lifespan chapter 11 and 12

individual differences in pubertal growth

• Heredity contributes substantially to the timing of pubertal hanges. Nutrition and exercise also have an effect • In females, a sharp rise in body weight and fat may trigger sexual maturation through release of a protein called leptin, which believed to signal the brain that the girl's energy stores are suffieient for puberty • Girls who ar heavier may experience puberty earlier; girls who train vigiourously or eat very little may experience later puberty • In poverty-stricken regions where malnutrition and infectious disease are common, menarche is greatly delayed • Early family experiences may also affect pubertal timing, perhaps because humans have evolved to be sensitive to the emotional quality of their childhood environments • Girls with history of family stress reach puberty earlier; those from warm, nurtuting family experience it later • The existence of a secular trend, or generational change, in pubertal timing lends added support to the role of physical well-being in pubertal development • In industraialized nations, age of menarche decline by about 3 to 4 months per decade from 1900 to 1970, a period in which public health improved greatly • In the united states and few European countries, soaring rates of overweight and obesity are sustaining this trend

parent school partnerships

• High-achieving students typically have parents who monitior their child's progress, communicate with teachers, and makre sure their child's classes are challenging and well taught • Creation of stronger home- school links can relive som of the stress experienced by parents who live in low-income, high risk neighborhoods

classroom learning experiences

• IN large, departmentalized secondary schools, many adolescents report that their classes lack warmth and supportiveness, which dampens motivation • Because of the uneven quality of instruction In US schools, many seniors graduate from high school defieient in basic academic skills, particularly by low SES minority students • They too often attend underfunded school with rundown buildings outdated eqpuipment, textbook shortages, crime and discipline problems • They may be placed in low academic tracks, compounding learning difficulties, and declaring academic achievement • High school students are separated into academic and vocational tracks in virtually all industrialized nations • By adolescence, SES differences in educational quality and academic achievement are greater in the United States than in motor industrialized nations

sexual maturation

• In adolescence, changes occur in physical features related to sexual functioning • Primary sexual characteristics involve the reproductive organs • Secondary sexual characteristics are additional signs of sexual maturity that are visible on the outside of the body • Typically, pubertal development takes about four years.

bulimia Nervosa

• In bulimia nervosa, young people-mainly girls, but also some gay and bisexual boys-engage in strict dieting and excessive exercise accompined by binge eating, often followed by deliberat vomiting and purging with laxatives • Bulimia typically appears in late adolescence and is more common than anorexia, affecting about 2 to 4 percent of teenage girls • Bulimia is influenced by heredity as well as by overweight and early menarche • Most adolescents with bulimia are impulsive and sensation seeking and lack self-control in many areas • In contrast to young people with anorexia, those with bulimia usually feel depressed and guilty about their abnormal eating habits, making bulimia easier to treat than anorexia • Treatment may include support groups, nutrition education, and anti anxiety/depression/appetite control medication

pubertal timing

• In studies of pubertal timing, early-maturing boys were viewed by both adults and peers as relaxed , independent self-confident, and physically attractive, whereas early-maturing girls were unpopular, withdrawn, lacking in self-confidence, anxious and prone to depression • These trends reflect how closely to adolescent's body matches culture ideals of physical attractiveness, and how well young people fit in physically with peers • Two factors account for this; how closely physical development matches cultural ideals of physical attractiveness, and how well they fit in with peers

teen pregnancy

• In the most recently reported year about 727,000 US teenage girls become pregnant, 12,000 of them are younger than age 15 • The US adolescent pregnancy rate remains higher than that of most other industrialized nations • Because one fourth of the US teenage pregnancies end in abortion, the number of teenage births is considerably lower than it was 50 years ago • However, adolescents who do not give birth are far less likely than in the past to marry before childbirth, and very few girls give up their infants for adoption due to increased social acceptance, and belief that the child will fill void • 87% of births to unwed mothers

inforamtion processing view of adolescent cognitive development

• Information-processing theorists refer to a variety of specific mechanisms underlying cognitive gains adolesences • Attention becomes more selective • Inhibition improves • Strageties become more effective • Knowledge increase • Metacognition expands • Cognitive self regulation improves • Speed of thinking and processing capacity increase • One of these mechanisms of change-metacognition- central to adolescent cognitive development

correlates and consequences of parenthood

• Low parental warmth, child abuse • Repeated parental divorce • Adult models of unmarried parenthood • Poor school achievement • Alcohol, drug use • Antisocial behavior • Low SES • Girls at risk perform poorly at school, engage in alcohol/drug abuse, childhood history of aggressive/antisocial behavior • The lives of expectant teenagers tend to worsen in several respsects after the baby is born• Teenage parents have life conditions and personal attributes that interfere with their ability to parent effectively

sexually active adolescents

• Overall, teenage sexual activity rates are similar in the United states and other western countries; Nearly half of adolescents have had intercourse • US youths become sexually active earlier than their Canadian and European counterparts, but most have only one or two sexual partners by the end of high school • Males become sexually active earlier than females • Early and frequent teenage sexual activity is linked to personal, family, peer and educational characterists • These characteristics include impulsivity, early puberty, parental divorce, single/step families, lare family sizes, weak or no religious involvement, weak parental monitoring, poor parent-child communication, sexually active friends, poor school performance/aspirations, drug/alchol abuse, deliquencey • Early sexual activity is more common among young people who grow up in economically disadvangated families • Living in hazardous neighborhoods also increases the likelihood that teenares will be sexually active • This factor largely accounts for the high rate of sexual activity among African American teenagers

academic achievement

• Positive educational environments, both family and school, lead to personal traits that support achievements, such as confidence in one's abilities and the desire to succeed

prevention strategies teen mom

• Preventing teenage pregnancy means addressing the factors underlying early sexual activity and lack of contraceptive use • Effective sex education programs: o Teach techniques for handling sexual situations through role playing o Deliver culturally appropriate accurate messages o Last long enough to have an impact o Provide specific information about contraceptives and ready access to them o These components can delay initial sexual activity, reduce frequency of sex and number of partners, increase contraception use, and reduce pregnancy rates o Proposal to increase access to contraceptives are the most controversial aspect of US adolescent pregnancy prevention efforts, but programs encourage abstinence without encouraging contraceptive use have little or no impact delay teenage sexual activity or preventing pregnancy o In Canada and Western Europe, where contraceptives are available to teenagers and subsidized by universal health insurance, teenage sexual activity is no higher than in the United states but pregnancy, childbirth, and abortion rates are lower o Teenager who look forward to a promising future are far less likely to engage in early and irresponsible

propositional thought

• Propositional thought refers to adolescents' ability to evaluate the logic of propositions (verbal statements) without referring to real world circumstances • Formal operations require language-based and other symbolic systems that do not stand for real things as well as verbal reasoning about abstract concepts

parent child relationship

• Puberty is related to a rise in intensity of parent-child conflict, which persisits into middle adolescence, due to demands to be treated as adults • Parents-adolescent disagreements focus largely on everyday matters such as dating partners and curfews-reflect parent's desire to protect their teenagers from harm • Parent-daughter conflict tends to be more intense than conflict with sons, but most disputes are mild and diminish by late adolescents • As the teenage years conclude, parent-adolescent interactions are less hierahial, setting the stage for mutually supportive relationships in adulthood

prevention and treatment of drug use

• School and community programs that reduce drug experimentation typically reach skills for resisting peer pressure, emphasize the health and safety risk, and get adolescents to commit to not using drugs • Interventions that prevent teenagers from hamming themselves and other when they do experiment with drugs are essential, such as weekend on-call transportation services • Preventing during absue requires different stragieties, including working with parents early and teaching at risk teenagers effective strageties for handling life stressors • When abuse exists, family/individual therapy needed to treat maladaptive parental relationship, impulsivity, low self esteem, anxiety and depression • Academic/vocational remedation/training also can be effective • Nevertheless, relapse rate is very high • May need to start treatment gradually through small groups that focus on reducing drug use

helping adolescents adjust to school traditions

• School transitions often lead to environemtal changes that fit poorly with adolescents' developmental needs, but support from parents, teachers, and peers can ease these strains • Parental involvement, monitioring, granting gradual autonomy, and emphasis on mastery rather than grades-better adjustment • Forming smaller units within larger schools promotes closer relationships with both teachers and peers and greater extracurricular involvement

stds

• Sexually active adolescents have the highest rates of sexually transmitted diseases of all age groups • One out of five t0 six sexually active teenagers contracts and STD each year- a rate three or more times as high as that of Canada and western Europe • Left Untreated, STDS can lead to sterility and life-threatening complications • The most serious STD is AIDS • In contrast to other Western nations, where the incidence of AIDS among people under 30 is low, about 15% of US AIDS cases occur in young people between the ages of 20 and 29, nearly all of these cases originating in adolescence • Drug-abusing teenagers who share needles and male adolescents who have sex with HIV-Positive males account for most cases, but heterosexual spread of the disease remains high • As a result of school cources and media campagins, most adolescents are aware of basic facts about AIDS, but they have limited understanding of other STDs and are poorly informed about how to protect themselves

tole of physical attractiveness

• Society's view of an attractive female is thin and long-legged- a girlish shape that favors the late developer • The good-looking male image-tall, broad sholdered, and muscular- fits the early maturing boy • Caucasian girls more likely to have internalized the cultural ideal of femal attractiveness-most want to be thinner • Body image-conception of and attitude toward one's physical appearance-is a strong predictor of young people' s self esteem • The negative effects of pubertal timing on body image are greatly amplified when accompanied by other stressors

decision making

• Teenagers often perform less well than adults in decision making, where they must inhibit emotin and impulses in favor thinking rationally. This involves: o Evaluating pros and cons o Assessing likelihood of various outcomes o Evaluating choice in terms of wheter goals met o Evlautaing choice in terms of wheter goals were met o Learning from mistakes and making better future decisions o Even under "Cool" unemotional conditions, teenagres are less likely than adults to carefully evaluate alternatives; instead, they fall back on well-learned intuitive judgements o Processing skills governed by the prefrontal cortex's cognitive control system develop gradually o Adolescents often do not have sufficient knowledge to consider pros and cons and predict likely outcomes o Overtime, young people learn from their successes and failures gather information from others about factors that affect decision making and reflect on the decision-making process

peer influences

• Teenagers who parents value achievement generally choose friends who share those values • Peer support for high achievement also depends on the overall climate of the peer culture, which, for ethnic minority youths, is powerfully affected by the surrounding social order • In one study, integration into the school peer network predicted higher grades for Caucasians and hispancis but not for Asians and African American • Asians culture places higher value on family and teachers, while African American teens may see their ethnic group is worse off in educational attainment, jobs, income and housing • Discriminatory treatment by teachers and peers, often resulting from stereotypes, triggers anger, anxiety, self-doubt, declines in achievement, and increases in problems behavior among African American adolescents • Schools that build close networks of support between teachers and peer cn prevent these negative outcomes • Research confirms that teenagers' media multitasking: in classrooms and while studying at home- greatly reduces learning

scientific reasoning: coordinating theory with evidence

• The ability to distinguish theory from evidence and use logical rules to examine their relationship improves steaidly form childhood into adolescence and adulthood

body growth

• The first outward sign of puberty is the rapid gain in height and weight called the growth spurt, during which adolescents add 10 to 11 inches in height and 50 to 75 lbs. Growth is complete for most girls by age 16 and for boys by age 17 ½ • Growth of the hands, legs and feet accelerates first, followed by the torso • Large sex differences in body proportions also appear: boys sholders broaden relative to the hips and girls hips broaden relative to the shoulders and waist • Around age 8, girls start to add fat on their arms, legs, and trunk, a trend that accelerates from age 11 to 16, while boys' arm and leg fat decreases • Boys develop larger skeletal muscle, hearts, and lung capacity than girls

sexual maturation in boys

• The first sign of puberty in boys is the enlargement of the testes, accompanied by chanes in scrotum • Pubic hairs emerge soon after about the same time the penis begins to enlarge • When the growth spurt reaches its peak, at about 14, enlargement of the testes and penis is nearly complete; underarm, facial and body hair appear, and the voice deepends-larnyx and vocal cords lenthen • Speramarche, or first ejaculation, usually occurs aroung 13 ½

hormonal changes

• The hormonal changes underlying puberty are under way by age 8 or 9, when secretions of growth hormone (GH) and thyrozine increase, leading to enormous gains in body size and to attainment of skeletal maturity

impact of culture on sexuality

• Typically, North American parents give children little or no information about sex, discourage sex play, and rarely talk about sex in their children's presence • Adolescence who do not get the information about sex from their parents are likely to learn from friends, magazines, books tv and the interenet • Warm, open, given and take associated with teens adopting their parent's views and reduced sexual risk taking • On prime time tv shows , which adolescents watch more than other tv offerings, 80 percent of programs contain sexual content • Most show partners as spontaneous and passionate-no concerns for pregnancy, STDs, and no negative consequences • In a large survey, 42 percent of US 10-17 year old web users said they had viewed online pornography- 66 percent accidently- while surfing the internet • Adolescents receive contradictory messages about sex: Adults express disapproval of sex at a young age and outside of marriage, but the social environment extols sexual excitement, experimentation, and promiscuity

correlates and conseques of adolescent substance abuse

• Unlike experimenters, drug abusers are seriously troubled adolescents whose impulsive, disruptive, hostile style is often evidence in early childhood • Their drug taking starts earlier than other adolescents' and may have genetic roots but it is also promoted by environemtnal factors, including low SES and lack parental involvement • Family difficulties and encouragement from friends who use and procide increases abuse • Introducing drugs while the asolescent brian is still a work-in progress can have profound, lasting consequences, impairing neurons and thei connective networks. • They also fail to learn responsible decision making and alternative coping to deal with daily stresses • They exhibit serious adjustment problems: anxiety, depression antisocial behavior- both cause and consequence • Frequently fail at marriage, childbearing and working

intervening with adolescent parents

• Young parents need health care, encouragement to stay in school, job training , instruction in parenting and life-management skills, and high quality affordable child care • This reduces incidence of low birth weight babies, increases educational success, and prevents additional childbearing • Adolescent mothers benefit from relationships with family members and other adults who are sensitive to their developmental needs • Teenage mothers who receive financial and child care assistance and emotional support from their child's father are more likely to sustain a relationship with him, and infants with lasting ties to their teenage fathers show better long-term adjustment

parent child relationships (chpater 12)

- A variety of changes within the adolescent support autonomy. - Puberty triggers psychological distancing from parents. - As young people look more mature, parents give them more independence and responsibility. - Gradually, adolescents solve problems and make decisions more effectively. - An improved ability to reason about social relationships leads teenagers to see their parents as "just people," and do not respond as easily to parental authority as they did earlier - Warm, supportive parenting that grants young people freedom to explore while making appropriate demands for maturity fosters autonomy, self-reliance, academic achievement, positive self-esteem, and ease of separation when entering college. - The opposite is true of coercive parents - Consistent parental monitoring, through a cooperative relationship with the adolescent, is linked to a variety of positive outcomes- prevention of delinquency/sexual activity, improved school performance, positive psychological well-being - Immigrant parents from cultures that highly value family closeness and obedience to authority have greater difficulty adapting to their teenagers' push for autonomy. - As a result, adolescents may experience acculturative stress- results in decline in self-esteem, rise in anxiety, depression, alcohol use, delinquency - Throughout adolescence, the quality of the parent-child relationship is the single most consistent predictor of mental health. - Teenagers remain attached to parents and seek their advice, but do so in the context of greater freedom - By middle to late adolescence, most parents and children achieve a mature, mutual relationship, a harmonious interaction is on the rise.

changes in self-esteem

- Adolescents add several new dimensions of self-evaluation to those of middle childhood - Self-esteem rises for most young people, who see themselves as more mature, capable and attractive - In longitudinal research on U.S. youths, an increasing sense of mastery-feeling competent and in control of one's life-strongly predicted this age-related rise in self-esteem - Authoritative parenting and encouragement from teachers predict high self-esteem in adolescence, whereas teenagers whose parents are critical and insulting tend to rely only on peers to affirm their self-esteem - Some young people remain in one status, whereas others experience many status transitions - The pattern often varies across identity domains, such as sexual orientation, vocation, and religious values - Most young people move from "lower" statuses (foreclosure or diffusion) to higher ones (moratorium or achievement) between their mid-teens and mid-twenties, but as many remain stable, some move in the reserve direction - Attending college promotes identity development by providing students with expanded opportunities to explore career options and lifestyles - Those who work right after high school settle of self-definition earlier, though encountering obstacles may leads to identity foreclosure and diffusion

coordinating moral, social conventional and personal concerns

- As adolescents enlarge the range of issues they regard as personal, they think more intently about conflicts between personal choice and community obligations (restricting speech, religion, marriage, childbearing). - As they integrate personal rights with ideal reciprocity, adolescents demand that the protections they want for themselves extend to others (banning smoking for greater good). - Teenagers eventually realize that violating strongly held conventions in favor of asserting personal choices can harm others, either by inducing distress or by undermining fair treatment. - Young people come to understand that social conventions are vital for maintaining a just and peaceful society—a central aspect of Kohlberg's Stage 4

pre conventional level

- At the preconventional level, morality is externally controlled. Children accept the rules of authority figures and judge actions by their consequences. - Stage 1: The punishment and obedience orientation: Children at this stage focus on fear of authority and avoidance of punishment as reasons for behaving morally. - Stage 2: The instrumental purpose orientation: Children view right action as flowing from self-interest and understand reciprocity as equal exchange of favors

are the sex differences in moral reasoning?

- Carol Gilligan and others have argued that Kohlberg's theory does not adequately represent the morality of girls and women. - Gilligan believes that feminine morality emphasizes an "ethic of care" that Kohlberg's system devalues—a different but no less valid basis for moral judgment than a focus on impersonal rights. - Most studies do not support Gilligan's claim that Kohlberg's approach underestimates the moral maturity of females. - 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 - Females tend to emphasize care, while males either stress justice, or justice and care- may reflect women's greater involvement in daily activities involving care and concern for others

friendhsip and adjustment

- Close adolescent friendships that are high in trust and not characterized by relational aggression or attraction to antisocial behavior contribute to many aspects of psychological health and competence into early adulthood. - They provide opportunities to explore the self and develop a deep understanding of another. -They provide a foundation for future intimate relationships. - They help young people deal with the stresses of adolescence - They can improve attitudes toward and involvement in schoo

factors related to adolescent sucicide

- Despite girls' higher rates of depression, three or four times as many boys as girls kill themselves, while girls make more unsuccessful suicide attempts. - African Americans and Hispanics have lower suicide rates than Caucasian Americans, but recently suicide has risen among African-American adolescent males. - Native-American youths commit suicide at rates two to six times national averages, probably influenced by high rates of profound family poverty, school failure, and alcohol and drug use. - Gay, lesbian, and bisexual youths attempt suicide three times as often as other adolescents, as a result of more family conflict, inner turmoil about their sexuality, and peer victimization. - Suicide tends to occur in two types of young people: adolescents who are highly intelligent but solitary, withdrawn, and unable to meet their own standards, and a larger group of teenagers who show antisocial tendencies and turn their anger inward. - Suicidal adolescents often have a family history of emotional and antisocial disorders and are likely to have experienced multiple stressful life events. - Cognitive changes, such as an improved ability to plan ahead, lead to an increase in suicide rates in adolescence

sex differences in friendships

- Emotional closeness is more common between girls, who engage in more self-disclosure than boys. - Boys' discussions usually focus on accomplishments and involve more competition and conflict. - Friendship closeness has costs as well as benefits. - (1) Adolescent friends sometimes coruminate, or repeatedly mull over problems and negative emotions, an activity that triggers anxiety and depression. - (2) When conflict arises between intimate friends, more potential exists for one party to harm the other through relational aggression

Identity status and psychological well being

- Identity achievement and moratorium are both psychologically healthy routes to mature self-definition, whereas long-term foreclosure and diffusion are maladaptive - Adolescents in moratorium resemble identity-achieved individuals in using an active, information-gathering cognitive style to make personal decisions and solve problems - Young people who are identity-achieved or exploring have higher self-esteem, feel more in control on their lives, are more likely to view school and work as feasible avenues for realizing their aspirations, and are more advanced in moral reasoning - Adolescents stuck in either long-term foreclosure or diffusion are passive in the face of identity concerns and have adjustment difficulties - Foreclosed individuals play a dogmatic, inflexible cognitive style, internalizing the values and beliefs of parents and others without deliberate evaluation and resisting information that threatens their position - Long-term diffused individuals typically use a diffuse-avoidant cognitive style, allowing current situational pressures to dictate their reactions instead of dealing with personal decisions and problems. Their apathy often reflects a sense of hopelessness

cliques and crowds

- In early adolescence, tightly knit peer groups tend to form, organized into cliques —small groups of friends who usually resemble one another in family background, attitudes, and values. - At first, cliques are limited to same-sex members. - Clique membership is more important to girls, who use it as a context for expressing emotional closeness. - Among Western adolescents attending high schools with complex social structures, often several cliques with similar values form a larger, more loosely organized group called a crowd. - Membership in a crowd is based on reputation and stereotype. - Typical high school crowds include "brains," "jocks," "partyers," and "normals." - Crowd affiliations are linked to strengths in adolescents' self-concept's. - Minority teenagers who associate with an ethnically defined crowd, as opposed to a crowd reflecting their abilities and interests, may be motivated by discrimination in their school or neighborhood - As interest in dating increases, boys' and girls' cliques come together into mixed-sex cliques, which provide models for how to interact with the other sex. - By late adolescence, as boys and girls become comfortable approaching each other directly, mixed-sex cliques disappear. - Crowds decline in importance as adolescents settle on personal values and goals

sex differences

- In industrialized nations, girls are more prone to depression than boys, but in developing countries, rates of depression are similar for males and females and occasionally higher in males. - Gender-typed coping styles seem to be responsible. - (1) Early-maturing girls are especially prone to depression. - (2) Adolescent gender intensification may strengthen girls' passivity, dependency, and tendency to ruminate on their anxieties and problems. - Girls who repeatedly feel troubled and insecure develop an overly reactive physiological stress response and cope more poorly with future challenges. - Stressful experiences and stress reactivity feed on one another, sustaining depression. - Profound depression can lead to suicidal thoughts and to suicide attempts

the post conventional or principled level

- Individuals at the postconventional level define morality in terms of abstract principles and values that apply to all situations and societies. - (1) Stage 5: The social contract orientation: Individuals view laws and rules as flexible instruments for furthering human purposes and will freely follow them when they are consistent with individual rights and the interests of the majority. - (2) 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 people, regardless of law and social agreement

peer interactions

- Interaction among peers who present differing viewpoints promotes moral understanding. - Through negotiation and compromise, young people realize that social life can be based on cooperation between equals rather than authority relations. - Peer discussions of moral problems have provided the basis for interventions aimed at improving high school and college students' moral understanding

kohlberg's stages

- Kohlberg believed that moral understanding is promoted by actively grappling with moral issues and noticing weaknesses in one's current reasoning, and by gains in perspective taking - Preconventional, conventional, Postconventional

role confusion

- Lack of direction and self-definition - Earlier psychological conflicts not resolved - Society restricts choices - Unprepared for challenges of adulthood

influences on moral reasoning

- Moral understanding is influenced by various factors, including child-rearing practices, schooling, peer interaction, and culture. - Evidence suggests that, as Kohlberg believed, these experiences present young people with cognitive challenges, which stimulate them to think about moral problems in more complex ways.

family circumstances

- Parents who are financially secure and content with their marriages usually find it easier to grant teenagers appropriate autonomy and experience less conflict with them. - Parental stress can interfere with warm, involved parenting, and their child's development - Teenagers who develop well despite family stress benefit from the same factors that fostered resilience in earlier years: an appealing, easy-going disposition, a parent who combines warmth with high expectations, and strong bonds with prosocial adults outside the family

social factors

- Societal forces are responsible for the special challenges faced by LGBT and ethnic minority adolescents in forming a secure identity - For minority adolescents, ethnic identity —a sense of ethnic group membership and attitudes and feelings associated with that membership—is central to the quest for identity - In many immigrant families from collectivist cultures, adolescents' commitment to obeying their parents and fulfilling family obligations lessens the longer the family has been in the immigrant-receiving country—a circumstance that induces acculturative stress, psychological distress resulting from conflict between the minority and the host culture. - Discrimination can also interfere with the formation of a positive ethnic identity. - Adolescents whose families taught them the history, traditions, values, and language of their ethnic group and who frequently interact with same-ethnicity peers are more likely to forge a favorable ethnic identity - Forming a bicultural identity that incorporates values from both the adolescent's subculture and the dominant culture offers added benefits

friendships on the internet

- Teenagers frequently use cell phones and the Internet to communicate with friends, and online interaction seems to support friendship closeness. - Adolescents also use the Internet to meet new people. Through online ties, they explore central adolescent concerns—sexuality, challenges in parent and peer relationships, and identity issues—in contexts that may feel less threatening than similar everyday conversations. - Online communication also poses dangers, such as exposure to degrading racial and ethnic slurs and sexually obscene remarks. - Some evidence suggests that very high social media use is linked to unsatisfying face-to-face social experiences, boredom, and unhappiness

gender typing

- The arrival of adolescence is typically accompanied by gender intensification —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. - In young people who do exhibit gender intensification, biological, social, and cognitive factors likely are involved. - Because puberty magnifies sex differences in appearance, teenagers may spend more time thinking about themselves in gender-linked ways. - Pubertal changes may prompt gender-typed pressures from others- parents may encourage gender-appropriate activities and behavior - This may become intensified when dating begins to increase attractiveness - Cognitive changes, especially greater concern with what others think, might make young teenagers more responsive to gender-role expectations. - Gender intensification declines by late adolescence, but not all affected young people move beyond it to the same degree

moral reasoning and behavior

- The cognitive-developmental perspective assumes that moral understanding should affect moral action. - Consistent with this idea, higher-stage adolescents more often act pro-socially by helping, sharing, and defending victims of injustice and by volunteering in their communities; they less often engage in cheating and other antisocial behaviors. - Yet the connection between mature moral reasoning and action is only modest. - Moral behavior is influenced by factors besides cognition, including emotions, individual differences in temperament, and cultural experiences and intuitive beliefs that affect moral decision making. - Moral behavior is also affected by moral identity —the degree to which morality is central to self-concept. - Researchers have begun to identify factors that strengthen moral identity, including inductive discipline, just educational environments, and opportunities for civic engagement

further challenges to kohlberg's theory

- The most radical opposition comes from researchers who—referring to wide variability in moral reasoning across situations—claim that Kohlberg's stage sequence inadequately accounts for morality in everyday life. - They favor a pragmatic approach to morality and assert that moral judgments are practical tools that people use to achieve their goals. - Supporters of the cognitive-developmental perspective point out that people frequently rise above self-interest to defend others' rights. - Kohlberg's central assumption—that with age, humans construct a deeper understanding of fairness and justice that guides moral action —remains influential

peer relations

1. Characteristics of Adolescent Friendships • Adolescents seek intimacy, mutual understanding, and loyalty from their friends. - Self-disclosure between friends rises over the adolescent years. - Adolescent friends tend to be alike in identity status, educational aspirations, political beliefs, and willingness to try drugs and engage in lawbreaking acts. - Cooperation and mutual affirmation between friends rise in adolescence. - Adolescents are less possessive of their friends than in childhood because they desire some autonomy for themselves and recognize that friends need this, too.

factors affecting identity development

Adolescent identity formation begins a lifelong, dynamic process that is influenced by many individual and contextual factors - Identity status is both cause and consequence of personality - Adolescents who assume that absolute truth is always attainable tend to be foreclosed - Those who doubt that they certain about anything are often identity-diffused - Those who appreciate that they can use rational criteria to choose alternative are likely to be exploring or identity achieved

parenting practices are associated with identity statuses

Adolescents who feel attached to their parents but also free to voice their own opinions tend to be in a state of moratorium of identity achievement - Foreclosed teenagers usually have close bonds with parents but lack opportunities for healthy separation - Diffused young people report the lowest levels of parental support and of arm, open communication

child rearing practices

Adolescents who gain most in moral understanding have parents who engage in moral discussions, encourage pro-social behavior, and create a supportive atmosphere by listening sensitively, asking clarifying questions, and presenting higher-level reasoning. -When parents lecture, use threats, or make sarcastic remarks, adolescents show little or no change in moral reasoning over time.

the conventional level

At this level, individuals regard conformity to social rules as important because they believe that actively maintaining the current social system ensures positive relationships and societal order. - (1) Stage 3: The "good boy-good girl" orientation, or the morality of interpersonal cooperation: The individual obeys rules in order to promote social harmony, based on an understanding of ideal reciprocity. - They want to maintain affection and approval of friends and relatives by being a "good person." - (2) Stage 4: The social-order-maintaining orientation: The individual believes that rules must be enforced evenhandedly and that members of society have a personal duty to uphold rules in order to ensure societal order and cooperation. - Laws should never be disobeyed to ensure societal order and cooperation between people

identity

Defining who you are, what you values, and your direction in life - Commitments to vocation, relationships, sexual orientation, ethnic groups, ideals - Exploration, resolution of "identity crisis

problems of development

Depression - The most common psychological problem of adolescence is depression - About 15 to 20 percent of teenagers have had one or more major depressive episode and from 2 to 8 percent are chronically depressed - Depression increases sharply from ages 12 to 16 in industrialized nations, with teenage girls twice as likely as boys to report persistent depressed mood - Factors Related to Depression - Genes can induce depression by affecting the balance of neurotransmitters in the brain, the development of brain regions involved in inhibiting negative emotion, or the body's hormonal response to stress. - Experience can also promote these biological changes - In a vulnerable young person, events such as parental divorce, failing at something important, or the end of a close friendship can spark depression

the family

During adolescence, striving for autonomy —a sense of oneself as a separate, self-governing individual— becomes a salient task - They strive to depend more on themselves and less on their parents for decision-making - The relationship is vital for helping adolescents become autonomous, responsible individuals

self understanding

During adolescence, the young person's vision of the self becomes more complex, well-organized, and consistent - Changes in self-concept - By the end of middle childhood, children can describe themselves in terms of personality traits - In describing themselves, early adolescents unify separate traits into more abstract descriptors, but these generalization are not interconnected and are often contradictory - Gradually, cognitive changes enable teenagers to combine their traits into an organized system - Compared with school-age children, teenagers place more emphasis on social virtues, such as being friendly, kind, and cooperative, and revise their self-descriptions to include enduring beliefs and plans

eriksons theory identity vs role confusion

Erikson was the first to recognize identity as the major personality achievement of adolescence and as a crucial step towards becoming a productive, content adult - Constructing an identity involves defining who you are, what you value, and the directions you choose to purse in life - Erikson believed that teenagers in complex societies experience an identity crisis, a temporary period of distress followed by a setting on values and goals - Erikson called the psychological conflict of adolescence identity vs. role confusion - If conflicts resolved negatively, or if society limits their choices to ones that do not match their abilities and desires, they may appear shallow, directionless and unprepared for adulthood - Current theorists agree that questioning of values and priorities is necessary for a mature identity, but they see this process not as a "crisis" for most young people, but simply a process of exploration followed by commitment

religious involvement and moral development

In recent national polls, nearly two-thirds of Americans reported actively practicing religion, compared with one-half of Canadians, one-third of people in Great Britain and Italy, and even fewer elsewhere in Europe. - Formal religious involvement declines in adolescence, but teenagers who remain part of a religious community are advantaged in moral values and behavior. - They are more involved in community service aimed at helping the less fortunate - A variety of factors probably contribute to these favorable outcomes. - In a study of inner-city high school students, religiously involved young people were more likely to report trusting relationships with parents, adults, and friends who held similar worldviews. - Religious education and youth activities teach concern for others and provide opportunities for moral discussions and civic engagement. - Adolescents who feel connected to a higher being may develop pro-social values and a strong moral identity- helping them translate thinking into action

peer factors

Interaction with diverse peers encourages adolescents to explore values and possible roles - Schools and communities can help by offering varied opportunities for exploration, including classrooms that promote high-level thinking and teachers who encourage low-SES- students to go to college

moral development

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development - Cognitive development and social experiences help adolescents better understand the social institutions and lawmaking systems that govern moral responsibilities - Piaget's work on the moral judgment of children inspired Lawrence Kohlberg's more comprehensive cognitive developmental theory of moral understanding - Kohlberg presented a sample of 10- to 16-year-old boys with hypothetical moral dilemmas and, for each dilemma, asked participants what the main actor should do and why. - Kohlberg presented a sample of 10- to 16-year-old boys with hypothetical moral dilemmas and, for each dilemma, asked participants what the main actor should do and why. - Kohlberg's "Heinz dilemma" pits the value of obeying the law (not stealing) against the value of human life (saving a dying person). - Kohlberg emphasized that moral maturity depends on the way an individual reasons about the dilemma, not on the content of the response (whether or not to steal).

research on kohlberg's state sequence

Kohlberg's original research and other longitudinal studies provide the most convincing evidence for his stage sequence. - With few exceptions, individuals slowly and gradually move through the first four stages in the predicted order. - Reasoning at Stages 1 and 2 decreases in early adolescence. - Stage 3 increases through mid-adolescence and then declines. - Stage 4 reasoning rises over the teenage years until, among college-educated young adults, it is the typical response. - Because few people move beyond Stage 4 to Kohlberg's postconventional stages, moral maturity can be found in a revised understanding of Stages 3 and 4, which are not based on social conformity, as Kohlberg assumed, but require profound moral constructions. - Like Piaget's cognitive stages, Kohlberg's moral stages are loosely organized and overlapping, as people draw on a range of moral responses that vary with context

educational attainment of teen moms

Only about 70 percent of US adolescent mothers graduate from high school, compared with 95 of those who wait to become parents

siblings

Sibling interactions adapt to development at adolescence, often becoming less intense in both positive and negative feelings. - Siblings who established a positive bond in early childhood continue to display greater affection and caring. - Mild sibling differences in perceived parental affection no longer trigger jealousy but, instead, predict greater sibling warmth, perhaps because adolescents interpret a unique parental relationship as a sign of their own individuality

marital patterns of teen moms

Teenage motherhood reduces the chances of marriage, and these mothers are more likely to divorce than their peers who delay childbearing. About 35% become pregnant again within two years. They spend most of their parenting years as a single parent

dating

The hormonal changes of puberty increase sexual interest, but cultural expectations determine when and how dating begins. - By late adolescence, as young people are ready for greater psychological intimacy, they seek dating partners who offer personal compatibility, affection, and social support. - The achievement of intimacy between dating partners typically lags behind that between friends. - Secure attachment to parents in infancy and childhood predicts the quality of teenagers' friendship and romantic ties. - Early dating is related to drug use, delinquency, and poor academic achievement. - About 10 to 20 percent of adolescents are physically or sexually abused by dating partners, with boys and girls equally likely to report being victims. - Gay and lesbian youths face special challenges in initiating and maintaining visible romances. -Their first dating relationships seem to be short-lived and to involve little emotional commitment, because they fear peer harassment and rejection. - Many have difficulty finding a same-sex partner because their gay and lesbian peers have not yet come out. - As long as it does not begin too soon, dating promotes sensitivity, empathy, self-esteem, social support, compromise, and identity development

suicide

The suicide rate increases over the lifespan, but is jumps sharply at adolescence - Suicide is the third leading cause of death among American youths - Rates of adolescent suicide vary widely among industrialized nations

schooling

Years of schooling is a powerful predictor of movement to Kohlberg's Stage 4 or higher. - Higher education introduces young people to social issues that extend beyond personal relationships to entire political or cultural groups

economic circumstances teen mom

may teenage mothers are on welfare or working at low-paid jobs. Many adolescent fathers are unemployed or earn too little to provide their children with basic necessities. These circumstances persist into childhood • Because many pregnant teenage girls do not receive early prenatal care, their babies often experience pregnancy and birth complications, especially preterm and low birth weight • Compared with adult mothers, adolescent mothers know less about child development, interact less effectively with their babies, and more often engage in child abuse • Their children score lower on IQ tests, achieve poorly in school, and engage in disruptive social behavior • Adolescent parenthood frequently repeated in the next generation, but if teenage mother finishes high school, secures gainful employment, avoids additional births and finds a stable partner, long term disruptions in her child's development will be less severe

self consciousness and self focusing

o Adolescents' ability to reflect on their own thoughts, combined with physical and psychological changes, leads them to think more about themselves o From a Piagetian perspective, two distorted images of the relation between self and other commonly appear. o The imaginary audience refers to adolescents' belief that they are the focus of everyone else's attention and concern o The personal fable is adolescents' inflated opinion of their own importance-the feeling that thye are special and unique

idealism and criticism

o Because adolescents are able to think about possibilities, they can imagine a n ideal world and want to explore alternative family, religious, policical, and more systems o The disparity between teenagers' idealism and adults' greater realism creates tension between parent and child

reactions to pubertal change

o Girls today typically report a mixture of positive and negative emotions at menarche, but wide individual differences exist, depending on prior knowledge and support from family members o Boys' responses to spermarche also reflect mixed feelings; those who feel better prepared tend to react more positively o Many tribal and village socieities celebrate puberty with an initation ceremony- changes in responsibility/privilege o Western societies grant little formal recognition to movement from childhood to adolescence or from recognition to movement from childhood to adolescence or from adolescence to adulthood; instead, they grant partial adult status to adolescents at many different ages- for example, an age for starting employment, for driving, and for drinking

eating disorders

o Girls who reach puberty early, who are very dissatisfied with their body image, and who grow up in homes where concern with weight and thinness is high are at risk for eating problems

adolescent moodiness

o Higher pubertal hormone levels are modestly linked to greater moodiness o Several studied tracking moods of children, adolescents, and adults found that several other factors contribute o Adolescents' negative mood were linked to a greater number of negative life events, such as conflicts with parents and disciplinary actions at school o Compared with the moods of older adolescents and adults, those of youger adolescents were less stable and strongly related to situational changes o Levels off in late adolescence- particularly with supportive family and peer relationships

hypotetico-deductive reasoning

o Piaget believed that asolescents become capable of hypothetico-deductive reasoning, a problem-solving stragety in which they begin with a hypothesis, from which they deduce logical, testable inferences o Unlike concrete operation children, who begin with reality in making predictions about a situation, adolescents can begin with possibility and proceed to reality

nutritional needs

o Puberty leads to a dramatic increase in nutritional requirements at a time when the diets of many young people are the poorest o Teenagers often skip breakfast, eat on the run, and consume empty calories

impact of school transition

o School transitions can create adjustment problems that lead to a decline in adolescents grades with each change o Tighter academic standards are partially responsible. Also, the transition to secondary school often means less personal attention, more whole-class instruction, and less chance to participate in classroom decision making o Students feel teachers care less about them, grade less fairly and stress completion more o Adolescents who face added strains, such as family disruptions and poverty, are at greatest risk for self-esteem and academic difficulties after a school transition o High school transition is especially challenging for African American and Hispanic students who move to a new school with substantially fewer peer of the same ethnicity, leading to decreased feelings of belonging and liking school, and poorer grades o For distressed youth, whose school performance remains low or drops after translation, there is a persistent pattern of poorer self esteem, motivation and achievement o This may lead to downward spiral leading to dropping out

• Antrhopologist Margaret Mead

promoted the view that the social environment is entirely responsible for the range of teenage experiences, both negative and positive • Today, we know that biological, psychological, and social forces combine to influence adolescent development • The length of adolescence and its demands and pressures differ widely among cultures • Most tribal and village societies have only a brief intervening phase between childhood and adulthood • In industrialized societies, where young people face prolonged dependence on parents and postponement of sexual gratification while they prepare for a productive work life, adolescence is greatly extended

concepts of adolescence

the transition between childhood and adulthood, is marked by puberty, a flood of biological events leading to adult-sized body and sexual maturity • The widespread view of adolescence is a turbulent period goes back to the "storm and stress" perspective of a G.Stanley Hall and other major theorists of the early twentieth century- the is exaggerated • Contemporary research shows that the overall rate of serious psychological disturbances raise only slightly from childhood to adolescence, although certain problems occur more often than earlier

sexual orientation

• About 4 percent of US 15 to 44 year olds identify as lesbian, gay or bisexual • Heredity makes an important contribution to homosexuality-male homosexuality more common on maternal side of families • According to some researchers, certain genes affect the level or impact of prenatal sex hormones, which modify brain structures in ways that induce homosexual feelings and behavior • Environmental factors can also alter prenatal hormones-prenatal exposure to high level of hormones • Stereotypes and misperceptions persist- 50 to 60% of teens who have engaged in homosexual act identify as heterosexual

dropping out

• About 8% of US 16-24 year olds drop out of high school and remain without a diplomia or a GED. The dropout rate is higher among boys than girls and is particularly high among low SES ethnic minority youths • Because they lack the skills employers value, dropuouts have much lower employment rates than high school graduates • When they do work, they generally have low paying jobs

piaget's theory: formal operational stage

• According to Piaget, around age 11, young people enter the formal operational stage, in which they develop the capacity for abstract, systematic scientific thinking

contraceptive use

• Adolescent contraceptive use has increased in recent years, but about 20 % of sexually active US teenagers do not use contraception consistently • Teenagers who lack the rewards of meaningful education and work are especially likely to engage in irresponsible sex. 12% of girls and 5% of boys say they were pressured and unwilling • Teenagers who talk openly with their parents about sex and contraception are more likely to use birth control • School sex education classes often provide incomplete or incorrect information. Some do not know where to get birth control counseling/devices, or worry that their doctor will not keep the information confidential

importance of fitting in with peers

• Adolescents feel most comfortable with peers who match their own level of biological maturity- those at the extremes have difficulties- feel out of place • Early-maturing adolescents of both sexes seek out older companions, who often encourage them into activities they are not ready to handle emotionally • Hormonal influences on the brain's emotional/social network are stronger for early maturers, magnifying their receptiveness to sexual activity, drug and alcohol use, and delinquent acts, resulting in stress and declines in academic performance • Context s significant- early maturers from disadvantaged neighborhoods at risks for poor choices in peers and harsh parenting, increasing risk for anti-social behavior

factors related to droping out

• Although many dropouts achieve poorly and show high rates of norm-ciolating acts, a substantial number have few behavior problems, experiencing academic difficulties, and quietly disengage from school • Risk factors begin in first grade • Compared with other students, dropouts are more likely to have parents who are uninvolved in their teenager's education. Single parents may have dropped out themselves • Students who drop out ofen have school experience that undermine their chances for success: Grade retention: large , impersonal secondary schools; and classes with unsupportive teachers • Students in general education or vocational education tracks three times more likely to drop out then those in college prep tracks

preventing strageties

• Among the available strageties for helping teenagers at risk droping out, themes related to success include: o Remedial instruction and counseling that offer personalized attention • High quality: vocational training, which inegrates academic and job related instruction so students see relevance to school to future • Addressing factors in students lives related to dropping out-strengthening aprent involvement, flexible work study, on site child care for teen parents makes staying in school easier • Participation in extracurricular activities- involving teens in school community life-small schools of great benefit

anorexia nervosa

• Anorexia nervosa, an eating disorder in which young people starve themselves because of a compulsive fear of getting fat, affets about 1 percent of North American and western European teenage girls • Cases have increased sharply in the past 50 years, fueled by cultural admiration of female thinness- less so with afriacan American girls • Boys account for 10 to 15 percent of anorexia ccaues; about half of these are gay or bisexual young people who are uncomfortable wit a strong, muscular appearance • Inviduals with anorexia have an extemley distorted body image, seeing themselves as too heavy even after they have become severely underweight • They go on extreme diets and exercise vigorously exercise • Individuals with anorexia loose between 25 and 50 % of their body weight. Menstrual cycle disrupted/stop signs of malnutrition appear, heart- kidney-brain damage may occur. About 6 percent die of the disorder • Forces within the person, the family, and the larger culture give rise to anorexia nervosa • Forces within the person, the family and the larger culture give rise to anorexia nervosa • The most successful treatment is family therapy plus medication to reduce anxiety and neurotransmitter imbalances

follow up research on formal operational thougth

• Are children capable of Hypothetico-Deductive and Propositional Thinking? o School age children can understand hypotheses in simplified situations involving no more than two variables, but they cannot sor out evidence bearing on three or more variables at once o Gains in the capacity to analyze the logic of propositions occur gradually from childhood on, calling into question the emergence of new stage of cognitive development at adolescence

child rearing styles

• Authorative child rearing is linked to higher grades among adolescents varying widely in SES • Authoritarian and permissive styles are associated with lower grades, ans uninvolved parenting predicts the poorest school performance

sex hormones

• Both estrogens and androgens are presented in both males and fewmales but in different amounts • Androgens (especially testosterone for boys_ contribute to gains in body size, body/facial hair, male sex characteristics • Estrogens cause girls breasts, uterus, and vagina to mature, the body to take on feminine proporitions, and fat to accumulate. Estrogens also contribute to the regulation of the Menstrual cycle • Adrenal adrogens influence girls' height spurt and stimulate growth of underarm and pubic hair but have little imact on bodys • Pubertal changes are of two broad types: overall body growth and maturation of sexual characteristics

brain development

• Brain-imaging research reveals continued pruning of unused synapses in the cerebral cortext during adolescence • Linkages between the two cerebral hemispheres, and between the prefrontal cortext and other areas in the cerebral cortex and the inner brain, expand, myelinate, and attain rapid communication • As a result, the prefrontal cortext becomes a more effective "executive", yielding more complex, flexible, and adaptive thinking and behavior • fMRI evidence reveals that adolecents recruit the prefrontal cortext's network of connections with other brain areas less effectively than adults do, and teenagers' performance on executive function tasks requiring inhibition, planning and future oriention is not yet fully mature • Chages in the brain's emotional/social network (neurons become more responsive to excitatory stimuli) lead teenagers to react more strongly to stressful events and to experience pleasurable stimuli more intensely • Because the cognitive control network is not yet functioning optimally, most teenages find it hard to manage these powerful feelings. • As a result, they are attracted to novel experiences- drugs, reckless driving, unprotected sex-declines with age • Adolescents go to sleep later than in middle childhood • Yet they need as much sleep-9 hours • When school day begins earlier, sleep needs are not satisified • This results in decline in cognitive functioning and pooer performance on cognitive tasks early in the morning • More likely to achieve less well in school, experience anxiety/depression, and engage in high risk behavior

substance abuse

• By tenth grade, 33 percentage of US young people have tried cigarette smoking, 58% drinking, and 37 percent at least one illegal drug (usually marijuana) figures that represent a substantial decline since the mid-1990's, likely due to parent, school and media • More recently drug use has risen slightly, due to lack of knowledge of risks • Adolescents live drug-dependent cultural contexts (cigarettes, alcohol, caffeine), and doctors today are more likely to prescribe medication to treat children's problems. In adolescence, these children may readily "self-medicate" • Most teenagers who dabble in alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana do not become addicted, but a minority move from substance use to abuse that interferes with their ability to meet daily responsibilities

long term consequences

• Early-maturing girls are prone to lasting difficulties, compared to their on time counterparts • Poorer quality relationships with family and friends, smaller social networks, lower life satisfaction in early adulthood • In contrast, early maturing boys show good long term adjustment • Interventions are needed to help at risk early maturing youths heandle the emotional and social challenges of adolescence- educating parents and teachers, providing adolescents with counseling and social supports

factors that heighten incidence of teen pregnagncy

• Effective sex education reaches too few teenagers • Convenient, low cost contraception services for adolescents are scarce • Many families live in poverty, which encourages young people to take risks

do all individual reach the formal operational stage?

• Even well-educated adults ofen have difficulty with formal operational tasks • People are most likely abstractly and systematically on tasks in which they have had extensive guidance and practice in using such reasoning, as supported by evidence that taking college courses leads to improvements in formal reasoning related to course content • Individuals in viallage and tribal societies rarely do well on tasks typically used to assess formal operational reasoning • IN school, adolescents encounter risk opportunities to release their neurological potential to think more effectively

sexual maturation in girls

• Female puberty usually begins with the buidding of the breasts and the growth spirt • Menarche, or first menstruation, typically occurs around age 12 ½ for North American girls and 13 Western Europeans, but the age renge is wide • Nature delays girls' sexual maturity until after peak of the height spurt, when their bodies are large enough for childbearing

puberty the physical transition to adulthood

• Genetically influenced hormonal processes regulate pubertal growth • Girls reach puberty, on average, two years earlier than boys

motor development and physical activity

• Girls' gains in gross-motor performance are slow and gradual, level of at age 14; boys show a dramatic spurt in strength, speed, and endurance that continues through the teenage years. By mid-adolescence, few girls are as athletic as the average body • Among boys, athletic competence is strongly related to peer adminiration and self esteem, prompting some adolescent boys to use performance-enhancing drugs with potentially serious side effects • Regular sustained physical activity is with lasting physical/social/mental health beliefs; however, physical activity among US adolescents declines dramatically with age

how scientific reasoning develops

• Greater working-memroy capacity permits a theory and the effects of several variables to be compared at once • Adolescents benefit from exposure in school to increasingly complex problems and to instruction highlighting critical features of scientific reasoning • Researchers believe that sophisticated metacognitive understanding, an ability that is rarely present before adolescence, is vital for scientific reasoning • Adolescents and adults vary widley in scientific reasoning skills, often applying logic more effecticely to ideas that they doubt than to those they favor because they lack the metacogitive capacity to evaluate their own objectivity • Information processing finds confirm that scientific experiences that require children and adolescents to match theories against evidence and reflect on and evaluate their thinking