Chapter 12: Emotional and Social Development in Adolescence

Parent-Adolescent Relationships

- A variety of changes within the adolescent support autonomy - As young people look more mature, parents give them more independence and responsibility - Gradually, Adolescents make decisions more effectively, and an improved ability to reason about social relationships leads teenagers to de-idealize their parents, viewing them as "just people - Consequently, they no longer bend as easily to parental authority

depression

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. - In industrialized nations, depression increases sharply from ages 12 to 16. Teenage girls are twice as likely as boys to report persistent depressed mood—a

factors related to adolescents suicide

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. - 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 - Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youths also are at high risk, attempting suicide three times as often as other adolescents. - Those who have tried to kill themselves report more family conflict, problems in romantic relationships, and peer victimization - 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 The first group includes adolescents who are highly intelligent but solitary, withdrawn, and unable to meet their own standards or those of important people in their lives.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 - Suicidal adolescents often have a family history of emotional and antisocial disorders and suicide

identity

During adolescence the development of _________ begins - Both young people are attempting to formulate who they are, their personal values and the directions they will pursue in life - The restructuring of the self that begins in adolescence is profound - Rapid physical changes prompt teenagers to reconsider what they are like as people. And the capacity to think hypothetically enables them to project themselves into the distant future - They start to realize the significance of their choice of values, beliefs, and goals for their later lives

Culture

Individuals in industrialized nations move through Kohlberg's stages more quickly and progress to higher stages than do individuals in village societies, who rarely move beyond stage 3 - One explanation is that in village societies, moral cooperation is based on direct relations between people and does not allow for the development of advanced moral understanding - The question is raised of whether Kohlberg's highest level represents a culturally specific way of thinking, one limited to Western societies that emphasize individualism and an appeal to an inner, private conscience

Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development

Kohlberg used a clinical interviewing procedure in which he presented European-American 10-16 year-old boys with hypothetical moral dilemmas (stories involving a conflict between 2 moral values) and asked them what the main actor should do and why. - Then he followed the participants longitudinally, re-interviewing them at 3 to 4 intervals over the next 20 years - Kohlberg emphasized that it is the way an individual reasons about the dilemma, not the content of the response that determines moral maturity

Influences on Moral Reasoning

Many factors affect maturity of moral reasoning, including child-rearing practices, peer interaction, schooling, and culture - Growing evidence suggests that these experiences work by presenting young people with cognitive challenges, which stimulate them to think about moral problems in more complex ways

Religious Involvement and Moral Development

The United States remains the most religious Western nation - But as adolescents search for a personally meaningful identity, formal religious involvement decline - Teenagers who remain part of a religious community are advantages in moral values and behavior - Religious involvement promotes responsible academic and social behavior and discourages misconduct - Adolescents who feel connected to a higher being may develop certain inner strengths, including sense of self-efficacy, prosocial values, and strong moral identity, that help them translate their thinking into action - Religious or political messages that convey stereotypes and prejudices about minorities work against youths' moral maturity - Religious cults the rigidly indoctrinate alienated youths and suppress their individuality interfere with virtually all developmental tasks of adolescence, including moral progress

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 - These investigators favor abandoning Kohlberg's stages for a pragmatic approach to morality. They assert that everyday moral judgements, rather than being efforts to arrive at just solutions, are practical tools that people use to achieve their goals - Is the pragmatic approach correct that people strive to resolve moral conflicts fairly only when they themselves have nothing to lose? - In sum, the cognitive-developmental approach to morality has done much to clarify our profound moral potential. And despite opposition, Kohlberg's central assumption—that with age, humans - everywhere construct a deeper understanding of fairness and justice that guides moral action—remains powerfully influential

characters of adolescents friendship

When asked about the meaning of friendship, teenagers stress 3 characteristics - Intimacy, or psychological closeness - Mutual understanding of each other's values, beliefs, and feelings - Loyalty, to stick up for them and not leave them for somebody else - Teenagers' strong desire for friendship closeness likely explains why they say friends are their most important sources of social support - As frankness and faithfulness increase, self-disclosure (sharing or private thoughts and feelings) between friends rises over the adolescent years - Adolescent friends tend to be alike in identity stays educational aspirations, political beliefs, depressive symptoms, and willingness to try drugs and engage - in law breaking acts - During adolescence cooperation and mutual affirmation between friends increase and negative interaction declines: changes that reflect greater skill at preserving the relationship and sensitivity to a friend's needs and desires

gender differences

Why are girls more prone to depression than boys? Besides greater stress reactivity, girls' gender-typed coping styles—passivity, dependency, and tendency to ruminate on anxieties and problems—seem to be involved - adolescents who identify strongly with "feminine" traits ruminate more and tend to be more depressed, regardless of their sex - In contrast, girls with either an androgynous or a "masculine" gender identity show low rates of depressive symptoms - Girls who repeatedly feel overwhelmed by life challenges become even more physiologically reactive to stress and cope increasingly poorly - Profound depression in adolescence can lead to suicidal thoughts, which all too often are translated into action.

Coordinating Moral, Social-Conventional, and Personal Concerns

- Adolescents' moral advances are also evident in their reasoning about situations that raise competing moral, social-conventional, and personal issues - As young people firmly insist that parent not encroach on the personal arena, disputes over these issues increase - As they enlarge the range of issues they regard as personal, adolescents think more intently about conflict between personal choice and community obligation - They mention the right to personal choice as well as concerns about effective group functioning - As adolescents integrate personal rights with ideal reciprocity, they demand that the protections they want for themselves extend to others - Adolescents are increasingly mindful of the overlap between moral imperatives and social conventions - As their grasp of fairness deepens, young people understand that many social conventions have more implications: they are vital for maintaining a just and peaceful society

family circumstances

- Adult life stress can interfere with warm, involved parenting and, in turn, with children's adjustment during any period of development - Parents who are financially secure, not overloaded with job pressures, and content with their marriages usually find it easier to grant teenagers appropriate autonomy and experience less conflict with them - Teenagers who develop well despite family stressors continue to benefit from factors that fostered resilience in earlier years: an appealing, easy-going disposition; a parent who combines warmth with high expectations; and family who care deeply about the adolescent's well being

peer relations

- As adolescents spend less time with family members, peers become increasingly important - In industrialized nations, young people spend most of each weekday with agemates in school as well as much as out-of-class time together

Prevention and Treatment

- Because delinquency has roots in childhood and results from events in several contexts, prevention must start early and take place at multiple levels - Positive family relationships, authoritative parenting, high-quality teaching in schools, and communities with healthy economic and social conditions go a long way toward reducing adolescent antisocial acts. - Lacking resources for effective prevention, many U.S. schools have implemented zero tolerance policies, which punish all disruptive and threatening behavior, usually with suspension or expulsion. - No evidence exists that zero tolerance reduces misconduct - To the contrary, some studies find that these policies heighten high school dropout and antisocial behavior.

The Family

- Development at adolescence involves striving for autonomy: a sense of oneself as separate, self-governing individual - Adolescent autonomy has 2 vital aspects: an emotional component: relying more on oneself and less on parents for support and guidance - A behavioral component: making decisions independently by carefully weighing one's own judgement and the suggestions of others to arrive at a personally satisfying, well-reasoned course of action - Relationships with parents remain 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 - Adolescents evaluate an increasing variety of aspects of the self. Overtime, they constructive a balanced, integrated representation of their strengths and limitations

warning signs

- Efforts to put personal affairs in order—smoothing over troubled relationships, giving away treasured possessions - Verbal cues—saying goodbye to family members and friends, making direct or indirect references to suicide - Feelings of sadness, despondency, "not caring" anymore - Extreme fatigue, lack of energy, boredom - No desire to socialize; withdrawal from friends and family -Easily frustrated - Volatile mood swings—spells of crying or laughing, - angry outbursts - Inability to concentrate, distractibility - Decline in grades, absence from school, discipline problems - Neglect of personal appearance - Sleep change—loss of sleep or excessive sleepiness - Obtaining a weapon or other means of self-harm, such as prescription medications

Erikson's Theory: Identity versus Role Confusion

- Erikson was the first to recognize identity as the major personality attainment of adolescence and as a crucial step toward becoming a productive, content adult Identity: a well-organized conception of the self that defines who one is, what one values, and what directions one chooses to pursue in life - Although the seeds of identity formation are planted early, not until late adolescence and early adulthood do young people become absorbed in this task - According to Erikson, in complex societies, young people often experiment with alternatives before settling on values and goals - Once formed, identity continue to be refined in adulthood as people reevaluate earlier commitments and choices - Erikson called the psychological conflict of adolescence identity verses role confusion - If young people's earlier conflicts were 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 the challenges of adulthood - Current theorists agree with Erikson that questioning of values, plans, and priorities is necessary for a mature identity, but they no longer describe this process as a "crisis" - For most young people, identity developments is not traumatic and disturbing but, rather, a process of exploration followed by commitment

Describe the four identity statuses, along with factors that promote identity development.

- Identity achievement (exploration followed by commitment to values, beliefs, and goals) and - identity moratorium (exploration without having reached commitment) are psychologically healthy identity statuses. - Long-term identity foreclosure (commitment without exploration) and - identity diffusion (lack of both exploration and commitment) are related to adjustment difficulties. - Open-mindedness and persistence in the face of obstacles, healthy parental attachment, interaction with diverse peers, and schools and communities offering rich and varied opportunities promote healthy identity development. - Supportive families and communities can foster a strong, secure ethnic identity among minority adolescents, who often must overcome acculturative stress. A bicultural identity offers additional emotional and social benefits.

Changes in Self-Concept

- In describing themselves, adolescents unify separate traits into more abstract descriptors - But at first, these generalizations are not interconnected and are often contradictory - Gradually, cognitive changes enable teenagers to combine their traits into an organized system - Their use of qualifiers reveals an increasing awareness that psychological qualities can vary from one situation to the next - Compared with school-age children, teenagers place more emphasis on social virtues, such as being friendly, considerate, kind, and cooperative - Personal and moral values also appear as key themes

peer interaction

- Interaction among peers who present differing viewpoints promotes moral understanding - When young people negotiate and compromise, they realize that social life can be based on cooperation between equals - Peer discussions of moral problems have provided the basis for interventions aimed at improving high school and college students' moral understanding - And because gains in maturity of moral reasoning occur gradually, man peer interaction sessions over weeks or months are needed to produce moral change

Kohlberg's Stages

- Kohlberg organized moral development into 3 levels, each with 2 stages - He believed that moral understanding is promoted by the same factors Piaget thought were important for cognitive development - Actively grappling with moral issues and noticing weaknesses in one's current reasoning - Gains in perspective taking, which permit individuals to resolve moral conflicts in more effective ways Level 1: At the 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 Level 2: At the conventional level, individuals 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 relationships and societal order Level 3: Individuals at the postconventional level move beyond unquestioning support for their own society's rules and laws. They define morality in terms of abstract principles and values that apply to all situations and societies

schooling

- Secondary schools with nondiscrimination and antibullying policies and student organizations that support the rights of minorities enhance adolescents' moral reasoning about discrimination - Teachers who create classroom climates of fairness and respect are similarly influential - Moral reasoning typically progresses to Kohlberg's higher stages the longer a person remains in school

siblings

- Sibling interactions adapt to development at adolescence - Sibling relationships often become less intense, in both positive and negative feelings - Attachment between siblings remains strong for most young people - Siblings who established a positive bond in early childhood continue to display greater affection and caring, which contribute to more favorable adolescent adjustment - Sibling negativity: frequent conflict and aggression: is associated with internalizing symptoms and externalizing difficulties

delinquency

- Since the mid-1990s, youth crime has declined sharply in the United States. - Yet when asked directly and confidentially about lawbreaking, almost all teenagers admit to having committed some sort of offense - Police arrests and self-reports show that delinquency rises over adolescence and then declines from the early twenties on—a trend found in many Western countries - For most adolescents, a brush with the law does not forecast long-term antisocial behavior.

Changes in Self-Esteem

- Teenagers ass several new dimensions of self-evaluation, close friendship, romantic appeal, and job competence, to those of middle childhood - Level of general self-esteem also changes - Self-esteem rises from mid- to late adolescence for more young people, who report feeling especially good about their peer relationships, physical appearance, and athletic capabilities - Teenagers often assert that they have become more mature, capable, personable, and attractive - With greater independence and opportunities to emphasize pursuits in which they experience success, older adolescents are better able to discount the importance of doing well in areas in which they feel inadequate - Girls feel less positively about their physical appearance and athletic skills and less competent at math and science. At the same time girls continue to outscore boys on self-esteem dimensions of language arts, close friendship, and social acceptance - Teenagers whose parents are critical and insulting have highly unstable and generally low-self esteem

Sucide

- The U.S. suicide rate increases from childhood into middle adulthood, but it jumps sharply at adolescence. - Currently, suicide is the third-leading cause of death among American youths

moral reasoning and behavior

A central assumption of the cognitive-developmental perspectives is that moral understanding should affect moral action - Higher-stage adolescents more often act pro-socially by helping, sharing, and defending victims of injustice and by volunteering in their communities. - Also, they less often engage in cheating, aggression, and other antisocial behaviors - Yet the connection between more mature moral reasoning and action is only modest - Moral identity: the degree to which morality is central to self-concept, also affects moral behaviors - Opportunities to enact moral behaviors through community service enhance adolescents' self-understanding, thereby contributing to a stronger moral identity and, in turn, to moral motivation

identify status and psychological well being

A wealth of research verifies that both identity achievement and moratorium are psychologically healthy routes to a mature self-definition - Long-term foreclosure and diffusion, in contrast, are maladaptive - Although young people in moratorium are at times anxious and depressed about finding commitments, they resemble identity-achieved individuals in using an active, information-gathering cognitive style to make personal decisions and solve problems - Individuals who are identity-achieved or exploring tend to have higher self-esteem, are more open to alternative ideas and values, feel more in control of their lives, are more likely to view school and work as feasible avenues for realizing their aspirations, and are more advanced in moral reasoning and more concerned with social justice - If exploration becomes ruminative—excessively concerned with making the right choice so the young person makes no choice at all—it is associated with distress and poor adjustment - Because foreclosure involves commitment, it offers a sense of security foreclosed individuals display 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 are the least mature in identity development. They typically use a diffuse-avoidant cognitive style in which they avoid dealing with personal decisions and problems and, instead, allow current situational pressures to dictate their reactions

influences on identity development

Adolescent identity formation begins a lifelong, dynamic process in which a change in either the - individual or the context opens up the possibility of reformulating identity. - Identity status, as we have just seen, is both cause and consequence of personality characteristics. - Adolescents who assume that absolute truth is always attainable tend to be foreclosed, while those who doubt that they will ever feel certain about anything are more often identity-diffused. - Young people who are curious, open-minded, rational, and persistent in the face of obstacles, are likely to be in a state of moratorium or identity achievement - Young people who feel attached to their parents but also free to voice their own opinions tend to have committed to values and goals and are on their way to identity achievement - Foreclosed teenagers often have close bonds with parents but lack opportunities for healthy separation. - And diffused young people report the lowest levels of parental support and of warm, open communication - Interaction with diverse peers through school and community activities encourages adolescents to explore values and role possibilities

parenting practices

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 by listening sensitively, asking clarifying questions, and presenting higher-level reasoning

Paths to Identity

Adolescents' well-organized self-descriptions and differentiated sense of self-esteem provide the cognitive foundation for forming an identity - Researchers commonly evaluate progress in identity development on 2 key criteria derived from Erikson's theory: exploration and commitment - Some young people remain in one status, whereas other experience multiple status transitions. And the pattern often varies across identity domains, such as sexual orientation, vocation, and religious and political values - The process of identity formation typically involves exploring a range of alternatives, making provisional commitments, engaging in in-depth evaluation of one's choices, and, if those choices fit poorly with one's capacities and potentials, refocusing on possible alternative commitments - College students usually make more identity progress than they did in high school

Friendship and Adjustment

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

Are There Sex Differences in Moral Reasoning?

Carol Gilligan (1982) is the best-known of those who 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 - According to Gilligan, a concern for others is a different but no less valid basis for moral judgment than a focus on impersonal rights - Most studies do not support the claim that - - Kohlberg's approach underestimates the moral maturity of females - Some evidence indicates that although the morality of males and females taps both orientations, females do tend to emphasize care, whereas males either stress justice or focus equally on justice and care - This difference appear more often in real-life than hypothetical dilemmas

effective parenting

Effective parenting of adolescents strikes a balance between connection and separation - Warm, supportive parent-adolescent ties that make appropriate demands for maturity while permitting young people to explore ideas and social roles foster autonomy - Autonomy, in turn, predicts high self-reliance, self-regulation, academic achievement, positive work orientation, favorable self-esteem, and ease of separation in the transition to college - Parents who are coercive or psychologically controlling interfere with the development of autonomy. These tactics are linked to low self-esteem, depression, drug and alcohol use, and antisocial behavior - Consistent parental monitoring of the young person's daily activities, through a cooperative relationship in which the adolescent willingly discloses information ,is linked to a variety of favorable outcomes: prevention of delinquency, reduction in sexual activity, improved school performance, and positive psychological well-being

gender differences in friendship quality

Girls frequently get together to "just talk" and their interactions contain more self-disclosure and supportive statements - Boys more often gather for an activity. Boys' discussions usually focus on accomplishments and involve more competition and conflict - Boys do form close friendship ties, but the quality of their friendships is more variable. masculine stereotypes—to be tough and unemotional—interfered with these bonds. - When friends focus on deeper thoughts and feelings, they tend to coruminate, or repeatedly mull over problems and negative emotions, with girls doing so more than boys. Corumination, while contributing to high friendship quality, also triggers anxiety and depression—symptoms more common in girls - And when conflict arises between intimate friends, more potential exists for one party to harm the other through relational aggression

culture

In cultures that place a high priority on interdependence, autonomy remains a central adolescent motive but teenagers conceive of it differently than in Western nations - Rather than equating it with independent decision making, they view autonomy as self-endorsed decision making: engaging in actions that are consistent with authentic personal values - Chinese adolescents often accept their parents' decisions because they value parents' opinions, not because they feel pressured to comply - Immigrant parents from cultures that emphasize obedience to authority have greater difficulty adapting to their teenagers' push for independent decision making, often reacting strongly to adolescent disagreement

4 identity statuses

Identity achievement: the identity status of individuals who, after a period of exploration, have committed themselves to a clearly formulated set of self-chosen values and goals Identity moratorium: the identity status of individuals who are exploring but not yet committed to self-chosen values and goals Identity foreclosure: the identity status of individuals who do not engage in exploration but, instead, are committed to ready-made values and goals chosen for them by authority figures Identity diffusion: the identity status of individuals who do not engage in exploration and are not committed to values and goals

factors related to delinquency

In adolescence, the gender gap in physical aggression widens. - Although girls account for about one in five adolescent arrests for violence, their offenses are largely limited to simple assault - Serious violent crime is mostly the domain of boys SES and ethnicity are strong predictors of arrests but only mildly related to teenagers' self-reports of antisocial acts - Difficult temperament, low intelligence, poor school performance, peer rejection in childhood, and association with antisocial peers are linked to chronic delinquency - Teenagers commit more crimes in poverty-stricken neighborhoods with poor-quality schools, limited recreational and employment opportunities, and high adult criminality - In such neighborhoods, adolescents have easy access to deviant peers, drugs, and firearms and are likely to be recruited into antisocial gangs, whose members commit the vast majority of violent delinquent acts. - Large classes, weak instruction, rigid rules, and reduced academic expectations and opportunities are associated with higher rates of lawbreaking, even after other influences are controlled.

Cliques and Crowds

In early adolescence, peer groups become increasingly common and tightly knit. - They are organized into cliques—groups of about five to seven members who are friends and, therefore, usually resemble one another in family background, attitudes, values, and interests - Clique membership is more important to girls, who use it as a context for expressing emotional closeness - By mid-adolescence, mixed-sex cliques are common. - 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, granting the adolescent an identity within the larger social structure of the school - Crowd affiliations are linked to strengths in adolescents' self-concepts, which reflect their abilities and interests Ethnicity also plays a role. - Minority teenagers who associate with an ethnically defined crowd, as opposed to a crowd reflecting their abilities and interests, sometimes are motivated by discrimination in their school or neighborhood - Once adolescents join a clique or crowd, it can modify their beliefs and behavior. - Among heterosexual teenagers, as interest in dating increases, boys' and girls' cliques come together. - Mixed-sex cliques provide boys and girls with models of how to interact and a chance to do so without having to be intimate - By late adolescence, when boys and girls feel comfortable enough about approaching each other directly, the mixed-sex clique disappears. - Crowds also decline in importance. As adolescents settle on personal values and goals, they no longer feel a need to broadcast, through dress, language, and preferred activities, who they are.

Problems of Development

Most young people move through adolescence with little disturbance. - some encounter major disruptions in development, such as early parenthood, substance abuse, and school failure. - In each instance, biological and psychological changes, families, schools, peers, communities, and culture combine to yield particular outcomes.

Friendship

Number of best friends declines from about 4 to 6 in early adolescence to 1 or 2 in adulthood - The nature of the relationship changes

research on Kohlbers stage sequence

Studies confirm that with few exceptions, individuals move through Kohlberg's first 4 stages in the predicted order - Few people move beyond stage 4. it is so rare that there is no clear evidence that Kohlberg's stage 6 follows stage 5 If people must reach stage 5 and 6 to be considered truly morally mature, few individuals anywhere would measure up - Real-life conflicts often elicit moral thinking below a person's actual capacity because they involve practical considerations that mix cognition with intense emotion - Hypothetical dilemma, in contrast, evoke the upper limits of moral thought because they allow reflection without the interference of personal risk - Kohlberg's moral stages are loosely organized and overlapping

Friendships, Cell Phones, and the Internet

Teenagers frequently use cell phones and the Internet to communicate with friends. - These mobile devices serve as adolescents' primary route to the Internet: 94 percent say they go online daily or more often - Texting has become the preferred means of electronic interaction between teenage friends: Most adolescents engage in it, sending and receiving, on average, 30 texts per day. - Girls text and call their friends more often than boys, and they more often use social media sites to share information - Boys are more avid gamers with friends and other peers. - Online interaction can contribute to friendship closeness. The effect is probably due to friends' online disclosure of thoughts and feelings. - Most teenage gamers say that playing online games with preexisting friends makes them feel more connected to those friends - Over one-third of U.S. adolescents report developing friendships this way, often connecting through friends they already know The quality of adolescents' face-to-face relationships tends to be reproduced in social media communication. - While online communication can augment friendships, clearly it poses risks, which teenagers readily verbalize. - One high school student reflected, "You don't know how to interact with people anymore because you're always texting." Others say that social media sites too often become contexts for sexually uninhibited posts and for expressed jealousies between friends over dating partners - Very high social media use is linked to unsatisfying face-to-face social experiences, boredom, and depression - Compared to boys, girls were more addicted to social media and reported more impaired mental health - In sum, the Internet's value for enabling convenient and satisfying interaction among teenage friends must be weighed against its potential for facilitating harmful emotional and social consequences. - Parents are wise to point out the risks of Internet communication, including harassment, exploitation, and excessive use, and to insist that teenagers follow Internet safety rule

dating

The hormonal changes of puberty increase sexual interest, but cultural expectations determine when and how dating begins. - Asian youths start dating later and have fewer dating partners than young people in Western societies, which tolerate and even encourage romantic involvements from middle school on. At ages 12 to 14, these relationships are usually casual, lasting only briefly. - By age 16, they continue, on average, for one to two years, though breakups remain common for about one-third - By late adolescence, as young people are ready for greater psychological intimacy, they look for dating partners who offer personal compatibility, companionship, affection, and social support secure attachment to parents in infancy and childhood—together with recollections of that security in adolescence—predicts higher-quality teenage friendships and romantic ties - Parents' marital interactions make a difference, too. - About 10 to 20 percent of adolescents are physically or sexually abused by dating partners; boys and girls are equally likely to report being victims, and violence by one partner is often returned by the other - Young teenagers are better off sticking with group activities, such as parties and dances, before becoming involved with a steady boyfriend or girlfriend. - Lesbian and gay youths face special challenges in initiating and maintaining visible romances. - After high school graduation, many adolescent romances dissolve, and those that survive usually become less satisfying - Because young people are still forming their identities, high school couples often find that they have little in common later. - Nevertheless, among older teenagers, close romantic ties promote sensitivity, empathy, self-esteem, social support, and identity progress

moral development

Throughout adolescence teenagers cognitive development and expanding social experiences permit adolescents to better understand larger social structures-societal institutions and law-making systems-that govern moral responsibilities - As their grasp of social arrangements expands, adolescents construct new ideas about what should be done when the needs and desires of people conflict - As result, they move toward increasingly just, fair, and balanced solutions to moral problems

reorganized relationship

Throughout adolescence, the quality of the parent-child relationship is the single most consistent predictor of mental health - The mild to moderate conflict that typically arises facilitates adolescent identity and autonomy by helping family members learn to express and tolerate disagreement - By mid- to late adolescence, harmonious interaction is on the rise - The reduced time that Western teenagers spend engaged in activities with their parents has little to do with conflict. Rather, it results from the large amount of unstructured time available to western teenagers - Type of shared parent-adolescent activities is more important than quantity of time together Engaging in leisure pursuits and eating meals together enhances teenager's well-being

Prevention and Treatment

To prevent suicides, parents and teachers must be trained to pick up on the signals that a troubled teenager sends - Schools and community settings, such as recreational and religious organizations, can help by providing knowledgeable, approachable, and sympathetic adults, peer support groups, and information about telephone hot lines - Treatments for depressed and suicidal adolescents range from antidepressant medication to individual, family, and group therapy. - Teenage suicides often occur in clusters, with one death increasing the likelihood of others among depressed peers who knew the young person or heard about the suicide through the media

factors related to adolescents depression

Twin studies indicate that depression is moderately heritable. - the 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 - Although depression runs in families, recall from earlier chapters that depressed or otherwise stressed parents often engage in maladaptive parenting. As a result, their child's attachment, emotional self-regulation, and self-esteem may be impaired, with serious consequences for cognitive and social skills - In a vulnerable young person, numerous negative life events may spark depression

preconventional level

earliest level of moral development; at this level, self-interest and event outcomes determine what is moral Stage 1: the punishment and obedience orientation. Children find it difficult to consider two points of view in moral dilemma. As a result they overlook people's intentions and focus on fear of authority and avoidance of punishment as reasons for behaving morally Stage 2: the instrumental purpose orientation. Children become aware 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

postconventional level

highest stage of moral development; at this level, decisions about morality depend on abstract principles and the value of all life Stage 5: the social contract orientation. At stage 5, individuals 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 interests of the majority, each person follows them because of a social contract orientation-free and willing participating 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 that are valid for all people, regardless of law and social agreement. Stage 6 individuals typically mention such abstract principles as respect for the worth and dignity of each person.

conventional level

middle stage of moral development; at this level, strict adherence to societal rules and the approval of others determine what is moral 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. Stage 3 individuals want to maintain the affection and approval of friends and relatives by being a "good person." Individuals now understand ideal reciprocity: they express the same concern for the welfare of another as they do for themselves 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. The stage 4 individual believes that laws should never be disobeyed because they are vital for ensuring societal order and cooperation between people