Developmental Psychology Test 5

Effect of culture, acculturative stress

Acculturative stress - psychological distress resulting from conflict between the minority and the host culture Immigrant parents from cultures that emphasize obedience to authority often have difficulty adapting to their teenagers' striving for autonomy. The resulting acculturative stress is associated with adolescent adjustment problems including a decline in self-esteem and a rise in anxiety, depressive symptoms, and deviant behavior, including alcohol use and delinquency.

Phases of adolescent growth and sex differences in timing of growth spurt, proportions, muscle-fat ratio, motor development

Adolescent Phases: 1) Early adolescence ( 11- 12 to 14 years): This is a period of rapid pubertal change. 2) Middle adolescence (14 to 16 years): Pubertal changes are now nearly complete. 3) Late adolescence (16 to 18 years): The young person achieves full adult appearance and anticipates assumption of adult roles. Growth Spurts: ●Girls start growth spurt shortly after age 10. Boys around age 12½. ●Girls are typically taller and heavier during early adolescence, but by age 13½, however, she is surpassed by the typical boy, whose adolescent growth spurt has now started, whereas hers is almost finished. ●Growth in body size is complete for most girls by age 16 and for boys by age 17½. Proportions ●The hands, legs, and feet accelerate first, followed by the torso, which accounts for most of the adolescent height gain. This pattern helps explain why early adolescents often appear awkward and out of proportion, long- legged and with giant feet and hands. ●Large sex differences in body proportions also appear, caused by the action of sex hormones on the skeleton. Boys' shoulders broaden relative to the hips, whereas girls' hips broaden relative to the shoulders and waist. ●Of course, boys also end up considerably larger than girls, and their legs are longer in relation to the rest of the body. The major reason is that boys have two extra years of preadolescent growth, when the legs are growing the fastest Muscle-Fat Ratio ●Around age 8, girls start to add more fat than boys on their arms, legs, and trunk, a trend that accelerates between ages 11 and 16. ●In contrast, arm and leg fat decreases in adolescent boys. ●Although both sexes gain in muscle, this increase is 150 percent greater in boys, who develop larger skeletal muscles, hearts, and lung capacity

Multitasking and the media - affect on attention and learning

Adolescents' most frequent type of media multitasking is listening to music while doing homework, but many also report watching TV or using the internet while studying. Research confirms that media multitasking fragments the attention span, greatly reducing learning. Studies have linked heavy media use with executive function difficulties. Frequent media multitaskers, who are accustomed to continuously shifting their attention from one task to another, have a harder time filtering out irrelevant stimuli when they are not multitasking. Adolescents who often media multitask report multiple executive function problems involving attention, impulse control, and flexible thinking in everyday life.

Condom usage among teens - possible outcomes and related issues that result from it

Adolescents' use of contraceptives, especially condoms, increased throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. More recently, overall rates of contraceptive use stabilized, and condom use declined slightly, at the same time, adolescents increasingly chose other methods that are effective.

Gender typing/identification - trends, factors, effect of androgynous gender identity

Arrival of adolescence is typically accompanied by gender intensification, or increased gender stereotyping of attitudes and behavior, and movement toward a more traditional gender identity. When gender intensification is evident, it seems to be stronger for adolescent girls. Although girls continue to be less gender- typed than boys, some may feel less free to experiment with " other- gender" activities and behaviors than they did in middle childhood. Research on gender intensification, however, is mixed, with some studies finding evidence for it and others reporting few instances. In young people who do exhibit gender intensification, biological, social, and cognitive factors likely are involved. As puberty magnifies sex differences in appearance, teenagers spend more time thinking about themselves in gender- linked ways. Pubertal changes might also prompt gender- typed pressures from others. Parents with traditional gender- role beliefs may encourage " gender- appropriate" activities and behavior more than they did earlier. And when adolescents start to date, they often become more gender- typed as a way of increasing their attractiveness. Finally, cognitive changes—in particular, greater concern with what others think—might make young teenagers more responsive to gender- Overall, androgynous adolescents, especially girls, tend to be psychologically healthier, more self-confident, more willing to speak their own mind, better- liked by peers, and identity- achieved.

Dating - effect of early dating

As long as it does not begin too soon, dating provides lessons in cooperation, etiquette, and dealing with people in a wide range of situations. Among older teenagers, close romantic ties promote sensitivity, empathy, self-esteem, social support, and identity development. Early dating is related to drug use, delinquency, and poor academic achievement.

How can we improve school achievement?

Authoritative parenting is linked to higher grades in school, in contrast, authoritarian and permissive styles are associated with lower grades, and uninvolved parenting predicts the poorest grades. High-achieving students typically have parents who keep tabs on their child's progress, communicate with teachers, and make sure their child is enrolled in challenging, well taught classes. Strong home-school links help. Schools can form parent-school partnerships by strengthening personal relationships between teachers and parents. Peers play a role. Teenagers whose parents value achievement not only tend to be academically motivated but generally choose friends who share those values.

Peer pressure, conformity

Conformity to peer pressure is greater during adolescence than in childhood or early adulthood, it is a complex process, varying with the young person's age, current situation, need for social approval, and culture. A study of several hundred U.S. youths revealed that adolescents felt greatest pressure to conform to the most obvious aspects of the peer culture—dress, grooming, and participation in social activities. Peer pressure to engage in proadult behavior, such as cooperating with parents and getting good grades, was also strong.

Depression and suicide - just generally - not all the stats/lists

Depression - feeling sad, frustrated, and hopeless about life, accompanied by loss of pleasure in most activities and disturbances in sleep, appetite, concentration, and energy - is the most common psychological problem of adolescence. If allowed to continue, depression seriously impairs social, academic, and vocational functioning. Twin studies indicate that depression is modestly heritable Furthermore, onset of depression in girls is more closely associated with the hormonal changes of puberty than with age, but pubertal hormone changes alone rarely trigger depression. Rather, genetic and hormonal risk factors seem to sensitize the brain to react more strongly to stressful experiences. Teenage girls are twice as likely as boys to report persistent depressed mood. Suicide - The suicide rate increases from childhood to late adulthood, but it jumps sharply at adolescence. Currently, suicide is the third-leading cause of death among American youths, after motor vehicle collisions and homicides. Despite girls' higher rates of depression, the number of boys who kill themselves exceeds the number of girls by a ratio of over 4 to 1. Boys have more risk factors for suicide, including substance abuse and aggression. Also, girls make more unsuccessful suicide attempts and use methods from which they are more likely to be revived, such as a sleeping pill overdose. In contrast, boys more often choose techniques that lead to instant death, such as firearms or hanging. Suicide tends to occur in two types of young people. The first group includes adolescents who are highly intelligent but solitary, withdrawn, and unable to meet their own standards or those of important people in their lives. Members of a second, larger group show antisocial tendencies and express their unhappiness through bullying, fighting, stealing, increased risk taking, and drug abuse. Besides being hostile and destructive toward others, they turn their anger and disappointment inward. Suicidal adolescents often have a family history of emotional and antisocial disorders and suicide, and they typically suffer from chronic depression, anxiety, and unresolved anger. In addition, they are likely to have experienced multiple stressful life events, including economic disadvantage, parental divorce, frequent parent- child conflict, and abuse and neglect.

Consequences of timing of puberty for boys and girls (this is a chart in your notes) AND the long-term consequences

Early-maturing girls, especially, are at risk for lasting difficulties. In one study, depression and frequently changing sexual partners persisted into early adulthood among early-maturing girls, with depression evident mainly in those who had displayed the severest adolescent conduct problems. A study showed early-maturing boys showed good adjustment. But early- maturing girls reported poorer- quality relationships with family and friends, smaller social networks, and lower life satisfaction in early adulthood than did their on-time counterparts. Recall that childhood family conflict and harsh parenting are linked to earlier pubertal timing, more so for girls than for boys. As the stresses of puberty interfere with school performance and lead to unfavorable peer pressures, poor adjustment may extend and deepen.

Erikson stage - identity vs. role confusion,

Erikson called the psychological conflict of adolescence identity versus role confusion. He believed that successful psychosocial outcomes of infancy and childhood pave the way toward a positive resolution. He recognized identity as the major personality attainment of adolescence and as a crucial step toward becoming a productive, content adult. Constructing an identity involves defining who you are, what you value, and the directions you choose to pursue in life.

Friendships - what are they like, gender differences, benefits? internet friends? Cliques and Crowds

For friendships teenagers stress three characteristics: Intimacy - psychological closeness, which is supported by mutual understanding of each other's values, beliefs, and feelings. Loyalty - want their friends to be loyal— to stick up for them and not leave them for somebody else. Self-disclosure - sharing of private thoughts and feelings Gender Differences: Emotional closeness is more common between girls than boys. Girls frequently get together to "just talk," and their exchanges contain more self-disclosure and mutually supportive statements. In contrast, boys more often gather for an activity, usually sports and competitive games. Boys' discussions usually focus on accomplishments and mastery issues, such as attainments in sports and school, and involve more competition and conflict. Internet - The quality of adolescents' face-to-face relationships tends to be reproduced in this online medium. In a study of U.S. middle school students diverse in ethnicity and SES, those with positive face-to-face peer relationships had larger networks of webpage friends who frequently posted supportive comments. Teenagers who reported engaging in delinquent acts tended to post hostile comments to their webpage. Cliques—groups of about five to eight members who are friends and, therefore, usually resemble one another in family background, attitudes, values, and interests Crowds - among adolescents attending high schools with complex social structures, often several cliques with similar values form a larger, more loosely organized group called a crowd

Piaget - Formal operations, hypothetico-deductive reasoning, propositional thought, universality of the stage?

Formal Operational Stage - at adolescence young people develop the capacity for abstract, systematic, scientific thinking Hypothetico-Deductive Reasoning - when faced with a problem, they start with a hypothesis, or prediction about variables that might affect an outcome, from which they deduce logical, testable inferences, then they systematically isolate and combine variables to see which of these inferences are confirmed in the real world Propositional Thought - adolescents' ability to evaluate the logic of propositions (verbal statements) without referring to real-world circumstances Universality of the Stage - Many well- educated adults fail hypothetico-deductive tasks and have trouble reasoning with sets of propositions that contradict real-world facts. Individuals in tribal and village societies rarely do well on tasks typically used to assess formal operational reasoning. Researchers have found that schooling fully accounted for early adolescent gains in propositional thought.

Delinquency - just in general what it is, when is it likely (effect of peers)

Juvenile delinquents are children or adolescents who engage in illegal acts. Both police arrests and self-reports show that delinquency rises over early and middle adolescence and then declines. Boys exceed girls in delinquent acts of all kinds, and in adolescence, the gender gap in physical aggression widens. Disruptive, peer-rejected children and adolescents whose parents are lax or ineffective in exerting control seek out antisocial friends, who facilitate one another's antisocial behavior. Delinquent youths seem to stick with these friends to avoid social isolation and to bolster their fragile self-esteem.

Kohlberg's Stages of Moral Development, sex differences

Kohlberg organized moral development into three levels, each with two stages, yielding six stages in all. He believed moral understanding is promoted by actively grappling with moral issues and noticing weaknesses in one's current reasoning, as well as gains in perspective taking, which permit individuals to resolve moral conflicts in more effective ways. ●Preconventional Level - morality is externally controlled: Children accept the rules of authority figures and judge actions by their consequences. Behaviors that result in punishment are viewed as bad, those that lead to rewards as good. - Stage 1: The punishment and obedience orientation. Children at this stage, while recognizing that others may have different thoughts and feelings, still find it difficult to consider two points of view in a moral dilemma. As a result, they overlook people's intentions. Instead, they focus on fear of authority and avoidance of punishment as reasons for behaving morally. - Stage 2: The instrumental purpose orientation. Children at this stage realize that people can have different perspectives in a moral dilemma, but at first this understanding is concrete. They view right action as flowing from self-interest and understand reciprocity as equal exchange of favors. ●Conventional Level - individuals continue to regard conformity to social rules as important, but not for reasons of self-interest. Rather, they believe that actively maintaining the current social system ensures positive human relationships and societal order. - Stage 3: The "good boy/good girl" orientation, or the morality of interpersonal cooperation. The desire to obey rules because they promote social harmony first appears in the context of close personal ties. Individuals want to maintain the affection and approval of friends and relatives by being a "good person." The capacity to view a two-person relationship from the vantage point of an impartial, outside observer, which requires recursive thought supports this new approach to morality. At this stage, individuals understand ideal reciprocity: They express the same concern for the welfare of another as they do for themselves—a standard of fairness summed up by the Golden Rule: - Stage 4: The social-order- maintaining orientation. At this stage, the individual takes into account a larger perspective, that of societal laws. Moral choices no longer depend on close ties to others. Instead, rules must be enforced in the same evenhanded fashion for everyone, and each member of society has a personal duty to uphold them. Individual believes that laws should be obeyed because they are vital for ensuring societal order and cooperation between people. ●Postconventional or Principled Level - People move beyond unquestioning support for the laws and rules of their own society. They define morality in terms of abstract principles and values that apply to all situations and societies. - Stage 5: The social contract orientation. Individuals regard laws and rules as flexible instruments for furthering human purposes. They can imagine alternatives to their own social order, and they emphasize fair procedures for interpreting and changing the law. When laws are consistent with individual rights and the interests of the majority, each person follows them because of a social contract orientation, free and willing participation in the system because it brings about more good for people than if it did not exist. - Stage 6: The universal ethical principle orientation. At this highest stage, right action is defined by self, chosen ethical principles of conscience that are valid for all humanity, regardless of law and social agreement. Individuals typically mention such abstract principles as respect for the worth and dignity of each person. Sex Differences - Some believe that feminine morality and the "ethic of care" is not valued in Kohlbeg's theory. Findings suggest that although he emphasized justice rather than caring as the highest moral ideal, his theory taps both sets of values. On hypothetical dilemmas as well as everyday moral problems, adolescent and adult females display reasoning at the same stage as their male age mates, and often at a higher stage. Themes of justice and caring appear in the responses of both sexes. Girls shift from Stage 2 to Stage 3 reasoning earlier than boys

How is language improved/develop at this stage? what can they now do? Pragmatics, figurative language

Language development is largely complete by the end of childhood, but gains are influenced by adolescents' improved capacity for reflective thought and abstraction, which enhances their metalinguistic awareness, or ability to think about language as a system. They add more abstract nouns and metacognitive verbs (realize, conclude, etc.), use more complex sentences, improve their grasp of figurative language, and analyze and correct grammar more. Pragmatics - improved capacity to adapt language style to social context Figurative language - Figurative language uses figures of speech to be more effective, persuasive, and impactful. Figures of speech such as metaphors, similes, and allusions go beyond the literal meanings of the words to give readers new insights. "Blood is thicker than water"

Influences on moral reasoning and behavior

Many factors affect maturity of moral reasoning, including the young person's personality and a wide range of social experiences, child rearing practices, peer interaction, schooling, and aspects of culture. ●Personality - flexible, open minded young people are usually more socially skilled and have a richer social life giving them more exposure to others perspectives. ●Child-rearing - parenting practices associated with moral maturity in adolescence combine warmth, exchange of ideas, and appropriate demands for maturity. Adolescents who gain most in moral understanding have parents who engage in moral discussions, encourage prosocial behavior, insist that others be treated respectfully and fairly, and create a supportive atmosphere. ●Schooling - From late adolescence on, moral reasoning typically advances as long as a person remains in school. Higher education introduces young people to social issues that extend beyond personal relationships to entire political and cultural groups ●Culture - individuals in industrialized nations move through Kohlberg's stages more quickly and advance to a higher level than individuals in village societies. ●Peer Interaction - Interaction among peers who present differing viewpoints promotes moral understanding. When young people negotiate and compromise with age mates, they realize that social life can be based on cooperation between equals. Teenagers who report more close friendships and who more often participate in conversations with their friends are advanced in moral reasoning.

Adolescent substance use/abuse - how should we treat/prevent this?

School and community programs that reduce drug experimentation typically combine several features: (1) They promote effective parenting, including monitoring of teenagers' activities. (2) They teach skills for resisting peer pressure. (3) They reduce the social acceptability of drug taking by emphasizing health and safety risks. Programs that teach at-risk teenagers effective strategies for handling life stressors and that build competence through community service reduce alcohol and drug use, just as they reduce teenage pregnancy. Providing appealing substitute activities, such as drug- free dances and sports activities, is also helpful. Physical activity works especially well as a substitute for cigarette smoking. In a program aimed at helping teenagers stop smoking, participants were most likely to cut back or quit if the intervention helped them exercise more. When an adolescent becomes a drug abuser, family and individual therapy are generally needed to treat maladaptive parent-child relationships, impulsivity, low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression. Academic and vocational training to improve life success also helps.

School transition - what effect on grades, self-esteem? How can we help them adjust?

School transitions can create adjustment problems. With each school change, from elementary to middle or junior high and then to high school, adolescents' grades decline. School transitions are also associated with reductions in achievement test scores and attendance. For vulnerable youths, the transition to high school may initiate a downward spiral in school involvement and performance that eventually leads to failure and dropping out. Help Adjust - Support from parents, teachers, and peers can ease transition issues. Parental involvement, monitoring, gradual autonomy granting, and emphasis on mastery rather than merely good grades are associated with better adjustment. Adolescents with close friends are more likely to sustain these friendships across the transition, which increases social integration and academic motivation in the new school. Forming smaller units within large schools promotes closer relations with both teachers and peers along with greater extracurricular involvement.

Marcia's Identity Statuses - know all four statuses, remember that they vary on whether or not there was exploration and whether or not the individual has committed to an identity, can it change?

Some people remain in one status, whereas others experience many status transitions. ●Identity Achievement - commitment to a clearly formulated set of self-chosen values, beliefs and goals, following a period of exploration. ●Identity Moratorium - exploration without having reached commitment. They are in the process of exploring, gathering information and trying out activities, with the desire to find values and goals to guide their lives. ●Identity Foreclosure - commitment in the absence of exploration. They accept a ready-made identity chosen for them by authority figures, usually parents but sometimes teachers, religious leaders, or romantic partners. ●Identity Diffusion - an apathetic state characterized by lack of both exploration and commitment. They are not committed to values and goals, nor are they actively trying to reach them.

Cognitive changes result what consequences? Criticism, Idealism. How do they differ from adults in cognition, decision making?

The development of increasingly complex, effective thinking leads to dramatic revisions in the way adolescents see themselves, others, and the world in general, though they many initially falter in their abstract thinking. Criticism & Idealism - The disparity between teenagers' idealism and adults' greater realism creates tension between parent and child. Envisioning a perfect family against which their parents and siblings fall short, adolescents become fault-finding critics. Overall, however, teenage idealism and criticism are advantageous. Once adolescents come to see other people as having both strengths and weaknesses, they have a much greater capacity to work constructively for social change and to form positive and lasting relationships. Differ from adults in Cognition & Decision Making - teenagers perform less well than adults in planning and decision making, where they must inhibit emotion and impulses in favor of thinking rationally. Adolescents, relative to adults, are more influenced by the possibility of immediate reward , more willing to take risks and less likely to avoid potential losses, and more likely to fall back on well-learned intuitive judgments.

Scientific Reasoning

The heart of scientific reasoning is coordinating theories with evidence. The ability to reason scientifically improves with age and is strongly influenced by years of schooling. Adolescents and adults vary widely in scientific reasoning skills. Information- processing findings confirm that scientific reasoning does not result from an abrupt, stage-wise change, as Piaget believed. Instead, it develops gradually out of many specific experiences that require children and adolescents to match theories against evidence and reflect on and evaluate their thinking.

Drop-out prevention

The most powerful way to prevent school dropout is to address the academic and social problems of at-risk students beginning in elementary school, and to involve their parents. In addition, programs have been developed for adolescents, including: ●Supplementary academic instruction and counseling that offer personalized attention ●High-quality vocational education. ●Efforts to address the many factors in students' lives related to leaving school early. ●Participation in extracurricular activities

Improving resilience

To foster resilience we can add the following resources, which are particularly beneficial in adolescence: ●A balance between family connection and separation ●Effective family problem solving that models and encourages rational decision making ●Parental monitoring and school involvement ●Close, supportive friendships ●High-quality vocational education ●A culturally sensitive school and community that foster a secure ethnic or bicultural identity ●Affiliation with a religious organization ●Opportunities to participate in extracurricular activities, youth organizations, and community service

Outlook for drop-outs and non-college bound? Effect of work study programs?

U.S. non-college bound high school graduates, though they are more likely to find employment than youths who drop out, still have fewer work opportunities than high school graduates of several decades ago. About 30 percent of recent U.S. high school graduates who do not continue their education are unemployed. When they do find work, most hold low paid, unskilled jobs. Participation in work study programs or other jobs that provide academic and vocational learning opportunities is related to positive school and work attitudes, improved achievement, and reduced delinquency

Sex difference - verbal and math skills, how improve?

Verbal - Girls attain higher scores in reading and writing achievement and account for a lower percentage of children referred for remedial reading instruction. Girls continue to score slightly higher on tests of verbal ability in middle childhood and adolescence in every country in which assessments have been conducted, and when verbal tests are heavily weighted with writing, girls' advantage is large. A special concern is that girls' advantage in reading and writing achievement increases in adolescence, with boys doing especially poorly in writing— trends evident in the United States and other industrialized nations. Math - Studies of sex differences in mathematical abilities in the early school grades are inconsistent. Some find no disparities, others slight differences depending on the math skill assessed. Girls tend to be advantaged in counting, arithmetic computation, and mastery of basic concepts, perhaps because of their better verbal skills and more methodical approach to problem solving But by late childhood and early adolescence, when math concepts become more abstract and spatial, boys outperform girls. The difference is especially evident on tests requiring complex reasoning In science achievement, too, boys' advantage increases as problems become more difficult. This male advantage is evident in most countries where boys and girls have equal access to secondary education. But the gap is typically small, varies considerably across nations, and has diminished over the past 30 year. How Improve - extra steps must be taken to promote girls' interest in and confidence at math and science. In cultures that value gender equality, sex differences in math achievement are much smaller. Similarly, math and science achievement gaps are smaller in countries with higher proportions of women in research-related professions, and in countries where few individuals view science as "masculine". Finally, a math curriculum beginning in kindergarten that teaches children how to apply effective spatial strategies (drawing diagrams, mentally manipulating visual images, searching for numerical patterns, and graphing) is vital.

How are adolescents being injured?

● Automobile accidents are the leading killer of U.S. teenagers, accounting for more than 25 percent of deaths between ages 15 and 19. ● In the United States, firearms cause the majority of other fatal injuries. The rate of disability and death resulting from firearms is especially high in poverty-stricken inner-city neighborhoods. ● A third type of adolescent injury is sports-related. Close to 2 million U.S. 10-to 19-year-olds with sports and recreational injuries visit hospital emergency departments each year.

Sexual activity - effect of culture, where learn information, how talk to kids about sex (how many parents do, what can we do to improve)

● Effect of Culture - Cultural attitudes vary widely across the world. At one extreme are a number of Middle Eastern peoples, who murder girls if they lose their virginity before marriage. At the other extreme are several Asian and Pacific Island groups with highly permissive sexual attitudes and practices. North America is relatively restrictive. ●Where information is learned - Typically parents provide little info, about half of young people report getting info from their parents. Majority learn from friends, books, magazines, movies, TV, and the Internet. ●How to improve - open dialogue that is balanced with mutual interaction, use of correct body terms, reflect before speaking, and keep the conversation going

Eating disorders - anorexia and bulimia

●Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder in which young people starve themselves because of a compulsive fear of getting fat. About 1 percent of North American and Western European teenage girls are affected. It is observed less frequently among African Americans, Asian Americans, and Hispanics than among whites. Boys account for 10 to 15 percent of anorexia cases; up to half of these are gay or bisexual. ● Bulimia nervosa is an eating disorder in which young people (again, mainly girls, but gay and bisexual boys are also vulnerable) engage in strict dieting and excessive exercise accompanied by binge eating, often followed by deliberate vomiting and purging with laxatives. Bulimia is more common than anorexia nervosa, affecting about 2 to 4 percent of teenage girls, only 5 percent of whom previously suffered from anorexia. Twin studies show that bulimia, like anorexia, is influenced by heredity. Overweight and early menarche increase the risk.

Phases of vocational development - fantasy, tentative, realistic

●Fantasy period: In early and middle childhood, children gain insight into career options by fantasizing about them. Their preferences, guided largely by familiarity, glamour, and excitement, usually bear little relation to the decisions they will eventually make. ●Tentative period: Between ages 11 and 16, adolescents think about careers in more complex ways, at first in terms of their interests, and soon in terms of their abilities and values. ●The realistic period: By the late teens and early twenties, with the economic and practical realities of adulthood just around the corner, young people start to narrow their options. A first step is often further exploration, gathering more information about possibilities that blend with their personal characteristics. In the final phase, crystallization, they focus on a general vocational category and experiment for a time before settling on a single occupation.

Timing of puberty - what affects this? What is the secular trend?

●Heredity contributes substantially to the timing of pubertal changes. Identical twins are more similar than fraternal twins in attainment of most pubertal milestones, including growth spurt, menarche, breast development, body hair, and voice changes. ●Nutrition and exercise also make a difference. In females, a sharp rise in body weight and fat may trigger sexual maturation. Fat cells release a protein called leptin, which is believed to signal the brain that the girl's energy stores are sufficient for puberty. A likely reason that breast and pubic hair growth and menarche occur earlier for heavier and, especially, obese girls. In contrast, girls who begin rigorous athletic training at an early age or who eat very little (both of which reduce the percentage of body fat) usually experience later puberty. ●Variations in pubertal growth also exist between regions of the world and between SES and ethnic groups. Physical health plays a major role. In poverty- stricken regions where malnutrition and infectious disease are common, menarche is greatly delayed, occurring as late as age 14 to 16 in many parts of Africa. Within developing countries, girls from higher- income families typically reach menarche 6 to 18 months earlier than those living in economically disadvantaged homes. ●In industrialized nations where food is abundant, the joint roles of heredity and environment in pubertal growth are apparent. For example, breast and pubic hair growth begin, on average, around age 9 in African- American girls, a year earlier than in Caucasian- American girls. And African- American girls reach menarche about six months earlier, around age 12. Although widespread overweight and obesity in the black population contribute, a genetically influenced faster rate of physical maturation is also involved. Black girls usually reach menarche before white girls of the same age and body weight. ●Early family experiences may also affect pubertal timing. One theory suggests that humans have evolved to be sensitive to the emotional quality of their childhood environments. When children's safety and security are at risk, it is adaptive for them to reproduce early. Research indicates that girls and (less consistently) boys with a history of family conflict, harsh parenting, or parental separation tend to reach puberty early. In contrast, those with warm, stable family ties reach puberty relatively late. Secular Trend: Children in industrialized nations grow faster and larger than in past generations. Similarly, age of menarche declined steadily, by about 3 to 4 months per decade— from 1900 to 1970, a period in which nutrition, health care, sanitation, and control of infectious disease improved greatly. Boys, too, have reached puberty earlier in recent decades. This secular trend in pubertal timing lends added support to the role of physical well- being in adolescent growth. However, the secular gain in height has slowed. And the trend toward earlier menarche has stopped or undergone a slight reversal in most industrialized nations. But in the United States and a few European countries, soaring rates of overweight and obesity are responsible for a modest, continuing trend toward earlier menarche.

Primary vs. secondary sexual characteristics (see table 14.1)

●Primary sexual characteristics involve the reproductive organs directly (ovaries, uterus, and vagina in females; penis, scrotum, and testes in males). ●Secondary sexual characteristics are visible on the outside of the body and serve as additional signs of sexual maturity. For example, breast development in females and the appearance of underarm and pubic hair in both sexes.

Self-concept, self esteem trends

●Self-concept - By the end of middle childhood, children describe themselves in terms of personality traits. In early adolescence, the self differentiates further. Teenagers mention a wider array of traits, which vary with social context. For example, self with mother, father, close friends, and romantic partner and as student, athlete, and employee. ●Self-esteem - the evaluative side of self-concept, continues to differentiate in adolescence. Teenagers add several new dimensions of self evaluation: close friendship, romantic appeal, and job competence. Level of global self-esteem also changes. Though some adolescents experience temporary or persisting declines after school transitions self-esteem rises from mid to late adolescence for most young people, who report feeling especially good about their peer relationships, physical appearance, and athletic capabilities. An increasing sense of mastery, feeling competent and in control of one's life strongly predicted this rise in self-esteem .

Hormone changes in adolescence

●Sex hormones begin to rise long before physical changes are visible, typically between ages 6 and 8, when the adrenal glands on top of each kidney start to release increasing levels of adrenal androgens, an event called adrenarche. By age 10, levels of adrenal androgens have increased tenfold, and some children experience their first feelings of sexual attraction. ●Adrenal androgens influence girls' height spurt, and they stimulate growth of underarm and pubic hair. Estrogens released by girls' maturing ovaries contribute to the height spurt by stimulating GH secretion, and they cause the breasts, uterus, and vagina to mature, the body to take on feminine proportions, and fat to accumulate. In addition, estrogens play a crucial role in regulation of the menstrual cycle. ●Boys' maturing testes release large quantities of the androgen testosterone, which leads to muscle growth, body and facial hair, and other male sex characteristics. Androgens (especially testosterone) exert a GH-enhancing effect, contributing greatly to gains in body size. The testes secrete small amounts of estrogen as well, which add to the height spurt and lead many boys to experience temporary breast enlargement, lasting up to two years. ●In both sexes, estrogens in combination with androgens stimulate gains in bone density, which continue into early adulthood