figure 9.6) (Swanson, 2011). Some say that tests and standards are part of the reason. FIGURE 9.6 Graduation Rates on the Rebound The U.S. graduation rate has reached its highest point thus far. Every racial and ethnic group posted solid gains for the class of 2008, marking the second straight year of across-the-board improvements—and more recent data (not shown because ethnic breakdown not yet available) show even greater gains. These data are based on the most conservative and probably the most accurate estimate of graduation; that is, the percentage of new ninth-grade students who earn a diploma four years later. The gap between Asian/White and the three other groups is almost always the result of differences in SES—poor families often live in communities with poor schools. Source: Editorial Projects in Education Research Center, Education Week, June 9, 2011. However, many fear that students who do not graduate are discouraged, and that some students leave before twelfth grade because they fear failure. According to the U.S. Center for Education Policy, high-stakes tests have "a negative impact on...low-performing students, students of color, or students from low-income families" (2010, p. 1). One such negative impact is that students who experience stereotype threat, especially minorities, avoid taking high-stakes tests in order to protect their identity (Syed et al., 2011). This may be racist on their part, or on the part of the test advocates. Even those who pass may be less excited about education. Overall, a panel of experts in education found that too much testing reduces learning rather than advances it (Hout & Elliot, 2011). But how much is "too much"? Polls of United States citizens consistently find more people in favor of accountability, standards, and tests than opposed to them (Phelps, 2005). Presidents of the United States—first in No Child Left Behind (instituted by George W. Bush, a Republican) and then in Race to the Top (instituted by Barack Obama, a Democrat), for example—use test scores to entice states to raise school standards. As reviewed in Chapter 7, two international tests, the TIMSS (Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study) and the PIRLS (Progress in International Reading Literacy Study), find that the United States is only middling among developed nations in student learning. A third international test, the PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment), explained toward the end of this chapter, places U.S. students even lower (see Appendix A). In many nations, scores on those three international tests compel reexamination of school policies and practices. Although the United States' scores have not improved because of more testing, one critic commends such tests for revealing deficiencies in U.S. education that previously were hard to measure (Walberg, 2011). International data do not provide clear answers on this controversial topic. One nation whose children generally score well is South Korea, where high-stakes tests have resulted in extensive studying. To be specific, many South Korean parents spend substantial sums on "shadow education," hiring tutors to teach their children after school and on weekends to improve their test scores (Lee & Shouse, 2011). On the opposite side, students in Finland also score very well on international tests, and yet they have no national tests until the end of high school. Nor do they spend much time on homework or after-school education. A Finnish expert proudly states that "schoolteachers teach in order to help their students learn, not to pass tests" (Sahlberg, 2011, p. 26). He believes that teachers are motivated to do their best with each child because there is no external standard that makes them "teach to the test." Many educators fear that overtesting is sapping the energy and creativity of teachers and students. In Finland, teaching is a prestigious profession, with 10 times as many applicants as acceptances to the university programs that offer a teaching degree (Sahlberg, 2011). However, since developmentalists are scientists, they try not to be swayed by public opinion. Instead, data are needed, but the data can be interpreted in many ways. Some people argue that tests add stress and decrease learning, with one American asking educators to "make this fight against standardized tests our top priority until we have chased this monster from our schools" (Kohn, 2001, p. 350). Others recommend "using tests to motivate students and teachers for better performance" (Walberg, 2011, p. 7). The expert just cited believes that well-constructed tests benefit everyone—teachers, students, and the taxpayers who fund public education. Poorly designed tests are destructive, he says, but that fact should not be used to condemn testing. Ironically, just when more U.S. schools are raising standards and requirements, many East Asian nations, including China, Singapore, and Japan (all with high scores on international tests), are moving in the opposite direction. Particularly in Singapore, national high-stakes tests are being phased out, and local autonomy is increasing (Hargreaves, 2012). Soon more international data will provide some answers, we hope. If Finland and Singapore continue to do well, and improvement lags in North America, it may indicate that tests are not helping. On the other hand, many factors besides tests could explain those results, and political leaders can interpret scores in opposite ways. Ideally, each developmentalist will consider the data objectively, and half the people will change their minds—not easy for anyone. ESPECIALLY FOR High School Teachers You are much more interested in the nuances and controversies than in the basic facts of your subject, but you know that your students will take high-stakes tests on the basics and that their scores will have a major impact on their futures. What should you do? (see response, page 348) THOSE WHO DO NOT GO TO COLLEGE In the United States, one result of pushing an academic curriculum is that most students hope to attend college, most enroll, and...most leave without the bachelor's degree they seek. Many high school graduates (70 percent) enter college. However, a decade later, only 32 percent of U.S. young adults, aged 25-34, have earned a bachelor's degree (Snyder & Dillow, 2011). Some may still earn a degree later in life, but most leave feeling they have failed, never to return. That fuels a debate among educators. Should students be encouraged to "dream big" early in high school, aspiring for tertiary learning? This suggestion originates from studies finding a correlation between dreaming big in early adolescence and going to college years later (Domina et al., 2011a, 2011b). Others suggest that college is a "fairy tale dream" that may lead to low self-esteem (Rosenbaum, 2011). If adolescents fail academic classes, will they feel bored, stupid, and disengaged? UNDERSTANDING THE NUMBERS Note that these statistics say that 70 percent of high school graduates enter college—a number that does not include students who never graduate from high school. Why? Answer High school graduation statistics are notoriously varied: Some count only those who formally leave, others include those who disappear (who might be at another school), and still others include everyone who has not graduated after four years of high school. However, the proportion of young adults without a BA (68 percent) is considered a reliable statistic, which makes it particularly troubling that more than a dozen nations (including Australia, Korea, Sweden, and the United Kingdom) do better than the United States on this measure. In the United States, some 2,500 Career Academies (small institutions of about 300 students each) prepare students for specific jobs. Seven years after graduation, students who were in these alternative programs earn about $100 more a month than do other students who applied but could not enroll because there was no room (Kemple, 2008). They are also more likely to be married (38 percent versus 34 percent) and living with their children (51 percent versus 44 percent). In another example, in Italy, vocational education succeeded when the learning included "hands-on" practical education (rare in academic courses that prepare students for college) and a personal commitment by the teachers to their students (relationships again) (Bonica & Sappa, 2010). Why are vocational schools not more popular? Preparing students for jobs instead of college may seem—or may be—racist, classist, sexist, or otherwise stereotyping. Teachers also favor the college-bound adolescents. If they find themselves teaching vocational students, they may themselves feel like failures. In the United States, the most qualified teachers gravitate away from vocational schools and toward schools with more able students (where salaries are higher and class sizes are smaller). Within schools, the most experienced teachers are often assigned classes full of college-bound students. All students learn best when a master teacher guides active discussion, debate, and exposition, but those who most need such teaching are least likely to receive it (Slavin et al., 2009). Nor do teachers necessarily know how to relate to students who are unlike them. Secondary school teachers are hired for their academic expertise, not for their ability to engage adolescents. They model formal operational thinking—answering questions about the intricacies of theoretical physics, advanced calculus, and iambic pentameter—but they may not connect with students or understand practical vocational requirements. Some nations provide equally qualified and equally paid teachers for every school and encourage teachers to mentor one another. The disparity in teacher quality between wealthy and impoverished schools is much greater in the United States than in nations that score high on the PISA (e.g., Finland and Canada) (Cavanagh, 2007). Not surprisingly, the SES achievement disparity is lowest in Finland (Sahlberg, 2011). However, it is too simple to conclude that teacher quality, preparation, and prestige are the only reason some nations and schools score higher than others. Finland also has free early-childhood education (98 percent of the children attend) as well as national health care. Those factors help all children reach their potential, but some learn much more than others. Variation of achievement scores within schools is as high in Finland as in the United States and many other nations. CHOOSING VOCATIONS "What will you be when you grow up?" is a question often asked of children. Younger children often aspire to vocations that fewer than one in a million will obtain—rock star, sports hero, U.S. President—and adults smile at such fantasies. By the teen years, however, more practical concerns arise, specifically what jobs are available and how enjoyable, remunerative, and demanding each is. The question becomes hard to answer. Adults provide little help. Parents usually know only their particular employment or lack of it, not labor-market projections. Few parents are able to connect their child's interests and abilities with vocational possibilities 20 years hence. RESPONSE FOR High School Teachers (from page 346) It would be nice to follow your instincts, but the appropriate response depends partly on pressures within the school and on the expectations of the parents and administration. A comforting fact is that adolescents can think about and learn almost anything if they feel a personal connection to it. Look for ways to teach the facts your students need for the tests as the foundation for the exciting and innovative topics you want to teach. Everyone will learn more, and the tests will be less intimidating for your students. In theory, adults in high schools guide students toward vocations. But teachers know only their discipline, and guidance counselors in the United States have an average caseload of 270 students. Of those 270, many want to apply to a dozen colleges and require recommendations and suggestions; some need immediate and multifaceted emotional support to prevent violence, suicide, or drug addiction. Few counselors have either time or expertise to provide vocational guidance (Zehr, 2011). Some ambitious adolescents begin to think about careers on their own. Many use John Holland's description (1997) of six possible interests, which is discussed in Chapter 11. If students develop a vision of their future and then realize that particular high school courses might advance their preferred career, they may choose those courses. Few students have such a vision; drifting is the more common pattern. MEASURING PRACTICAL COGNITION Employers usually provide on-the-job training, which is much more specific and current than what high schools provide. They hope their future employees will have learned in secondary school how to think, explain, write, concentrate, and get along with other people. Similar skills are necessary for the college-bound, especially if they hope to gain enough credits to earn a degree. Those skills are hard to measure, though, especially on national high-stakes tests or on the two international tests explained in Chapter 7, the PIRLS and the TIMSS. The PISA, mentioned earlier, was designed to measure the cognitive abilities needed in adult life, not necessarily the ones that help students in college classes. The PISA is taken by 15-year-olds, an age chosen because many students that age are close to the end of their formal school career. On this test, the questions are written to be practical, measuring knowledge that might apply at home or on the job. As a PISA report described it: The tests are designed to generate measures of the extent to which students can make effective use of what they have learned in school to deal with various problems and challenges they are likely to experience in everyday life. [PISA, 2009, p. 12] For example, among the math questions is this one: Robert's mother lets him pick one candy from a bag. He can't see the candies. The number of candies of each color in the bag is shown in the following graph. What is the probability that Robert will pick a red candy? A. 10% B. 20% C. 25% D. 50% For that and the other questions on the PISA, the calculations are quite simple—most 10-year-olds can do them; no calculus, calculators, or complex formulas are required. However, the reasoning may be challenging, and many students do not know how to read a graph. Half of the 15-year-olds worldwide got that question wrong (the answer is B), as did more than half of the students from the United States. Overall, the U.S. students did worse on the PISA than on the PIRLS or TIMSS. On the PISA overall (reading, science, and math), China, Finland, and South Korea were at the top; Canada was close to the top; and the United States scored near average or below average in math, reading, and science (see Table 9-1). Analysis of nations and scores on the PISA finds four factors that correlate with high achievement (OECD, 2010, p. 6): Leaders, parents, and citizens overall value education, with individualized approaches to learning so that all students learn what they need. Standards are high and clear, so every student knows what he or she must do, with a "focus on the acquisition of complex, higher-order thinking skills." Teachers and administrators are valued, given "considerable discretion...in determining content" and sufficient salary as well as time for collaboration. Learning is prioritized "across the entire system," with high-quality teachers working in the most challenging environments. Not Geography The PISA is taken by 15-year-olds in many nations. Questions are designed to measure practical applications of school knowledge in science, reading, and math. National variations are more closely tied to educational practices and values at school and home, not to geography, genes, or immigration. For instance, the Netherlands and Norway are close on the map but not in math achievement, and, although most East Asian nations do very well, Thailand scores low. Also note that nations with a higher proportion of immigrants than the United States (e.g., Canada) or very few immigrants (e.g., Japan) seem to do equally well. Indications from the PISA and from international comparisons of high school dropout rates suggest that secondary education can be improved for those who do not go to college. Surprisingly, students who are capable of passing their classes drop out almost as often as those who are less capable, at least as measured on IQ tests. Persistence, engagement, and motivation seem more crucial than intellectual ability (Archambault et al., 2009; Tough, 2012). One study that measured engagement and motivation reported developmental differences: Students were most motivated and engaged in primary school, somewhat engaged in college, but least engaged in secondary school (Martin, 2009). High School

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Printed Page 349 9.4.5 Praising Adolescent Cognition It is easy to conclude that adolescent thinking is immature and self-absorbed. No wonder secondary schools have difficulty imparting information and students are disengaged. However, we should not close this chapter on that note. BENEFITS OF ADOLESCENT BRAIN DEVELOPMENT With increased myelination and still-underdeveloped inhibition, reactions become lightning fast; such speed is valuable in cognition as well as in other domains. For instance, adolescent athletes are potential superstars, not only quick but fearless as they steal a base, tackle a fullback, or race even when their lungs feel about to burst. Ideally, coaches have the wisdom to channel such bravery. Furthermore, as the reward areas of the brain activate and the production of certain mood-enhancing neurotransmitters increases, teenagers become happier. Reaction to a new love, or a first job, or even an A on a term paper can be ecstasy, a joy to be cherished in memory for life. Before another wave of pruning (at about age 18), and before the brain becomes fully mature (at about age 25), "young brains have both fast-growing synapses and sections that remain unconnected" (Ruder, 2008, p. 8). This allows new connections to facilitate acquisition of new ideas, words, memories, personality patterns, and dance steps. Synaptic growth enhances moral development as well. Adolescents question their elders and seek to forge their own standards. Values embraced during adolescence are more likely to endure than those acquired later, after brain connections are firmly established. This is an asset if values developed during adolescence are less self-centered than those of children or are more culturally attuned than those of older generations. Thus, adolescence is an ideal time to question tradition and learn new things. Of course, some members of a community should uphold traditions while others question them, and society as a whole should be neither too quick to abandon the past nor too stuck in it, but everyone benefits if opposite perspectives are advocated. In short, several aspects of adolescent brain development can be positive. The fact that the prefrontal cortex is still developing "confers benefits as well as risks. It helps explain the creativity of adolescence and early adulthood, before the brain becomes set in its ways" (Monastersky, 2007, p. A-17). As a practical application, those who care about the next generation must attend to the life lessons that adolescents are learning. BETTER THINKING Adults are understandably critical when egocentrism leads an impulsive teenager to risk addiction by experimenting with drugs or to risk pregnancy and AIDS by rejecting a condom. Wisdom, to adults, means caution. But adults may themselves be egocentric in making such judgments. Adults want teenagers to have long and productive lives, and they conclude that adolescents use faulty reasoning when they choose to party instead of study, or do something that risks their health. Adolescents, however, value social warmth and friendship. A 15-year-old who is offered a cigarette might rationally choose camaraderie over the distant risk of cancer (Engels et al., 2006). Research on how adults make complex decisions, such as who to marry or which investment to make, finds that sometimes intuitive decisions are best and sometimes not (Dijksterhuis & Aarts, 2010). At every age, the best thinking may be "fast and frugal" (Gigerenzer, 2008). Weighing alternatives, and thinking of possibilities, is sometimes paralyzing. Few adolescents have that problem. Even egocentrism has its advantages, protecting the self "each time an individual enters into a new environmental context or dramatically new life situation" (Schwartz et al., 2008, p. 447). Young adolescents who feel psychologically invincible (not harmed by others' judgments) tend to be resilient, less likely to be depressed (Hill et al., 2012). Of course, if a criticism from a peer cuts too deep, friends and family need to help the young person gain perspective, but difficult experiences build resilience as long as they are not overwhelming (Seery, 2011). All the sudden and erratic body changes of puberty that we described are easier to handle if a person feels special and strong. WHAT ADULTS CAN DO Does learning during adolescence matter when considering the entire life span? For individuals, the answer is a resounding yes. Not only health but also most every other indicator of a good life—high income, stable marriage, successful children, satisfying work—correlates with education. For society, the answer is yes as well. Nations gain from the improved quality of secondary education. A detailed calculation found that if the United States' average PISA score increased by a mere 25 points (up to the scores for Belgium, Australia, and Germany; still far below those of South Korea or Chinese Taipei), that would result in an increase of $40 trillion in the nation's GDP (gross domestic product, which measures economic production) between 2010 and 2090 (Hanushek & Woessmann, 2010). How could this be? The cognitive skills that boost economic development are creativity, flexibility, and analytic ability; they allow for innovation and mastery of new technology. When nations raise their human capital by developing more adults with those skills, their economies prosper (Cohen & Soto, 2007). The scores of various nations on the PISA and other tests predict later economic development (Hanushek & Woessmann, 2010). The cognitive abilities that nations need to succeed in the twenty-first century are exactly what adolescents can develop—with proper education and guidance. The potential is there; what will we do about it? Secondary education is crucial for personal health and for national economic development. Many students become alienated from learning during middle school; middle schools are not usually organized to encourage relationships between teachers and students. Transitions to new schools are always challenging, as illustrated by the increase in bullying, especially cyberbullying, as middle school begins. High-stakes national tests required for high school graduation, and international tests such as the PISA, raise questions about the quality of secondary education in the United States. Adolescents are capable of intense learning of new ideas and of questioning traditional beliefs. Praising Adolescent Cognition

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Printed Page 351 SUMMARY Puberty 1. Puberty refers to the various changes that transform a child's body into an adult one. A sequence of biochemical signals from the hypothalamus to the pituitary gland to the adrenal glands (the HPA axis) increases production of testosterone, estrogen, and various other hormones, which in turn causes the body to develop. 2. Hormones regulate daily and seasonal body rhythms. In adolescence, these may result in sleep deprivation because high schools open early and the natural circadian rhythm keeps teenagers wide awake at night. 3. Puberty most often begins between ages 10 and 13. Genes, gender, body fat, and family stress all contribute to this variation in timing, with girls generally beginning puberty before boys. 4. Adolescents who reach puberty earlier or later than their friends experience additional stresses. Generally (depending on culture, community, and cohort), early-maturing girls have a particularly difficult time. 5. The growth spurt is an acceleration of growth in every part of the body. Peak weight usually precedes peak height, which is then followed by peak muscle growth. 6. Sexual characteristics differentiate males from females at adolescence, not only in reproductive potential but also in body shape, breasts, voice, body hair, and so on. Nutrition 7. Many adolescents are very concerned about body image, especially how they think they look to other adolescents. They may diet irrationally instead of eating a balanced diet, which can often result in calcium and iron deficiency. 8. Although anorexia and bulimia are often not diagnosed until early adulthood, their precursors are evident during puberty. The origins are genetic and familial as well as cultural. Thinking, Fast and Slow 9. Various parts of the brain mature during puberty and in the following decade. The regions dedicated to emotional arousal (including the limbic system) mature before those that regulate and rationalize emotion (the prefrontal cortex). Consequently, many adolescents are quick to react, take risks, and learn. 10. Cognition in early adolescence may be egocentric, a kind of self-centered thinking. Adolescent egocentrism gives rise to the personal fable, the invincibility fable, and the imaginary audience. 11. Formal operational thought is Piaget's term for the last of his four periods of cognitive development, in which adolescents are no longer earthbound and concrete in their thinking. They prefer to speculate instead of focusing on reality. They develop hypotheses and explore, using deductive reasoning. 12. Intuitive thinking also becomes stronger during adolescence. Few teenagers always use logic, although they are capable of doing so. Dual processing is evident. Teaching and Learning 13. Secondary education—after primary education (grade school) and before tertiary education (college)—correlates with the health and wealth of individuals and nations. 14. In middle school, many students tend to be bored, difficult to teach, and hurtful to one another. One reason may be that middle schools are not structured to accommodate egocentrism or intuitive thinking. 15. Cyberbulling and many forms of psychopathology increase during school transitions, which are particularly difficult in adolescence, when young people must also adjust to biological and family changes. 16. Education in high school emphasizes formal operational thinking, sometimes to the detriment of applied cognition as measured by the PISA, an international test. In the United States, the demand for high standards has led to high-stakes tests. These may undercut creativity, innovation, and learning for students who do not earn college degrees. SUMMARY

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Printed Page 382 10.5 Drug Use and Abuse Adolescents enjoy doing something forbidden. Moreover, their hormonal surges and brain patterns increase the reward sensations produced by drugs. But their developing bodies and brains make drug use particularly hazardous. Drug Use and Abuse

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Printed Page 382 10.5.1 Variations in Drug Use Most teenagers try psychoactive drugs, which are drugs that affect the mind. Although a police officer is concerned only with the legal issues of drug use, a developmentalist's concern is that cigarettes, alcohol, and many prescription medicines are as addictive and damaging as illegal drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. Both the prevalence and incidence of drug use increase every year from age 10 to 25 and then decrease. Use before age 18 predicts later abuse. The exception to this developmental pattern is inhalants (fumes from aerosol containers, cleaning fluid, etc.), which are used more by younger adolescents, partly because they can be easily purchased. Sadly, the youngest adolescents are least able, cognitively, to analyze risks, and parents rarely suspect a drug problem until their child dies from breathing toxic vapors. VARIATIONS BY PLACE Nations vary markedly in drug use. Consider the most common drugs: alcohol and tobacco. In most European nations, alcohol is widely used, even by children. In much of the Middle East, however, alcohol use is illegal, and teenagers almost never drink. In many Asian nations, anyone may smoke anywhere; in the United States, smoking is forbidden in many schools and public places, but advertised widely; in Canada, cigarette advertising is outlawed. Not surprisingly, fewer teens in Canada smoke. A Man Now This boy in Tibet is proud to be a smoker—in many Asian nations, smoking is considered manly. JASON LEE/REUTERS U.S. teens of both sexes smoke fewer cigarettes than do western European teens, and U.S. boys smoke fewer cigarettes than do Asian boys. The specifics of use and abuse vary historically and culturally, partly because each generation develops a distinct pattern that differentiates it from earlier cohorts and other cultures. Variations within nations are marked as well. In the United States, most high school students have tried alcohol, and almost half have smoked cigarettes and marijuana—but a significant minority (about 20 percent) never use any drugs, especially if their classmates or crowds never use drugs. Regional differences are apparent. For instance, 24.1 percent of high school students in Kentucky have smoked in the past month, but only 5.1 percent of Utah students have (MMWR, June 8, 2012). VARIATIONS BY GENERATION AND GENDER Cohorts vary, sometimes dramatically, as shown by a study called Monitoring the Future in which thousands of young people, diverse in every way, are asked about their recent and lifetime drug use. Use of most drugs has decreased in the United States since 1976 (as Figure 10.6 shows), but adolescent abuse of synthetic narcotics and prescription drugs has increased. During 2009, 10 percent of U.S. high school seniors used Vicodin and 6 percent used OxyContin (Johnston et al., 2012), both highly addictive and neither known to teenagers two decades ago. FIGURE 10.6 Rise and Fall By asking the same questions year after year, the Monitoring the Future study shows notable historical effects. It is encouraging that something in society, not in the adolescent, makes drug use increase and decrease and that the most recent data show a decline. However, as Chapter 1 emphasized, survey research cannot prove what causes change. Source: Johnston et al., 2012 With some exceptions, adolescent boys use more drugs, and use them more often, than girls do, especially outside the United States. An international survey of 13- to 15-year-olds in 131 nations found that more boys are smokers (except in a few European nations), including three times as many boys as girls in Southeast Asia (Warren et al., 2006). According to another international survey of 31 nations, almost twice as many boys as girls have tried marijuana (26 versus 15 percent) (ter Bogt et al., 2006). These gender differences are reinforced by social constructions about proper male and female behavior. In Indonesia, for instance, 38 percent of the boys smoke cigarettes, but only 5 percent of the girls do. One Indonesian boy explained, "If I don't smoke, I'm not a real man" (quoted in Ng et al., 2007). In the United States, the two sexes are quite similar in choice of drugs, although girls drink alcohol at younger ages and boys use more illegal drugs (Johnston et al., 2012). The most notable gender difference is that boys use more steroids and girls use more diet drugs. Variations in Drug Use

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Printed Page 384 10.5.2 Harm from Drugs Many teenagers believe that adults exaggerate the evils of drug use and think it hypocritical that a parent who has cocktails before dinner or beer with lunch would dare prohibit adolescent drug use. Nonetheless, developmentalists see both immediate and long-term harm when teenagers use drugs. Addiction and brain damage are among "the deleterious consequences of drug use [that] appear to be more pronounced in adolescents than in adults, a difference that has been linked to brain maturation" (Moffitt et al., 2006, p. 12). Few adolescents notice when they move past use (experimenting) to abuse (experiencing harm) and then to addiction (needing the drug to avoid feeling nervous, anxious, or in pain). An obvious negative effect of tobacco is that it impairs digestion and nutrition, slowing down growth. Abuse of tobacco occurs with bidis, cigars, pipes, and chewing tobacco as well as with cigarettes. In India, widespread tobacco abuse is one reason for chronic undernutrition (Warren et al., 2006). Since internal organs continue to mature after the height spurt, cigarette-smoking teenagers who appear full-grown may damage their developing hearts, lungs, brains, and reproductive systems. Alcohol is the most frequently abused drug in North America. Heavy drinking impairs memory and self-control by damaging the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex, perhaps distorting the reward circuits of the brain lifelong (Guerri & Pascual, 2010). Although some specifics of the impact of alcohol on the adolescent brain are still unknown, there is no doubt that alcohol affects adolescents more than adults because of their brain immaturity (Chin et al., 2010). ESPECIALLY FOR Parents Who Drink Socially You have heard that parents should allow their children to drink at home, to teach them to drink responsibly and not get drunk elsewhere. Is that wise? (see response, page 387) Like many other drugs, alcohol allows momentary denial of problems: Worries seem to disappear when a person is under the influence. When ignored problems get worse, more alcohol is needed—a vicious cycle that often leads to addiction. Denial is a problem for all alcoholics, but particularly for teenagers who have not yet learned that they cannot drive, write, or even think after several drinks. Similarly, marijuana seems harmless to many teenagers, partly because users seem more relaxed than inebriated. A girl named Johanna said: I started off using about every other weekend, and pretty soon it increased to three to four times a week.... I started skipping classes to get high. I quit soccer because my coach was a jerk. My grades dropped, but I blamed that on my not being into school.... Finally, some of my friends cornered me and told me how much I had changed, and they said it started when I started smoking marijuana. They came with me to see the substance-abuse counselor at school. [Bell, 1998, p. 199] Johanna's future was in jeopardy. Adolescents who regularly smoke marijuana are more likely to drop out of school, become teenage parents, and be unemployed. Marijuana affects memory, language proficiency, and motivation (Lane et al., 2005)—all of which are especially crucial during adolescence. An Australian study found that even occasional marijuana use (once a week) before age 20 affected development up to 10 years later (Degenhardt et al., 2010). How to Escape Imagine living where these boys do, on the streets in the capital city (Tegucigalpa) of Honduras, the nation with the highest murder rate in the world. What would stop you from doing what they do—sniff paint thinner for a dangerous moment of joy? SPENCER PLATT/GETTY IMAGES Those are correlations, which, as you know, do not reveal causation. Is it possible that adolescents who are not particularly clever or ambitious choose to smoke marijuana, rather than vice versa? Is some third variable (such as hostile parents) the cause of both academic problems and drug use, rendering the correlation deceptive? This seems plausible because drug-using adolescents often distrust their parents, injure themselves, hate their schools, and break many laws. These questions led to the hypothesis that the psychic strains of adolescence lead to drug use, not vice versa. In fact, however, longitudinal research suggests that drug use causes more problems than it solves, often preceding anxiety disorders, depression, and rebellion (Chassin et al., 2009; Meririnne et al., 2010). Marijuana use is particularly common among wealthier adolescents, who then become less motivated to achieve in school and more likely to develop other problems (Ansary & Luthar, 2009). Rather than lack of ambition leading to marijuana use, marijuana itself destroys ambition. Harm from Drugs

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Printed Page 385 10.5.3 Preventing Drug Abuse: What Works? Drug abuse is a progression, beginning with a social occasion and ending alone. The first use usually occurs with friends, which leads adolescents to believe that occasional use is an expression of friendship or generational solidarity. Few adolescents are addicts. An early sign of trouble is lower school achievement, but few notice that as early as they should. (See Infographic 10 below for school dropout rates.) VISUALIZING DEVELOPMENT How Many Adolescents Are in School? Attendance in secondary school is a psychosocial topic as much as a cognitive one. Whether or not an adolescent is in school reflects every aspect of the social context, including national policies, family support, peer pressures, and employment prospects. Social scientists believe that one reason for political violence, poverty, and teenage pregnancy in developing nations is that many teenagers are not in school. SOURCES & CREDITS LISTED ON P. SC-1 However, the Monitoring the Future study found that 25 percent of high school seniors had had five drinks in a row in the past two weeks, 11 percent were daily cigarette smokers, and 5 percent were daily marijuana users (Johnston et al., 2012). These figures suggest that addiction is the next step. The younger a person is when beginning occasional drug use, the more likely addiction will eventually occur. That may not persuade young adolescents, who, as you remember, think they are invulnerable, exceptions to any rule. They do not know or care that every psychoactive drug excites the limbic system and interferes with the prefrontal cortex. That makes drug users more emotional (specifics vary, from ecstasy to terror, paranoia to rage) than they otherwise would be, as well as less reflective. Every hazard of adolescence—including car crashes, unsafe sex, and suicide—is more common among teens who have taken a psychoactive drug. With harmful drugs, as with many other aspects of life, each generation prefers to learn things for themselves. A common phenomenon is generational forgetting, the idea that each new generation forgets what the previous generation knew (Chassin et al., 2009; Johnston et al., 2012). Mistrust of the older generation, added to loyalty to one's peers, leads not only to generational forgetting but also to a backlash. If adults say something is forbidden, that is a reason to try it. Some antidrug curricula and advertisements that use scare tactics (such as the one showing eggs being broken into a hot frying pan while an announcer intoned, "This is your brain on drugs") have the opposite effect than intended, increasing rather than decreasing drug use. One reason may be that such advertisements make drugs seem exciting; another may be that adolescents recognize the exaggeration. Anti-smoking announcements produced by cigarette companies (such as one that showed a clean-cut young person advising viewers to think before they started smoking) actually increase use (Strasburger et al., 2009). An added problem is that many parents are unaware of their children's drug use, so their educational efforts may be too late, too general, or too naive. For instance, in one U.S. study, less than 1 percent of parents of sixth-graders thought their children had ever had alcohol, but 22 percent of the children said they had (O'Donnell et al., 2008). In general, adolescents follow their parents' example more than their advice. Changing the social context has had an impact. Throughout the United States, higher prices, targeted warnings, and better law enforcement have led to a marked decline in cigarette smoking among younger adolescents. In 2009, only 6.5 percent of eighth-graders had smoked cigarettes in the past month, compared with 21 percent 10 years earlier (Johnston et al., 2012). RESPONSE FOR Parents Who Drink Socially (from page 384) No. Alcohol is particularly harmful for young brains. It is best to drink only when your children are not around. Children who are encouraged to drink with their parents are more likely to drink when no adults are present. It is true that adolescents are rebellious, and they may drink even if you forbid it. But if you allow alcohol, they might rebel with other drugs. All the research confirms that parents are influential. When parents forbid smoking in their homes, fewer adolescents smoke (Messer et al., 2008); when parents are careful with their own drinking, fewer teenagers abuse alcohol (Van Zundert et al., 2006). When parents provide guidance about drinking, teenagers are less likely to get drunk or use other substances (Miller & Plant, 2010). Growing up with two married parents reduces cigarette and alcohol use, even when other influences (such as parental smoking and family income) are taken into account (Brown & Rinelli, 2010). The probable reasons include better monitoring: Usually, at least one of the parents is aware of what the child is doing. As this chapter draws to a close, it is apparent that, although puberty is a universal biological process, its effects vary widely. Sharply declining rates of teenage pregnancy, abortions, suicides, and homicides, and less use of several legal and illegal drugs are evident in many nations. Changing times bring new iterations of the identity crisis. Human growth starts with genes when a single sperm penetrates a single ovum, but it certainly is not wholly determined by biology. This will be even more apparent in the next five chapters: By the end of adolescence, a person has completed body growth but not development. No adult of any age has been unchanged over the past five years, and no one will be the same five years hence. Many adolescents try psychoactive drugs, most commonly alcohol and cigarettes, although nations vary tremendously in whether drugs are legal and available. Adolescents are often unaware of the dangers of drugs, which are particularly harmful to the developing brain and body. Drug use has declined among U.S. high school students over the past decades, although prescription drugs are abused more often than they once were. Some educational measures to halt adolescent drug use are not effective, but parental example and raising the cost of drugs have reduced prevalence. Preventing Drug Abuse: What Works?

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The _____ regulates the hormonal signal to begin puberty.

12 years, 8 months.

The current average age of menarche among well-nourished girls is:

leptin.

The hormone that affects appetite and is believed to affect the onset of puberty is:

puberty.

The period of rapid physical growth and sexual maturation that ends childhood is called:

spurt

The relatively sudden and rapid physical growth that occurs during puberty is referred to as a growth _____.

a growth spurt.

The relatively sudden and rapid physical growth that occurs during puberty is referred to as:

Females' hips grow wider.

Which of the following is a secondary sex characteristic?

gonads

Which of the following is another name for the sex glands?

Adrenaline

_____ increases during puberty and is also known as epinephrine.