Life Span

Kerry loves and respects her mother; however, her mother works in a job that she hates in the deli at a local grocery store. Kerry knows that she wants better for herself and wants to earn a college degree and have a teaching career. Kerry has a positive outlook on life and has strong self-esteem; her future seems bright. There are many selves described in this scenario—which of the following best describes Kerry's trepidation about working in a dissatisfying career?

Feared self

With whom are adolescents happiest?

Friends

Like middle childhood, adolescence is a life stage when physical health is generally good. The immune system functions more effectively in middle childhood and adolescence than earlier in development, so susceptibility to infectious diseases is lower. Diseases that will become more common later in adulthood, such as heart disease and cancer, are very rare during adolescence. However, unlike middle childhood, adolescence is a time when problems arise not from physical functioning but from behavior. Two common problems of adolescence are eating disorders and substance use. For many adolescents, changes in the way they think about their bodies are accompanied by changes in the way they think about food. Girls, in particular, pay more attention to the food they eat once they reach adolescence, and worry more about eating too much and becoming overweight (Jones et al., 2014; Nichter, 2001). This is especially true in the United States. Currently, about 31% of American 10- to 17-year-olds are overweight or obese by medical standards (Kaiser Family Foundation, 2015). However, 60% of American adolescent girls and 30% of boys believe they weigh too much (Gray et al., 2011). These perceptions can lead adolescents to exhibit eating disordered behavior, including fasting for 24 hours or more, use of diet products, purging (intentional vomiting or use of laxatives), and use of laxatives to control weight. In the United States, about 23% of adolescent girls and 10% of boys in grades 9-12 report engaging in eating disordered behavior in the past 30 days (Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, 2017). Similar findings have been reported in other Western countries. In a national study of German 11- to 17-year-olds, one third of girls and 15% of boys reported symptoms of eating disorders (Herpetz-Dahlmann et al., 2008). In Finland, a large study of 14- to 15-year-olds found eating disordered behavior among 24% of girls and 16% of boys (Hautala et al., 2008). The two most common eating disorders are anorexia nervosa (intentional self-starvation) and bulimia (binge eating combined with purging). About three percent of American adolescents have experienced anorexia nervosa or bulimia (NIMH, 2017). Nearly all (90%) of eating disorders occur among females. Most cases of eating disorders have their onset among females in their teens and early 20s (Smink et al., 2013). Young women with anorexia nervosa often see themselves as too fat even when they are so thin their lives are at risk. Anorexia is characterized by three primary symptoms (American Psychiatric Association, 2013): eating less than needed to maintain a body weight that is at or above normal weight for height, intense fear of weight gain; and distorted body image with undue influence of body weight or shape on self-evaluation. One of the most striking symptoms of anorexia is the cognitive distortion of body image (Striegel-Moore & Franko, 2006). Young women with anorexia sincerely believe themselves to be too fat, even when they have become so thin that their lives are threatened. Standing in front of a mirror with them and pointing out how emaciated they look does no good—the person with anorexia looks in the mirror and sees an overweight person, no matter how thin she is. The video Anorexia Nervosa: Tamora provides an example of this. Watch Anorexia Nervosa: Tamora Like those with anorexia, persons with bulimia have strong fears that their bodies will become big and fat (Campbell & Peebles, 2014). They engage in binge eating—eating a large amount of food in a short time—then purge themselves; that is, they use laxatives or induce vomiting to get rid of the food they have just eaten during a binge episode. People with bulimia often suffer damage to their teeth from repeated vomiting (because stomach acids erode tooth enamel). Unlike those with anorexia, persons with bulimia typically maintain a normal weight, because they have relatively normal eating patterns between episodes of bingeing and purging (Striegel-Moore & Franko, 2006). Another difference from anorexia is that persons with bulimia do not regard their eating patterns as normal. They view themselves as having a problem and often hate themselves after binge episodes. Self-starvation among young women has a long history in Western countries, and was once considered a sign of religious devotion, hundreds of years ago (Vandereycken & van Deth, 1994). Today, eating disorders are most common in cultures that emphasize slimness as part of the female physical ideal, especially Western countries (Latzer et al., 2011; Piat et al., 2015). Presented with a cultural ideal that portrays the ideal female body as slim, at a time when their bodies tend to become less slim and more rounded, many adolescent girls feel distressed and attempt to resist or modify the changes taking place in their body shape. Young women who have an eating disorder are at higher risk for other disorders, such as depression and anxiety disorders (Rojo-Moreno et al., 2015; Swanson et al., 2011). Eating disordered behavior is also related to substance use, especially cigarette smoking and binge drinking (Pisetsky et al., 2008). Although mainly a Western problem, eating disorders are increasing in parts of the world that are becoming more Westernized. For example, on the island nation of Fiji, traditionally the ideal body type for women was round and curvy. However, after television was introduced in 1995, mostly with programming from the United States and other Western countries, the incidence of eating disorders rose substantially (Becker et al., 2007). Interviews with adolescent girls on Fiji showed that they admired the Western television characters and wanted to look like them. This goal, in turn, led to higher incidence of negative body image, preoccupation with weight, and purging behavior (Becker, 2004). The main treatments for anorexia and bulimia are hospitalization, medication, or psychotherapy, but the success of these approaches is limited. About two-thirds of people treated for anorexia in hospital programs improve, but one third remain chronically ill despite treatment (Lock, 2015). Similarly, although treatments for bulimia are successful in about 50% of cases, there are repeated relapses in the other 50%, and recovery is often slow (Smink et al., 2012). Adolescents and emerging adults with a history of eating disorders often continue to show significant impairments in mental and physical health, self-image, and social functioning even after their eating disorder has faded (Berkman et al., 2007; Rojo-Moreno et al., 2015). About 10% of those with anorexia eventually die from starvation or from physical problems caused by their weight loss, the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder (Smink et al., 2012).

In American society, substance use is rare before adolescence but fairly common by the end of secondary school. In 2016, according to national Monitoring the Future (MTF) data (Monitoringthefuture.org, 2017), 33% of American high school seniors used alcohol and 20% reported having been drunkat least once in the past month. Cigarette use (at least once in the past 30 days) was reported by 11% of high school seniors in 2016; notably, rates of smoking cigarettes are now exceeded by rates of using electronic vaporizers for smoking (12%). Rates of marijuana use are also higher than for cigarette smoking: 23% of high school seniors reported using marijuana in the past month in the 2016 MTF survey. In general, substance use in adolescence is highest among Native Americans, followed by White and Latino adolescents, with African American and Asian American adolescents lowest (Patrick & Schulenberg, 2014; Shih et al., 2010). Other than alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana, substance use is rare among American adolescents. Rates of nearly all types of substance use have declined sharply among American adolescents since peaking around 1980 (Miech et al., 2017). Rates of substance use in adolescence vary across Western countries. A study by the World Health Organization (WHO) investigated use of alcohol and cigarettes among 15-year-olds in 41 Western countries (WHO, 2016). A summary of the results is shown in Figure 8.4. Rates of cigarette smoking are lower among adolescents in Canada and the United States than in Europe, most likely because governments in Canada and the United States have waged large-scale public health campaigns against smoking, whereas European countries have not. Cigarette smoking among young people is of particular concern, because in the long run smoking is the source of more illness and mortality than all illegal drugs combined, and because the majority of persons who smoke begin in their early teens (Johnston et al., 2014). Figure 8.4 Substance Use in Western Countries Why are rates of alcohol and cigarette use low in the United States and Canada? Source: Based on WHO (2016). Rates of cigarette smoking and alcohol use are higher in most European countries than in Canada or the United States. Here, adolescents in Germany. Young people use substances for a variety of purposes, which can be classified as experimental, social, medicinal, and addictive (Weiner, 1992). Young people who take part in experimental substance use try a substance once or perhaps a few times out of curiosity and then do not use it again. Social substance use involves the use of substances during social activities with one or more friends. Parties and dances are common settings for social substance use in adolescence and emerging adulthood. Medicinal substance use is undertaken to relieve an unpleasant emotional state such as sadness, anxiety, stress, or loneliness. Using substances for these purposes has been described as self-medication (Reimuller et al., 2011). Young people who use substances for self-medication tend to use them more frequently than those whose purposes are mainly social or experimental. Finally, addictive substance use takes place when a person has come to depend on regular use of substances to feel good physically or psychologically. People who are addicted to a substance experience withdrawal symptoms such as high anxiety and tremors when they stop using it. Addictive substance use involves the most regular and frequent substance use of the four categories described here. All substance use in adolescence and emerging adulthood is considered "problem behavior"—something that adults generally view as a problem if young people engage in it. However, the four categories indicate that young people may use substances in diverse ways, with diverse implications for their development.

Regarding the timing of the onset of puberty, which of the following is more at risk for a depressed mood, negative body image, eating disorders, substance use, delinquency, aggressive behavior, and school problems?

a girl who experiences early-onset puberty

Joaquin was thirsty, so he looked at his mother and pointed to the glass on the counter and said, "juice." This is an example of __________.

a holophrase

A toddler seeking a blanket or stuffed animal for comfort is an example of that toddler practicing which of the following emotional self-regulation techniques?

behavioral regulation of emotions

What is one of the strongest risk factors for all types of depression?

being female

Research on adolescents' electronic game playing in the United States has found that __________.

boys report that playing the games relieves negative emotions

In Piagetian terms, which of the following is the principle that the amount of a physical substance remains the same even if its physical appearance changes?

conservation

__________ is when parents provide broad guidelines for behavior but children are capable of a substantial amount of independent, self-directed behavior.

coregulation

Kohlberg's proposition of a universal theory of moral development has been challenged by Shweder, who believes that it is impossible to understand moral development unless you understand an individual's __________.

cultural worldview

In many traditional cultures, young men are required to demonstrate courage, strength, and endurance in their coming-of-age rituals because __________.

daily life often requires these capacities

Adolescents are most likely to exhibit their false selves with __________.

dating partners

Two-year-old Becca has just returned home after visiting her aunt who just had a baby. Becca was playing with her toys and then picked up her baby doll and began to "feed" her with a bottle, just like she saw her aunt do. This is an example of __________.

deferred imitation

According to Vygotsky, cultural learning skills, such as learning to set the table in a developed country or to help prepare food in a traditional culture, __________.

develop as part of a social and cultural process

Research has shown that __________.

direct stimulation of language development is discouraged in some cultures

__________ parents are low in both demandingness and responsiveness.

disengaged

In elementary and secondary school Brice showed problems, such as hostility and cognitive deficits. Later on in college he was diagnosed with various types of psychopathology. Based on the research he most likely had a/an __________ attachment classification.

disorganized-disoriented

Among American adolescents, self-esteem is lowest in __________.

early adolescence

Anorexia is characterized by three primary symptoms

eating less than needed to maintain a body weight that is at or above normal weight for height, intense fear of weight gain; and distorted body image with undue influence of body weight or shape on self-evaluation.

S. grew up in Shanghai, China; one cousin grew up in Japan, and another grew up in Italy. It is most likely that all three learned __________ as their second language.

english

The capacity of long-term memory is __________.

essentially unlimited

A device that uses a magnetic field to record changes in blood flow and oxygen use in the brain is the __________.

fMRI

A consistent pattern in early intervention programs such as Head Start is that the early gains in IQ and achievement __________.

fade within 2 or 3 years of entering elementary school

In Berko's classic experiment, she showed young children a picture of one figure called a "wug" and then showed them two of these figures. She asked them to respond to the following question: "Now there are two __________." Berko was measuring children's understanding of what?

grammar

__________ is a language's distinctive system of rules.

grammar

When Lillard compared one group of children that had attended a Montessori preschool to another group that attended other types of preschools, the non-Montessori group __________.

had originally applied to Montessori schools but were not able to enter due to space limitations

Watching violent television in middle childhood __________.

has been associated with a number of negative outcomes later in development

Around the world, child labor __________.

has been declining as a result of greater attention to the problem of exploitation

Compared to monolingual children, those who are multilingual __________.

have better metalinguistic skills

Studies have shown that better deferred imitation among toddlers than among infants may be due principally to advances in the maturity of the brain. Specifically, the __________ is still in a highly immature state of development during infancy but matures substantially during toddlerhood.

hippocampus

The limited memory for personal events and experiences prior to age 5 is probably due to incomplete myelination of the __________.

hippocampus

In addition to problems of inattention, hyperactivity and __________ are noted in individuals diagnosed with ADHD.

impulsiveness

In Western countries, conflict with parents __________.

increases from middle childhood to early adolescence

Anemia is caused by __________.

iron deficiency

Chris realized that even though the teacher dressed up like Michael Jackson for Halloween, she is still a female. Based on this information, one would expect that Chris __________.

is a 7-year-old boy

Vygotsky viewed cognitive development as both a social and cultural process social because children learn through interaction with others cultural because what children need to know is determined by the culture they live in Key Compenents -zone of proximal development -guided participation -scaffolding -cultural tools -private speech

language milestones 12 to 18 months: slow expansion -slow but steady expansion; wide variability -first 50 words or so part of toddler's daily routines -holophrases -overextensions -underextensions 18 months to 24 months: the naming explosion -pace of learning new words doubles -fast mapping -telegraphic speech 24-36 months: becoming adept to language -diminished frequency of overextension and underextension -show understanding of rules of language -may show overregulation

Shareef's actions are voluntary and purposeful. He is able to think about possible actions and then select the one that most likely will help him achieve a desired outcome. According to Piaget, he is demonstrating __________.

mental representation

Based on the most recent statistics, which of the following American ethnic groups has the highest rates of use of substances such as alcohol, cigarettes, or marijuana?

native americans

Research has shown that during adolescence, __________ is most strongly related to global self-esteem.

physical appearance

Compared to Japanese schools, schools in the United States __________.

place a greater emphasis on creativity

One study in Mongolia compared people in rural and urban areas and found substantially higher rates of asthma in urban areas, due to __________.

poorer air quality

According to Vygotsky, ________ is the self-guiding and self-directing comments that children make to themselves.

private speech

Executive function refers to __________.

problem solving

After learning to knit a simple scarf with her grandmother's guidance, Alexis began to knit a sweater while on break from college. She went over to her grandmother's once when she had a question. She finished the sweater a few weeks later while she was back at college, needing only one Skype session to help her. This illustrates __________.

scaffolding

__________ is the ability to arrange things in a logical order.

seriation

Sally is very active physically and she likes to play with trucks and airplanes and prefers males as playmates. Much of her play behavior is masculine. One explanation for this is that __________.

she was exposed to high levels of androgens in the womb during prenatal development

Research on Kohlberg's stages of moral development __________.

showed that the stages tended to increase with age, but that few proceeded to Level 3

What kind of play involves talking to each other, smiling, and giving and receiving toys?

simple social play

A toddler generally __________.

sleeps less than an infant and has more of a night-sleeping, day-waking arousal schedule

The greatest number of child workers is found in __________.

sub-Saharan Africa

Children who are multilingual __________.

take longer to master the second language when they learn it after already becoming fluent in the first language

The most important androgen is __________.

testosterone

Much to Jace's dismay, he wore mismatched socks to school. He can't help but think that everyone will notice and feels very self-conscious. His way of thinking demonstrates __________.

the imaginary audience

When it comes to learning language, the most significant difference between apes and humans is __________.

the inability of apes to generate word symbols in an infinite number of ways

What is the median IQ score for the WISC-V?

100

Many studies across different cultures have found that children develop culturally specific rules of linguistic politeness between the ages of __________.

2 and 5 years

What percentage of American adolescents self-identify as lesbian, gay, or bisexual?

2%

What percentage of Japanese parents and preschool teachers indicated that one of the top three reasons for young children to attend preschool was "to give children a good start academically"?

2%

Isabella, a 7-year-old girl living in Italy, was diagnosed with ADHD. What is the chance, expressed as a percentage, that she will be treated with a combination of both medication and psychotherapy?

25%

Alannah lives in the United States and is 35 inches tall and weighs 30 pounds. She is in good health, and her pediatrician says she is developing at a normal pace. Knowing her height and weight, it is safe to say that Alannah is around __________.

3 years old

About what percentage of 2- to 4-year-olds in the United States have their own tablets?

45%

Approximately __________ of obese children remain overweight as adults.

80%

Your roommate is an only child. What percentage of people in developed countries has at least one sibling?

80%

When children with Autism Spectrum Disorder become adults, what percentage of them continue to live with their parents?

85%

Which of the following is an example of overextension?

A child calling all men "Dada."

Which of the following best illustrates coregulation?

A child is able to prepare himself breakfast, provided that he follow his parents' rules and not use the stove.

Of all the qualities that distinguish humans from other animals, language may be the most important. Other species have their own ways of communicating, but language allows humans to communicate about a vastly broader range of topics. Using language, humans can communicate about not just what is observable in the present, the way other animals might communicate about food or predators in their immediate environment, but about an infinite range of things beyond the present moment. With language we can also communicate not just about things that exist but about things that might exist, things that we imagine. As linguist Derrick Bickerton remarks, "Only language could have broken through the prison of immediate experience in which every other creature is locked, releasing us into infinite freedoms of space and time" (Leakey, 1994, p. 119). During toddlerhood, language development has its most rapid and important advances. Toddlers go from speaking a few words at their first birthday to being fluent users of language by their third birthday. Let's examine the course of this remarkable achievement, looking first at the biological and evolutionary bases of language, then at specific language milestones of toddlerhood, and finally at the cultural and social context of toddlers' language use. You may have heard that some primates have learned how to use language. Attempts to teach language to apes have a long history in the social sciences, going back over a half century. In the earliest attempts, researchers treated baby chimpanzees as closely as possible to how a human infant would be treated, having the chimpanzees live in the researcher's household as part of the family and making daily efforts to teach the chimps how to speak. Years of these efforts yielded nothing but the single word "mama"—and a badly disordered household. It turned out that chimpanzees, like other nonhuman primates, lack the vocal apparatus that makes human speech possible. In the 1960s, researchers hit upon the clever idea of teaching apes sign language. These attempts were much more successful. One famous chimpanzee, Washoe, learned to use about 100 signs, mostly involving requests for food (Small, 2001). She even learned to lie and to make jokes. However, she never learned to make original combinations of signs (with one possible exception, when she saw a duck for the first time and signed "water bird"). Mostly, Washoe and other primates who have learned sign language simply mimic the signs they have been taught by their human teachers. They lack the most important and distinctive feature of human language, which is infinite generativity, the ability to take the word symbols of a language and combine them in a virtually infinite number of new ways.

A variety of human biological characteristics indicate that we are a species built for language, especially these three (Kenneally, 2007): VOCAL APPARATUS. Humans have a unique vocal apparatus. We are able to make a much wider range of sounds than the other primates because, for us, the larynx is located lower in the throat, which creates a large sound chamber, the pharynx, above the vocal cords. We also have a relatively small and mobile tongue that can push the air coming past the larynx in various ways to make different sounds, and lips that are flexible enough to stop and start the passage of air. BRAIN SPECIALIZATION. Two areas in the left hemisphere of the human brain are specifically devoted to language functions (Nakano & Blumstein, 2004; Pizzamiglio et al., 2005). As you can see in Figure 5.3, Broca's area in the left frontal lobe is specialized for language production, and Wernicke's area in the left temporal lobe is specialized for language comprehension. If damage to one of these areas occurs in adulthood, the specialized language function of the area is also damaged; but if damage takes place in childhood, other areas of the brain can compensate—with compensation being greater the younger the child is when the brain injury takes place (Akshoomoff et al., 2002; Huttenlocher, 2002). In addition to Broca's and Wernicke's areas, many other regions of the brain contribute to language use (Keunen et al., 2017). In fact, some linguists argue that the extraordinary size of the human brain in comparison to other species is due mainly to the evolution of language (Pinker, 2004). SPECIFIC GENES. Genes for language development have recently been identified (Gazzaniga, 2008; McMurray, 2016). Because Broca's and Wernicke's areas have long been known to be part of normal brain anatomy, the genetic basis of language was clear. However, identifying the specific genes for language strengthens our knowledge of how deeply language is embedded in human phylogenetic (species) development (Sun et al., 2006; Tomblin & Mueller, 2013). Although modern humans are biologically equipped for language, our earliest ancestors were not. Early hominins had a larynx similar in placement to modern nonhuman primates, and so must have been incapable of language (Leakey, 1994). The placement of the larynx became notably lower beginning nearly 2 million years ago, and the earliest Homo sapiens 200,000 years ago had a vocal apparatus that was not much different from yours. Undoubtedly the development of language gave humans a substantial evolutionary advantage (Small, 2001). Language would have made it easier to communicate about the location of food sources and about how to make tools, which would in turn enhance survival. If your clan could craft a better spear, you would have a better chance of killing the prey that would provide the necessary nourishment. If your group could construct a boat, you could potentially travel to new food sources if the local ones became depleted. Many evolutionary biologists believe that language also conferred an evolutionary advantage because of its social function. During the course of human evolution, the size of human groups gradually increased (Leakey, 1994), leading to an increased need for communication that would allow them to function effectively. Because language abilities improved the efficiency of group functioning, groups that excelled in language would have been more likely than other groups to survive and reproduce. Within groups, too, using language effectively would have conferred an advantage in obtaining mates, food, and status, so natural selection would have favored language abilities in the course of human evolutionary history (Pinker, 2004). The marvelous ability that young children have to learn the rules of their language is one more indication of the biological, evolutionary basis of language. A half century ago, at a time when many psychologists were arguing that language has no biological origin and children learn it solely through imitation and parents' reinforcement, linguist Noam Chomsky (1957, 1969) protested that language is too complex to be learned in this way. Observing that all children learn the basic rules of grammar of their language at about the same age, 2 to 3 years old, Chomsky proposed that children are born with a Language Acquisition Device (LAD) that enables them to perceive and grasp quickly the grammatical rules in the language around them. Today language researchers generally agree that language development is a biological potential that is then nurtured by social interaction, although there is still a lively debate about the nature of the biological foundation of language and the kinds of social stimulation needed to develop it (Fitneva & Matsui, 2015; Hoff, 2009).

Which of the following statements is true?

Adolescent girls who have an eating disorder are at higher risk for other mental health disorders.

Which of the following was not a finding that inspired John Bowlby's writings on attachment?

Ainsworth's findings about the Strange Situation

Traditionally in many cultures, formal schooling has started at about age 7. This is the age at which children have been viewed as first capable of learning the skills of reading, writing, and math. However, because the need to learn how to use words and numbers is so strong in the modern information-based economy, in many countries school now begins earlier than ever. In developed countries about three-fourths of 3- to 5-year-old children are enrolled in group childcare, preschool, or kindergarten (OECD, 2013). In developing countries, the percentages are lower but rising. In the United States, about half of American states now fund some type of preschool programs for 4-year-old children, usually focusing on children from low-income families. Nevertheless, preschool participation in the United States lags behind nearly all other developed countries (OECD, 2013). For example, almost all 4-year-olds are enrolled in preschool in Japan, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In the United States, about 70% of 4-year-olds are enrolled. What are the cognitive and social effects of attending preschool? For the most part, attending preschool is beneficial for young children. Cognitive benefits of attending preschool include higher verbal and math skills and stronger performance on measures of memory and listening comprehension (Clarke-Stewart & Allhusen, 2002; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). Children from low-income families especially benefit cognitively from preschool (Love et al., 2013; Yoshikawa et al., 2013). They perform better on tests of school-readiness than children of similar backgrounds who did not attend preschool. There are also social benefits to attending preschool. Children who attend preschool are generally more independent and socially confident than children who remain home (National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD] Early Child Care Research Network, 2006). However, there appear to be social costs as well. Children attending preschool have been observed to be less compliant, less respectful toward adults, and more aggressive than other children (Jennings & Reingle, 2012). Furthermore, these negative social effects may endure long past preschool age. In one large national (U.S.) longitudinal study, children who attended preschool for more than 10 hours per week were more disruptive in class once they entered school, and in follow-ups extending through 6th grade (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2006). Yet these findings concerning the overall positive or negative outcomes associated with preschool can be misleading. Preschool programs vary vastly in quality, and many studies have found that the quality of preschool childcare is more important than simply the fact of whether children are in preschool or not (Clarke-Stewart & Allhusen, 2002; NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2006; Vandell et al., 2016). Culture also matters. A national study in Norway found no relation between hours in preschool and aggression (Zachrisson et al., 2013). Preschools in Norway are uniformly of high quality, and Norwegian children are used to being with other children in nonparental childcare from age 1. What factors should parents consider when searching for a high-quality preschool experience for their children? There is a broad consensus among scholars of early childhood development that the most important features include (Lavzer & Goodson, 2006; National Association for the Education of Young Children [NAEYC], 2010; Vandell et al., 2005; Yoshikawa et al., 2013): Education and training of teachers. Unlike teachers at higher grade levels, preschool teachers often are not required to have education or credentials specific to early childhood education. Preschool teachers trained in early childhood education provide a better social and cognitive environment. Class size and child-teacher ratio. Experts recommend no more than 20 children in a classroom, and a ratio of children to preschool teachers no higher than five to ten 3-year-olds per teacher or seven to ten 4-year-olds per teacher. Age-appropriate materials and activities. In early childhood, children learn more through active engagement with materials than through formal lessons or rote learning. Teacher-child interactions. Teachers should spend most of their time interacting with the children rather than with other teachers. They should circulate among the children, asking questions, offering suggestions, and assisting them when necessary. Notice that the criteria for high-quality preschools do not include intense academic instruction. Here again there is a broad consensus among early childhood scholars that preschool teaching should be based on developmentally appropriate educational practice (NAEYC, 2010). At the preschool age, this means that learning should involve exploring and discovering through relatively unstructured, hands-on experiences—learning about the physical world through playing in a water or sand area, for example, or learning new words through songs and nursery rhymes. One of the preschool programs best known for high quality and developmentally appropriate practice is the Montessori program. Research by developmental psychologist Angeline Lillard (2008; 2016; Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006) has demonstrated the effectiveness of the Montessori approach. Lillard compared two groups of 3- to 6-year-old children. One group of children had attended a Montessori preschool, and the other group attended other types of preschools. All the children in the non-Montessori group had originally applied to Montessori schools but were not able to enter due to space limitations, with admission determined by a random lottery. This was a crucial aspect of the study design; do you see why? If the researchers had simply compared children in Montessori schools with children in non-Montessori schools, any differences would have been difficult to interpret, because there may have been many other differences between the families of children in the two types of schools (e.g., children in Montessori schools may have more-educated parents). Because the families of children in the non-Montessori schools had also applied to get their children into the Montessori schools, and selection among them was random via a lottery, it can be assumed that the family backgrounds of the children in the two groups were similar. The children who attended Montessori preschools were more advanced in both cognitive and social development than the children who attended the other preschools. Cognitively, the Montessori children scored higher on tests of reading and math skills than the other children. Socially, in playground observations the Montessori children engaged more in cooperative play and less in rough, chaotic play such as wrestling. In sum, the Montessori approach appears to provide children with a setting that encourages self-initiated, active learning and thereby enhances cognitive and social development.

Although attending preschool has become a typical experience among children in developed countries, there is great variation in how countries structure preschool and what they wish young children to learn. In most countries, parents hope for social benefits from preschool, but there is variation among countries in expectations of cognitive and academic benefits. In some countries, such as China and the United States, learning basic academic skills is one of the primary goals of having children attend preschool (LeVine & LeVine, 2016; Tobin et al., 2009). In other countries, such as Japan and most European countries, learning academic skills is a low priority in preschool (Hayashi et al., 2009). Rather, preschool is mainly a time for learning social skills such as how to function as a member of a group. Japan is of particular interest in this area, because Japanese students have long been at or near the top of international comparisons in reading, math, and science from middle childhood through high school (NCES, 2014). You might expect, then, that one reason for this success is that they begin academic instruction earlier than in other countries, but just the opposite turns out to be true. In one study of Japanese and American parents and preschool teachers, only 2% of the Japanese listed "to give children a good start academically" as one of the top three reasons for young children to attend preschool (Tobin et al., 2009). In contrast, over half the Americans named this as one of the top three reasons. There was a similarly sharp contrast in response to the item "to give children the experience of being a member of the group." Sixty percent of Japanese endorsed this reason for preschool, compared to just 20% of the Americans. Preschools in Japan teach nothing about reading and numbers. Instead, the focus is on group play, so that children will learn the values of cooperation and sharing. Preschool children wear identical uniforms, with different colors to indicate their classroom membership. They each have the same equipment, which they keep in identical drawers. Through being introduced to these cultural practices in preschool, children also learn collectivistic Japanese values.

From infancy to toddlerhood, the social world expands. Across these two life stages, what remains crucial to social development is the relationship with one special person, usually but not always the mother, who provides love and care reliably. In the field of human development, the study of this relationship in infancy and toddlerhood has focused on attachment theory and research based on this theory. Because the long dependency of children is such a distinctive characteristic of our species, the question of how the attachments between human children and adults develop has long been of great interest to human development scholars. Attachment theory was first introduced in our discussion of infant social development in Chapter 4. Here we examine the features of attachment theory in more detail, including ways of evaluating the quality of parent-child attachment and critiques of attachment theory. Bowlby's Theory Through most of the 20th century there was strong consensus that human infants become attached to their mothers because mothers provide them with food. Hunger is a distressing physical state, especially for babies, who are growing rapidly and need to be fed often. Mothers relieve this distressing state and provide the pleasure of feeding. Over time, infants come to associate the mother with the relief of distress and the experience of pleasure. This association becomes the basis for the love that infants feel for their mothers. This was the dominant view in psychology in the first half of the 20th century. However, around the middle of the 20th century, the British scholar John Bowlby (1969/1982) began to observe that many research findings were inconsistent with this consensus. Three findings were especially notable to Bowlby: INSTITUTIONALIZED INFANTS. French psychiatrist René Spitz (1945) reported that infants raised in institutions suffered in their physical and emotional development, even if they were fed well. Spitz studied infants who entered an orphanage when they were 3 to 12 months old. Despite adequate physical care, the babies lost weight and seemed listless and passive, a condition Spitz called anaclitic depression. Spitz attributed the infants' condition to the fact that one nurse had to care for seven infants and spent little time with each except for feeding them and changing their diapers. (Anaclitic means "leaning upon," and Spitz chose this term because the infants had no one to lean upon.) The infants showed no sign of developing positive feelings toward the nurse, even though the nurse provided them with nourishment. Other studies of institutionalized infants reported similar results (Rutter, 1996). RHESUS MONKEYS. The second set of findings that called feeding into question as the basis of the infant-mother bond involved primates, specifically rhesus monkeys. In a classic study, Harry Harlow (1958) placed baby monkeys in a cage with two kinds of artificial "mothers." One of the mothers was made of wire mesh, the other of soft terry cloth. Harlow found that even when he placed the feeding bottle in the wire mother, the baby monkeys spent almost all of their time on the cloth mother, going to the wire mother only to feed. Again, a simple link between feeding and emotional bonds seemed called into question. Harlow's studies demonstrated that attachments were not based on nourishment. As shown here, the monkeys preferred the cloth "mother" even though the wire "mother" provided nourishment. IMPRINTING. The third set of findings noted by Bowlby proved the most important for his thinking. These findings came from the field of ethology, which, as we have noted, is the study of animal behavior. Ethologists reported that for some animals, the bond between newborns and their mothers was instantaneous and occurred immediately after birth. Konrad Lorenz (1965), a German ethologist, showed that newborn goslings would bond to the first moving object they saw after hatching and follow it closely, a phenomenon he called imprinting. To Lorenz and other ethologists, the foundation of the bond between the young of the species and their mothers was not nourishment but protection. Imprinting to the mother would cause the young to stay close to her and thereby be protected from harm. Considering these three sets of findings, Bowlby concluded that the emotional tie between children and their mothers was based on children's need for protection and care for many years. Thus, as Bowlby described it, the attachment that develops between children and caring adults is an emotional bond that promotes the protection and survival of children during the years they are most vulnerable. The child's primary attachment figure is the person who is sought out when the child experiences some kind of distress or threat in the environment, such as hunger, pain, an unfamiliar person, or an unfamiliar setting. Usually the primary attachment figure is a parent and is most often the mother, because in nearly all cultures mothers are primarily the ones who are most involved in the care of infants. However, the primary attachment figure could also be the father, a grandparent, an older sister, or anyone else who is most involved in the infant's care. Separation from the primary attachment figure is experienced by the child as especially threatening, and the loss of the primary attachment figure is a catastrophe for children's development (Bowlby, 1980).

Although infants can discriminate among the smells and voices of different people in their environment from early on, in their first months they can be held and cared for by a wide range of people, familiar as well as unfamiliar, without protesting. However, by about the middle of the first year of life, this begins to change. Gradually they become more selective, developing stronger preferences for familiar others who have cared for them, and stranger anxiety emerges in response to being approached, held, or even smiled at by people they do not recognize and trust. Stranger anxiety exists in a wide range of cultures beginning at about age 6 months and grows stronger in the months that follow (Super & Harkness, 1986). So, if an infant or toddler turns away, frowns, or bursts into tears in response to your friendly overtures, don't take it personally! According to Bowlby (1969/1982), there is an evolutionary basis for the emergence of stranger anxiety at about age 6 months. This is the age when infants first become mobile, and learning to crawl allows them to begin to explore the environment, but it also carries the risk that they may crawl themselves into big trouble. Learning to stay close to familiar persons and avoid unfamiliar persons helps infants stay near those who will protect them and keep them safe. Consequently, stranger anxiety peaks at about 12 months of age as toddlers begin to walk. However, there is cultural variation in the degree of stranger anxiety depending on how much toddlers have experienced diverse caregivers (LeVine & LeVine, 2016). Watch the Stranger Anxiety Across Cultures video to observe how children at different ages and from various cultures react to being approached by strangers and separated from their primary caregivers. Although staying close to caring adults promotes children's survival, so does learning about the world around them. Consequently, under normal conditions young children use their primary attachment figure as a secure base from which to explore the surrounding environment (Bowlby, 1969). If a threat appears in the environment, attachment behavior is activated and children seek direct physical contact with their attachment figure. According to Bowlby, attachment develops gradually over the first 2 years of life, culminating in a goal-corrected partnership in which both persons use language to communicate about the child's needs and the primary attachment figure's responses. Over time, the child becomes steadily less dependent on the care and protection of the primary attachment figure. However, even into adulthood, people seek out their primary attachment figure for comfort during times of crisis. Varieties of Attachment: The Strange Situation Bowlby was a theorist, not a researcher, and he did not conduct studies to test his theory directly. Mary Ainsworth pioneered attachment research (Ainsworth & Bell, 1969; Ainsworth et al., 1978). Ainsworth followed Bowlby's theory in viewing the child's attachment as being most evident in the response to separation from the primary attachment figure. To evoke children's attachment behavior, Ainsworth devised a laboratory procedure she called the Strange Situation (Ainsworth et al., 1978). The Strange Situation is a series of introductions, separations, and reunions involving the child, the mother, and an unfamiliar person. It was devised for toddlers, ages 12 to 24 months, because this is an age by which attachment has developed to a point where it can be assessed. On the basis of toddlers' responses to the Strange Situation, four classifications of attachment were developed (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Ammaniti et al., 2005). Ainsworth proposed the first three, and later researchers added the fourth (Main & Solomon, 1990). SECURE ATTACHMENT. Toddlers in this category use the mother as a secure base from which to explore in the first part of the Strange Situation, when the mother is present. Upon separation, securely attached toddlers left with the stranger usually cry or vocalize in protest. When the mother returns, they greet her happily by smiling and going to her to be hugged and held. INSECURE-AVOIDANT ATTACHMENT. These toddlers show little or no interaction with the mother when she is present, and no response to the mother's departure or return. When these toddlers are picked up in the last episode of the Strange Situation, they may immediately seek to get down. INSECURE-RESISTANT ATTACHMENT. Toddlers classified as insecure-resistant are less likely than others to explore the toys when the mother is present, and they show greater distress when she leaves the room. When she returns, they show ambivalence, running to greet the mother in seeming relief but then pushing her away when she attempts to comfort or pick them up. DISORGANIZED-DISORIENTED ATTACHMENT. Toddlers in this category show extremely unusual behavior in response to the Strange Situation (Ammaniti et al., 2005; van IJzendoorn et al., 1999; Padrón et al., 2014). They may seem dazed and detached when the mother leaves the room, but with outbursts of anger, and when the mother returns they may seem fearful. Some freeze their movements suddenly in odd postures. This kind of attachment is especially shown by toddlers who show other signs of serious problems, such as Autism Spectrum Disorder or Down syndrome, and also by those who have suffered severe abuse or neglect. Although attachment classification is based on behavior throughout the Strange Situation, Ainsworth viewed the toddler's reunion behavior as the best indicator of the quality of attachment. What do toddlers do when the mother reenters the room? Toddlers with secure attachments are delighted to see their mothers again after a separation and seek physical contact with her. In contrast, toddlers with insecure attachments either respond little to her return (avoidant), seem both relieved and angry at her (resistant), or react fearfully (disorganized-disoriented).

Humans are biologically built for learning language, but not for learning any specific language. There are about 7,000 different human languages in the world (Rubenstein, 2017), but none of them come pre-inscribed on our brains. Whatever language we learn must come from our social and cultural environment. This was first shown in a bizarre experiment conducted about 800 years ago. Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor (1194-1250), decided he wanted to find out what language infants would speak "naturally" if they were left to their own resources. He chose a group of neonates in an orphanage and instructed their caregivers never to speak in their presence. What language would the babies begin to speak spontaneously, on their own? Would it be Latin, the language of scholars at that time? Would it be German, Frederick's own language, or (God forbid) French, the language of his chief rivals? The answer turned out to be, as you may have guessed, none of the above. Tragically, all of the infants died. This is a poignant illustration of how we are poised for language to be part of the human social environment, and of how humans need language to develop properly, not just in their language development but in their social development. What kind of social environment do toddlers need in order to develop their language skills? In American research, the focus has been on how parents foster language development in young children. In the United States and other developed countries, parents often read to their infants and toddlers, explaining the meaning of the words as they go along (Fitneva & Matsui, 2015). This is a way of preparing children for an economic future in which the ability to apprehend and use information will be crucial. Parents in the majority culture are more likely than parents in ethnic minority cultures to read to their toddlers, promoting an early advantage in verbal development that continues through the school years (Driessen et al., 2010). Several studies have examined social class differences in parents' language stimulation and how this is related to the pace of toddlers' language development. The higher the social class of the parents, the more likely they are to read to their toddlers (Fitneva & Matsui, 2015). Social class status is also correlated with how much parents speak to their young children. For example, one study videotaped parent-child interactions in the homes of low-, middle-, and high-income families on several occasions, beginning when the children were 7 to 9 months old and continuing until they were about 30 months old (Hart & Risley, 1999). There were striking differences in how many words were spoken to children of different income levels. Parents in high-income families talked the most to their children, averaging about 35 words a minute; parents in middle-income families talked to their children an average of about 20 words a minute; and parents of low-income families provided the least language stimulation, just 10 words per minute. By 30 months old there were substantial differences in the toddlers' vocabularies, averaging 766 words in the high-income families and just 357 words in the low-income families. A more recent study reached similar conclusions (Weisleder & Fernald, 2013). Of course, there is a research design problem in studies like this, because parents provide not only the environment to their children but their genes; this is known as passive genotype-environment effects, as you will recall from Chapter 2. In studies of parents and children in biological families, genes and environment are confounded, which means they are closely related and difficult to separate. However, in early childhood and beyond, the influence of teachers' language use on children's language development provides more definite evidence of an environmental effect, because teachers and children have no genetic relationship (Huttenlocher et al., 2002). Apart from speaking and reading to toddlers, Infant Directed (ID) speech can also benefit language development—at least for some toddlers. As we saw in Chapter 4, when adults use ID speech with infants and toddlers, they simplify their grammar, raise the pitch of their voice, and repeat words and phrases. A recent study using an experimental design provides particularly convincing evidence of the benefits of ID speech because it goes beyond merely showing a correlation between caregiver language use and infant language learning (Ma et al., 2011). Toddlers were randomly sorted into two groups. Mothers were instructed to use new made-up words, such as "modi" and "blick," with both groups. However, in one group mothers used ID speech with their toddlers, whereas in the other group they used regular adult speech. Findings showed that 21-month-olds with small vocabularies learned more new words when presented with ID speech compared to 21-month-olds with small vocabularies who listened to regular adult speech. In contrast, 21-month-olds with large vocabularies learned equally well from the two kinds of speech. When the experiment was conducted with 27-month-olds, all groups of toddlers with small and large vocabularies learned equally well from adult speech. The findings suggest that there may be a window of time when ID speech is particularly beneficial to toddlers with relatively small vocabularies.

Although language development clearly has a biological basis, culture plays an important role as well. Because most research on language development is conducted in developed Western countries, an assumption of this research is that most toddler language use takes place in a parent-toddler dyad—just the two of them. This assumption may be true for the families being studied in developed countries, but the social environment that most toddlers experience worldwide is much different from this, and consequently their language environment differs as well. Once they learn to walk and begin to talk, toddlers in most cultures spend most of their days not with their parents but in mixed-age groups of other children, including an older girl, often an older sister, who is mainly responsible for caring for them (Edwards et al., 2015). When toddlers are with their parents, usually many other people are around as well, such as siblings, extended-family members, and neighbors. This makes for a language-rich environment, because there is talking going on around them almost constantly, with so many people present. However, relatively little of this talk may be directed specifically at the toddler, because there are so many other people around and because others may not see it as necessary to speak directly to toddlers in order to stimulate their language development (Fitneva & Matsui, 2015). In fact, the others in a toddler's social environment may even see it as bad parenting to speak often with toddlers. The Gusii people of Kenya believe that encouraging young children to speak is a mistake, because it makes it more likely that they will grow up to be selfish and disobedient (LeVine et al., 1994). Their children learn the Gusii language as proficiently as English children learn English, but they learn it from being frequently in social groups where adults and older children are using language, not from having their language development stimulated directly in frequent daily interactions with their parents. It is not only in rural cultures in developing countries that this approach to toddlers' language development is found, but in developed countries that emphasize collectivistic rather than individualistic cultural beliefs. One study compared Japanese mothers and Canadian mothers in their interactions with their young children (Minami & McCabe, 1995). In Japanese culture, being talkative is considered impolite and undesirable, especially for males, because the Japanese believe it is better to blend in harmoniously with the group than to call attention to yourself (Henrich et al., 2010; Rothbaum & Wang, 2011). Consequently, the Japanese mothers in the study often discouraged their children from talking, especially their boys. In contrast, the Canadian mothers encouraged their children to talk more, by asking them questions and suggesting they provide more details. Researchers interpreted this approach as being based on a belief system favoring individualism and self-expression. Watch the Language Development Across Cultures video to see how parents from different cultural backgrounds communicate with their infants and toddlers and what parents do, if anything, to foster their child's language development.

self-starvation among young women has a long history in Western countries, and was once considered a sign of religious devotion, hundreds of years ago (Vandereycken & van Deth, 1994). Today, eating disorders are most common in cultures that emphasize slimness as part of the female physical ideal, especially Western countries (Latzer et al., 2011; Piat et al., 2015). Presented with a cultural ideal that portrays the ideal female body as slim, at a time when their bodies tend to become less slim and more rounded, many adolescent girls feel distressed and attempt to resist or modify the changes taking place in their body shape. Young women who have an eating disorder are at higher risk for other disorders, such as depression and anxiety disorders (Rojo-Moreno et al., 2015; Swanson et al., 2011). Eating disordered behavior is also related to substance use, especially cigarette smoking and binge drinking (Pisetsky et al., 2008).

Although mainly a Western problem, eating disorders are increasing in parts of the world that are becoming more Westernized. For example, on the island nation of Fiji, traditionally the ideal body type for women was round and curvy. However, after television was introduced in 1995, mostly with programming from the United States and other Western countries, the incidence of eating disorders rose substantially (Becker et al., 2007). Interviews with adolescent girls on Fiji showed that they admired the Western television characters and wanted to look like them. This goal, in turn, led to higher incidence of negative body image, preoccupation with weight, and purging behavior (Becker, 2004). The main treatments for anorexia and bulimia are hospitalization, medication, or psychotherapy, but the success of these approaches is limited. About two-thirds of people treated for anorexia in hospital programs improve, but one third remain chronically ill despite treatment (Lock, 2015). Similarly, although treatments for bulimia are successful in about 50% of cases, there are repeated relapses in the other 50%, and recovery is often slow (Smink et al., 2012). Adolescents and emerging adults with a history of eating disorders often continue to show significant impairments in mental and physical health, self-image, and social functioning even after their eating disorder has faded (Berkman et al., 2007; Rojo-Moreno et al., 2015). About 10% of those with anorexia eventually die from starvation or from physical problems caused by their weight loss, the highest mortality rate of any psychiatric disorder (Smink et al., 2012).

Which of the following statements about Americans and religious belief is true?

Americans are more religious than people in virtually any other developed country.

Toddlers' advances in language begin slowly but then rise sharply, so that in less than 2 years they go from speaking a few words to being highly adept language users. Especially notable is the amazing burst of language development that occurs at 18 to 24 months. For the first 6 months of toddlerhood, language develops at a steady but slow pace. From 12 to 18 months old, toddlers learn to speak one to three new words a week, reaching a total of 10 words by 15 months old and 50 words by about 18 months old, on average, in American studies (Bloom, 1998). There is a wide range of variability around these averages. Toddlers may speak their 10th word anywhere from 13 to 19 months old and their 50th word anywhere from 14 to 24 months old and still be considered within the normal range. Just as the timing of taking first steps has no relation to later athletic ability, timing of speaking the first, 10th, or 50th word has no relation to later verbal ability. The first 50 words tend to be words that are part of toddlers' daily routines (Waxman & Lidz, 2006), and include: important people ("Mama," "Dada") familiar animals ("dog," "kitty") body parts ("hair," "tummy") moving objects ("car," "truck") foods ("milk," "cookie") actions ("eat," "bath") household items ("cup," "chair") toys ("ball," "bear") greetings or farewells ("hi," "bye-bye") There are similarities across cultures in toddlers' earliest words. For example, one study found that the earliest words of three groups of toddlers learning Cantonese, Mandarin, and English included mommy, daddy, hi, and bye. ​(Mandarin and Cantonese are the two most common Chinese languages.) There were also differences, however, that hinted at diversity across the toddlers' daily lives. Both groups of Chinese toddlers, for example, were more likely than the American toddlers to refer to family members other than their parents, such as brother, sister, grandma, and grandpa. The American toddlers said the word "bottle," whereas the Chinese toddlers did not. Only the Mandarin-using toddlers spoke the word "naughty," perhaps signifying the early learning of shame in Chinese culture (Tardif et al., 2008). Toddlers first learn the words they need to use in practical ways to communicate with the people around them, usually as part of shared activities (Waxman & Lidz, 2006). Often at this age they speak in partial words, for example "bah" for bird, "meh" for milk, or "na-na" for banana. From 12 to 18 months most toddlers use one word at a time, but a single word can have varied meanings. Toddlers' single words are called holophrases, meaning that for them a single word can be used to represent different forms of whole sentences (Flavell et al., 2002). For example, "cup" could mean "Fill my cup with juice," or "I dropped the cup on the floor," or "Hand me my cup, I can't reach it," or "Here, take this cup," depending on when and how and to whom it is said. Another way toddlers make the most of their limited vocabulary is to have a single word represent a variety of related objects. This is called overextension (Bloom, 2000). For example, when the son of two language researchers learned the name of the furry family dog, Nunu, he applied it not only to the original Nunu but to all dogs, as well as to other fuzzy objects such as slippers, and even to a salad with a large black olive that apparently reminded him of Nunu's nose (de Villiers & de Villiers, 1978). Toddlers also exhibit underextension, applying a general word to a specific object (Woodward & Markman, 1998). An example would be a child who thinks that the word bear refers solely to her stuffed animal toy. Underextension often occurs in this way, with a toddler first applying a new word to a specific object, then learning later to apply it to a category of objects. Here, as at all ages, production (speaking) lags behind comprehension (understanding) in language development. Although toddlers do not reach the 50-word milestone in production until about 18 months old, they usually achieve 50-word comprehension by about 13 months old (Menyuk et al., 1995). During toddlerhood, comprehension is a better predictor of later verbal intelligence than production is (Parish-Morris et al., 2013; Reznick et al., 1997). Eighteen Months to 24 Months: The Naming Explosion After learning to speak words at a slow rate for the first half of their second year, toddlers' word production suddenly takes off from 18 to 24 months. The pace of learning new words doubles, from one to three words per week to five or six words per week (Kopp, 2003). This is known as the naming explosion or vocabulary spurt (Bloom et al., 1985; Goldfield & Reznick, 1990). After just one time of being told what an object is called, toddlers this age will learn it and remember it, a process called fast mapping (Gopnik et al., 1999; Markman & Jaswal, 2004; Yow et al., 2017). Fast mapping is due not just to memory but to toddlers' ability to quickly infer the meaning of words based on how the word is used in a sentence and how it seems to be related to words they already know (Dixon et al., 2006). By their second birthday, toddlers have an average vocabulary of about 200 words (Dale & Goodman, 2005). This rapid pace of learning and remembering words will continue for years, but it is especially striking at 18 to 24 months because this is when it begins (Ganger & Brent, 2004). Girls' vocabulary increases faster than boys' vocabulary during this period, initiating a gender difference in verbal abilities that will persist throughout life (Lovas, 2011). Two of the most notable words toddlers learn during this period are gone and no. Using "gone" reflects their growing awareness of object permanence, as it signifies that something has disappeared from view but still exists somewhere (Gopnik et al., 1999). Using "no" reflects their budding sense of self ("me," "my," and "mine" also begin to be used at this age). Saying "no" can be short for "You may want me to do to that, but I don't want to do it!" Of course, they also begin to hear "No!" more often around this age, as their mobility and curiosity leads them to behavior that the adults around them may regard as dangerous or destructive. During this 18- to 24-month period they also learn to name one or two colors, at least six body parts, and emotional states like "tired" and "mad" (Kopp, 2003). Toward the end of the 18- to 24-month period, toddlers begin to combine spoken words for the first time. Their first word combinations are usually two words, in what is called telegraphic speech (Bloom, 1998; Brown, 1973; Edmonds, 2011). Telegraphic speech takes similar forms in a variety of languages, from English to German to Finnish to Samoan: "See doggie," "Big car," "My ball," "More cookie," or "Mommy gone" (Bochner & Jones, 2003; Slobin, 1972). Like a telegram in the old days, telegraphic speech strips away connecting words like the and and, getting right to the point with nouns, verbs, and modifiers.

An interesting feature of telegraphic speech is that it already shows an initial knowledge of syntax (word order). Toddlers say "See doggie," not "Doggie see"; they say "My ball," not "Ball my." Similar to the one-word holophrases used earlier, telegraphic speech implies more understanding of language than it states explicitly: "Big car" means "Look at the big car," "My ball" means "This is my ball," and so on. Verbal production is the most striking advance of the 18- to 24-month period, but comprehension also advances notably as toddlers become faster and more efficient in processing words. In one series of experiments, toddlers 15 to 24 months old were shown pictures of two objects at a time while a recorded voice said "Where's the ?" and named one of the objects (Fernald et al., 2006). At 15 months, toddlers waited until the whole word had been spoken before looking at the object the word referred to, but by 24 months they would shift their gaze even before the word had been completely spoken, for example looking at the shoe as soon as they heard "sh" spoken. Twenty-Four Months to 36 Months: Becoming Adept at Language During the third year, toddlers continue to expand their speaking vocabulary at the same rapid pace that began at 18 to 24 months. They learn to use prepositions such as under, over, and through (Bornstein et al., 2004). They also use words that reflect a more complex understanding of categories. For example, they understand that a bear is not only a bear but also an animal (Kopp, 2003). They continue to exhibit overextension and underextension, but with diminishing frequency as their vocabulary expands. They continue to use telegraphic speech, but now in three- and four-word statements ("Ball under bed!") rather than two words. Increasingly during the third year they begin to speak in short, complete sentences. At this age our son Miles would point to the moon and protest, "It's too high!" then look at us as if he expected us to do something about it. By the end of their third year most toddlers are remarkably skilled language users (Maratsos, 1998). They can communicate with others about a wide range of topics. They can speak about present events as well as those in the past and future. Toddlers raised in homes where Chinese is spoken have learned that raising or lowering the pitch of a word changes its meaning. French toddlers have learned how to make nasal sounds and say "Voilà!" and !Kung San toddlers in Botswana have learned how to click their tongues against various parts of their mouths to make the words of their language (Small, 2001). Although their pronunciation of words is not as precise as it will become later, by the time they reach age 3 most toddlers can speak clearly enough to make themselves understood about nearly anything they wish. Furthermore, without any explicit instruction, by the end of the third year toddlers have learned the rules of their language, no matter how complex those rules may seem to someone who does not speak it. Consider this example (Slobin, 1972, 2014). In Turkish, the rules of syntax (word order) are different from English. In English, "The girl fed the dog" has quite a different meaning from "The dog fed the girl." The subject (girl) is supposed to go first, followed by the verb (fed) and then the object (dog). However, in Turkish the object is indicated not by the syntax but by attaching the suffix u. So, "The girl fed the dog-u" means the same as "The dog-u fed the girl." Turkish toddlers use the u rule correctly by their third year, just as English-speaking children learn the correct use of English syntax by their third year. Toddlers' language mastery is evident not only in how well they use the rules of their language but in the mistakes they make. As they learn the grammar of their language, they make mistakes that reflect overregularization, which means applying grammatical rules even to words that are exceptions to the rule. Here are two examples from English that illustrate overregularization. First, the plural of most English nouns can be obtained by adding -s to the singular form, but there are irregular exceptions, such as "mice" as the plural of "mouse" and "feet" as the plural of "foot." In the third year, toddlers sometimes make mistakes with these kinds of words, saying "mouses" instead of "mice" and "foots" instead of "feet." Second, the rule for the past tense of an English verb is to add -ed to the end, but there are irregular exceptions, such as "went" as the past tense of "go" and "threw" as the past tense of "throw." In the third year, toddlers sometimes make mistakes with these exceptions, saying "Mommy goed to the store" or "I throwed the ball." However, it is a testament to toddlers' language mastery that even by the third year, mistakes of this kind are rare (Bochner & Jones, 2003).

After the emotional volatility and intensity of the toddler years, children make great advances in emotional self-regulation in early childhood. Also notable in their emotional development during this time is increasing empathy and a greater grasp of the moral system of their culture, learned in part by modeling their behavior after the behavior of others who are important in their lives. With regard to gender development, early childhood is a life stage of great importance, with children gaining a fuller understanding of the gender roles and expectations of their culture and beginning to enforce those gender roles on others as well as on themselves. In their emotional understanding, young children become adept at understanding the sources of other people's expressed emotions (Eisenberg & Fabes, 2006). In studies that show children cards depicting expressed emotions, by age 5 children are usually accurate in explaining the emotions of the situation (e.g., "She's happy because she got a present," or "He's sad because his mom scolded him"). They are also adept at understanding how emotional states are the basis of subsequent actions; for example, an angry child is more likely to hit someone (Kagan & Hershkowitz, 2005). Young children become more adept not only at understanding others' emotions but at controlling their own. In fact, emotional self-regulation is considered to be one of the major developmental tasks of early childhood (Bridgett et al., 2015; Grolnick et al., 2006; Montroy et al, 2016). Developing emotional self-regulation is crucial to social relations, because maintaining harmonious social relations often requires us to restrain our immediate impulses—to wait in line, to let others go first in a game or a conversation, or to take fewer pieces of candy than we really want. Across cultures, early childhood is a time when expectations for emotional self-regulation increase (LeVine & LeVine, 2016; Whiting & Edwards, 1988). From age 2 to 6, extremes of emotional expression such as temper tantrums, crying, and physical aggression decrease (Alink et al., 2006; Carlson, 2003; Leaper, 2013). In the brain, the development of the frontal cortex promotes this process, because this is the part of the brain most involved in emotional self-regulation (Markant & Thomas, 2013). Another key reason emotional outbursts decline during early childhood is that children learn strategies for regulating their emotions (Grolnick et al., 2006). Experimental studies have identified the strategies that young children use when presented with an emotionally challenging situation, such as being given a disappointing prize after being led to expect a very attractive prize (Eisenberg & Fabes, 2006). Some of the most effective strategies are leaving the situation; talking to themselves; redirecting their attention to a different activity; and seeking comfort from an attachment figure. These strategies are part of what researchers call effortful control, when children focus their attention on managing their emotions (Cipriano & Stifter, 2010). Parents can help young children develop effortful control, by providing emotional and physical comfort when their children are upset, by suggesting possible strategies for managing emotions, and by modeling effortful control themselves (Katz & Windecker-Nelson, 2004; Tiberio et al, 2016). Children vary in their success at achieving emotional self-regulation in early childhood, depending both on their temperament and on the socialization provided by parents and others. Children who have problems of undercontrol in early childhood have inadequately developed emotional self-regulation. These children are at risk for externalizing problems, such as aggression and conflict with others, in early childhood and beyond (Cole et al., 2003; Eisenberg et al., 2010). However, developing overcontrol, an excessive degree of self-regulation of emotions, is also problematic. This can lead to internalizing problems, such as anxiety and depression, in early childhood and beyond (Eisenberg et al., 2010; Grolnick et al., 2006). Throughout life, internalizing problems are more common among females and externalizing problems are more common among males (Frick & Kimonis, 2008; Morelen et al., 2012; Ollendick et al., 2008). Successful emotional regulation means developing a level of effortful control that is between the two extremes. As Erikson (1950) noted in proposing that early childhood is the stage of initiative vs. guilt, children need to learn emotional control but without being so tightly regulated that they feel excess guilt and their ability to initiate activities is undermined. But different cultures have different views of what the optimal level of emotional control is (Chen et al., 2007). Behavior that looks like undercontrol in one culture could be valued as a healthy expression of assertiveness in another culture, at least for boys (Levine & New, 2008; Morelen et al., 2012). Behavior that looks like overcontrol in one culture could be valued as the virtue of reticence in another culture (Chen, 2011; Rogoff, 2003).

As described in Chapter 5, toddlerhood is when the sociomoral emotions first appear, such as guilt, shame, embarrassment, and pride. Even in toddlerhood, cultural standards shape sociomoral emotions. Toddlers feel guilt, shame, or embarrassment when they violate the expected standards for behavior in their social environment, and pride when they comply. One sociomoral emotion that is especially important to moral development in early childhood is empathy. As we have seen, toddlers and even infants show empathy, but the capacity for empathy develops further in early childhood (Eisenberg & Valiente, 2004; Uzefovsky & Knafo-Noam, 2017). Children become better at perspective-taking and theory of mind, and being able to understand how others think and feel makes them more empathic. Empathy promotes prosocial behavior such as being generous or helpful. It contributes to the moral understanding of principles such as avoiding harm and being fair, because through empathy children understand how their behavior would make another person feel. As empathy increases, prosocial behavior increases over the course of early childhood (Eisenberg et al., 2010; Malti et al., 2019). In early childhood, moral development advances further as children gain a more detailed and complex understanding of the rules and expectations of their culture (Jensen, 2015). Toddlers know when others approve or disapprove of something they have done, and they usually respond with the appropriate sociomoral emotion. However, in early childhood there is greater awareness of the rule or expectation that evoked the approval or disapproval. Also, young children are more capable than toddlers of anticipating the potential consequences of their actions and avoiding behaviors that would be morally disapproved of (Grolnick et al., 2006). Young children do not inherently know the rules and expectations of their culture and must learn them, sometimes by unknowingly violating them and then observing the consequences in the responses of their parents and others. For example, one day when our twins were about 4 years old, they got into the laundry room in the basement and took cups of liquid detergent and spread it all over the basement furniture—sofa, table, loveseat, CD player—all of which were ruined! We don't think they had any intention or awareness of doing something wrong. More likely, they thought they were being helpful, since we had encouraged them to add cups of detergent to the washing machine when doing laundry. After we found out what they had done, they knew from our distressed response they should not do it again. And they never did. Socialization, the process by which children acquire the behaviors and beliefs of the culture they live in, is important to the acquisition of moral rules and expectations (Grusec & Hastings, 2007; Grusec et al., 2014). A good example of cultural learning of morality can be found in the research of Richard Shweder, who has compared children, adolescents, and adults in India and the United States (2009; Shweder et al., 1990; Shweder & Menon, 2014). Shweder has found that by about age 5, children already grasp the moral standards of their culture, and their views change little from childhood to adolescence to adulthood. Shweder found that there are some similarities in moral views in early childhood in India and the United States, but also many differences. At age 5, children in both countries have learned that it is wrong to take others' property ("steal flowers from a neighbor's garden") or to inflict harm intentionally ("kick a dog sleeping on the side of the road"). However, young children also view many issues with a different moral perspective depending on whether they live in India or the United States. Young children in the United States view it as acceptable to eat beef, but young children in India view it as wrong. Young children in India view it as acceptable for more of a father's inheritance to go to his son than to his daughter, but young children in the United States view it as wrong. Young children in both cultures have the ability to understand their culture's moral rules, even though the moral rules they have learned by early childhood are quite different. How do children learn moral rules so early in life? There are several ways. Sometimes moral rules are taught explicitly. For example, some parents remind their children of the Ten Commandments of the Jewish and Christian religions in everyday conversations about moral issues (Fasoli, 2017; Hickman & Fasoli, 2015). Sometimes morality is taught through stories. Barbara Rogoff (2003) gives examples of storytelling as moral instruction in a variety of cultures, including Canadian First Nations people, Native Americans, and the Xhosa people of South Africa. Among the Xhosa (pronounced ZO-sa), the elders usually tell the stories, but the stories have been told many times before, and even young children soon learn them and participate in the narrative. Young children also learn morality through custom complexes. Remember, the essence of the custom complex is that every customary practice of a culture contains not just the customary practice itself but the underlying cultural beliefs, often including moral beliefs. Shweder (Shweder et al., 1990) gives an example of this kind of moral learning in India. Like people in many cultures, Indians believe that a woman's menstrual blood has potentially dangerous powers. Consequently, a menstruating woman is not supposed to cook food or sleep in the same bed as her husband. By the end of early childhood, Indian children have learned not just that a menstruating woman does not cook food or sleep with her husband (the cultural practice) but that it would be wrong for her to do so (the moral belief). A variation on the custom complex can be found in American research on modeling. Research extending over more than 40 years has shown that young children tend to model their behavior after the behavior of others they observe (Bandura, 1977; Bandura, 2016; Bussey & Bandura, 2004). Most of this research has been experimental, involving situations where children observe other children or adults behaving aggressively or kindly, selfishly or generously; then children's own behavior in a similar experimental situation is observed. Children are especially likely to model their behavior after another person if the other person's behavior is rewarded. Also, they are more likely to model their behavior after adults who are warm and responsive or who are viewed as having authority or prestige. According to modeling theory, after observing multiple occasions of others' behavior being rewarded or punished, children conclude that the rewarded behavior is morally desirable and the punished behavior is forbidden (Bandura, 2002). So, by observing behavior (and its consequences), they learn their culture's principles of moral conduct. As in the custom complex, culturally-patterned behavior implies underlying moral beliefs. It is not only the case that children are the recipients of moral socialization, they also contribute to the socialization of others—thereby further strengthening their own commitment to the moral rules and expectations. As we just saw, young children take part in the telling of stories with moral implications. Experimental research with 3-year-olds has also shown that they protest when they watch a puppet destroy a drawing intended for another puppet ("you can't do that!"). The children also told adults about the destructive puppet, and they behaved more prosocially toward the wronged puppet (Vaish et al., 2011). In addition to grasping early their culture's moral principles, young children begin to display the rudiments of moral reasoning. By the age of 3 or 4, children are capable of making moral judgments that involve considerations of justice and fairness (Killen & Smetana, 2015). By age 4 they understand the difference between telling the truth and lying, and they believe it is wrong to tell lies even when the liar is not caught (Bussey, 1992). However, their moral reasoning tends to be rigid at this age. They are more likely than older children to state that stealing and lying are always wrong, without regard to the circumstances (Lourenco, 2003). Also, their moral judgments tend to be based more on fear of punishment than is the case for older children and adults (Gibbs, 2003; Jensen, 2015). Their moral reasoning will become more complex with age. Teaching moral rules is a large part of parenting young children. Sometimes the hardest part is keeping a straight face. When our twins turned 4 years old, we bought a nice leather chair for our living room, thinking that by now they were old enough to know they should be gentle with a nice piece of furniture. Wrong! Within 2 weeks they had put several large scratches in it. When confronted, they confessed at first, but then retracted their confession and looked for an alibi. "We didn't do it," claimed Paris, lawyer for the defense. "Well, then who did?" we demanded. She cast her eyes down, as if it were painful for her to reveal the true offender. "Santa Claus," she confessed.

In adolescence, as at earlier life stages, Piaget's theory of cognitive development has been influential but has also been questioned and critiqued. Research using the information-processing approach documents the advances in attention, memory and executive function that occur in adolescence. Cognitive approaches have also been applied to social topics, investigating how adolescents view themselves and others According to Piaget (1972), the stage of formal operations begins at about age 11 and reaches completion somewhere between ages 15 and 20. Children in the previous stage of concrete operations can perform simple tasks that require logical and systematic thinking, but formal operations allow adolescents to reason about complex tasks and problems involving multiple variables. Formal operations also include the development of abstract thinking, which allows adolescents to think about abstract ideas such as justice and time and gives them the ability to imagine a wide range of possible solutions, even if they have had no direct experience with the problem. Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning The stage of formal operations involves the development of hypothetical-deductive reasoning, the ability to think scientifically and apply the rigor of the scientific method to cognitive tasks. To demonstrate this new ability, let us look at one of the tasks Piaget used to test whether a child has progressed from concrete to formal operations, the pendulum problem (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958). In this task, children and adolescents are shown a pendulum (consisting of a weight hanging from a string and then set in motion). They are given various weights and various lengths of string to use in their deliberations and asked to figure out what determines how fast the pendulum sways. Is it the heaviness of the weight? The length of the string? The height from which the weight is dropped? The force with which it is dropped? Children in concrete operations tend to approach the problem with random attempts, often changing more than one variable in each trial. When the speed of the pendulum changes, it remains difficult for them to say what caused the change, because they altered more than one variable at a time. If they happen to arrive at the right answer—it's the length of the string—they find it difficult to explain why. For Piaget, this is crucial. Cognitive advances at each stage are reflected not just in the answers children devise for problems, but in their explanations for how they arrived at the solution. The formal operational thinker tests different possibilities systematically, changing one variable at a time. Through this process the formal operational thinker arrives at an answer that not only is correct but can also be defended and explained. Critiques of Piaget's Theory of Formal Operations Formal operations is the most-critiqued stage of Piaget's theory (Keating, 2004; Marti & Rodriguez, 2012). Its limitations fall into two related categories: individual differences in the attainment of formal operations, and the cultural basis of adolescent cognitive development. As noted in Chapter 4, Piaget asserted that people develop through the same stages at about the same ages (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958). Every 8-year-old is in the stage of concrete operations; every 15-year-old should be a formal operational thinker. Furthermore, Piaget's idea of stages means that 15-year-olds should reason in formal operations in all aspects of their lives, because the same mental structure should be applied no matter the nature of the problem (Keating, 2004). Abundant research indicates decisively that these claims were inaccurate, especially for formal operations (Kuhn, 2008). In adolescence and adulthood, a great range of individual differences exists in the extent to which people use formal operations. Some adolescents and adults use formal operations over a wide range of situations; others use it selectively; still others appear to use it rarely if at all. On any given Piagetian task of formal operations, the success rate among late adolescents and adults is only 40%-60%, depending on the task and on individual factors such as educational background (Keating, 2012; Lawson & Wollman, 2003). Furthermore, even people who demonstrate the capacity for formal operations tend to use it selectively, for problems and situations in which they have the most experience and knowledge (Miller, 2011). For example, an adolescent with experience working on cars may find it easy to apply principles of formal operations in that area but have difficulty applying them to classroom tasks. Adolescents who have had courses in math and science are more likely than other adolescents to exhibit formal operational thought (Keating, 2012; Lawson & Wollman, 2003). Questions have also been raised about the extent to which cultures differ in whether their members reach formal operations at all. Thinking in formal operations may be a universal human potential, but it takes different forms across cultures depending on the kinds of problems people encounter in their daily lives (Maynard, 2008). For example, adolescent boys in the Inuit culture of the Canadian Arctic traditionally learn how to hunt seals (Condon, 1990; Grigorenko et al., 2004). To become successful, a boy would have to think through the components involved in a hunt and test his knowledge of hunting through experience. If he were unsuccessful on a particular outing, he would have to ask himself why. Was it because of the location he chose? The equipment he took along? The tracking method he used? Or were there other causes? On the next hunt, he might alter one or more of these factors to see if his success improved. This would be hypothetical-deductive reasoning, altering and testing different variables to arrive at the solution to a problem. However, in every culture there is likely to be considerable variation in the extent to which adolescents and adults display formal operational thought, from persons who display it in a wide variety of circumstances to persons who display it little or not at all. How do Inuit boys use formal operations to hunt seals? Piaget's theory of formal operations has inspired a great deal of research on adolescents' cognitive development. However, information processing research shows other types of gains in cognitive development from childhood to adolescence..

As noted in previous chapters, attention, memory, and executive function are key to cognition in the information processing approach. In all three areas, distinctive forms of cognitive development sprout in adolescence. Adolescents become more proficient at both selective and divided attention, and they become better at using memory strategies. Are you able to read a book while someone in the same room is watching television? Are you able to have a conversation at a party where music and other conversations are blaring loudly all around you? These are tasks that require selective attention, the ability to focus on relevant information while screening out irrelevant information. Adolescents tend to be better than younger children at tasks that require selective attention, and emerging adults are generally better than adolescents (Murphy et al., 2016; Sinha & Goel, 2012). Adolescents are also more adept than younger children at tasks that require divided attention—reading a book and listening to music at the same time, for example—but even for adolescents, divided attention may result in less-efficient learning than if attention were focused entirely on one thing. One study found that watching TV interfered with adolescents' homework performance but listening to music did not (Pool et al., 2003). Memory also improves in adolescence, especially long-term memory. Adolescents are more likely than younger children to use mnemonic devices (memory strategies), such as organizing information into coherent patterns (Schneider, 2010). Think of what you do, for example, when you sit down to read a textbook chapter. You have probably developed various organizational strategies over the years (if you have not, you would be wise to develop some), such as writing a chapter outline, organizing information into categories, focusing on key terms, and so on. By planning your reading in these ways, you remember (and learn) more effectively. Adolescents also have more experience and knowledge than children do, and these advantages enhance the effectiveness of long-term memory (Keating 2004, 2012). Having more knowledge helps you learn new information and store it in long-term memory. This is a key difference between short-term and long-term memory. The capacity of short-term memory is limited, so the more information you have in there already, the less effectively you can add new information to it. With long-term memory, however, the capacity is essentially unlimited, and the more you know the easier it is to learn new information because you can relate it to what you already know. Adolescents also advance in their executive function, the ability to solve cognitive problems without becoming distracted and to adjust one's strategy as the nature of a problem changes. In fact, studies of executive function indicate that performance continues to rise past adolescence, well into emerging adulthood, peaking at around age 25 (Carlson et al., 2013). Figure 8.5 illustrates this developmental pattern between ages 9 and 49 on two different tests of executive function. Improvements in executive function allow adolescents and emerging adults to perform complex cognitive tasks that younger children cannot, such as driving an automobile or working as a clerk in a retail store. Figure 8.5 Executive Function Among 9- to 49-Year-Olds Source: Zelazo & Carlson (2012). Even so, there are distinct cultural differences in how adolescents' capabilities are viewed and the responsibilities they are given. In traditional cultures, adolescents are often given important work responsibilities, because their parents need their economic contribution to the family. More on this topic will be presented in a later section. Cognitive development in adolescence includes the development of metacognition, which is the capacity to think about thinking. This advance includes the ability to think about not only your own thoughts but also the thoughts of others. Adolescents are generally better at metacognition than younger children are. However, when their metacognitive abilities first develop, adolescents may have difficulty distinguishing their thinking about their own thoughts from their thinking about the thoughts of others, resulting in a distinctive kind of adolescent egocentrism. Ideas about adolescent egocentrism were first put forward by Piaget (1967) and developed further by David Elkind (1967, 1985; Alberts et al., 2007). According to Elkind, adolescent egocentrism has two aspects: the imaginary audience and the personal fable. The Imaginary Audience The imaginary audience results from adolescents' limited capacity to distinguish between their thinking about themselves and their thinking about the thoughts of others. Because they think about themselves so much and are so acutely aware of how they might appear to others, they conclude that others must also be thinking about them a great deal. Because they exaggerate the extent to which others think about them, they imagine a rapt audience for their appearance and behavior. The imaginary audience makes adolescents much more self-conscious than they were in middle childhood. Do you remember waking up in 7th or 8th grade with a pimple on your forehead, or discovering a mustard stain on your pants and wondering how long it had been there, or saying something in class that made everybody laugh even though you didn't intend it to be funny? Of course, experiences like these are not much fun as an adult, either. But they tend to be worse in adolescence, because the imaginary audience makes it seem as though "everybody" knows about your humiliation and will remember it for a long, long time. The imaginary audience is not something that simply disappears when adolescence ends. Adults are egocentric, too, to some extent. Adults, too, imagine (and sometimes exaggerate) an audience for their behavior. But this tendency is stronger in adolescence, when the capacity for distinguishing between our own perspective and the perspective of others is less developed (Alberts et al., 2007). For today's adolescents, this tendency may be promoted by social media; several studies have found that using social media such as Facebook deepens their feelings of being the center of an imaginary audience (Cingel & Krcmar, 2014). The Personal Fable According to Elkind (1967, 1985), the belief in an imaginary audience that is paying careful attention to how you look and act leads to the belief that there must be something special, something unique, about you. Adolescents' belief in the uniqueness of their personal experiences and their personal destiny is known as the personal fable. The personal fable can be the source of adolescent anguish, when it makes them feel that "no one understands me" because no one can share their unique experience (Elkind, 1978). It can be the source of high hopes, too, as adolescents imagine their unique personal destiny leading to the fulfillment of their dreams to be a rock musician, a professional athlete, a famous actor, or simply successful in the field of their choice. It can also contribute to risky behavior by adolescents whose sense of uniqueness leads them to believe that adverse consequences from behavior such as unprotected sex or drunk driving "won't happen to me." According to research by Elkind and his colleagues, personal fable scores increase from early to mid-adolescence and are correlated with participation in risk behaviors (Alberts et al., 2007). The personal fable can lead adolescents to believe that negative consequences from taking risks "won't happen to me." Like the imaginary audience, the personal fable diminishes with age but never disappears entirely for most of us. Even most adults like to think there is something special, if not unique, about their personal experiences and destiny. But the personal fable tends to be stronger in adolescence than at later ages, because with age our experiences and conversations with others lead us to an awareness that our thoughts and feelings are not as exceptional as we once might have believed (Elkind, 1978; Martin & Sokol, 2011).

Although most studies of toddlers' cognitive development pay little attention to culture, one cultural approach to cognition has gained increased attention from scholars of human development. This approach is founded on the ideas of the Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934). Vygotsky died of tuberculosis when he was just 37, and it took decades before his ideas about cognitive development were translated and recognized by scholars outside Russia. Only in recent decades has his work become widely influential among Western scholars. Even so, his influence is increasing as interest in understanding the cultural basis of development continues to grow (Gauvain & Nicolaides, 2015; Maynard & Martini, 2005). Vygotsky's theory is often referred to as a sociocultural theory, because in his view cognitive development is always both a social and a cultural process (Daniels et al., 2007). It is social because children learn through interactions with others and require assistance from others in order to learn what they need to know. It is cultural because what children need to know is determined by the culture they live in. Vygotsky recognized that there are distinct cultural differences in the knowledge children must acquire—from agricultural skills in rural Asia, to caring for cattle in eastern Africa, to the verbal and scientific reasoning skills taught in Western schools. This is very different from Piaget's theory, which emphasizes the child's solitary interactions with the physical environment and views cognitive development as essentially the same across cultures. Two of Vygotsky's most influential ideas are the zone of proximal development and scaffolding (Gauvain & Nicolaides, 2015). The zone of proximal development is the distance between skills or tasks that children can accomplish alone and those they are capable of performing if guided by an adult or a more competent peer. According to Vygotsky, children learn best if the instruction they receive is within the zone of proximal development, so that they need assistance at first but gradually become capable of performing the task on their own. For example, children learning a musical instrument may be lost or overwhelmed if learning entirely on their own but can make progress if guided by someone who already knows how to play the instrument. Watch the video Zone of Proximal Development to learn more.

As they learn in the zone of proximal development and have conversations with those guiding them, children begin to speak to themselves in a self-guiding and self-directing way, first aloud and then internally. Vygotsky called this private speech (Winsler et al., 2009). As children become more competent in what they are learning, they internalize their private speech and gradually decrease its use. Toddlerhood and early childhood are crucial periods in Vygotsky's theory, because it is during these life stages that children are most likely to use private speech and make the transition from using it aloud to using it internally (Feigenbaum, 2002). However, private speech continues throughout life. In fact, Vygotsky believed that private speech was necessary to all higher-order cognitive functioning. In recent years, studies have shown that adolescents and adults use private speech when solving tasks of diverse kinds (Medina et al., 2009). In contrast to Vygotsky, Piaget regarded speaking aloud to oneself as a sign of egocentrism—something that young children do because they fail to consider whether others might be interested in or understand what they are saying (Piaget, 1923). Another key idea in Vygotsky's theory is scaffolding, which is the degree of assistance provided to children in the zone of proximal development. According to Vygotsky, scaffolding should gradually decrease as children become more competent at a task. When children begin learning a task, they require substantial instruction and involvement from an adult or more capable peer, but as they gain knowledge and skill, the adult should gradually scale back the amount of direct instruction provided. For example, toddlers require their parents' help to get dressed, but with age and experience they become capable of doing more and more of it themselves, and eventually they can do it on their own. Scaffolding can occur at any age, whenever there is someone who is learning a skill or gaining knowledge from someone else. Scaffolding and the zone of proximal development underscore the social nature of learning in Vygotsky's theory. In his view, learning always takes place via a social process, through the interactions between someone who possesses knowledge and someone who is in the process of obtaining knowledge. The ideas of the zone of proximal development and scaffolding have been applied to older children's learning as well, and will be explored further in later chapters. Guided Participation One scholar who has been important in extending Vygotsky's theory is Barbara Rogoff (1990, 1995, 1998, 2003). Her idea of guided participation refers to the interaction between two people (often an adult and a child) as they participate in a culturally valued activity. The guidance is "the direction offered by cultural and social values, as well as social partners" (Rogoff, 1995, p. 142) as learning takes place. So, like Vygotsky, Rogoff portrays learning as a cultural and social process, but she emphasizes more the role of values. As an example of guided participation, Rogoff (2003) describes a toddler and caregiver in Taiwan "playing school" together. As part of the game, the caregiver teaches the toddler to stand up and bow down to the teacher at the beginning and end of class, thereby teaching not only the routine of the classroom but the cultural value of respect for teachers' authority. The teaching in guided participation may also be indirect. For example, from her research with the Mayan people of Guatemala, Rogoff (2003) describes how toddlers observe their mothers making tortillas and attempt to imitate them. Mothers give them a small piece of dough and help their efforts along by rolling the dough into a ball and starting the flattening process but otherwise do not provide explicit teaching, instead allowing toddlers to learn through observing and then attempting to imitate their mother's actions.

Like younger children, adolescents typically remain within the family, and most of them also attend school. However, social contexts of peers, romantic relations, work, and media often have greater prominence in adolescence than previously. Also, some adolescents develop problems that were rare in previous life stages. In most cultures, there are profound changes in family relations from middle childhood to adolescence. Perhaps the most notable change is the decline in the amount of time spent with family members, as described in Research Focus: The Daily Rhythms of Adolescents' Family Lives. When adolescents do spend time with their parents, conflict is more frequent than in middle childhood. Research Focus The Daily Rhythms of Adolescents' Family Lives Conflict with Parents Numerous studies have shown that adolescents and their parents agree on many of their beliefs and values and typically have a great deal of love and respect for one another (Kağitçibaşi & Yalin, 2015; Moore et al., 2002; Smetana, 2005). Nevertheless, studies in Western countries also indicate that conflict with parents increases sharply in early adolescence, compared with middle childhood, and remains high for several years before declining in late adolescence (Kağitçibaşi & Yalin, 2015; Laursen et al., 1998; Van Doorn et al., 2011). Figure 8.10 shows the increase in conflict from middle childhood to adolescence, from a longitudinal study that observed American mothers and sons in videotaped interactions on five occasions over 8 years (Granic et al., 2003). A Canadian study found that 40% of adolescents reported arguments with their parents at least once a week (Sears et al., 2007). Conflict in adolescence is especially frequent and intense between mothers and daughters (Collins & Laursen, 2004; Hofer et al., 2013). By mid-adolescence, conflict with parents tends to become somewhat less frequent but more intense before declining substantially in late adolescence and emerging adulthood (Fingerman & Yahirun, 2015; Laursen et al., 1998). Figure 8.10 Parental Conflict in Adolescence Why does conflict peak in the mid-teens? Source: Granic et al. (2003). There are several reasons why conflict with parents often rises during adolescence. First, adolescence entails reaching sexual maturity, which means that sexual issues may be a source of conflict in a way they would not have been in childhood (Arnett, 1999). Early-maturing adolescents tend to have more conflict with parents than adolescents who mature "on time," perhaps because sexual issues arise earlier (Graber, 2014). Second, advances in cognitive development make it possible for adolescents to rebut their parents' reasoning about rules and restrictions more effectively than they could have earlier. Third, and most importantly, in many cultures adolescence is a time of gaining greater independence from the family. Although parents and adolescents in these cultures usually share the same goal that the adolescent will eventually become a self-sufficient adult, they often disagree about the pace of adolescents' growing autonomy (Rote & Smetana, 2015). Parents may have concerns about adolescents' safety with respect to sexuality, automobile driving, and substance use, and so restrict adolescents' behavior in an effort to protect them from risks (Arnett, 1999). Adolescents expect to be able to make their own decisions in these areas and may resent their parents' restrictions, so conflict results. Why does conflict with parents rise from middle childhood to adolescence? However, not all cultures value and encourage increased autonomy in adolescence, as you will see in Cultural Focus: Adolescent Conflict with Parents. Cultural Focus Adolescent Conflict with Parents In traditional cultures, it is rare for parents and adolescents to engage in the kind of frequent conflicts typical of parent-adolescent relationships in Western cultures (Larson et al., 2010). The role of parent carries greater authority in traditional cultures than in the West, and this makes it less likely that adolescents in such cultures will express disagreements and resentments toward their parents (Phinney et al., 2005). Even when they disagree with their parents, they are unlikely to express it because of their feelings of duty and respect (Schlegel & Hewlett, 2011). Outside of the West, interdependence is a higher value than independence, not only during adolescence but throughout adulthood (Markus & Kitayama, 2010; Phinney et al., 2005). Just as a dramatic increase in autonomy during adolescence prepares Western adolescents for adult life in an individualistic culture, learning to submit to the authority of one's parents prepares adolescents in traditional cultures for an adult life in which interdependence is among the highest values and each person has a clearly designated position in a family hierarchy. In this video, adolescents from a variety of cultures are interviewed as they discuss their changing relationships with their parents as well as with their friends. Watch Cultural Focus: Adolescent Conflict with Parents Across Cultures The narrator tells us that interdependence is valued in the Mexican village where one of the female teens is from. What are the economic reasons why interdependence might be more adaptive in this Mexican village than in the American family also shown in the video? Submit Your answer has been made available to your instructor. Sibling and Extended-Family Relations For about 80% of American adolescents, and similar proportions in other developed countries, the family system also includes relationships with at least one sibling (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2009). The proportion of families with siblings is even higher in developing countries, where birthrates tend to be higher and families with only one child are rare (United Nations Development Programme, 2016). How did you get along with your siblings when you were in adolescence? For most people, relations with siblings in adolescence often involve conflict. In studies that compare adolescents' relationships with siblings to relationships with parents, grandparents, teachers, and friends, adolescents report more frequent conflicts with their siblings than with anyone else (Campione-Barr & Smetana, 2010). Common sources of conflict include teasing, possessions (e.g., borrowing a sibling's clothes without permission), responsibility for chores, name-calling, invasions of privacy, and perceived unequal treatment by parents (Noller, 2005). However, even though adolescents tend to have more conflicts with siblings than in their other relationships, conflict with siblings is lower in adolescence than at younger ages (Cicirelli, 2013). From childhood to adolescence, relationships with siblings become less emotionally intense, mainly because adolescents gradually spend less time with their siblings (Noller & Callan, 2015). By middle childhood, children in traditional cultures often have responsibility for caring for young siblings, and for many this responsibility continues into adolescence (Ungar et al., 2011). In Schlegel and Barry's (1991) analysis of adolescence in traditional cultures, over 80% of adolescent boys and girls had frequent responsibility for caring for younger siblings. This responsibility promotes conflict between siblings, but also close attachments. Time together, and closeness, is especially high between siblings of the same gender, mainly because in traditional cultures, daily activities are often separated by gender. Adolescents in traditional cultures also tend to be close to their extended family members. In these cultures children often grow up in a household that includes not only their parents and siblings but also grandparents, and often uncles, aunts, and cousins as well (Ochiai, 2015). These living arrangements promote closeness between adolescents and their extended family. In Schlegel and Barry's (1991) cross-cultural analysis, daily contact was as high with grandparents as with parents for adolescents in traditional cultures, and adolescents were usually even closer to their grandparents than to their parents. Perhaps this is because parents typically exercise authority over adolescents, whereas grandparents may focus more on nurturing and supporting adolescents. Extended family members are also important figures in the lives of adolescents in Western majority cultures. About 80% of American adolescents list at least one member of their extended family among the people most important to them, and closeness to grandparents is positively related to adolescents' well-being (Pratt et al., 2010; Ruiz & Silverstein, 2007).

As time spent with family decreases from middle childhood to adolescence, time spent with friends increases, in most cultures. Friends also become increasingly important in adolescents' emotional lives. In adolescence, as at other ages, friends choose one another primarily due to similarities in characteristics such as age, gender, ethnic group, personality, and leisure interests. As shown in the video Friends' Influence in Adolescence, adolescence is also a time when the influence of friends increases. Watch Friends' Influence in Adolescence Friendships: Cultural Themes and Variations Although family ties remain important in the lives of adolescents, friends become preferred in some ways. Adolescents indicate that they depend more on friends than on their parents or siblings for companionship and intimacy (Chan et al., 2015; French et al., 2001; Nickerson & Nagle, 2005). Friends become the source of adolescents' happiest experiences, the people with whom they feel most comfortable, and the persons they feel they can talk to most openly (French, 2015; Richards et al., 2002; Youniss & Smollar, 1985). Adolescents in Western cultures tend to be happiest when with friends. European studies comparing relationships with parents and friends show a pattern similar to American studies. For example, a study asked Dutch adolescents (ages 15 to 19) whom they rely on to communicate about themselves, including their personal feelings, sorrows, and secrets (Bois-Reymond & Ravesloot, 1996). Nearly half of the adolescents named their best friend or their romantic partner, whereas just 20% named one or both parents (only 3% their fathers). Another Dutch study found that 82% of adolescents named spending free time with friends as their favorite activity (Meeus, 2006). Studies in other European countries confirm that adolescents tend to be happiest when with their friends and that they tend to turn to their friends for advice and information on social relationships and leisure, although they come to parents for advice about education and career plans (Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2014). As noted earlier, adolescence in traditional cultures often entails less involvement with family and greater involvement with peers for boys but not for girls. However, for both boys and girls, the social and emotional balance between friends and family remains tilted more toward family for adolescents in developing countries than it does in the West. For example, in India, adolescents tend to spend their leisure time with family rather than friends, not because they are required to do so but because of collectivistic Indian cultural values and because they enjoy their time with family (Chaudhary & Sharma, 2012; Larson et al., 2000). Among Brazilian adolescents, emotional support is higher from parents than friends (Van Horn & Cunegatto, 2000). In a study comparing adolescents in Indonesia and the United States, Indonesian adolescents rated their family members higher and their friends lower on companionship and enjoyment, compared to American adolescents (French, 2015). Nevertheless, friends were the primary source of intimacy in both countries. Thus, it may be that adolescents in developing countries remain close to their families even as they also develop greater closeness to their friends during adolescence, whereas in the West closeness to family diminishes as closeness to friends grows. The Importance of Intimacy Probably the most important feature of adolescent friendships is intimacy , the degree to which two people share personal knowledge, thoughts, and feelings. Adolescent friends confide hopes and fears and help each other understand what is going on with their parents, teachers, and peers to a far greater degree than younger children do. When adolescents are asked what they would want a friend to be like or how they can tell that someone is their friend, they tend to mention intimate features of the relationship (French, 2015; Radmacher & Azmitia, 2006). They state, for example, that a friend is someone who understands you, someone you can share your problems with, someone who will listen when you have something important to say (Bauminger et al., 2008; Way, 2004). Younger children are less likely to mention these kinds of features and more likely to stress shared activities—we both like to play basketball, we ride bikes together, we play computer games, and so on. There are consistent gender differences in the intimacy of adolescent friendships, with girls tending to have more intimate friendships than boys do (Bauminger et al., 2008). Girls spend more time than boys talking to their friends, and they place a higher value on talking together as a component of their friendships (Legersky et al., 2015). Girls also rate their friendships as higher in affection, helpfulness, and nurturance compared with boys (Bokhorst et al., 2010). In contrast, even in adolescence, boys are more likely to emphasize shared activities as the basis of friendship, such as sports or hobbies (Radmacher & Azmitia, 2006). Cliques and Crowds Beyond close friendships, scholars generally make a distinction between two types of adolescent social groups, cliques and crowds. Cliques are small groups of friends who know each other well, do things together, and form a regular social group (Brown & Braun, 2013). Cliques have no precise size—3 to 12 is a rough range—but they are small enough so that all the members of the clique feel they know each other well and think of themselves as a cohesive group. Sometimes cliques are defined by distinctive shared activities—for example, working on cars, playing music, playing basketball—and sometimes simply by shared friendship (a group of friends who eat lunch together every day at school, for example). Cliques are often formed around shared activities. Here, South African adolescents enjoy a game of soccer. Crowds, in contrast, are larger, reputation-based groups of adolescents who are not necessarily friends and may not spend much time together (Brown & Braun, 2013; Brown et al., 2008; Horn, 2003). A review of 44 studies on adolescent crowds concluded that five major types of crowds are found in many schools (Susman et al., 2007): Elites (a.k.a. Populars, Preppies). The crowd recognized as having the highest social status in the school. Athletes (a.k.a. Jocks). Sports-oriented students, usually members of at least one sports team. Academics (a.k.a. Brains, Nerds, Geeks). Known for striving for good grades and for being socially inept. Deviants (a.k.a. Druggies, Burnouts). Alienated from the school social environment, suspected by other students of using illicit drugs and engaging in other risky activities. Others (a.k.a. Normals, Nobodies). Students who do not stand out in any particular way, neither positively nor negatively; mostly ignored by other students. Crowds mainly serve the function of helping adolescents to locate themselves and others within the secondary school social structure. In other words, crowds help adolescents to define their own identities and the identities of others. Knowing that others think of you as a "Brain" has implications for your identity—it means you are the kind of person who likes school, does well, and perhaps has more academic than social success. Thinking of someone else as a "Druggie" tells you something about that person (whether it is accurate or not)—he or she uses drugs, of course, probably dresses unconventionally, and does not seem to care much about school. Bullying At the age of 15, Phoebe Prince immigrated to the United States from Ireland with her family. She liked her new school at first and made friends, but then a popular boy took an interest in her, and she dated him a few times. Other girls who were interested in the boy began to harass her aggressively, calling her names in school and sending vicious email messages spreading false rumors about her. Friendless and persecuted in and out of school, she sank into despair and finally committed suicide, to the horror of her family and her community. This shocking true-life example shows how serious the consequences of bullying in adolescence can be. The prevalence of bullying rises through middle childhood and peaks in early adolescence, then declines substantially by late adolescence (Pepler et al., 2006; Van Noorden et al., 2015). As noted in Chapter 7, bullying is an international phenomenon, observed in many countries in Asia, Europe, and North America (Barzilay et al., 2017; Osao & Shimada, 2016; Pepler, 2014). In a landmark study of bullying among over 100,000 adolescents ages 11-15 in 28 countries around the world, self-reported prevalence rates of being a victim of bullying ranged from 6% among girls in Sweden to 41% among boys in Lithuania, with rates in most countries in the 10%-20% range (Due et al., 2005). Across countries, in this study and many others, boys are consistently more likely than girls to be bullies as well as victims. Bullying has a variety of negative effects on adolescents' development. In the 28-country study of adolescent bullying just mentioned, victims of bullying reported higher rates of a wide range of problems, including physical symptoms such as headaches, backaches, and difficulty sleeping, as well as psychological symptoms such as loneliness, helplessness, anxiety, and unhappiness (Due et al., 2005). Bullies themselves are also at high risk for problems (Klomek et al., 2007). A Canadian study of bullying that surveyed adolescents for 7 years beginning at ages 10-14 found that bullies reported more psychological problems and more problems in their relationships with parents and peers than non-bullies did (Pepler et al., 2008). A recent variation on bullying is cyberbullying (also called electronic bullying), which involves bullying behavior via social media (such as Facebook), email, or mobile phones (Kowalski et al., 2012; Thomas et al., 2015; Valkenberg & Peter, 2011). A Swedish study of 12- to 20-year-olds found an age pattern of cyberbullying similar to what has been found in studies of "traditional" bullying, with the highest rates in early adolescence and a decline through late adolescence and emerging adulthood (Slonje & Smith, 2008). In a study of nearly 4,000 adolescents in grades 6-8 in the United States, 11% reported being victims of a cyberbullying incident at least once in the past 2 months; 7% indicated that they had been cyberbullies as well as victims during this time period; and 4% reported committing a cyberbullying incident (Kowalski & Limber, 2007). Notably, half of the victims did not know the bully's identity, a key difference between cyberbullying and other bullying. However, cyberbullying usually involves only a single incident, so it does not involve the repetition required in the standard definition of traditional bullying, and might be better termed online harassment (Thomas et al., 2015; Wolak et al., 2007).

If toddlers differ in the quality of their attachments, what determines those differences? And what implications does attachment quality in toddlerhood have for later development? Determinants of Attachment Quality Ainsworth's early research indicated that about two-thirds of toddlers had secure attachments to their mothers, with the remaining one third either insecure-avoidant or insecure-resistant (Ainsworth et al., 1978). Many other studies of American and European children since then have found similar results (NICHD Early Child Care Research Network, 2006; van IJzendoorn & Sagi-Schwartz, 2008). Disorganized-disoriented attachment is rare. But what determines the quality of toddlers' attachments to their mothers? In her early research, Ainsworth and her colleagues observed families in their homes, including the same mother-child pairs they later observed in the laboratory in the Strange Situation (Ainsworth, 1977). The home observations were extensive: every 3 weeks for 4 hours, from when the children were 3 weeks old to just past their first birthdays. When considering the mother-child interactions in the home in relation to their behavior as observed in the Strange Situation, Ainsworth concluded that the quality of attachment was based mainly on how sensitive and responsive the mother was. To be sensitive means to be good at judging what the child needs at any given time. For example, sensitive mothers could tell when their children had had enough to eat, whereas others seemed to stop feeding while the children were still hungry or tried to keep feeding them after they seemed full. To be responsive means to be quick to assist or soothe the children when they need it. For example, responsive mothers would hug or pick up or talk soothingly when their children were distressed, whereas others would let them cry for a while before going to their assistance. According to attachment theory, based on the degree of their mothers' sensitive and responsive behavior over the first year of life, children develop an internal working model of what to expect about her availability and supportiveness during times of need (Bowlby, 1969, 1980; Bretherton & Munholland, 1999). Children with secure attachments have developed an internal working model of the mother as someone they can rely on to provide help and protection. Children with insecure attachments are unsure that the mother will come through when they need her. They have an internal working model of her as someone who is unpredictable and cannot always be trusted. One reason the Strange Situation is first assessed in toddlerhood rather than infancy is that it is only by toddlerhood that children are cognitively mature enough to have developed an internal working model of their primary attachment figure (Ainsworth et al., 1978; Bowlby, 1969). Attachment Quality and Later Development According to Bowlby (1969), the internal working model of the primary caregiver formed in infancy and toddlerhood is later applied to other relationships. Consequently, the attachment to the primary caregiver established in the first 2 years shapes expectations and interactions in relationships with others throughout life, from friends to teachers to romantic partners to one's own future children. Securely attached children are able to love and trust others because they could love and trust their primary caregiver in their early years. Insecurely attached children display hostility, indifference, or overdependence on others in later relationships because they find it difficult to believe others will be worthy of their love and trust (Morelli, 2015). This is a bold and intriguing claim. How well does it hold up in research? A number of longitudinal studies on attachment have by now followed samples from toddlerhood through adolescence or emerging adulthood, and they provide mixed support for the predictions of attachment theory. Some longitudinal studies show a relationship between attachment quality assessed in toddlerhood and later emotional and social development, but other studies do not (Egeland & Carlson, 2004; Fraley et al., 2013). A meta-analysis that combined findings from 127 longitudinal studies of attachment concluded that the predictive power of infant and toddler attachment classification weakened with time and had mostly faded by late adolescence and emerging adulthood (Pinquart et al., 2013). The current view is that attachment quality in infancy and toddlerhood establishes tendencies and expectations that may then be modified by later experiences in childhood, adolescence, and beyond. To put this in terms of the theory, the internal working model established early may be modified substantially by later experiences. There is an exception, however. Toddlers with disorganized-disoriented attachment exhibit high hostility and aggression in early and middle childhood, and are likely to have cognitive problems as well (Ammaniti et al., 2005; van IJzendoorn et al., 1999; Weinfeld et al., 2004). In adolescence and beyond, toddlers who had been classified as disorganized-disoriented are at higher risk for behavior problems and psychopathology (van IJzendoorn et al., 1999). However, this type of attachment is believed to be due to abnormal neurological development. Only rarely, such as in the case of child abuse, is this type of attachment due to the behavior of the primary caregiver (Barnett et al., 1999; Macfie et al., 2001). Since Ainsworth's classic studies, researchers have also investigated toddlers' attachments to fathers and other nonmaternal caregivers. We examine one such study in the Research Focus: Early Child Care and Its Consequences feature.

Attachment theory is undoubtedly one of the most influential theories of human development. It has generated thousands of studies since Bowlby first articulated it over 40 years ago (Atkinson & Goldberg, 2004; Cassidy & Shaver, 2010; Mountain et al., 2017; Sroufe et al., 2005). However, it has also generated critiques that have pointed to limitations of the theory. Two of these are especially noteworthy: the child effect and the cultural variation critiques. The "child effect" is one of the most common critiques of attachment theory. It argues that Bowlby's theory overstates the mother's influence and understates the child's influence on quality of attachment. Children are born with different temperaments, as we have seen in Chapter 4. If, in the Strange Situation, a toddler is highly anxious when the mother leaves the room, then behaves aggressively by pushing her away when she returns, it could be due to a difficult temperament, not to the mother's failure to be sufficiently sensitive and responsive (Groh et al., 2016; van IJzendoorn et al., 2004). Is early attachment the basis of all future love relationships? Related to this idea, in recent decades, researchers of human development have emphasized that parent-child relations are reciprocal or bidirectional. For example, mothers of toddlers with a disorganized-disoriented attachment classification have been found to behave differently in the Strange Situation than other mothers. They may fail to respond when their toddlers become distressed, and may hold them at arm's length when picking them up, rather than comforting them by holding them close (Lyons-Ruth et al., 1999; van IJzendoorn et al., 1999). These mothers sometimes appear confused, frustrated, or impatient. This could be a failure to be sensitive and responsive on the mother's part. However, it is also possible that the mothers are responding to the toddler's behavioral difficulties (Barnett et al., 1999). Most likely is that the mothers and disorganized-disoriented toddlers are influencing each other in a negative bidirectional cycle (Lyons-Ruth et al., 1999; Symons, 2001). In short, child and mother codetermine each other's behaviors over time. The second major critique of attachment theory and research points to cultural variation. In the decades of research since Bowlby proposed his theory, some researchers have concluded that children's attachments are "recognizably the same" across cultures (Cassidy & Shaver, 2010, p. xiii). However, other researchers have pointed to possible problems both with using the Strange Situation across cultures, and with the Western view of human relationships woven into the theory. Some aspects of attachment may be universal. In all cultures, infants and toddlers develop attachments to the people around them who provide loving, protective care (van IJzendoorn & Sagi-Schwartz, 2008). If they are separated from their primary attachment figure, they experience distress. As we have seen, weaning can be a major event in the lives of toddlers in traditional cultures, and it may have an influence on the security of attachment. In one of Ainsworth's (1977) earliest studies, on mother-child attachments in Uganda, she observed that toddlers in Uganda often changed in attachment after weaning, suddenly showing a sharp increase in insecurity, including "a remarkable increase in their fear of strangers" (p. 143). There is also evidence that parents in many cultures have a common view of what constitutes a securely attached child. One study involved mothers of toddlers in six cultures: China, Colombia, Germany, Israel, Japan, and the United States (Posada et al., 1995). Across cultures, mothers described an "ideally secure" child in similar ways, as relying on the mother in times of need but also being willing to explore the surrounding world—in short, using her as a secure base from which to explore, much as described in attachment theory. Other studies involving multiple cultures have found that secure attachment is the most common classification in all cultures studied so far (van IJzendoorn & Sagi-Schwartz, 2008). However, cultural variations have also been found (Morelli, 2015). One study compared Strange Situation results for toddlers in the United States, Japan, and several northern European countries (van IJzendoorn & Kroonenberg, 1988). In all countries, as you can see in Figure 5.4, the majority of toddlers were found to be securely attached. However, the U.S. and northern European toddlers were more likely than Japanese toddlers to be classified as insecure-avoidant. In contrast, insecure-resistant attachment was especially common among the Japanese toddlers, compared to toddlers in the other countries. These differences were attributed to cultural differences in typical patterns of care. Specifically, a U.S. and northern European cultural emphasis on early independence was deemed to make insecure-avoidant attachment more likely. In contrast, Japanese mothers are rarely apart from their children and encourage a high degree of dependency in children. Consequently, their toddlers may have found the Strange Situation more stressful than the European or American toddlers did, making the insecure-resistant attachment classification more likely. As we discussed in Chapter 1, if a method means different things to different cultural groups, that calls into question its ecological validity. Cultural critics of attachment theory have also highlighted that the traditional, non-Western norm of maternal care emphasizes interdependence and collectivism to a greater extent than is found in attachment theory (Morelli, 2015; Rothbaum et al., 2000). Attachment theorists emphasize that sensitive and responsive maternal care should provide love and care while also encouraging self-expression and independence, but this is not an ideal found in all or even most cultures. In many traditional and non-Western cultures, where there is an emphasis on maintaining social harmony, the ideal for maternal care involves controlling a child's behavior, anticipating the child's needs, and curtailing strong emotional expression (Morelli, 2015). For example, Rothbaum and colleagues (2007) describe the Japanese concept of amae (ah-may-uh), which is a very close, physical, indulgent relationship between the mother and her young child. This is the ideal in Japan, but to some attachment researchers it fits the description of the kind of mothering that promotes insecure-resistant attachment (George & Solomon, 1999). Also, attachment researchers describe how toddlers with secure attachments grow up to be children who are self-reliant, socially assertive, and have high self-esteem, but these traits are not viewed as virtues in all cultures (Rothbaum et al., 2000; Sullivan & Cottone, 2010).

A great deal of variability exists among individuals in the timing of the development of primary and secondary sex characteristics, as Figure 8.2 shows. For example, among girls, underarm hair could begin to appear as early as age 10 or as late as age 16; among boys, the change in voice could begin as early as age 11 or as late as age 15 (Fisher & Eugster, 2014). On average, girls begin puberty 2 years earlier than boys. The norms in Figure 8.2 are for White American and British adolescents, who have been studied extensively in this area for many decades, but three studies demonstrate the variations that may exist in other groups. Among the Kikuyu, a culture in Kenya, boys show the first physical changes of puberty before their female peers, a reversal of the Western pattern (Worthman, 1987). In a study of Chinese girls, researchers found that pubic hair began to develop in most girls about 2 years after the development of breast buds, and only a few months before menarche, whereas in the Western pattern girls develop pubic hair much earlier (Lee et al., 1963). Also, in an American study (Herman-Giddens et al., 1997; Herman-Giddens et al., 2001), many African American girls were found to begin developing breast buds and pubic hair considerably earlier than White girls. At age 8, nearly 50% of the African American girls had begun to develop breasts or pubic hair or both, compared with just 15% of the White girls. This was true even though African American and White girls were similar in their ages of menarche. Similarly, pubic hair and genital development began earlier for African American boys than for White boys. Studies such as these indicate that it is important to investigate further cultural differences in the rates, timing, and order of pubertal events. Given a similar cultural environment, variation in the order and timing of pubertal events among adolescents appears to be due to genetics. The more similar two people are genetically, the more similar they tend to be in the timing of their pubertal events, with identical twins the most similar of all (Ge et al., 2007; van den Berg, 2007; Willemsen & Dunger, 2016). However, when cultural environments vary, the timing of puberty also varies, as we shall see next. Culture and the Timing of Puberty Culture includes a group's technologies, and technologies include food production and medical care. The age at which puberty begins is strongly influenced by the extent to which food production provides adequate nutrition and medical care protects health, throughout childhood (Eveleth & Tanner, 1990; Papadimitriou, 2016). Persuasive evidence for the influence of technologies on pubertal timing comes from historical records showing a steady decrease in the average age of menarche in Western countries from the mid-19th to the late 20th century. This kind of trend in a population over time is called a secular trend. A declining secular trend for age of menarche has occurred in every Western country for which records exist, as shown in Figure 8.3 (Sørensen et al., 2012). Menarche is not a perfect indicator of the initiation of puberty—the first outward signs of puberty appear much earlier for most girls, and of course menarche does not apply to boys. However, menarche is a good indicator of when other events have begun in girls, and it is a reasonable assumption that if the downward trend in the age of puberty has occurred for girls, it has occurred for boys as well. Menarche is also the only aspect of pubertal development for which we have records going back so many decades. Scholars believe that the downward trend in the age of menarche is due to improvements in nutrition and medical care during the past 150 years (Archibald et al., 2003; Papadimitriou, 2016). As the inset to Figure 8.3 shows, age of menarche has been unchanged since about 1970, when access to adequate nutrition and medical care had become widespread in developed countries. Figure 8.3 The Secular Trend in Age of Menarche Why did age of reaching menarche decline? Source: Sørensen et al. (2012). Description Further evidence of the role of nutrition and medical care in pubertal timing comes from cultural comparisons in the present. The average age of menarche is lowest in developed countries (currently about 12.5 years old), where adequacy of nutrition and medical care is highest (Papadimitriou, 2016; Sørensen et al., 2012). In contrast, menarche takes place at an average age as high as 15 in developing countries, where nutrition may be limited and medical care is often rare or nonexistent. However, in countries such as China and South Korea that have undergone rapid economic development in recent decades, the average age of menarche has been declining (Ji & Chen, 2008; Park et al., 1999; Sohn, 2017). Social and Personal Responses to Pubertal Timing Think back for a moment to when you were passing through puberty. What were your most memorable pubertal events? How did you respond to those events—and how did the people around you respond? Social and personal responses to puberty are intertwined, because how adolescents respond to reaching puberty depends in part on how others respond to them. In developed countries, social and personal responses may depend on whether adolescents reach puberty relatively early or relatively late compared with their peers. When adolescents spend time in school on most days, surrounded by peers, they become acutely aware of how their maturation compares to others'. A great deal of research has been conducted on early versus late maturation among adolescents in the West, extending back over a half century. The results are complex: They differ depending on gender, and the short-term effects of maturing early or late appear to differ from the long-term effects. Research consistently shows that the effects of early maturation are usually negative for girls. Findings from a variety of Western countries concur that early-maturing girls are at risk for numerous problems, including depressed mood, negative body image, eating disorders, substance use, delinquency, aggressive behavior, school problems, and conflict with parents (Graber, 2014; Harden & Mendle, 2012; Westling et al., 2008). Early maturation is a problem for girls in part because it leads to a shorter and heavier appearance, which is a disadvantage in cultures that value slimness in females. It can also be troublesome because their early physical development draws the attention of older boys, who then introduce them to an older group of friends and to substance use, delinquency, and early sexual activity (Graber et al., 2010; Skoog & Stattin, 2014). Studies of the long-term effects of early maturation for girls are mixed, with some finding that the effects diminish by the late teens and others finding negative effects well into emerging adulthood (Graber, 2014; Posner, 2006; Weichold et al., 2003). Early-maturing girls are at high risk for problems, in part because they attract the interest of older boys. In contrast to girls, the effects of early maturation for boys are positive in some ways and negative in others (Mendle & Ferrero, 2012). Early-maturing boys tend to have more favorable body images and higher popularity than other boys (Graber et al., 2010; Weichold et al., 2003). The earlier development of facial hair, lowered voice, and other secondary sex characteristics may make early-maturing boys more attractive to girls. Early-maturing boys may also have a long-term advantage. One study that followed early-maturing adolescent boys 40 years later found that they had achieved greater success in their careers and had higher marital satisfaction than later-maturing boys (Taga et al., 2006). However, not everything about being an early-maturing boy is favorable. Like their female counterparts, early-maturing boys tend to become involved earlier in delinquency, sex, and substance use (Beyens et al., 2015; Westling et al., 2008). Late-maturing boys also show evidence of problems. Compared to boys who mature "on time," late-maturing boys have higher rates of alcohol use and delinquency (Mendle & Ferrero, 2012; Skoog & Stattin, 2014). They also have lower grades in school (Weichold et al., 2003). There is some evidence that late-maturing boys have elevated levels of substance use and deviant behavior well into emerging adulthood (Biehl et al., 2007; Graber, 2014). Late-maturing girls have relatively few problems (Weichold et al., 2003).

Bar mitzvahs and bat mitzvahs, the Catholic ritual of confirmation, and the quinceañera that takes place at age 15 for girls in Latin American cultures are all examples of puberty rituals that have developed to mark the departure from childhood and the entrance into adolescence. Puberty rituals are especially common in traditional cultures. Alice Schlegel and Herbert Barry (1991) analyzed information on adolescent development across 186 traditional cultures and reported that 68% had a puberty ritual for boys, 79% for girls (Schlegel & Barry, 1991). For girls, menarche is the pubertal event most often marked by ritual (Schlegel & Barry, 2015). In fact, in many cultures menarche initiates a monthly ritual related to menstruation that lasts throughout a woman's reproductive life. It is remarkably common for cultures to have strong beliefs—usually negative—concerning the power of menstrual blood (Tan et al., 2017). It is often believed to present a danger to the growth and life of crops, to the health of livestock, to the likelihood of success among hunters, and to the health and well-being of other people, particularly the menstruating woman's husband (Buckley & Gottlieb, 1988; Johnston-Robledo & Christler, 2013; Marvan & Trujillo, 2010). Consequently, the behavior and movement of menstruating women are often restricted in many domains, including food preparation and consumption, social activities, religious practices, bathing, school attendance, and sexual activities. Menarche is often believed to possess special power, perhaps because it is a girl's first menstruation, so the restrictions imposed may be even more elaborate and extensive (Yeung & Tang, 2005). Traditional puberty rituals for males do not focus on a particular biological event comparable to menarche for females, but the rites for males nevertheless share some common characteristics. Typically, they require the young man to display courage, strength, and endurance (Gilmore, 1990; Schlegel & Barry, 2015). Daily life in traditional cultures often demands these capacities from young men in warfare, hunting, fishing, and other tasks. Thus, the rituals could be interpreted as letting them know what will be required of them as adult men and testing whether they will be up to adulthood's challenges. In the past, rituals for boys were often violent, requiring boys to submit to and sometimes engage in bloodletting of various kinds. For example, among the Amhara of Ethiopia, boys were forced to take part in whipping contests in which they squared off and lacerated each other's faces and bodies (LeVine, 1966). For more information, watch the video ​Puberty Rituals.​ Watch Puberty Rituals Although these rituals may sound cruel if you have grown up in the West, people in these cultures believed that the rituals were necessary for boys to make the passage out of childhood toward manhood and to be ready to face life's challenges. In all these cultures, however, the rituals have declined in frequency or disappeared altogether in recent decades (Schlegel, 2010; Schlegel & Barry, 2015). Because traditional cultures are changing rapidly in response to globalization, traditional puberty rituals no longer seem relevant to the futures young people anticipate. However, many African cultures still maintain public circumcision for boys as a puberty ritual (Schlegel & Barry, 2017). Female circumcision in adolescence, which involves cutting or altering the genitals, also remains common in Africa, with rates over 70% in many countries and above 90% in Mali, Egypt, Somalia, and Djibouti (Chibber et al., 2011; Toubia, 2017). The physical consequences of circumcision are much more severe for girls than for boys. Typically, a great deal of bleeding occurs, and the possibility of infection is high. Afterward many girls have chronic pain whenever they menstruate or urinate, and their risks of urinary infections and childbirth complications are heightened (Eldin, 2009). Critics have termed it female genital mutilation (FGM) and waged an international campaign against it (Barrett, 2016; Odeku et al., 2009). Nevertheless, it remains viewed in many African cultures as necessary in order for a young woman to be an acceptable marriage partner (Toubia, 2017).

Which of the following is a factor that makes cultural learning in developed countries different from cultural learning in traditional cultures?

Children in developed countries are often apart from their families for a substantial part of the day, so they don't have as much guided participation in daily activities within the family as children in traditional cultures do.

Which of the following statements regarding emotions and middle childhood is true?

Children learn how to conceal their emotions and show socially acceptable emotions.

Dr. Rose often uses the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) in her research. Which of the following is most likely to be the topic of her work?

Daily fluctuations in mood between children and adolescents

After the relatively calm period of middle childhood, a variety of types of problems rise in prevalence during adolescence, including crime and delinquency and depressed mood. However, it is important to keep in mind that most adolescents make it through this life stage without serious problems. Rates of crime begin rising in the mid-teens and peak at about age 18, then decline steadily. The great majority of crimes are committed by young people—mostly males—between the ages of 12 and 25 (Craig & Piquero, 2015). In the West, this finding is remarkably consistent over a period of greater than 150 years. Figure 8.13 shows the age-crime relationship at two points, one in the 1840s and one relatively recent. At any point before, after, or in between these times, in most countries, the pattern would look very similar (Craig & Piquero, 2015; Wilson & Herrnstein, 1985). Adolescents and emerging adults are not only more likely than children or adults to commit crimes but also more likely to be the victims of crimes. Figure 8.13 Age-Crime Relationship in (a) 1842 and (b) 2011 Why does crime peak in the late teens? Source: Gottfredson & Hirschi (1990), p. 125; Craig & Piquero (2015). Description What explains the strong and consistent relationship between age and crime? One theory suggests that adolescents and emerging adults combine increased independence from parents and other adult authorities with increased time with and orientation toward peers (Wilson & Herrnstein, 1985). A consistent finding of research on crime is that crimes committed by young people in their teens and early 20s usually take place in a group, in contrast to the solitary crimes typical of adult offenders (Dishion & Dodge, 2005; Piquero & Moffitt, 2014). Crime is an activity that in some adolescent cliques is encouraged and admired (Dishion et al., 1999; Piehler, 2016). However, this theory does not explain why it is mainly boys who commit crimes, and why girls, who also become more independent from parents and more peer-oriented in adolescence, rarely do. Most surveys find that over three-fourths of adolescent boys commit at least one criminal act sometime before the age of 20 (Loebert & Burke, 2011; Moffitt, 2003). However, there are obvious differences between committing one or two acts of minor crime—vandalism or underage drinking, for example—and committing crimes frequently over a long period, including more serious crimes such as rape and assault. Ten percent of young men commit over two-thirds of all offenses (Craig & Piquero, 2015). What are the differences between adolescents who commit an occasional minor violation of the law and those at risk for more serious, long-term criminal behavior? Terrie Moffitt (2003, 2007; Piquero & Moffitt, 2014) has proposed a provocative theory in which she distinguishes between adolescence-limited delinquency and life-course-persistent delinquency. In Moffitt's view, these are two distinct types of delinquency, each with different motivations and sources. However, the two types may be hard to distinguish from one another in adolescence, when criminal offenses are more common than in childhood or adulthood. The way to tell them apart, according to Moffitt, is to look at behavior before adolescence. Life-course-persistent delinquents (LCPDs) show a pattern of problems from birth onward. Moffitt believes their problems originate in neuropsychological deficits that are evident in a difficult temperament in infancy and a high likelihood of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and learning disabilities in childhood; all of these are more common among boys than girls. Children with these problems are also more likely than other children to grow up in a high-risk environment (e.g., low-income family, single parent), with parents who have a variety of problems of their own. Consequently, their neurological deficits tend to be made worse rather than better by their environments. When they reach adolescence, children with the combination of neurological deficits and a high-risk environment are highly prone to engage in criminal activity. Furthermore, they tend to continue their criminal activity long after adolescence has ended, well into adulthood. The adolescence-limited delinquents (ALDs) follow a much different pattern. They show no signs of problems in infancy or childhood, and few of them engage in any criminal activity after their mid-20s. It is just during adolescence—actually, adolescence and emerging adulthood, ages 12 to 25—that they have a period of occasional criminal activity, breaking the law with behavior such as vandalism, theft, and substance use. As we have seen, the brain is still a long way from maturity during adolescence. Does the immaturity of the brain help explain why rates of delinquency and some other types of risky behavior are higher in adolescence than at younger ages? This theory has been proposed by researchers who claim that neurological studies show that the brain's frontal lobes, the areas in charge of judgment and impulse control are not mature until at least the mid-20s; consequently, during adolescence behavior is governed more by emotions and less by reason than in later years (Steinberg, 2010). However, other researchers dispute this conclusion. Some studies have found that the brain development of adolescents who engage in risky behavior is actually more mature in some ways than in their less-risk-prone peers (Engelmann et al., 2012). Others point out that rates of most types of risky behavior continue to increase into the early 20s; brain development also advances during this time, so immaturity of the brain cannot explain the increase in risky behavior during these years (Males, 2010). It should also be noted that boys and girls are highly similar in brain development during adolescence, yet boys commit far more crimes. Delinquency has often proven to be resistant to change in adolescence, but one successful approach has been to intervene at several levels, including the home, the school, and the neighborhood. This is known as the multisystemic approach (Borduin et al., 2003; Henggeler, 2011; Wagner et al., 2014). Programs based on this approach include parent training, job training and vocational counseling, and the development of neighborhood activities such as youth centers and athletic leagues. The goal is to direct the energy of adolescents into more socially constructive directions. The multisystemic approach has now been adopted by youth agencies all over the world (Henggeler, 2011; Schoenwald et al., 2008). As Figure 8.14 illustrates, programs using this approach have been shown to be effective in reducing arrests and out-of-home placements among delinquents (Henggeler et al., 2007. Furthermore, multisystemic programs have been found to be cheaper than other programs, primarily because they reduce the amount of time that delinquent adolescents spend in foster homes and detention centers, and in prisons once they become adults (Alexander, 2001). One study compared at-risk adolescents who had received multisystemic therapy with similar adolescents who received individual therapy (Wagner et al., 2014). Twenty-five years later, at age 38, the adolescents in the multisystemic group were less than half as likely to have been convicted of a felony. Figure 8.14 Multisystemic Approach to Delinquency Why is MST more effective than other types of interventions for delinquency? Source: Alexander (2001).

Do you remember feeling down at times during your teen years? Studies of adolescents' emotional lives have found that adolescents experience sadness and other negative emotions much more frequently than younger children or adults do. Psychologists make distinctions between different levels of depression. Depressed mood is a term for a temporary period of sadness, without any related symptoms. The most serious form of depression is major depressive disorder, which includes a more enduring period of sadness along with other symptoms such as frequent crying, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness, and feeling guilty, lonely, or worried. Major depressive disorder may also include symptoms such as difficulty sleeping and changes in appetite (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013). Rates of major depressive disorder among adolescents range in various studies from 3% to 7% (Cheung et al., 2005; Compas et al., 1993; Thapar et al., 2012), which is about the same rate found in adults. Rates of depressed mood among adolescents are substantially higher (Steiner & Hall, 2015). For example, one longitudinal study found that the rate of depressed mood for Dutch adolescents at age 11 was 27% for girls and 21% for boys, rising by age 19 to 37% for girls and 23% for boys (Bennik et al., 2013). The most common causes of depressed mood tend to be common experiences among adolescents: conflict with friends or family members, disappointment or rejection in love, and poor performance in school (Costello et al., 2008; Larson & Richards, 1994). One of the strongest risk factors for all types of depression in adolescence and beyond is being female (Thapar et al., 2012; Uddin et al., 2010). A variety of explanations have been proposed. Some scholars have suggested that body image concerns provoke depression. There is substantial evidence that adolescent girls who have a poor body image are more likely than other girls to be depressed (Graber, 2014). Also, when faced with the beginning of a depressed mood, boys (and men) are more likely to distract themselves (and forget about it), whereas girls (and women) have a greater tendency to ruminate on their depressed feelings and thereby amplify them (Nolen-Hoeksema et al., 2008; Stange et al., 2014). Adolescent girls are also more likely than adolescent boys to devote their thoughts and feelings to their personal relationships, and these relationships can be a source of distress and sadness (Bakker et al., 2010; Conway et al., 2011). For adolescents, as for adults, the two main types of treatment for major depressive disorder are antidepressant medications and psychotherapy. The combination of medications and psychotherapy appear to be the most effective approach to treating adolescent depression (Thapar et al., 2012). In one major study of 12- to 17-year-olds at 13 sites across the United States who had been diagnosed with major depression, 71% of the adolescents who received both Prozac and psychotherapy experienced an improvement in their symptoms (Treatment for Adolescents with Depression Study Team, 2004, 2007). Improvement rates for the other groups were 61% for Prozac alone, 43% for psychotherapy alone, and 35% for the placebo group. However, some research has raised concerns that use of antidepressants with adolescents may provoke suicidal thoughts and behavior (Bridge et al., 2007). A review of 70 studies found a considerably higher risk of suicidal thoughts and aggressive behavior among children and adolescents treated with antidepressants than children and adolescents who received a placebo (Sharma et al., 2016). Researchers in this area agree that when antidepressants are used with depressed adolescents, parents and adolescents should be fully informed of the possible risks and the adolescents should be monitored closely for evidence of adverse effects (FDA, 2016; Fombonne & Zinck, 2008; Thapar et al., 2012).

In regards to the onset/timing of puberty, who of the following is more at risk for substance use and delinquency?

Early-maturing girls

__________ is the inability to distinguish between your own perspective and another person's perspective.

Egocentrism

__________ is the ability to exercise control over one's emotions.

Emotional self-regulation

__________ refers to the ability to solve cognitive problems without becoming distracted.

Executive function

How does motor development change between ages 3 and 6?

Fine motor skill development allows children to become more independent by doing things, such as putting on a coat and using a knife to cut soft food.

The stage of formal operations involves the development of hypothetical-deductive reasoning, the ability to think scientifically and apply the rigor of the scientific method to cognitive tasks. To demonstrate this new ability, let us look at one of the tasks Piaget used to test whether a child has progressed from concrete to formal operations, the pendulum problem (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958). In this task, children and adolescents are shown a pendulum (consisting of a weight hanging from a string and then set in motion). They are given various weights and various lengths of string to use in their deliberations and asked to figure out what determines how fast the pendulum sways. Is it the heaviness of the weight? The length of the string? The height from which the weight is dropped? The force with which it is dropped? Children in concrete operations tend to approach the problem with random attempts, often changing more than one variable in each trial. When the speed of the pendulum changes, it remains difficult for them to say what caused the change, because they altered more than one variable at a time. If they happen to arrive at the right answer—it's the length of the string—they find it difficult to explain why. For Piaget, this is crucial. Cognitive advances at each stage are reflected not just in the answers children devise for problems, but in their explanations for how they arrived at the solution. The formal operational thinker tests different possibilities systematically, changing one variable at a time. Through this process the formal operational thinker arrives at an answer that not only is correct but can also be defended and explained.

Formal operations is the most-critiqued stage of Piaget's theory (Keating, 2004; Marti & Rodriguez, 2012). Its limitations fall into two related categories: individual differences in the attainment of formal operations, and the cultural basis of adolescent cognitive development. As noted in Chapter 4, Piaget asserted that people develop through the same stages at about the same ages (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958). Every 8-year-old is in the stage of concrete operations; every 15-year-old should be a formal operational thinker. Furthermore, Piaget's idea of stages means that 15-year-olds should reason in formal operations in all aspects of their lives, because the same mental structure should be applied no matter the nature of the problem (Keating, 2004). Abundant research indicates decisively that these claims were inaccurate, especially for formal operations (Kuhn, 2008). In adolescence and adulthood, a great range of individual differences exists in the extent to which people use formal operations. Some adolescents and adults use formal operations over a wide range of situations; others use it selectively; still others appear to use it rarely if at all. On any given Piagetian task of formal operations, the success rate among late adolescents and adults is only 40%-60%, depending on the task and on individual factors such as educational background (Keating, 2012; Lawson & Wollman, 2003). Furthermore, even people who demonstrate the capacity for formal operations tend to use it selectively, for problems and situations in which they have the most experience and knowledge (Miller, 2011). For example, an adolescent with experience working on cars may find it easy to apply principles of formal operations in that area but have difficulty applying them to classroom tasks. Adolescents who have had courses in math and science are more likely than other adolescents to exhibit formal operational thought (Keating, 2012; Lawson & Wollman, 2003). Questions have also been raised about the extent to which cultures differ in whether their members reach formal operations at all. Thinking in formal operations may be a universal human potential, but it takes different forms across cultures depending on the kinds of problems people encounter in their daily lives (Maynard, 2008). For example, adolescent boys in the Inuit culture of the Canadian Arctic traditionally learn how to hunt seals (Condon, 1990; Grigorenko et al., 2004). To become successful, a boy would have to think through the components involved in a hunt and test his knowledge of hunting through experience. If he were unsuccessful on a particular outing, he would have to ask himself why. Was it because of the location he chose? The equipment he took along? The tracking method he used? Or were there other causes? On the next hunt, he might alter one or more of these factors to see if his success improved. This would be hypothetical-deductive reasoning, altering and testing different variables to arrive at the solution to a problem. However, in every culture there is likely to be considerable variation in the extent to which adolescents and adults display formal operational thought, from persons who display it in a wide variety of circumstances to persons who display it little or not at all. Piaget's theory of formal operations has inspired a great deal of research on adolescents' cognitive development. However, information processing research shows other types of gains in cognitive development from childhood to adolescence.

Which of the following statements about gender intensification is true?

Gender intensification is often considerably stronger in traditional cultures than in the West.

You recently watched your nephew, who is 13 years old, try to figure out why his bike's gears won't work. You were fascinated by the systematic problem-solving strategies that he used. You remember just a few months ago he would not have been able to perform at this level of hypothesis testing, but would have most likely tried random solutions haphazardly. According to Piaget, what type of reasoning is he using?

Hypothetical-deductive reasoning

Current research on cognitive development in early childhood has moved beyond Piaget's theories. One popular area of research is theory of mind, or the ability to attribute mental states to self and others and to understand that others have beliefs, intentions, and perspectives that are different from one's own (Schug et al., 2016; Slaughter, 2015; Wellman, 2017). Understanding how others think is a challenge even for adults, but the beginnings of theory of mind appear very early, in infancy. Through behavior such as joint attention and the use of prelanguage vocalizations, infants show that they understand that others have mental states such as intentionality (Slaughter, 2015; Tomasello & Rakoczy, 2003). By 12 months of age, for example, infants will point to an event or object that others are unaware of in order to draw their attention to it (Liszkowski et al., 2007). By age 2, as they begin to use language more, children show increasing recognition that others have thoughts and emotions that can be contrasted with their own (e.g., "That man is mad!" or "I like applesauce. Brother no like applesauce."). At age 2, children begin to use words that refer to mental processes, such as "think," "remember," and "pretend" (Flavell et al., 2002). By age 3, children know it is possible for them and others to imagine something that is not physically present (such as an ice cream cone). They can respond to an imaginary event as if it has really happened, and they realize that others can do the same (Giminéz-Dasí et al., 2016; Suminar et al., 2016). This understanding becomes the basis of pretend play for many years to come. A common approach to testing young children's theory of mind involves false-belief tasks. In one experiment testing understanding of false beliefs, children are shown a doll named Maxi who places chocolate in a cabinet and then leaves the room (Amsterlaw & Wellman, 2006). Next another doll, his mother, enters the room and moves the chocolate to a different place. Children are then asked, "Where will Maxi look for the chocolate when he returns?" Most 3-year-old children answer erroneously that Maxi will look for the chocolate in the new place, where his mother stored it. In contrast, by age 4 most children recognize that Maxi will believe falsely that the chocolate is in the cabinet where he left it. The proportion of children who understand this correctly rises even higher by age 5. By age 6, nearly all children in developed countries solve false-belief tasks easily. There have been few false-belief studies in developing countries, but some have found a delay in children's acquisition of false-belief reasoning. However, these studies rely on highly language-dependent tasks, like the story about Maxi and his mother. They also rely on children being willing to answer questions about others' mental states. These studies may not be ecologically valid (refer to Chapter 1), in the sense that there is a mismatch between the measurement approach and the everyday life of the people being studied. In one study, Daniel Haun and colleagues devised a nonverbal game that tested for false beliefs and found that 4- to 7-year-olds from Germany, Namibia, and Samoa showed identical levels of performance (Haun, 2015). Researchers have not only explored new ways of testing for understanding of false beliefs cross-culturally, but also in research with infants and toddlers (Slaughter, 2015). As we saw in Chapter 4, Renee Baillargeon and her colleagues examined infants' and toddlers' cognitive development by measuring their looking behavior. As you may recall, their studies suggest that children acquire object permanence earlier than what Piaget had concluded based on his task of lifting a blanket off an object. Piaget's task requires the coordination of mental and motor abilities, whereas Baillargeon's measure relies solely on children's looking behavior. Baillargeon is among a number of researchers who have used violation-of-expectation tasks to examine toddlers' understanding of where a person with a false belief about the location of an object will search for the object. The researchers do not ask children to verbally explain where a person (such as Maxi) will look for an object (such as chocolate). Instead, they simply measure children's looking behavior. For example, toddlers will watch a person place a toy inside a yellow box. The person leaves and does not see that the toy is moved to a green box. Upon returning to retrieve the toy, which box will the person look in? Children who understand that people can have false beliefs will expect the person to look for the toy in the yellow box where the person left it. If the person looks in the green box, it is a violation of expectations. Findings show that 15-month-olds who watch the person search for the toy in the green box look significantly longer than toddlers who watch the person search in the yellow box (Onishi & Baillargeon, 2005). Evidently, even to 15-month-olds, searching in the green box is a violation of expectations. They are surprised and hence look longer. Evidence from a number of other studies also suggests that children in the second year of life can attribute false beliefs to others. Researchers, however, continue to debate the extent and depth to which children of different ages have acquired false-beliefs reasoning. Some have argued that research relying on children's looking behavior tests for "implicit knowledge." In their view, explicit and full-fledged understanding of false beliefs only develops in early childhood (Perner & Roessler, 2012; Slaughter, 2015). Research on theory of mind continues to flourish. What is currently clear is that insight into other people's minds can be a challenge. People's beliefs and intentions are multifaceted, and the extent to which people show what is on their mind depends on the situation. Here is an example from a conversation between a mother and a 5-year-old child on the New York City subway. Child: "Why are they all so sad?" (Referring to the people sitting across from her). Mom: "Oh, they're not sad. That's just their subway face" (Gilbert, 2015).

In Piaget's depiction of cognitive development, the young child is like a solitary little scientist gradually mastering the concepts of conservation and classification and overcoming the errors of egocentrism and animism. Vygotsky's sociocultural theory of learning takes a much different approach, viewing cognitive development as a social and cultural process. Children learn not through their individual interactions with the environment but through the social process of guided participation, as they interact with a more knowledgeable member of the culture (often an older sibling or parent) in the course of daily activities. Early childhood is a period when this kind of cultural learning comes to the fore (Gauvain & Nicolaides, 2015). More than in toddlerhood, young children have the capacity for learning culturally-specific skills. The Mayan example that began this chapter provides one illustration. A 5-year-old can readily learn the skills involved in making tortillas, whereas a 2-year-old would not have the necessary learning abilities, motor skills, or impulse control (Rogoff, 2003). In many cultures, the end of early childhood, ages 5-6, is the time when children are first given important responsibilities in the family for food preparation, child care, and animal care (LeVine & LeVine, 2016). During early childhood they acquire the cultural learning necessary for these duties, sometimes through direct instruction, but more often through observing and participating in adults' activities. It is not only in traditional cultures that cultural learning takes place via guided participation. For example, a child in an economically developed country might help parents prepare a grocery shopping list, and in the course of this process learn culturally valued skills such as reading, using lists as tools for organization and planning, and calculating sums of money (Rogoff, 2003). Children in Western countries are also encouraged to speak up and hold conversations. For example, over dinner American parents often ask their young children a series of questions ("What songs did you sing at preschool? What did you have for a snack?"), thereby preparing them for the question-and-answer structure of formal schooling they will enter in middle childhood (Martini, 1996). This is in contrast to many other cultures in which listening is valued, especially in children (Rogoff, 2003). In one study in four traditional cultures in Belize, Kenya, Nepal, and American Samoa, researchers analyzed almost 3,000 utterances by children ages 3-5 years. In contrast to research on American children, they found that almost none of the utterances (4.5%) were "why" questions (Gauvain et al., 2013). Two factors make cultural learning in developed countries different from cultural learning in traditional cultures. One is that children in developed countries are often apart from their families for a substantial part of the day, in a preschool or another group-care setting. Cultural learning takes place in the preschool setting, of course—recall the example of Lars that began this chapter—but it is mostly a more direct kind of instruction (e.g., learning letters) rather than the cultural learning that takes place through guided participation in daily activities within the family. Second, many of the activities of adults in a complex economy are less accessible to children's learning than the activities that children learn through guided participation in traditional cultures, such as child care, tending animals, and food preparation. Most jobs in a complex economy require advanced skills of analyzing information and using technology. There is a limit to which children can learn these skills through guided participation, especially in early childhood. Early childhood is a time when cultural learning becomes prominent. Parents, older siblings, preschool teachers, and others guide children as they learn skills that are valued within their culture. This guidance often involves recruiting the child's interest, breaking a task into manageable steps, and keeping the child focused on the task. Adults also try to assuage any frustration that a young child might experience in learning a new task, and they may encourage the child to continue learning and improving. The video Guided Participation Across Cultures shows young children from different cultures being guided in a variety of tasks.

Friends rise in importance from early childhood to middle childhood, as greater freedom of movement allows children to visit and play with friends. Also, the entrance into formal schooling takes children away from the family social environment and places them in an environment where they spend most days around many other children of similar age. Daily contact between children makes it possible for them to develop close friendships. Here, we will first examine the characteristics of friendships in middle childhood, and then look at popularity and bullying in peer groups. Making Friends Why do children become friends with some peers but not others? An abundance of research over several decades has shown that, at all ages, the main basis of friendship is similarity (French, 2015). People tend to prefer being around others who are like themselves, a principle called selective association (Popp et al., 2008). We have already seen how gender is an especially important basis of selective association in middle childhood. Boys tend to play with boys and girls with girls, more than at either younger or older ages. Other important criteria for selective association in middle childhood are sociability, aggression, and academic orientation (Rubin et al., 2013). Sociable kids are attracted to each other as friends, as are shy kids; aggressive kids tend to form friendships with each other, as do kids who refrain from aggression; kids who care a lot about school tend to become friends, and so do kids who dislike school. In middle childhood, trust, too, becomes important in friendships. Children name fewer of their peers as friends than they did in early childhood, and friendships last longer, often several years (French, 2015). Your friends are kids who not only like to do things you like to do, but also whom you can rely on to be nice to you almost all the time, and whom you can trust with information you would not reveal to just anyone. In one study of children in grades 3 to 6, the expectation that a friend would keep a secret increased from 25% to 72% across that age span among girls; among boys the increase came later and did not rise as high (Azmitia et al., 1998). This finding reflects a more general gender difference found in many other studies—that girls prize trust in middle childhood friendships more than boys do, and that boys' friendships focus more on shared activities—although for both genders trust is more important in middle childhood than in early childhood (Rubin et al., 2008). As trust becomes more important to friendships in middle childhood, breaches of trust (such as breaking a promise or failing to provide help when needed) also become the main reason for ending friendships (Hartup & Abecassis, 2004; Rubin et al., 2013) Even though trust becomes a more important part of friendship in middle childhood, friends continue to enjoy playing together in shared activities. Recall from Chapter 6 that play in early childhood most often takes the form of simple social play or cooperative pretend play. In middle childhood, simple social play remains popular (Manning, 1998). According to cross-cultural studies, simple social games such as tag and hide-and-seek are universally popular in middle childhood (Edwards, 2000). Children also play simple games drawn from their local environment, such as the herding games played by boys in Kenya in the course of caring for cattle. Cooperative pretend play also continues to be popular in middle childhood. For example, children at this age may pretend to be animals or heroes. What is new about play in middle childhood is that it becomes more complex and more rule-based. Children in early childhood may play with action figures, but in middle childhood there may be elaborate rules about the powers and limitations of the characters. For example, in the early 21st century, Japanese games involving Pokémon action figures became popular in middle childhood play worldwide, especially among boys (Ogletree et al., 2004; Simmons, 2014). These games involve characters with an elaborate range of powers and provide children with the enjoyment of competition and mastering complex information and rules. In early childhood the information about the characters would be too abundant and the rules too complex for children to follow, but by middle childhood this cognitive challenge is exciting and pleasurable. More recently, Pokémon Go also captured the interest of children (as well as adolescents and emerging adults). In this augmented-reality game, players use their mobile devices to battle, capture, and train Pokémon figures that "appear" in the real world. Players walk around in the real world and find the figures on their mobile devices (Annear, 2016). In addition to games such as Pokémon, many of the games with rules that children play in middle childhood are more cognitively challenging than the games younger children play. Card games and board games become popular, often requiring children to count, remember, and plan strategies. Middle childhood is also a time when many children develop an interest in hobbies such as collecting certain types of objects (e.g., coins, dolls) or constructing and building things (such as with LEGO building blocks). These hobbies also provide enjoyable cognitive challenges of organizing and planning (McHale et al., 2001). Recently, electronic games have become highly popular in middle childhood, and these games also present substantial cognitive challenges (Martinovic et al., 2016; Olson, 2010; Olson et al., 2008). Cultural Focus Friendship and Play in Middle Childhood Across Cultures Although selective association is an important basis of friendship at all ages, over the course of childhood friendships change in other ways. An important change from early to middle childhood is in the relative balance of activities and trust (Rubin et al., 2013). In both stages, friends enjoy shared activities, but in middle childhood trust becomes crucial. A friend is someone who will keep a secret, or defend you when other kids laugh at you or bully you. In this video, children in three cultures talk about their friendships.

In addition to having friendships, children are also part of a larger social world of peers, especially once they enter primary school. Schools are usually age graded, which means that students at a given grade level tend to be the same age. When children are in a social environment with children of different ages, age is a key determinant of social status, in that older children tend to have more authority than younger children. However, when all children are about the same age, they find other ways of establishing who is high in social status and who is low. Based on children's ratings of who they like or dislike among their peers, researchers have described four categories of social status (Cillessen & Mayeux, 2004; Rubin et al., 2013): Popular children are the ones who are most often rated as "liked" and rarely rated as "disliked." Rejected children are most often disliked and rarely liked by other children. Usually, rejected children are disliked mainly for being overly aggressive, but in about 10%-20% of cases rejected children are shy and withdrawn (Hymel et al., 2004; Sandstrom & Zakriski, 2004). Boys are more likely than girls to be rejected. Neglected children are rarely mentioned as either liked or disliked; other children have trouble remembering who they are. Girls are more likely than boys to be neglected. Controversial children are liked by some children but disliked by others. They may be aggressive at times but friendly at other times. What characteristics determine a child's social status? Abundant research indicates that the strongest influence on popularity is social skills such as being friendly, helpful, cooperative, and considerate (Caravita & Cillessen, 2012; Chen et al., 2007). Children with social skills are good at perspective-taking; consequently, they are good at understanding and responding to other children's needs and interests (Cassidy et al., 2003). Other important influences on popularity are intelligence, physical appearance, and (for boys) athletic ability (Dijkstra et al., 2013; McHale et al., 2003). Despite the stereotype of the "nerd" or "geek" as a kid who is unpopular for being smart, intelligence enhances popularity in middle childhood. (In adolescence it becomes a bit more complicated, as we will see in Chapter 8.) Some "nerds" and "geeks" are unpopular because they lack social skills, not because of their intelligence. Rejected children are usually more aggressive than other children, and their aggressiveness leads to conflicts (Coie, 2004). They tend to be impulsive and have difficulty controlling their emotional reactions, which disrupts group activities, to the annoyance of their peers. In addition to this lack of self-control, their lack of social skills and social understanding leads to conflict with others. According to Kenneth Dodge (2008), who has done decades of research on this topic, rejected children often fail in their social information processing (SIP). That is, they tend to interpret their peers' behavior as hostile even when it is not, and they tend to blame others when there is conflict. Neglected children, in contrast, are usually quite well-adjusted (Wentzel, 2003). They may not engage in social interactions with peers as frequently as other children do, but they usually have social skills equal to average children, are not unhappy, and report having friends. Controversial children often have good social skills, as popular children do, but they are also high in aggressiveness, like rejected children (DeRosier & Thomas, 2003). Their social skills make them popular with some children, and their aggressiveness makes them unpopular with others. They may be adept at forming alliances with some children and excluding others. Sometimes they defy adult authority in ways their peers admire but do not dare to emulate (Vaillancourt & Hymel, 2006). Peer popularity has implications for children's development, especially for rejected children. Because other children exclude them from their play and they have few or no friends, rejected children often feel lonely and dislike going to school (Buhs & Ladd, 2001). Their aggressiveness and impulsiveness cause problems in their other social relationships, not just with peers, and they have higher rates of conflict with parents and teachers than other children do (Coie, 2004). According to longitudinal studies, being rejected in middle childhood is predictive of later conduct problems in adolescence and emerging adulthood (Caravita & Cillessen, 2012; Miller-Johnson et al., 2003). This is known as a developmental cascade when a problem at one point in life surges into a series of problems over time (Bukowski et al., 2010). Being rejected by peers makes it more difficult for children to develop the social skills that would allow them to overcome a tendency toward aggressiveness. Bullies and Victims An extreme form of peer rejection is bullying. Researchers define bullying as having three components (Olweus, 2000; Volk et al., 2017): aggression (physical or verbal); repetition (not just one incident but a pattern over time); and power imbalance (the bully has higher peer status than the victim). The prevalence of bullying rises through middle childhood and peaks in early adolescence, then declines substantially by late adolescence (Kretschmer et al., 2017; Pepler et al., 2006; Van Noorden et al., 2015). Bullying is an international phenomenon, observed in many countries in Asia, Europe, and North America (Barzilay et al., 2017; Osao & Shimada, 2016; Pepler, 2014). Estimates vary depending on age and country, but overall about 20% of children are victims of bullies at some point during middle childhood. Boys are more often bullies as well as victims (Kretschmer et al., 2017). Boys bully using both physical and verbal aggression, but girls can be bullies, too, most often using verbal methods (Baldry et al., 2017; Forsberg, 2017). There are two general types of bullies in middle childhood. Some are rejected children who are bully-victims; that is, they are bullied by children who are higher in status and they in turn look for lower-status victims to bully (Pouwels et al., 2016). Bully-victims often come from families where the parents are harsh or even physically abusive. Other bullies are controversial children who may have high peer status for their physical appearance, athletic abilities, or social skills, but who are also resented and feared for their bullying behavior toward some children (Palacios & Berger, 2016; Vaillancourt et al., 2003). Bullies of both types tend to have a problem controlling their aggressive behavior not just toward peers, but also in their other relationships, during middle childhood and beyond (Olweus, 2000; van Dijk et al., 2017). Victims of bullying are most often rejected children who are low in self-esteem and social skills (Pepler, 2014). Because they have few friends, they often have no allies when bullies begin victimizing them. They cry easily in response to bullying, which makes other children regard them as weak and vulnerable and deepens their rejection. Compared to other children, victims of bullying are more likely to be depressed and lonely (Baldry & Farrington, 2004; Rigby, 2004). Their low moods and loneliness may be partly a response to being bullied, but these are also characteristics that may make bullies regard them as easy targets. Victims of bullies often have few friends who could intervene as allies. How do other children respond when they witness one of their peers being bullied? In general, other children are reluctant to intervene, because of the fear the bully might turn on them next (Pozzoli et al., 2016). However, a longitudinal study in the Netherlands among students in grades 3 to 5 found that children who did defend others against bullying were subsequently more popular (van der Ploeg et al., 2017). On the other hand, a study in Finland found that in 20%-30% of bullying episodes, peers actually encouraged bullies and sometimes even joined in against the victim (Salmivalli & Voeten, 2004).

Adolescence begins with the first notable changes of puberty. In the course of puberty, the body is transformed in many ways and reaches the capacity for sexual reproduction. After growing at a steady rate through childhood, early in the second decade of life children begin a remarkable metamorphosis that includes a growth spurt, the appearance of pubic hair and underarm hair, changes in body shape, breast development and menstruation in girls, the appearance of facial hair in boys, and much more. The changes can be exciting and joyful, but adolescents experience them with other emotions as well—fear, surprise, annoyance, and anxiety. New research also reveals some unexpected findings in brain development. The word puberty is derived from the Latin word pubescere, which means "to grow hairy." This fits; during puberty hair sprouts in a lot of places where it had not been before! But adolescents do a lot more during puberty than grow hairy. Puberty entails a biological revolution that changes the adolescent's anatomy, physiology, and physical appearance. By the time adolescents reach the end of their second decade of life they look much different than before, their bodies function much differently, and they are biologically prepared for sexual reproduction. During middle childhood the proportion of fat in the body gradually increases, and once a threshold level is reached a series of chemical events is triggered beginning in the hypothalamus, a bean-sized structure located in the lower part of the brain (Livadas & Chrousos, 2016; Paris et al., 2017; Plant, 2015). These events lead the ovaries (in girls) and testes (in boys) to increase production of the sex hormones. There are two classes of sex hormones, the estrogens and the androgens. With respect to pubertal development, the most important estrogen is estradiol and the most important androgen is testosterone (Herting et al., 2014; Lawaetz et al., 2015; Shirtcliff et al., 2009). Estradiol and testosterone are produced in both males and females, and throughout childhood the levels of these hormones are about the same in boys and girls (DeRose & Brooks-Gunn, 2006). However, as you can see in Figure 8.1, once puberty begins, the balance changes dramatically. By the mid-teens, estradiol production is about eight times as high in females as it was before puberty, but only about twice as high in males (Susman & Rogol, 2004). In contrast, testosterone production in males is about 20 times as high by the mid-teens as it was before puberty, but in females it is only about four times as high (Melmed et al., 2016). These hormonal increases lead to two other kinds of bodily changes of puberty: the maturation of the primary and secondary sex characteristics. Primary and Secondary Sex Characteristics Primary sex characteristics are directly related to reproduction: specifically, the production of ova (eggs) in females and sperm in males. The development of ova and sperm takes place quite differently, as we noted in Chapter 2. Females are born with all the ova they will ever have, and they have about 300,000 ova at the time they reach puberty (Norman, 2014). Once a girl reaches menarche (her first menstrual period) and begins having menstrual cycles, one ovum (egg) matures every 28 days or so. Females release about 400 ova in the course of their reproductive lives (Moore et al., 2015). In contrast, males have no sperm in their testes when they are born. However, when they begin to produce sperm (called spermarche) around age 12, males generate them in astonishing quantities. There are between 100 and 300 million sperm in the typical male ejaculation, which means that the average male produces millions of sperm every day (Johnson, 2016). If you are a man, you will probably produce over a million sperm during the time you read this chapter—even if you are a fast reader! Secondary sex characteristics are the other bodily changes resulting from the rise in sex hormones during puberty, not including the changes related directly to reproduction. The secondary sex characteristics are many and varied, ranging from the growth of pubic hair to a lowering of the voice to increased production of skin oils and sweat. A summary of the major secondary sex characteristics and when they develop is shown in Figure 8.2.

In addition to the hormonal changes and development of primary and secondary sex characteristics, important neurological changes take place during adolescence. In recent years, there has been a surge of research on neurological development in adolescence and emerging adulthood (Giedd et al., 2015; Silverman et al., 2015; Taber-Thomas & Perez-Edgar, 2015). Some findings have been surprising, overturning previous views. It has long been known that by age 6 the brain is already 95% of its adult size. However, when it comes to brain development, size is not everything. Equally if not more important are the synaptic connections between the neurons. Now scientists have learned that a sharp increase in synaptic connections occurs around the time puberty begins, ages 10-12; a process called overproduction or synaptic exuberance. Earlier studies had shown that overproduction occurs during prenatal development and through the first 3 years of life, but it turns out that overproduction occurs in early adolescence as well (Giedd et al., 2015). Overproduction of synaptic connections occurs in many parts of the brain during adolescence but is especially concentrated in the frontal lobes, where most of the higher functions of the brain take place, such as planning ahead, solving problems, and making moral judgments. Overproduction peaks at about age 11 or 12, but obviously that is not when our cognitive abilities peak. In the years that follow, a massive amount of synaptic pruning takes place, in which the overproduction of synapses is whittled down considerably—synapses that are used remain, whereas those that are not used wither away. In fact, between the ages of 12 and 20 the average brain loses 7% to 10% of its volume through synaptic pruning (Giedd et al., 2015; Laviola & Marco, 2011). Synaptic pruning allows the brain to work more efficiently, as brain pathways become more specialized. However, as the brain specializes it also becomes less flexible and less amenable to change. Myelination is another important process of neurological growth in adolescence. Myelin is a blanket of fat wrapped around the main part of the neuron, and it increases the speed of the brain's electrical signals. Like overproduction, myelination was previously thought to be finished prior to puberty but has since been found to continue through the teens (Giorgio et al., 2010; Markant & Thomas, 2013). This is another indication of how brain functioning becomes faster and more efficient during adolescence. However, like synaptic pruning, myelination also makes brain functioning less flexible and changeable. Finally, one last recent surprise for researchers studying brain development in adolescence has been the growth of the cerebellum. This is perhaps the biggest surprise of all, because the cerebellum is part of the lower brain, well beneath the cortex, and had long been thought to be involved only in basic functions such as movement. Now, however, research shows that the cerebellum is important for many higher functions as well, such as mathematics, music, decision-making, and even social skills and understanding humor. It also turns out that the cerebellum continues to grow through adolescence and well into emerging adulthood, suggesting that the potential for these functions continues to grow as well (Tiemeier et al., 2009). In fact, it is the last structure of the brain to stop growing, not completing its phase of overproduction and pruning until the mid-20s, even after the frontal lobes (Taber-Thomas & Perez-Edgar, 2015).

Which of the following best describes attachment across cultures?

In all cultures, infants and toddlers develop attachments to the people around them who provide loving, protective care.

In American society, substance use is rare before adolescence but fairly common by the end of secondary school. In 2016, according to national Monitoring the Future (MTF) data (Monitoringthefuture.org, 2017), 33% of American high school seniors used alcohol and 20% reported having been drunkat least once in the past month. Cigarette use (at least once in the past 30 days) was reported by 11% of high school seniors in 2016; notably, rates of smoking cigarettes are now exceeded by rates of using electronic vaporizers for smoking (12%). Rates of marijuana use are also higher than for cigarette smoking: 23% of high school seniors reported using marijuana in the past month in the 2016 MTF survey.

In general, substance use in adolescence is highest among Native Americans, followed by White and Latino adolescents, with African American and Asian American adolescents lowest (Patrick & Schulenberg, 2014; Shih et al., 2010). Other than alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana, substance use is rare among American adolescents. Rates of nearly all types of substance use have declined sharply among American adolescents since peaking around 1980 (Miech et al., 2017). Rates of substance use in adolescence vary across Western countries. A study by the World Health Organization (WHO) investigated use of alcohol and cigarettes among 15-year-olds in 41 Western countries (WHO, 2016). A summary of the results is shown in Figure 8.4. Rates of cigarette smoking are lower among adolescents in Canada and the United States than in Europe, most likely because governments in Canada and the United States have waged large-scale public health campaigns against smoking, whereas European countries have not. Cigarette smoking among young people is of particular concern, because in the long run smoking is the source of more illness and mortality than all illegal drugs combined, and because the majority of persons who smoke begin in their early teens (Johnston et al., 2014).

Which of the following statements regarding cultural differences in learning is true?

In many cultures, children aged 5-6 are first given important responsibilities in the family for food preparation, child care, and animal care.

Which of the following statements about the typical cultural patterns of mothers and fathers and their infants is true?

In nearly all cultures, mothers play a central role in the care of infants and toddlers.

There is both continuity and change in social contexts from early to middle childhood. Nearly all children remain within a family context, although the composition of the family may change in some cultures due to parents' divorce or remarriage. A new social context is added, as children in nearly all cultures begin formal schooling when they enter this life stage. For children in developing countries today, middle childhood may also mean entering a work setting such as a factory. In all countries, media, especially television, have become an important socialization context. Middle childhood represents a key turning point in family relations. Up until that time, children in all cultures need, and receive, a great deal of care and supervision, from parents and older siblings and sometimes from extended family members. They lack sufficient emotional and behavioral self-regulation to be on their own for even a short period of time. However, in middle childhood they become much more capable of going about their daily activities without constant monitoring and control by others. From early childhood to middle childhood, parents and children move away from direct parental control and toward coregulation, in which parents provide broad guidelines for behavior but children are capable of a substantial amount of independent, self-directed behavior (Calkins, 2012; Maccoby, 1984; McHale et al., 2003). Parents continue to provide assistance and instruction, and they continue to know where their children are and what they are doing nearly all the time, but there is less need for direct, moment-to-moment monitoring. This pattern applies across cultures. In developed countries, studies have shown that children spend substantially less time with their parents in middle childhood than in early childhood (Parke, 2004). Children respond more to parents' rules and reasoning, due to advances in cognitive development and self-regulation, and parents in turn use more explanation and less physical punishment (Collins et al., 2002; Parke, 2004). Parents begin to give their children simple daily chores such as making their own beds in the morning and setting the table for dinner. In traditional cultures, parents and children also move toward coregulation in middle childhood. Children have learned family rules and routines by middle childhood and will often carry out their family duties without having to be told or urged by their parents (Gaskins, 2015; Weisner, 1996). Also, children are allowed to play and explore further from home once they reach middle childhood (Whiting & Edwards, 1988). Boys are allowed more of this freedom than girls are, in part because girls are assigned more daily responsibilities in middle childhood. However, girls are also allowed more scope for independent activity in middle childhood. For example, in the Mexican village described by Beverly Chiñas (1992), when they reach middle childhood girls have responsibility for going to the village market each day to sell the tortillas they and their mothers have made that morning. By middle childhood they are capable of going to the market without an adult to monitor them, and they are also capable of making the monetary calculations required to sell tortillas and provide change. Sibling relationships also change in middle childhood (Bryant, 2014). Children with an older sibling often benefit from the sibling's help with academic, peer, and parent issues (Brody, 2004; Itturalde et al., 2013). Both older and young siblings benefit from mutual companionship and assistance. However, the sibling rivalry and jealousy described in Chapter 6 continues in middle childhood. In fact, sibling conflict peaks in middle childhood (Cole & Kerns, 2001; Recchia & Witwit, 2017). In one study that recorded episodes of conflict between siblings, the average frequency of conflict was once every 20 minutes they were together (Kramer et al., 1999). The most common source of conflict is personal possessions (McGuire et al., 2000). Sibling conflict is especially high when one sibling perceives the other as receiving more affection and material resources from the parents (Dunn, 2004). Other factors contributing to sibling conflict are family financial stress and parents' marital conflict (Jenkins et al., 2003; Recchia & Witwit, 2017). Children worldwide grow up in a wide variety of family environments. Some children have parents who are married while others are in single-parent, divorced, or stepfamilies; some children are raised by heterosexual parents while others are raised by gay or lesbian parents; and still others live with extended family members or in multigenerational families. Some are adopted or live with relatives other than their parents. In the United States, 63% of children live with two biological and/or adoptive parents, and 21% live with a single mom (ChildStats.gov, 2017). The rest live in other family forms, such as with a parent with a cohabiting partner, with a grandparent, or with nonrelatives. Same-sex couples are now allowed to jointly adopt children in some American states, many Western European countries, a number of South American countries, South Africa, New Zealand, and parts of Australia. As of the 2010 U.S. census, over 20% of gay couples and one third of lesbian couples were living with children, a dramatic increase over previous decades (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2010). Reviews of studies of the children of gay and lesbian parents have found that they are similar to children with heterosexual parents in cognitive functioning, academic achievement, emotional development, social adjustment, and sexual and gender orientation (Farr et al., 2010; Goldberg, 2012). The video A Family with Two Fathers describes the adoption process for one family with gay parents. Over the past 50 years, it has become increasingly common in some countries for children to be born to a single mother. The United States is one of the countries where the increase has been greatest, and currently over 40% of births are to single moms (CDC, 2017). Single motherhood has increased among both African Americans and Whites, but it is highest among African Americans; over 70% of African American children are born to a single mother. Rates of single motherhood are also high in northern Europe (Ruggeri & Bird, 2014). However, it is more likely in northern Europe than in the United States for the father to be in the home as well, even though the mother and father may not be married. What are the consequences of growing up with in a single-parent household? Because there is only one parent to carry out household responsibilities such as cooking and cleaning, children in single-parent households often contribute a great deal to the functioning of the family, much like children in traditional cultures. However, the most important consequence of growing up in a single-parent family is that it greatly increases the likelihood of growing up in poverty, and growing up in poverty, in turn, has a range of negative effects on children (Harvey & Fine, 2004; Spyrou, 2013). Poverty rates for single-mother households are especially high in the United States and Canada (close to 50%). In comparison, the rates are much lower in Scandinavian countries (about 12%) (Legal Momentum, 2017). Single-parent families are diverse, and many children who grow up in single-parent families function well. When the mother makes enough money so the family is not in poverty, children in single-parent families function as well as children in two-parent families. Single-father families are relatively rare, but children with a single father are no different than their peers in middle childhood in regard to social and academic functioning (Amato et al., 2015). It should also be noted that having a single parent does not always mean there is only one adult in the household, especially among African Americans. In about one fourth of families with an African American single mother, the grandmother also lives in the household, and she often provides child care, household help, and financial support to the single mother (Kelch-Oliver, 2011; Wilson et al., 2016). Children's Responses to Divorce Rates of divorce have risen dramatically over the past half century in Canada, northern Europe, and the United States. Currently, close to half of children in many of these countries experience their parents' divorce by the time they reach middle childhood. In contrast, divorce remains rare in southern Europe and in countries outside the West. How do children respond to their parents' divorce? A wealth of American and European research has addressed this question, including several excellent longitudinal studies. Overall, children respond negatively in a variety of ways, especially boys and especially in the first 2 years following divorce (Amato & Anthony, 2014). Children display increases in both externalizing problems (such as unruly behavior and conflict with mothers, siblings, peers, and teachers) and internalizing problems (such as depressed mood, anxieties, phobias, and sleep disturbances) (Clarke-Stewart & Brentano, 2006). Their school performance also declines (Amato & Boyd, 2013). If the divorce takes place during early childhood, children often blame themselves, but by middle childhood most children are less egocentric and more capable of understanding that their parents may have reasons for divorcing that have nothing to do with them (Hetherington, 2014). In the video Pam: Divorced Mother of Nine-Year-Old, a woman describes the impact that her divorce has had on her daughter.

In one renowned longitudinal study of divorces that took place when the children were in middle childhood, the researchers classified 25% of the children in divorced families as having severe emotional or behavioral problems, compared to 10% of children in two-parent nondivorced families (Hetherington & Kelly, 2002). The low point for most children came 1 year after divorce. After that point, most children gradually improved in functioning, and by 2 years postdivorce, girls were mostly back to normal. However, boys' problems were still evident even 5 years after divorce. Not all children react negatively to divorce. Even if 25% have severe problems, that leaves 75% who do not. What factors influence how a divorce will affect children? Increasingly researchers have focused on family process; that is, the quality of the relationships between family members before, during, and after the divorce. In all families, whether divorced or not, parental conflict is linked to children's emotional and behavioral problems (Elam et al., 2016; Kelly & Emery, 2003). When parents divorce with minimal conflict, or when parents are able to keep their conflicts private, children show far fewer problems (Amato & Anthony, 2014). If divorce results in a transition from a high-conflict household to a low-conflict household, children's functioning often improves rather than deteriorates (Davies et al., 2002). Another aspect of family process is children's relationship to the mother after divorce. Mothers often struggle in numerous ways following divorce (Wallerstein & Johnson-Reitz, 2004). In addition to the emotional stress of the divorce and conflict with ex-husbands, they now have full responsibility for household tasks and child care. There is increased financial stress, with the father's income no longer coming directly into the household. Most countries have laws requiring fathers to contribute to the care of their children after leaving the household, but despite these laws mothers often receive less than full child support from their ex-husbands (Statistics Canada, 2012; United States Census Bureau, 2011). Given this pile-up of stresses, it is not surprising that the mother's parenting often takes a turn for the worse in the aftermath of divorce, becoming less warm, less consistent, and more punitive (Hetherington & Kelly, 2002). Relationships between boys and their mothers are especially likely to go downhill after divorce. Mothers and boys sometimes become sucked into a coercive cycle following divorce, in which boys' lack of compliance evokes harsh responses from mothers, which in turn makes boys even more resistant to their mothers' control, evoking even harsher responses, and so on (Chang & Shaw, 2016; Patterson, 2002). However, when the mother is able to maintain a healthy balance of warmth and control despite the stresses, her children's response to divorce is likely to be less severe (Akcinar & Shaw, 2017; Leon, 2003). Family processes involving fathers are also important in the aftermath of divorce. In about 90% of cases (across countries) mothers retain custody of the children, so the father leaves the household and the children no longer see him on a daily basis. They may stay with him every weekend or every other weekend, and perhaps see him one evening during the week, in addition to talking to him on the phone. Now fathers must get used to taking care of the children on their own, without mothers present, and children must get used to two households that may have different sets of rules. For most children, contact with the father diminishes over time, and only 35%-40% of children in mother-custody families still have at least weekly contact with their fathers within a few years of the divorce (Kelly, 2003). When the father remarries, as most do, his contact with children from the first marriage declines steeply (Dunn, 2002; Ganong & Coleman, 2017). However, when fathers remain involved and loving, children have fewer post-divorce problems (Dunn et al., 2004; Finley & Schwartz, 2010). In recent decades, divorce mediation has developed as a way of minimizing the damage to children that may take place due to heightened parental conflict during and after divorce (Emery et al., 2005; Everett, 2014; Sbarra & Emery, 2008). In divorce mediation, a professional mediator meets with divorcing parents to help them negotiate an agreement that both will find acceptable. Research has shown that mediation can settle a large percentage of cases otherwise headed for court and lead to better functioning in children following divorce, and to improved relationships between divorced parents and their children, even 12 years after the settlement (Emery et al., 2005). Out of the Frying Pan: Children's Responses to Remarriage Most adults who divorce remarry. Consequently, most children who experience their parents' divorce spend part of their childhood in a stepfamily. Because mothers retain custody of the children in about 90% of divorces, most stepfamilies involve the entrance of a stepfather into the family. You might expect that the entrance of a stepfather would be a positive development in most cases, given the problems that face mother-headed families following divorce. Low income is a problem, and when the stepfather comes into the family this usually means a rise in overall family income. Mothers' stress over handling all the household and child care responsibilities is a problem, and after a stepfather enters the family he can share some of the load. Mothers' emotional well-being is a problem, and her well-being is typically enhanced by remarriage, at least initially (Visher et al., 2003). If mothers' lives improve in all these ways, wouldn't their children's lives improve, too? Unfortunately, no. Frequently, children take a turn for the worse once a stepfather enters the family. Compared to children in nondivorced families, children in stepfamilies have lower academic achievement, lower self-esteem, and greater behavioral problems (Ganong & Coleman, 2017; Nicholson et al., 2008). Girls respond more negatively than boys to remarriage, a reversal of their responses to divorce (Bray, 1999). If the stepfather also has children of his own that he brings into the household, making a blended stepfamily, the outcomes for children are even worse than in other stepfamilies (Becker et al., 2013). There are a number of reasons for children's negative responses to remarriage. First, remarriage represents another disruption that requires adjustment, usually at a point when the family had begun to stabilize following the earlier disruption of divorce (Hetherington, 2014; Hetherington & Stanley-Hagan, 2002). Second, stepfathers may be perceived by children as coming in between them and their mothers, especially by girls, who may have become closer to their mothers following divorce (Bray, 1999). Third, and perhaps most importantly, children may resent and resist their stepfathers' attempts to exercise authority and discipline (Ganong & Coleman, 2017; Robertson, 2008). Stepfathers may be attempting to support the mother in parenting and to fulfill the family role of father, but children may refuse to regard him as a "real" father and may in fact regard him as taking their biological father's rightful place (Weaver & Coleman, 2010). When asked to draw their families, many children in stepfamilies literally leave their stepfathers out of the picture (Stafford, 2004). However, family process counts for as much as family structure. Many stepfathers and stepchildren form harmonious, close relationships (Becker et al., 2013; Ganong & Coleman, 2017). The likelihood of this outcome is enhanced if the stepfather is warm and open to his stepchildren and does not immediately try to assert authority (Visher et al., 2003). Also, the younger the children are, the more open they tend to be to accepting the stepfather (Jeynes, 2007). The likelihood of conflict between stepfathers and stepchildren increases with the children's age, from early childhood to middle childhood and again from middle childhood to adolescence (Hetherington & Kelly, 2002).

As we saw in Chapter 5, by age 3 children are remarkably adept at using language. From age 3 to 6, their language development continues at a remarkable pace, in areas including vocabulary, grammar, and pragmatics. Perhaps the most amazing advance in early childhood language is the growth in children's vocabulary. The average 3-year-old has a vocabulary of about 1,000 words; by age 6, the average vocabulary has increased to over 2,500 words (Bloom, 1998). How do they do it? Clearly children's brains are built for learning language, and early childhood is a sensitive period for language development, when the capacity for learning new words is especially pronounced (Pinker, 1994; Vias & Dick, 2017). Young children add new words to their vocabulary through a process known as fast mapping (Ganger & Brent, 2004; Swingley, 2010). This means that, as they learn new words, they begin to form a mental map of interconnected sets of word categories. When they hear a word the first time, they instantly connect it to one of these categories based on how the word is used in a sentence and how it seems to be related to words they already know, to help discern its meaning. The kinds of words children fast-map earliest depend partly on the language. Children learning Eastern languages such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean tend to learn more verbs than nouns at first, because sentences often emphasize verbs but only imply the nouns without speaking them (Fitneva & Matsui, 2015; Kim et al., 2000). In contrast, children learning English and other Western languages fast-map nouns earlier than verbs, because nouns are prominent in these languages. In both Eastern and Western languages, modifiers (such as large, narrow, pretty, low) are added more slowly than nouns and verbs (Mintz, 2005; Parish-Morris et al., 2013). As young children add new words to their vocabulary, they also continue to learn grammar, which is a language's distinctive system of rules. Some examples of rules include single/plural forms; past, present, and future tense; word order; and use of articles (such as "a" and "the") and prepositions (such as "under" and "by"). Without any formal training, young children grasp the grammatical rules of their language with few errors simply by hearing and using the language in daily interactions. By age 4, it is estimated that children use correct grammar in 90% of their statements (Guasti, 2000; Pinker, 1994). But how do we know they have really learned the rules of their language? Couldn't they simply be repeating what they hear older children and adults say? In a classic study investigating this question, Jean Berko (1958) had young children respond to questions involving nonsense words such as "wug." Figure 6.5 provides an example. Although they had never heard the words before—Berko had made them up—the children were able to apply the grammar of English and use nouns in plural and possessive forms. As noted in Chapter 5, the readiness with which children learn grammar indicates that they possess what Chomsky (1969) called a Language Acquisition Device (LAD), which is an innate capacity for quickly grasping a language's rules.

In order to use language effectively, children must learn not only vocabulary and grammar but also the social rules or pragmatics for using language in interaction with others. Acquiring the pragmatics of language use includes knowledge of when to speak, what to say and how to say it, whom to listen to, and how to interpret statements where what is meant is different from what is said. Children begin learning pragmatics even before they begin speaking, through gestures, for example when they wave "bye-bye" to someone when leaving. By the age of 2, they know the pragmatics of a basic conversation, including taking turns speaking (Goldstein et al., 2010; Pan & Snow, 1999). However, at this age they have not yet grasped the pragmatics of sustaining a conversation on one topic, and they tend to change topics rapidly as new things occur to them, without much awareness of the other person's perspective. By age 4, children are more sensitive to the characteristics of their conversational partner and will adjust their speech accordingly. In one study using hand puppets, 4-year-olds used different kinds of speech when acting out different puppet roles (Anderson, 2000). When playing a socially dominant role such as teacher or doctor they used commands frequently, whereas when playing subordinate roles such as student or patient they spoke more politely. The use of pragmatics represents not only social understanding but also cultural knowledge. All cultures have their own rules for what kinds of speech can be used in what kinds of situations. For example, some cultures require children to address adults with respectful titles, such as "Mr." for adult men and "Dr." for college professors. Many cultures have words that are classified as "bad words" that are not supposed to be spoken, especially by children. Learning what to say and what not to say is part of developing an understanding of how to use the pragmatics of language in accordance with cultural beliefs about roles and social relations. Many studies across different cultures have found that children develop culturally-specific rules of linguistic politeness between the ages of 2 and 5 years (Fitneva & Matsui, 2015). Middle-class mothers in the United States, for example, actively teach their children polite expressions and routines. They frequently instruct their children to say "please," "thank you," and "excuse me" (Gleason et al., 1984). Many European languages have two forms of "you," one formal, for strangers and people in positions of power, and one informal, for friends and co-equals. A language such as Japanese involves an extensive repertoire of ways to communicate politely, including the length of sentences, the use of respectful titles, and the use of some forms of verbs over others (Fitneva & Matsui, 2015). The extensive nature of the repertoire may be one reason why Japanese parents and preschool teachers explicitly teach polite expressions and routines to children, and why Japanese preschool children have been found to prompt peers with how to speak politely (Burdelski, 2012). With so much to learn about pragmatics, it is not surprising that there can be some embarrassing (and hilarious) moments along the way. One day, when our daughter Paris was about 3 years old, we were going through the check-out line in the grocery store when she announced to the clerk, apropos of nothing, "When I grow to a mommy, I'm going to have a baby in my tummy!" On another occasion, our son Miles was talking about how he planned to live to be 100 years old and asked if Jeff would still be around by then. "Probably not," Jeff said. "You're only 4 years old, and I'm 46." "Ooohhh," Miles said with genuine concern in his voice, "then you don't have many years left!" Adults understand intuitively that young children lack a sense of pragmatics, so they tend to find such moments amusing rather than offensive. By middle childhood, most children learn when it is culturally appropriate to speak your thoughts and when it is best to keep them to yourself.

Which of the following statements regarding young children's use of grammar is true?

It develops simply by hearing and using the language in daily interactions.

Which of the following statements regarding ADHD research is true?

It has shown higher rates for boys than girls across different countries.

Which of the following statements about estradiol is true?

It increases far more in females than in males during puberty.

Which of the following statements regarding watching TV during young childhood is true?

It is a popular leisure activity all over the world.

Which of the following is true about long-term memory?

It is essentially unlimited.

Which of the following statements about gender identity is true?

It refers to the ability of children to identify themselves as female or male.

What is a key reason that children in Asian schools wear uniforms?

It signifies diminished individuality and emphasizes conformity to the group.

Which of the following statements regarding siblings is true?

Jealousy is a common response to the birth of a younger sibling across cultures.

As we have seen earlier in the chapter, cognitive development in adolescence entails a greater capacity for abstract and complex thinking. This capacity is applied not only to scientific and practical problems but also to cultural beliefs, most notably in the areas of moral and religious development. For most of the past half century, moral development was viewed as following a universal pattern, grounded in cognitive development. However, more recently, moral development has been argued to be fundamentally shaped by cultural beliefs. First we look at a theory of universal moral development, then at a theory that takes culture into account. The Cognitive-Developmental Theory of Moral Reasoning Lawrence Kohlberg (1958) presented an influential cognitive-developmental theory of moral reasoning that dominated research on this topic for several decades. Kohlberg viewed moral development as based on cognitive development and believed that moral reasoning changes in predictable ways as cognitive abilities develop, regardless of culture. Kohlberg began his research by studying the moral judgments of 72 boys ages 10, 13, and 16 from middle-class and working-class families in the Chicago area (Kohlberg, 1958). He presented the boys with a series of hypothetical dilemmas, each of which was constructed to elicit their moral reasoning. For example, in one dilemma, a man must decide whether or not to steal a drug he cannot afford, to save his dying wife. To Kohlberg, what was crucial for understanding the level of people's moral development was not whether they concluded that the actions of the persons in the dilemma were right or wrong but how they explained their conclusions; his focus was on adolescents' moral reasoning. Kohlberg (1976) developed a system for classifying moral reasoning into three levels of moral development, as follows: Level 1: Preconventional reasoning. At the lowest level, moral reasoning is based on egocentric perceptions of the likelihood of external rewards and punishments. What is right is what avoids punishment or results in rewards. Level 2: Conventional reasoning. At this intermediate level, moral reasoning is less egocentric and the person advocates the value of conforming to the moral expectations of others. What is right is whatever agrees with the rules established by tradition and by authorities. Level 3: Postconventional reasoning. Moral reasoning at this highest level is based on the person's independent judgments rather than on what others view as wrong or right. What is right is derived from the person's perception of objective, universal principles pertaining to justice and the rights of individuals rather than being based on egocentric needs (as in Level 1) or the standards of the group (as in Level 2). Kohlberg followed his initial group of adolescent boys over the next 20 years (Colby et al., 1983), interviewing them every 3 or 4 years, and he and his colleagues also conducted numerous other studies on moral reasoning in adolescence and adulthood. The results supported Kohlberg's theory of moral development in two ways: The level of moral reasoning tended to increase with age. However, even after 20 years, when all of the original participants were in their 30s, few of them had reached Level 3 (Colby et al., 1983). Moral development proceeded in the predicted way, in the sense that the participants did not drop from a higher level to a lower level but proceeded from one level to the next highest over time when reasoning about hypothetical dilemmas. One reason Kohlberg used hypothetical moral dilemmas rather than having people talk about moral issues they had confronted in real life was that he believed that the culture-specific and person-specific content of moral reasoning is not important to understanding moral development. According to Kohlberg, what matters is the structure of moral reasoning. In his view, the levels of moral reasoning he proposed revealed the underlying structure of moral development for everyone, across cultures. The Cultural-Developmental Theory of Moral Reasoning Does Kohlberg's theory apply universally, as he intended? Research based on Kohlberg's theory has included cross-cultural studies in countries such as India Israel, Japan, Kenya, Taiwan, and Turkey (Gibbs et al., 2007; Snarey, 1985). Many of these studies have focused on moral development in adolescence and emerging adulthood. In general, the studies confirm Kohlberg's hypothesis that moral reasoning as classified by his coding system progresses with age. Also, as in the American studies, participants in longitudinal studies in other cultures have rarely been found to regress in their reasoning. However, the cross-cultural studies also show that it is mainly high-SES adolescents and adults from the United States and other Western countries who reason in terms of Kohlberg's highest level. Kohlberg's claims of a universal model of moral development have been challenged, most notably by cultural psychologist Richard Shweder (2003; Shweder et al., 1990; Shweder et al., 2006; Shweder & Menon, 2014). In contrast to Kohlberg, Shweder argued that it is impossible to understand moral reasoning unless you understand the cultural worldview that underlies it. Shweder, who has conducted research in India, points out that moral reasoning in terms of Dharma (duty)—an important concept in Hinduism—does not fit within Kohlberg's system of classification. Yet, these concepts are fundamental to the moral thinking of hundreds of millions of Indians. In essence, Shweder's argument is that the cognitive-developmental theory fails to include culturally diverse moral concepts, and that it is biased in favor of a Western worldview. In contrast to Kohlberg's theory, a cultural-developmental theory of moral development has been proposed (Jensen, 1997, 2008, 2011, 2015). According to this theory, moral development and culture are interconnected. There are general developmental patterns that hold across cultures. For example, compared to children, adolescents are less likely to reason in terms of egocentric considerations and more likely to reason in terms of community-oriented considerations. However, culture shapes developmental patterns. For example, in collectivistic cultures where social harmony is highly valued, community-oriented reasoning is likely to emerge early in childhood and rise steeply to reach a high level in adulthood. In more individualistic cultures, community-reasoning may be less common throughout childhood and adolescence, as children and adolescents learn that the rights of the individual are more important than the interests of the group. Researchers who use the cultural-developmental approach code people's responses to moral issues according to three types of "ethics" rooted in different worldviews. The Ethic of Autonomy defines the individual as the primary moral authority. Individuals are viewed as having a right to do as they wish so long as their behavior does not harm others. The Ethic of Community defines individuals as members of social groups to which they have commitments and obligations. The responsibilities of roles in the family, community, and other groups form the basis of one's moral judgments. The Ethic of Divinity defines the individual as a spiritual entity, subject to the prescriptions of a divine authority. This ethic includes moral views based on traditional religious authorities and religious texts (e.g., the Bible, the Koran). Several recent studies using the three ethics have highlighted the intersection of culture and development in moral reasoning. For example, adolescents from India and Thailand—two relatively collectivistic cultures—frequently reason in terms of the Ethic of Community (Kapadia & Bhangaokar, 2015; McKenzie, 2015). Compared to their parents and other adults, however, they reason less in terms of the Ethic of Community and more in terms of the Ethic of Autonomy. Research with adolescents from conservative religious communities in Finland and the United States has found that their preferred ethic is Divinity, followed by Community, and then Autonomy (Jensen & McKenzie, 2016; Vainio, 2015). The American study also included adults and showed that adolescents used more Ethic of Autonomy reasoning than adults did. Research using the three ethics is recent, and it remains to be seen how their use changes in different cultures throughout the life span (Fasoli, 2017; Jensen, 2015; McKenzie & Jensen, 2017; Padilla-Walker & Nelson, 2015).

Like moral development, the development of religious beliefs reaches a critical point in adolescence, because adolescence is a time when the abstract ideas involved in religious beliefs can first be fully grasped. In general, adolescents and emerging adults in developed countries are less religious than their counterparts in developing countries. Developed countries tend to be highly secular—based on nonreligious beliefs and values. In every developed country, religion has gradually faded in its influence over the past 2 centuries (Bellah et al., 1985; Watson, 2014). Religious beliefs and practices are especially low among adolescents in Europe. For example, a survey of adolescents in England, Germany, and the Netherlands found that they rarely attended religious services and religious beliefs played little role in their lives—except for adolescents in immigrant families, who were far more religious (De Hoon & Van Tubergen, 2014). Americans are more religious than people in virtually any other developed country, and this is reflected in the lives of American adolescents, as shown in Table 8.1 (Smith & Denton, 2005). However, religion has a lower priority for most of them than many other parts of their lives, including school, friendships, media, and work. Furthermore, the religious beliefs of American adolescents tend not to follow traditional doctrines, and they often know little about the doctrine of the religion they claim to follow. Instead, they tend to believe that religious faith is about how to be a good person and feel happy (Smith & Denton, 2005). Table 8.1 Religious Beliefs of American Adolescents Source: Based on Smith & Denton (2005). Many American adolescents are religious, but many others are not. What explains differences among adolescents in their religiosity? Family characteristics are one important influence (Smith & Denton, 2005). Adolescents are more likely to embrace the importance of religion when their parents talk about religious issues and participate in religious activities (King et al., 2002; Layton et al., 2011). Adolescents are less likely to be religious when their parents disagree with each other about religious beliefs and when their parents are divorced (Smith & Denton, 2005). Ethnicity is another factor. In American society, religious faith and religious practices tend to be stronger among African Americans than among Whites (Chatters et al., 2008; Holt et al., 2014). For more information, watch the video Religion in the Lives of African American Adolescents. Watch Religion in the Lives of African American Adolescents The relatively high rate of religiosity among African American adolescents helps explain why they have such low rates of alcohol and drug use (Stevens-Watkins et al., 2010). However, it is not only among minority groups that religiosity is associated with favorable adolescent outcomes. Across American cultural groups, adolescents who are more religious report less depression and lower rates of premarital sex, drug use, and delinquent behavior (King & Boyatzis, 2015; Salas-Wright et al., 2014). The protective value of religious involvement is especially strong for adolescents living in the worst neighborhoods (Bridges & Moore, 2002). Religious adolescents tend to have better relationships with their parents (Smith & Denton, 2005; Wilcox, 2008). Also, adolescents who value religion are more likely than other adolescents to volunteer in their community (Flanagan et al., 2015; Hardie et al., 2014). Outside the United States, too, religious involvement has been found to be related to a variety of positive outcomes, for example among Indonesian Muslim adolescents (French et al., 2008).

Which of the following statements regarding pubertal timing is true?

Menarche takes place as late as age 15 in some developing countries, due to lack of proper nutrition and medical care.

Which of the following statements regarding moral development in early childhood is true?

Moral judgments tend to be based more on fear of punishment than is the case for older children.

Which of the following statements about eating disorders is true?

Most cases of eating disorders have their onset among females in their teens and early twenties.

Adolescence is when sexual feelings begin to stir and—in many cultures, but not all—sexual behavior is initiated. First we look at love, then at sex. Falling in Love The prevalence of involvement in romantic relationships increases gradually over the course of adolescence. According to a national study in the United States, the percentage of American adolescents reporting a current romantic relationship rises from 17% in 7th grade to 32% in 9th grade to 44% in 11th grade (Furman & Hand, 2006). By 11th grade, 80% of adolescents had experienced a romantic relationship at some point. Adolescents with an Asian cultural background tend to have their first romantic relationship later than adolescents with an African American, European, or Latino cultural background, because of Asian cultural beliefs that discourage early involvement in romantic relationships and encourage minimal or no sexual involvement before marriage (Connolly & McIsaac, 2011; Trinh et al., 2014). In the West most adolescents have a romantic partner at some point in their teens. It is not only in the West, and not only in developed countries, that adolescents experience romantic love. On the contrary, feelings of passion appear to be virtually universal among young people. One study investigated this issue systematically by analyzing the Standard Cross-Cultural Sample, a collection of data provided by anthropologists on 186 traditional cultures representing six distinct geographical regions around the world (Jankowiak & Fischer, 1992). The researchers concluded that there was evidence that young people fell passionately in love in all but one of the 186 cultures studied. Across cultures, young lovers experienced the delight and despair of passionate love, told stories about famous lovers, and sang love songs. However, this does not mean that young people in all cultures are allowed to act on their feelings. On the contrary, romantic love as the basis for marriage is a fairly new cultural idea (Hatfield & Rapson, 2005; Hatfield et al., 2016). As we will see in detail in Chapter 10, in most cultures throughout most of history, and in some even today, parents have arranged marriages, with little regard for the passionate desires of their children. Cultural Variations in Adolescent Sexuality Even though adolescents in all cultures go through similar biological processes in reaching sexual maturity, cultures vary enormously in views of adolescent sexuality. Variations among countries in sexual behavior during adolescence are due primarily to variations in cultural beliefs about the acceptability (or not) of premarital sex. The best framework for understanding this variation among countries remains a book that is now over 60 years old, Patterns of Sexual Behavior, by Clellan Ford and Frank Beach (Ford & Beach, 1951). These two anthropologists compiled information about sexuality from over 200 cultures. On the basis of their analysis they described three types of cultural approaches to adolescent sexuality: permissive, semirestrictive, and restrictive. Permissive cultures tolerate and even encourage adolescent sexuality. Most of the countries of northern Europe today fall into this category. Adolescents in these countries usually begin an active sexual life in their late teens, and parents often allow them to have a boyfriend or girlfriend spend the night (Trost, 2012). Semirestrictive cultures have prohibitions on premarital adolescent sex. However, in these cultures, formal prohibitions are loosely enforced and easily evaded. Adults tend to ignore evidence of premarital sexual behavior as long as young people are fairly discreet. Most developed countries today would fall into this category, including the United States, Canada, and most of Europe (Regnerus & Uecker, 2011). Restrictive cultures place strong prohibitions on adolescent sexual activity before marriage. Prohibitions are enforced through strong social norms and by keeping boys and girls separated through adolescence. Young people in Asia and South America tend to disapprove strongly of premarital sex, reflecting the view they have been taught by their cultures (Regan et al., 2004; Trinh et al., 2014). In some countries, the restrictiveness of the taboo on premarital sex even includes the threat of physical punishment and public shaming. A number of Middle Eastern countries take this approach, including Algeria, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Premarital female virginity is a matter not only of the girl's honor but the honor of her family. If she is known to lose her virginity before marriage, male family members may punish, beat, or even kill her (Dorjee et al., 2013). Although many cultures also value male premarital chastity, no culture punishes male premarital sex with such severity. Adolescent Pregnancy and Contraceptive Use Although cultures vary in how they view adolescent sex, premarital pregnancy in adolescence is viewed as undesirable nearly everywhere. Two types of countries have low rates of premarital pregnancy: those that are permissive about adolescent sex and those that are restrictive. Northern European countries such as Denmark, Sweden, and the Netherlands have low rates of adolescent pregnancy because they are permissive about adolescent sex (Avery & Lazdane, 2008). There are explicit safe-sex campaigns in the media. Adolescents have easy access to all types of contraception. Parents accept that their children will become sexually active by their late teens (Trost, 2012). At the other end of the spectrum, restrictive countries such as Japan, South Korea, and Morocco strictly forbid adolescent sex (Davis & Davis, 2012; Dorjee et al., 2013; Hatfield & Rapson, 2005). Adolescents in these countries are strongly discouraged even from dating until they are well into emerging adulthood and are seriously looking for a marriage partner. It is rare for an adolescent boy and girl even to spend time alone together, much less have sex. Some adolescents follow the call of nature anyway, but violations are rare because the taboo is so strong and the shame of being exposed for breaking it is so great. The United States has a higher rate of teenage pregnancy than any other developed country, as Figure 8.11 illustrates. The main reason American adolescents have high rates of teenage pregnancy may be that there is no clear cultural message regarding adolescent sexuality (Males, 2011). The semirestrictive view of adolescent sexuality prevails: Adolescent sex is not strictly forbidden, but neither is it widely accepted. As a consequence, most American adolescents have sex before they reach the end of their teens, but often are not comfortable enough with their sexuality to acknowledge they are having sex and to prepare for it responsibly by obtaining and using contraception. However, rates of teen pregnancy in the United States have declined by over half in the past 2 decades, especially among African Americans (U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services, 2016). This may be because the threat of HIV/AIDS has made it more acceptable in the United States to talk to adolescents about sex and contraception and to provide sex education in schools. Watch the video Teen Pregnancy to hear one adolescent's experience with pregnancy. Figure 8.11 Teenage Pregnancy Rates in Developed Countries Why are rates so high in the United States? Source: Based on WHO (2010). Full Alternative Text Description Watch Teen Pregnancy Sexual Orientation Adolescence is when most people first become fully aware of their sexual orientation, meaning their tendencies of sexual attraction. In American society, 2% of adolescents self-identify as sexual minorities, a term that includes people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (Savin-Williams & Joyner, 2014). In the past in Western cultures, and still today in many of the world's cultures, most people would keep this knowledge to themselves for risk of being stigmatized and persecuted if they disclosed the truth. Today in most Western cultures, however, sexual minorities commonly engage in a process of coming out, which involves a person disclosing their sexual identity to friends, family, and others (Morgan, 2015). Awareness of a sexual minority identity usually begins in early adolescence, with disclosure to others coming in late adolescence or emerging adulthood (Baiocco et al., 2016; Floyd & Bakeman, 2006). Given the pervasiveness of homophobia in many societies, coming to the realization of a sexual minority identity can be traumatic for many adolescents. Adolescents who are part of a sexual minority are often the targets of bullying when peers learn of their sexual identity (Mishna et al., 2009). In one American survey of sexual minority adolescents, 82% reported verbal abuse and 34% physical harassment in the past year at school due to their sexual identity (Kosciw et al., 2012). Many parents respond with dismay or even anger when they learn that their adolescents are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (Baiocco et al., 2016), When parents reject adolescents after learning of their sexual identity, the consequences are dire. One study found that sexual minority adolescents who experienced parental rejection were eight times more likely to report having attempted suicide, six times more likely to report high levels of depression, three times more likely to use illegal drugs, and three times more likely to have had unprotected sex than LGBT adolescents whose parents were more accepting of their sexual orientation (Ryan, 2009). Nevertheless, in recent years there has been a noticeable change in Western attitudes toward sexual minorities, marking a dramatic shift toward more favorable and tolerant perceptions (McCormack, 2012; Pew Research Center, 2015). Many high schools and colleges have formed "Gay-Straight Alliances" to reduce homophobia (Mayberry, 2013). Adults have also come forward to encourage sexual minority adolescents, for example in the "It Gets Better" project (http://www.itgetsbetter.org/). This and other resources on the internet provide a way for sexual minority adolescents to explore and understand their sexuality, by connecting with others in a way that seems controlled and safe (Harper et al., 2009; Silenzio et al., 2009; Ybarra et al., 2015).

Now that our twins are 18 years old, media use has become an important part of their daily lives. Our son Miles uses his iPad daily for everything from researching school assignments to playing electronic games to monitoring the latest sports news. For our daughter Paris, recorded music is her primary media use. She loves to sing along with everything from alternative music to opera. No account of adolescent development would be complete without a description of the media they use. Recorded music, television, electronic games, and the internet are part of the daily environment for nearly all adolescents currently growing up in developed countries (and increasingly in developing countries as well). The dominant method of transmission of media content for adolescents is through digital devices like smartphones and tablets. In the United States, 88% of adolescents ages 13 to 17 have access to a digital device, according to a national survey by the Pew Research Center (Lenhart, 2015). The Pew survey also reports that adolescents send an average of 30 text messages per day—40 for girls, 20 for boys. Adolescents are also avid users of social media, such as Facebook and Snapchat, and digital devices give them ready access to social media all day long. Today, digital devices are constant companions for many adolescents. Digital devices provide adolescents with constant access to the internet. According to the Pew survey, 92% of 13- to 17-year-olds connect to the internet daily; 24% say they are connected to it "almost constantly" (Lenhart, 2015). Rates are similar in other developed countries (Samkange-Zeeb & Blettner, 2009; Taipale, 2009). Digital devices and social media may be at the heart of adolescents' daily media lives, but the "traditional media" are far from dead. American and European adolescents still watch at least 2 to 3 hours of TV per day (Common Sense Media, 2015; Rey-López et al., 2010). In total, American adolescents use media for about 9 hours a day, and name "listening to music" as their favorite media activity (Common Sense Media, 2015). A Model of Adolescents' Media Uses Spending 9 hours a day on anything means it is a big part of your life, and many express concerns about adolescents' media use. Although claims are often made about the harmful effects of media on adolescents, their media use is more complex than simple cause and effect. Jane Brown and Jeanne Steele have presented a helpful model of the functions media play in the lives of adolescents (Brown, 2006; Brown et al., 2002; McAuslan et al., 2017; Steele, 2006). An illustration of their Media Practice Model appears in Figure 8.12. As the figure shows, the model proposes that adolescents' media use is active in a number of ways. Adolescents do not all have the same media preferences. Rather, each adolescent's identity motivates the selection of media products. Paying attention to certain media products leads to interaction with those products, meaning that the products are evaluated and interpreted. Then adolescents engage in application of the media content they have chosen. They may incorporate this content into their identities—for example, adolescents who respond to cigarette advertisements by taking up smoking—or they may resist the content—for example, adolescents who respond to cigarette advertisements by rejecting them as false and misleading. Their developing identity then motivates new media selections, and so on. This model reminds us that adolescents actively select the media they use, and they respond to media content in diverse ways depending on how they interpret it and how it relates to them personally. Figure 8.12 Media Practice Model In this model, Identity is the main motivator of media use. Source: Brown et al. (2002), p. 9. Adolescents use media for many different purposes, but as with younger children, the focus of research has been on negative effects. In the following discussion, we examine electronic games, which have been the target of some of these concerns. Electronic Games A relatively new type of media use among adolescents is electronic games, usually played on a computer or a digital device. This form of media use has quickly become popular among adolescents, especially boys. In a national study in the United States, over 90% of boys and about 70% of girls ages 13 to 17 reported playing electronic games (Lenhart, 2015). For many of them, electronic games were a part of their daily lives; 31% reported playing every day, and an additional 21% played three to five times a week. Similarly, a study in 10 European countries and Israel found that children ages 6 to 16 averaged more than a half hour per day playing electronic games (Beentjes et al., 2001; also see Elson & Ferguson, 2014). The majority of adolescents' favorite electronic games involve violence (Gentile, 2011). Many studies have examined the relation between violent electronic games and aggressiveness (Arriaga et al., 2011; Elson & Ferguson, 2014; Gentile, 2014). One study asked boys themselves about the effects of playing violent electronic games (Olson et al., 2008). The interviews showed that the boys (ages 12-14) used electronic games to experience fantasies of power and fame, and to explore what they perceived to be exciting new situations. The boys enjoyed the social aspect of electronic game playing, in playing with friends and talking about the games with friends. The boys also said they used electronic games to work through feelings of anger or stress, and that playing the games had a cathartic effect on these negative feelings. They did not believe that playing violent electronic games affected them negatively. Applying the Media Practice Model to adolescents' uses of electronic games suggests that adolescents seek out violent games because the games suit some aspect of their identity; perhaps the games appeal to adolescents who are especially aggressive or competitive, or who relish the social part of playing with friends. It seems likely that with electronic games, as with other violent media, there is a wide range of individual differences in responses, with young people who are already at risk for violent behavior being most likely to be affected by the games, as well as most likely to be attracted to them (Gentile, 2011; Gentile & Bushman, 2012; Unsworth et al., 2007). Violent content may rarely provoke violent behavior, but it more often influences social attitudes. For example, playing violent electronic games has been found to lower empathy and raise the acceptability of violent responses to social situations (Arriaga et al., 2011; Bushman, 2016; Kneer et al., 2016). In recent years, violent games have become less popular among adolescents because games involving sports and music have become more popular (Adachi & Willoughby, 2017; Kaiser Family Foundation, 2010).

In the course of early childhood, children make many remarkable advances in their cognitive development. Several theories shed light on these developments, including Piaget's preoperational stage; "theory of mind," which examines how children think about the thoughts of others; and theories of cultural learning that emphasize the ways that young children gain the knowledge and skills of their culture. These theories complement each other to provide a comprehensive picture of cognitive development in early childhood. In Piaget's theory, early childhood is a crucial turning point in children's cognitive development because this is when thinking becomes representational (Piaget, 1952). During the first 2 years of life, the sensorimotor stage, thinking takes place primarily in association with sensorimotor activities such as reaching and grasping. Gradually toward the end of the sensorimotor period, in the second half of the second year, children begin to internalize the images of their sensorimotor activities, marking the beginning of representational thought. However, it is in early childhood that we become truly representational thinkers. Language requires the ability to represent the world symbolically, through words, and this is when language skills develop most dramatically. Once we can represent the world through language, we are freed from our momentary sensorimotor experience. With language we can represent not only the present but the past and the future, not only the world as we see it before us but the world as we previously experienced it and the world as it will be—the coming cold (or warm) season, a decline in the availability of food or water, and so on. We can even represent the world as it has never been, through mentally combining ideas—flying monkeys, talking trees, and people who have superhuman powers. These are marvelous cognitive achievements, and yet early childhood fascinated Piaget not only for what children of this age are able to do cognitively but also for the kinds of mistakes they make. In fact, Piaget termed the age period from 2 to 7 the preoperational stage, emphasizing that children of this age were not yet able to perform mental operations; that is, cognitive procedures that follow certain logical rules. Piaget specified a number of areas of preoperational cognitive mistakes that are characteristic of early childhood, including conservation, egocentrism, and classification. Conservation According to Piaget, children in early childhood lack the ability to understand conservation, the principle that the amount of a physical substance remains the same even if its physical appearance changes. In his best-known demonstration of this mistake, Piaget showed young children two identical glasses holding equal amounts of water and asked them if the two amounts of water were equal. The children typically answered "yes"—they were capable of understanding that much. Then Piaget poured the contents from one of the glasses into a taller, thinner glass, and asked the children again if the two amounts of water were equal. Now most of the children answered "no," failing to understand that the amount of water remained the same even though the appearance of the water changed. Piaget also demonstrated that children made this error with non-liquid substances, as shown in the video Conservation Tasks. Piaget interpreted children's mistakes on conservation tasks as indicating two kinds of cognitive deficiencies. One is the lack of reversibility, the ability to reverse an action mentally. When the water is poured from the original glass to the taller glass in the conservation task, anyone who can reverse that action mentally understands that the amount of water would be the same. Young children cannot perform the mental operation of reversibility, so they mistakenly believe the amount of water has changed. The other is centration, meaning that young children's thinking is centered, or focused, on one noticeable aspect of a cognitive problem to the exclusion of others. In the conservation-of-liquid task, they notice the change in height as the water is poured into the taller glass but neglect to observe the change in width that takes place simultaneously. Egocentrism Another cognitive limitation of the preoperational stage, in Piaget's view, is egocentrism, the inability to distinguish between your own perspective and another person's perspective. To demonstrate egocentrism, Piaget and his colleague Barbel Inhelder (1969) devised what they called the "three mountains task," illustrated in Figure 6.3. In this task, a child is shown a clay model of three different mountains of varying sizes, one with snow on top, one with a red cross, and one with a house. The child walks around the table to see what the mountain looks like from each side, then sits down while the experimenter moves a doll to different points around the table. At each of the doll's locations, the child is shown a series of photographs and asked which one indicates the doll's point of view. In the early years of the preoperational stage, children tend to pick the photo that matches their own perspective, not the doll's. Watch the video Egocentrism Task for another example of a research study on this topic.

One aspect of egocentrism is animism, the tendency to attribute human thoughts and feelings to inanimate objects and forces. According to Piaget, when young children believe that the thunder is angry or the moon is following them, it reflects their animistic thinking. It also reflects their egocentrism, in that they are attributing thoughts and feelings that they might have themselves to inanimate objects. Children's play with stuffed animals and dolls is a good example of animistic thinking. When they play with these toys, children frequently attribute human thoughts and feelings to them, often the thoughts and feelings they might have themselves. This is play, but it is a kind of play they take seriously. At age 5, our daughter Paris would sometimes "find" a stuffed puppy or kitten on our porch that she would treat as her pet. If you humorously suggested that this might be an especially easy pet to care for, being stuffed—as we made the mistake of doing one day—she took great offense and insisted it was a real animal. To her, at that moment, it was. In addition to their lack of conservation and their egocentrism, Piaget argued that preoperational children also lack the capacity for classification. This means that they have difficulty understanding that objects can be simultaneously part of more than one "class" or group. He demonstrated this by showing children a drawing of 4 blue flowers and 12 yellow flowers and asking them, "Are there more yellow flowers, or more flowers?" In early childhood, children would typically answer "More yellow flowers," because they did not understand that yellow flowers could be part of the class "yellow flowers" and simultaneously part of the class "flowers." Here, as with conservation, the cognitive limitations of centration and lack of reversibility are at the root of the error, in Piaget's view. Young children center on the fact that the yellow flowers are yellow, which leads them to overlook that the yellow flowers are also flowers. They also lack reversibility in that they cannot perform the mental operation of placing the yellow and blue flowers together into the "flowers" class and then moving them back into the "yellow flowers" and "blue flowers" classes, respectively. Evaluating Piaget's Theory Piaget's theory of preoperational thought in early childhood has been challenged in the decades since he proposed it. There are two key critiques of the theory: 1) it underestimates children's cognitive capabilities, and 2) it exaggerates the extent to which development is stage-like rather than continuous. Many studies over the past several decades have shown that children ages 2-7 are cognitively capable of more than Piaget recognized. For example, regarding egocentrism, when the three-mountains task is modified so that familiar objects are used instead of the three-mountain model, children give less egocentric responses (Newcombe & Huttenlocher, 2006). Studies using other methods also show that 2- to 7-year-old children are less egocentric than Piaget thought. As described in Chapter 5, even toddlers show the beginnings of an ability to take others' perspectives, when they discern what they can do to annoy a sibling (Dunn, 1988). On the more positive side, toddlers will also spontaneously help others achieve their goal (Warneken & Tomasello, 2006). By age 4, children switch to shorter, simpler sentences when talking to toddlers or babies, showing a distinctly unegocentric ability to take the perspective of the younger children (Bryant & Barrett, 2007). Regarding Piaget's stage claims, research has shown that the development of cognitive skills in childhood is less stage-like and more continuous than Piaget believed (Bibok et al., 2009). Remember, Piaget's stage theory asserts that movement from one stage to another represents a wholesale cognitive shift, a change not just in specific cognitive skills but in how children think. In this view, children ages 2-7 are incapable of performing mental operations, and then in the next stage they become able to do so. However, research has generally shown that the ability to perform mental operations changes gradually over the course of childhood.

As noted in previous chapters, two of Vygotsky's most influential ideas are scaffolding and the zone of proximal development. The zone of proximal development is the difference between skills or tasks a person can accomplish alone and those they are capable of doing if guided by a more experienced person. Scaffolding refers to the degree of assistance provided in the zone of proximal development. In Vygotsky's view, learning always takes place via a social process, through the interactions between someone who possesses knowledge and someone who is in the process of obtaining it (Rieber & Robinson, 2013). Scaffolding and the zone of proximal development continue to apply during adolescence, when the skills necessary for adult work are being learned. An example can be found in research on weaving skills among male adolescents in the Dioula culture in Ivory Coast, on the western coast of Africa (Gauvain, 2015; Tanon, 1994). An important part of the Dioula economy is making and selling large handmade cloths with elaborate designs. The training of weavers begins when they are ages 10-12 and continues for several years. Boys grow up watching their fathers weave, but only begin learning weaving skills themselves in early adolescence. Teaching takes place through scaffolding: The boy attempts a simple weaving pattern, the father corrects his mistakes, and the boy tries again. When the boy gets it right, the father gives him a more complex pattern, thus raising the upper boundary of the zone of proximal development so that the boy continues to be challenged and his skills continue to improve. As the boy becomes more competent at weaving, the scaffolding provided by the father diminishes. Eventually the boy gets his own loom, but he continues to consult with his father for several years before he can weave entirely by himself. Adolescents in traditional cultures often learn skills from a parent or other adult. Here, an adolescent in Ghana learns to weave baskets. As this example illustrates, learning in adolescence is always a cultural process, in which adolescents acquire the skills and knowledge that will be useful in their culture. Increasingly, the skills and knowledge of the global economy involve the ability to use information technology such as computers and the internet. In most countries, the highest-paying jobs require these kinds of skills. However, as the example of the Dioula illustrates, in developing countries the most necessary skills and knowledge are often those involved in making things the family can use or that other people will want to buy (Larson et al., 2010; Rogoff et al., 2014). Adolescence has long been regarded as a time of emotional volatility. Here we'll look at the history of views on this topic as well as current research. Issues of self-concept and self-esteem are also at the forefront of adolescent development, partly due to advances in cognitive development. Gender issues are prominent as well, because adolescence involves reaching sexual maturity.

One of the most ancient and enduring observations of adolescence is that it is a time of heightened emotions (Arnett, 1999). Over 2,000 years ago, the Greek philosopher Aristotle observed that youth "are heated by Nature as drunken men by wine." About 250 years ago, the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau made a similar observation: "As the roaring of the waves precedes the tempest, so the murmur of rising passions announces the tumultuous change" of puberty and adolescence. Around the same time that Rousseau was writing, a type of German literature was developing that became known as "sturm und drang" literature—German for "storm and stress." In these stories, young people in their teens and early 20s experienced extreme emotions of angst, sadness, and romantic passion. What does contemporary research tell us about the validity of these historical and popular views of adolescent emotionality? Probably the best source of data on this question is research using the Experience Sampling Method (ESM), introduced in Chapter 7, which involves having people wear wristwatch beepers and beeping them randomly during the day so they can record their thoughts, feelings, and behavior (Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1984; Larson & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014; Schneider, 2006). ESM studies have also been conducted on younger children and adults, so if we compare the patterns of emotions reported by the different groups, we can get a good sense of whether adolescence is a stage of more extremes of emotions than middle childhood or adulthood. The results indicate that adolescence in the United States is often a time of emotional volatility (Larson & Csikszentmihalyi, 2014; Larson et al., 1980; Larson & Richards, 1994). American adolescents report feeling "self-conscious" and "embarrassed" two to three times more often than their parents and are also more likely than their parents to feel awkward, lonely, nervous, and ignored. Adolescents are also moodier when compared to younger children. Comparing middle childhood 5th graders to adolescent 8th graders, Reed Larson and Maryse Richards (1994) describe the emotional "fall from grace" that occurs during that time, as the proportion of time experienced as "very happy" declines by 50%, and similar declines take place in reports of feeling "great," "proud," and "in control." The result is an overall "deflation of childhood happiness" (p. 85) as childhood ends and adolescence begins. How do emotional states change during the course of adolescence? Larson and Richards assessed their original sample of 5th to 8th graders 4 years later, in 9th to 12th grades (Larson et al., 2002). As Figure 8.8 shows, they found a decline in average emotional states with age. Figure 8.8 Change in Emotional States During Adolescence Average emotional state becomes steadily more negative in the course of adolescence. Source: Larson et al. (2002) Description What about the rest of the world? Is adolescent emotionality especially an American phenomenon, or does it occur in other cultures as well? There is limited evidence to answer this question. However, one study used ESM with adolescents and their parents in India (Verma & Larson, 1999). The results indicated that in India, as in the United States, adolescents reported more emotional extremes, compared to their parents. However, the Indian adolescents rated time spent with parents much more positively than the American adolescents did.

In all cultures, gender is a fundamental organizing principle of social life. All cultures distinguish different roles and expectations for females and males, although the strictness of those roles and expectations varies widely. Of course, many other animals, including all our mammal relatives and certainly our primate cousins, have female-male differences in their typical patterns of behavior and development. What makes humans distinctive is that, unlike other animals, we require culture to tell us how females and males are supposed to behave. Gender Identity and Gender Socialization Early childhood is an especially important period with respect to gender development. Recall that even earlier, at age 2, children attain gender identity; that is, they understand themselves as being either female or male (Kapadia & Gala, 2015). However, in early childhood, gender issues intensify, as shown in the video Gender Socialization. By ages 3-4, children associate a variety of things with either males or females, including toys, games, clothes, household items, occupations, and even colors. Furthermore, they are often adamant and rigid in their perceptions of femaleness and maleness, denying, for example, that it would be possible for a boy to wear a ponytail and still remain a boy, or for a girl to play roughly and still remain a girl (Blakemore, 2003)! One reason for their insistence on strict gender roles at this age may be cognitive. It is not until age 6 or 7 that children exhibit gender constancy, the belief that femaleness and maleness are biological and cannot change (Halim et al., 2014). Earlier, children may be so insistent about maintaining gender roles because they believe that changing external features like clothes or hairstyles could result in a change in gender (Leaper, 2015). The similarity of children's gender roles and gender behavior across cultures is striking, and there is a biological basis to some gender differences. However, children in all cultures are also subject to gender socialization.

Parents play an active role in delivering cultural gender messages to their children (Leaper, 2013; Liben et al., 2013). They may give their children distinctively female or male names, dress them in gender-specific colors and styles, and provide them with cars or dolls to play with. Parents' important role in gender socialization continues in early childhood. They continue to give their children the clothes and toys they believe are gender appropriate. They express approval when their children behave in gender-appropriate ways, and disapproval when their children violate gender expectations (Kapadia & Gala, 2015). In conversations, parents sometimes communicate gender expectations directly (e.g., "Don't cry, you're not a little girl, are you?"). They also communicate indirectly, by approving or not contradicting their children's gender statements. ("Only boys can be doctors, Mommy.") Parents also provide models, through their own behavior, language, and appearance, of how males and females are supposed to be different in their culture (Bandura & Bussey, 2004). Fathers become especially important to gender socialization in early childhood and beyond. They tend to be more insistent about conformity to gender roles than mothers are, especially for boys (Lamb, 2010). They may not want their daughters to play rough-and-tumble games, but they are adamant that their boys not be "wimps." Some mothers who hold gender-egalitarian views use counter-stereotypical language with their 3- to 7-year-old children, but they do so more with daughters than sons (Friedman et al., 2007). As we will see in later chapters, males' greater fear of violations of gender roles is something that continues throughout life in many cultures. Peers also become a major source of gender socialization in early childhood. Once children learn gender roles and expectations, they apply them not only to themselves but also to each other. They reinforce each other for gender-appropriate behavior and reject peers who violate gender roles (Leaper, 2013; Matlin, 2004; Zosuls et al., 2016). Here, too, the expectations are stricter for boys than for girls (Liben et al., 2013). Boys who cry easily or who like to play with girls and engage in girls' games are likely to be ostracized by other boys (David et al., 2004). Gender Schemas and Self-Socialization As a result of gender socialization, from early childhood onward children use gender schemas as a way of understanding and interpreting the world around them. Recall that scheme is Piaget's term for a cognitive structure for organizing and processing information. (Scheme and schema are used interchangeably in psychology.) A gender schema is a gender-based cognitive structure for organizing and processing information (Martin & Ruble, 2004). According to gender schema theory, gender is one of our most important schemas from early childhood onward (Liben et al., 2014). By the time we reach the end of early childhood, on the basis of our socialization we have learned to categorize a wide range of activities, objects, and personality characteristics as "female" or "male." This includes not just the obvious—vaginas are female, penises are male—but many things that have no inherent "femaleness" or "maleness" but are nevertheless taught as possessing gender. Examples include the moon as "female" and the sun as "male" in traditional Chinese culture, or blue as a "boy color" and pink as a "girl color" (in Korea, pink is a "boy color," which illustrates how cultural these designations are). Some languages, such as French and Spanish, assign a gender to every noun. Gender schemas influence how we interpret the behavior of others and what we expect from them (Frawley, 2008). In early childhood, children tend to believe that their own preferences are true for everyone in their gender (Liben et al., 2013). For example, a boy who dislikes peas may justify it by claiming, "boys don't like peas." Young children also tend to remember in ways that reflect their gender schemas. In one study (Liben & Signorella, 1993), children who were shown pictures that violated typical gender roles (e.g., a woman driving a truck) tended to remember them in accordance with their gender schemas (a man, not a woman, driving the truck). Throughout life, we tend to notice information that fits within our gender schemas and ignore or dismiss information that is inconsistent with them (David et al., 2004). Once young children possess gender schemas, they seek to maintain consistency between their schemas and their behavior, a process called self-socialization. Boys become quite insistent about doing things they regard as boy things and avoiding things that girls do; girls become equally intent on avoiding boy things and doing things they regard as appropriate for girls (Bandura & Bussey, 2004; Tobin et al., 2010). In this way, according to a prominent gender scholar, "cultural myths become self-fulfilling prophesies" (Bem, 1981, p. 355). By the end of early childhood, gender roles are enforced not only by socialization from others but also by self-socialization, as children strive to conform to the gender expectations they perceive in the culture around them.

Which of the following cultural views of adolescent sexuality best applies to northern Europe?

Permissive

Which of the following statements describing moral development in early childhood is true?

Perspective-taking and being able to understand how others think and feel make children more empathic at this age.

We also compare Piaget's theory to a more cultural perspective on children's cognitive development proposed by Lev Vygotsky. Piaget proposed that in the first 2 years of life children are in the sensorimotor stage. Neonates have a wide range of reflexes but little intentional control over their behaviors. By the end of the first year, however, infants have lost most of their reflexes and their actions have become more voluntary and purposeful. In the second year of life—during toddlerhood—the tasks of the sensorimotor stage are completed, according to Piaget. Specifically, toddlers develop mental representations which, in turn, opens up a new world of cognitive possibilities. Mental Representations Toddlers, according to Piaget, become curious little scientists, experimenting on the objects around them. We experienced an example of this with our own little scientists when they were 17 months old. One day our twins became curious as to what would happen if you repeatedly stuffed the toilet with gobs of tissue and flushed. On their own in the upstairs bathroom, they flushed and flushed and flushed until the flushing system broke and water began overflowing. We were sitting downstairs when suddenly water whooshed out of the vents in the ceiling! Rushing upstairs, we found the twins standing in 3 inches of water, giggling with glee, absolutely delighted. We don't recall thinking of Piaget at that moment, but he would probably have been pleased. To Piaget, the curiosity of toddlers is what propels them toward mental representations. Somewhere between 18 and 24 months, toddlers begin to think about possible actions and then select the one most likely to achieve a desired outcome. Piaget gave the example of his daughter Lucienne, who sought to obtain a small chain from inside the matchbox where her father had placed it. First she turned the box upside down; then she tried to jam her finger into it, but neither of these methods worked. She paused for a moment, holding the matchbox and considering it intently. Then she opened and closed her mouth, and suddenly slid back the cover of the matchbox to reveal the chain (Crain, 2000). To Piaget, opening and closing her mouth showed that she was pondering potential solutions, then mimicking the solution that had occurred to her. Mental representation is a crucial milestone in cognitive development, because it is the basis of the most important and most distinctly human cognitive abilities, including language. The words we use are mental representations of objects, people, actions, and ideas. Mental representation also contributes to what Piaget called deferred imitation and categorization. Let's look at each of these cognitive schemes. Deferred Imitation Mental representation of actions facilitates deferred imitation; that is, the ability to repeat actions observed at an earlier time. Piaget's favorite example of deferred imitation involved his daughter Jacqueline, who witnessed another child exploding into an elaborate public tantrum and then repeated the tantrum herself at home the next day (Crain, 2000). Deferred imitation is a crucial ability for learning because it means that when we observe something important to know, we can repeat it later ourselves. Deferred imitation is a frequent part of toddlers' pretend play, as they observe the actions of other children or adults—making a meal, feeding a baby, digging a hole—and then imitate those actions later in their play (Lillard, 2015).

Piaget proposed that deferred imitation begins at about 18 months, but subsequent research has shown that it develops much earlier than he had thought (Bauer, 2006). Deferred imitation of facial expressions has been reported as early as 6 weeks of age, when infants exposed to an unusual facial expression from an unfamiliar adult imitated it when the same adult appeared before them the next day (Meltzoff & Moore, 1994; Waismeyer & Meltzoff, 2017). At 6 months of age, infants can imitate a simple sequence of events a day later, such as taking off a puppet's glove and shaking it to ring a bell inside the glove (Barr et al., 2003). However, if there is a longer delay, toddlers are more proficient at deferred imitation than infants are. In a series of studies, children 9, 13, and 20 months old were shown two-step sequences of events such as placing a car on a track to make a light go on, then pushing a rod to make the car run down a ramp (Bauer et al., 2000; 2001; 2003). After a 1-month interval, shown the same materials, fewer than half of the 9-month-olds could imitate the steps they had seen previously, compared with about two-thirds of the 13-month-olds and nearly all the 20-month-olds. Other studies have shown that better deferred imitation among toddlers than among infants may be due principally to advances in the maturity of the brain. Specifically, the hippocampus, that part of the brain especially important in long-term memory encoding and recall, is still in a highly immature state of development during infancy but matures substantially during toddlerhood (Bauer et al., 2010; Insel, 2013; Liston & Kagan, 2002). Categorization Piaget also believed that mental representation in toddlerhood is the basis of categorization. Once we are able to represent an image of a house mentally, for example, we can understand the category "house" and understand that different houses are all part of that category. These categories, in turn, become the basis for language, because each noun and verb represents a category (Waxman, 2003). The word truck represents the category "truck" containing every possible variety of truck; the word run represents the category "run" containing all varieties of running, and so on. Here, too, recent experiments seem to indicate that Piaget underestimated children's early abilities. Even infants as young as a few months old have been shown to have a rudimentary understanding of categories. This can be demonstrated by their patterns of looking at a series of images. As we have seen, infants tend to look longer at images that are new or unfamiliar, and their attention to images is often used in research to infer what they know and do not know. In one study, 3- and 4-month-old infants were shown photographs of cats (Quinn et al., 1993). After a series of cat photos, the infants were shown two new photos, one of a cat and one of a dog. They looked longer at the dog photo, indicating that they had been using a category for "cat" and looked longer at the dog photo because it did not fit. However, research has generally confirmed Piaget's insight that categorization becomes more advanced during toddlerhood (Bornstein & Arterberry, 2010). For example, one study compared children who were 9, 12, and 18 months old (Gopnik et al., 1999). The children were given four different toy horses and four different pencils. At 9 months, they played with the objects but made no effort to separate them into categories. At 12 months, some of the children would place the objects into categories and some would not. By 18 months, nearly all the children would systematically and deliberately separate the objects into a "horse" category and a "pencil" category. By the time they are 2 years old, toddlers can go beyond the appearance of objects to categorize them on the basis of their functions or qualities. In a study demonstrating this ability, 2-year-olds were shown a machine and a collection of blocks that appeared to be identical (Gopnik et al., 1999). Then they were shown that two of the blocks made the machine light up when placed on it, whereas others did not. The researcher picked up one of the blocks that had made the machine light up and said, "This is a blicket. Can you show me the other blicket?" The 2-year-olds were able to choose the other block that had made the machine light up, even though it looked the same as the blocks that had not had that effect. Although blicket was a nonsense word the toddlers had not heard before, they were able to understand that the category "blicket" was defined by causing the light to go on.

Middle Childhood Growth slows: -caloric intake decreases -children can regulate their own intake of energy -parents are sometimes concerned about reduced eating Motor development -increases in balance, strength, coordination, reaction times emergence of organized sports -competition with video games -childhood obesity benefits of physical activity -cognitive benefits -executive function

Piaget's point of view -concrete operational stage -use concrete logic to solve problems -conservation; classification; seriation problems criticisms of piaget -stage theroy -exposure to some experiences influences development

Which of the following statements about preschool and the Japanese is true?

Preschool is mainly a time for learning social skills and gaining experience being a member of a group.

Self-conceptions become more complex in adolescence, due to advances in cognitive development. Self-esteem declines in early adolescence before rising in late adolescence and emerging adulthood. Self-Understanding and Self-Concept One aspect of the complexity of adolescents' self-conceptions is that they can distinguish between an actual self and possible selves (Markus & Nurius, 1986; Oyserman et al., 2015). The actual self is your self-conception, and possible selves are the different people you imagine you could become in the future depending on your choices and experiences. Scholars distinguish two kinds of possible selves, an ideal self and a feared self (Ferguson et al., 2010; Hardy et al., 2014). The ideal self is the person the adolescent would like to be (for example, highly popular with peers or highly successful in athletics or music). The feared self is the person the adolescent dreads becoming (for example, an alcoholic, or like a disgraced relative or friend). Both kinds of possible selves require adolescents to think abstractly. That is, possible selves exist only as abstractions, as ideas in the adolescent's mind. The capacity for thinking about an actual, an ideal, and a feared self is a cognitive achievement, but this capacity may be troubling in some respects. If you can imagine an ideal self, you can also recognize the discrepancy between your actual self and your ideal self—between what you are and what you wish you were. If the discrepancy is large enough, feelings of failure, inadequacy, and depression can result. Studies have found that the size of the discrepancy between the actual and ideal self is related to depressed mood in both adolescents and emerging adults (Papadakis et al., 2006; Remue et al., 2014). Furthermore, the discrepancy between the actual and the ideal self is greater in mid-adolescence than in either early or late adolescence (Ferguson et al., 2010). This helps explain why rates of depressed mood rise from early adolescence to mid-adolescence and why self-esteem is at a low point in mid-adolescence, as we will see in more detail later. A related aspect of the increasing complexity of self-conceptions is that adolescents become aware of times when they are exhibiting a false self—a self they present to others that does not represent what they are actually thinking and feeling (Harter et al., 1997; Weir et al., 2010). With whom would you think adolescents would be most likely to exhibit their false selves—friends, parents, or potential romantic partners? Research indicates that adolescents are most likely to put on their false selves with potential romantic partners, and least likely with their close friends; parents are in between (Harter, 2006; Sippola et al., 2007). Most adolescents indicate that they sometimes dislike putting on a false self, but many also say that some degree of false self behavior is acceptable and even desirable, to impress someone or to conceal aspects of the self they do not want others to see. In recent years, Facebook and other social media have become places where adolescents can construct a false self (Michikyan et al., 2014). Adolescents are most likely to use a false self with dating partners. Self-Esteem Several longitudinal studies show that self-esteem declines in early adolescence, then rises through late adolescence and emerging adulthood (Harter, 2012; Orth & Robins, 2014). Figure 8.9 illustrates this pattern. There are a number of reasons why self-esteem might reach a low point in mid-adolescence . The "imaginary audience" can make adolescents self-conscious in a way that decreases their self-esteem (Elkind, 1967, 1985). That is, as adolescents develop the capacity to imagine that others are especially conscious of how they look and what they say and how they act, they may suspect or fear that others are judging them harshly. Figure 8.9 Global Self-Esteem, Ages 9 to 20 Source: Adapted from Bleidorn et al. (2016), Erol & Orth (2011), Robins et al. (2002). And they may be right. Adolescents in Western cultures tend to value the opinion of their peers highly, especially on day-to-day issues such as how they are dressed and what they say in social situations (Brown & Braun, 2013). Also, their peers have developed new cognitive capacities for sarcasm and ridicule, which tend to be dispensed freely toward any peer who seems odd or awkward or uncool (Cameron et al., 2010; Ichikawa et al., 2015). So, the combination of greater self-consciousness about evaluations by peers and peers' potentially harsh evaluations contributes to declines in self-esteem in early adolescence. Self-esteem rises in late adolescence and emerging adulthood as peers' evaluations become less important (Galambos et al., 2006). Multiple aspects of adolescent self-esteem have been investigated by Susan Harter (1990, 2006, 2012, 2015). Her Self-Perception Profile for Adolescents distinguishes the following eight domains of adolescent self-concept: Scholastic competence Social acceptance Athletic competence Physical appearance Job competence Romantic appeal Behavioral conduct Close friendship In addition to the eight subscales on specific domains of self-concept, Harter's scale also contains a subscale for global (overall) self-esteem. Her research indicates that adolescents do not need to have a positive self-image in all domains to have high global self-esteem. Each domain of self-concept influences global self-esteem only to the extent that the adolescent views that domain as important. For example, some adolescents may view themselves as having low scholastic competence, but that would only influence their global self-esteem if it was important to them to do well in school. Nevertheless, some domains of self-concept are more important than others to most adolescents. Research by Harter and others has found that physical appearance is most strongly related to global self-esteem, followed by social acceptance from peers (Barker & Bornstein, 2010; Harter, 2015; Shapka & Keating, 2005). Adolescent girls are more likely than boys to emphasize physical appearance as a basis for self-esteem. Because girls tend to evaluate their physical appearance negatively, and because physical appearance is at the heart of their global self-esteem, girls' self-esteem tends to be lower than boys' during adolescence (Steiger et al., 2014). Among adolescent girls, African Americans have higher self-esteem than adolescent girls in any other ethnic group (Adams, 2010). This may because they are less likely to evaluate their physical appearance negatively (Epperson et al., 2016).

Psychologists John Hill and Mary Ellen Lynch (1983; Lynch, 1991) proposed that adolescence is a particularly important time in gender socialization, especially for girls. According to their gender-intensification hypothesis, psychological and behavioral differences between females and males become more pronounced in the transition from childhood to adolescence because of intensified socialization pressures to conform to culturally prescribed gender roles. Hill and Lynch (1983) believe that it is this intensified socialization pressure, rather than the biological changes of puberty, that results in increased differences between females and males as adolescence progresses. Furthermore, they argue that the intensity of gender socialization in adolescence is greater for females than for males, and that this is reflected in a variety of ways in adolescent girls' development. For an illustration of how girls in the United States respond to gender intensification, view the Body Image in Adolescent Girls video. Watch Body Image in Adolescent Girls Since Hill and Lynch (1983) proposed this hypothesis, other studies have supported it (Galambos, 2004; Priess & Lindberg, 2014; Shanahan et al., 2007). Gender intensification may be especially pronounced for issues of physical appearance. A national American longitudinal study found that adolescent boys and girls responded differently to weight gain during adolescence, with girls expressing more body dissatisfaction than boys who gained a comparable amount (Calzo et al., 2012). In this study, girls' dissatisfaction increased over the course of adolescence. By late adolescence, many of them were dissatisfied even if their weight gain was normal. In some American minority cultures, gender intensification may be more pronounced than in the majority culture. In the Latino community, for example, the Catholic Church has been influential historically, and women have been taught to emulate the Virgin Mary by being submissive and self-denying, an ideology known as marianismo. Also, the role of women has been concentrated on caring for children, taking care of the home, and providing emotional support for the husband. The role of men, in contrast, has been guided by the ideology of machismo, which emphasizes male dominance over and protection of females and children (Arciniega et al., 2008). However, gender expectations have been changing in the Latino community, at least with respect to women's roles. Latina women are now employed at rates similar to Whites, and a Latina feminist movement has emerged (Denner & Guzmán, 2006; Taylor et al., 2007). This movement does not reject the traditional emphasis on the importance of the role of wife and mother, but seeks to value these roles while also expanding the opportunities available to Latinas (Denner & Dunbar, 2004; Diaz & Bui, 2017; Sanchez et al., 2017). Watch the video Gender among Latinas to see how adolescent girls describe this change in expectations. Watch Gender Among Latinas Gender intensification is often considerably stronger in traditional cultures than in the West. One striking difference in gender expectations in traditional cultures is that for boys, manhood is something that has to be achieved, whereas girls reach womanhood inevitably, mainly through biological changes (Leavitt, 1998; Lindsay & Miescher, 2003). It is true that girls are required to demonstrate various skills and character qualities before they can be said to have reached womanhood. However, in most traditional cultures womanhood is seen as something that girls attain naturally during adolescence, and their readiness for womanhood is viewed as indisputably marked when they reach menarche. Adolescent boys have no comparable biological marker of readiness for manhood. For them, the attainment of manhood is often fraught with peril and carries a definite and formidable possibility of failure. So, what must an adolescent boy in traditional cultures do to achieve manhood and escape the stigma of being viewed as a failed man? Anthropologist David Gilmore (1990) examined this question in traditional cultures around the world and concluded that an adolescent boy must demonstrate three capacities before he can be considered a man: to provide, protect, and procreate. He must demonstrate that he has developed skills that are economically useful—skills that will enable him to provide for the wife and children he is likely to have as an adult man. For example, if adult men fish as the basis of their economy, an adolescent boy must demonstrate that he has learned the skills involved in fishing adequately enough to provide for a family. Learning to provide for a family economically is a traditional part of the male gender role. Here, an Egyptian father and son fish together on the Nile River. Second, he must show that he can help protect his family, kinship group, tribe, and other groups to which he belongs from attacks by human enemies or animal predators, by acquiring the skills of warfare and the capacity to use weapons. Conflict between human groups has been a fact of life in most cultures throughout human history, so this is a pervasive requirement. Finally, he must learn to procreate, in the sense that he must gain some degree of sexual experience before marriage. This is not so he can demonstrate his sexual attractiveness but simply so that he can demonstrate that in marriage he will be able to perform sexually well enough to produce children.

Which of the following statements about Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is true?

Rates of ASD have increased in recent decades in developed countries.

Which of the following statements about depression is true?

Rates of depressed mood rise notably from middle childhood to adolescence.

Which statement exemplifies the origin of Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Recent research shows an association between ASD and pollution exposure in the third trimester of pregnancy.

Which of the following statements about religious beliefs in adolescence is true?

Religion has a lower priority for most American teens than many other parts of their lives.

Which of the following statements is true regarding the understanding of the meaning of numbers?

Research has found that some nonhuman animals have a primitive awareness of numeracy.

Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences

Seven defined types of intelligence: linguistic, logical-mathematical, musical, visual-spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal

Studies have found which of the following features to be more important for friendships in adolescence than in middle childhood?

Sharing personal thoughts and feelings

Nona was in a serious car accident and suffered damage to her Broca's area. Which of the following is likely to result?

She will have difficulty producing speech.

Which of the following statements regarding emotional regulation is true?

Temper tantrums and crying decrease from age 2 to 6.

Which of the following statements best describes the relationships between age and crime?

Ten percent of young men commit over two-thirds of all offenses.

Which of the following statements about families is true?

The United States is one of the countries where the increase in children born to single mothers is the greatest.

Which of the following is an accurate representation of how children's vocabulary changes over time?

The biggest increase in vocabulary occurs once children enter school through around age 11.

Which of the following best describes sensory changes during middle childhood?

The incidence of myopia increases.

Which of the following statements about handedness is true?

The prevalence of left-handedness in some African countries is as low as 1%.

the flynn effect

The rise in average IQ scores that has occurred over the decades in many nations

Which of the following best describes Morton, a toddler who is considered to have an insecure-resistant attachment based on the Strange Situation test?

The toddler is less likely than others to explore the room and is ambivalent upon the mother's return.

Research on formal operational thinking has shown which of the following statements to be true?

The way that formal operational thinking is manifested is likely to be different across different cultures.

Which of the following statements about puberty rituals is true?

They are more common for girls than boys in traditional cultures.

Which of the following statements about the effects on boys of watching high amounts of violent TV at age 8 is true?

They are more likely to be aggressive in adulthood than their counterparts who watch either little or no violence.

In addition to a resurgence of teething, what helps explain why infants who have been sleeping through the night start waking up again when they are between 18 and 24 months old?

They become more aware that they are sleeping by themselves.

Young women who have an eating disorder are at higher risk for other disorders, such as depression and anxiety disorders

They engage in binge eating—eating a large amount of food in a short time—then purge themselves; that is, they use laxatives or induce vomiting to get rid of the food they have just eaten during a binge episode. People with bulimia often suffer damage to their teeth from repeated vomiting (because stomach acids erode tooth enamel). Unlike those with anorexia, persons with bulimia typically maintain a normal weight, because they have relatively normal eating patterns between episodes of bingeing and purging (Striegel-Moore & Franko, 2006). Another difference from anorexia is that persons with bulimia do not regard their eating patterns as normal. They view themselves as having a problem and often hate themselves after binge episodes.

Why are rates of overweight and obese children especially high among African American and Latino children?

They tend to watch the most television per day.

Which of the following statements regarding theory of mind is true?

Toddlers show evidence of having theory of mind.

The __________ is the portion of the left temporal lobe of the human brain that is specialized for language comprehension.

Wernicke's area

__________ is located in the left temporal lobe of the brain.

Wernicke's area

As a parent of a 3-year-old, you have visited several preschool programs to determine the one that will provide the highest quality experience. Which of the following should you look for in the preschool that you choose?

Whether the teachers spend a lot of time interacting with the children, rather than with each other

Secure attachment is characterized by __________.

a willingness of the child to use the caregiver as a secure base to explore the environment

During high school, Joe was a popular kid who got into trouble when hanging around a group of older friends. Once he even climbed through the window of a convenience store to steal beer when they'd run out at a party. In his late twenties, Joe got a steady job, got married, and had children. According to Moffitt, Joe would be considered a(n)__________.

adolescent-limited delinquent

What is the name of the Japanese concept that describes the very close, physical, indulgent relationship between the mother and her young child?

amae

Sternberg's Triarchic Theory of Intelligence

analytical intelligence- most IQ tests creative intelligence- combine information in new ways practical intelligence- apply information to everyday problems

Five-year-old Marco draws a picture of a train with a smiley face and sunglasses. This is an example of __________.

animism

Which component of the Media Practice Model involves adolescents incorporating media content into their identities?

application

Your brother and sister-in-law do not like to cook and neither one of them seems to have a very good understanding of nutrition. Their 9-year-old son has a BMI of 24, but they are not concerned because they feel that he will simply outgrow being obese. You believe they should be more concerned because, as adults, overweight and obese individuals __________.

are more likely to have high blood pressure, heart attacks, and cancer

Compared to 6-year-olds, 9-year-olds are likely to __________.

better understand jokes that violate the social conventions of language

Which of the following is a secondary sex characteristic?

breasts

Vanessa is terrified of becoming fat. Her weight is normal, and most of the time she has normal eating habits, but sometimes she loses control and "binges" on large amounts of food. In an effort to avoid becoming fat, Vanessa makes herself throw up after these binges. Vanessa is exhibiting symptoms of __________.

bulimia

When capable of concrete operational thought, children __________________________.

can organize and manipulate information mentally

Adolescents in which country are LEAST likely to smoke cigarettes?

canada

When it comes to attachment, __________.

children develop an internal working model of what to expect about their mother's availability and supportiveness in times of need based on how sensitive and responsive she was over the first year of life

A developmental psychologist would most likely use the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) to __________.

examine changes in emotions in different social settings

Theo is an adolescent boy who has gotten in trouble for a number of delinquent acts such as underage drinking, vandalizing on Halloween, and trespassing. Researchers who take a biological approach might explain this behavior as being caused by an immature __________.

frontal lobe

When children can identify themselves and others as either male or female they have developed __________.

gender identity

The way we organize and process information in terms of gender-based categories is referred to as __________.

gender schemas

The __________ is the hypothesis that psychological and behavioral differences between males and females become more pronounced at adolescence.

gender-intensification

According to Erikson's life span theory, early childhood is identified as __________.

initiative vs. guilt

__________ aggression is when a child wants something and uses aggressive behavior or words to get it.

instrumental

Kinds or types of memory -sensori-motor memory -short term memory -long-term memory gains in middle childhood -executive function and attention -encoding strategies (rehearsal: organization; elaboration....metamemory) -rise of ADHD

intelligence emerges from a combination of genetic and environmental influences

In the United States, conflict in adolescence __________.

is more frequent between early-maturing adolescents and their parents compared to "on-time" adolescents and their parents

Margaret Mead designated children aged 0-2 with the term __________.

lap child

A key reason why emotional outbursts decline in early childhood is that children __________.

learn strategies for regulating their emotions, in a practice known as effortful control

__________ is the simultaneous use of more than one media form, such as playing an electronic game while watching TV.

media multitasking

Rather than turning to other coping strategies, such as talking about his problems or even taking a walk to burn off steam, John smokes pot to reduce stress, anxiety, or sadness. This pattern of substance use is referred to as __________.

medicinal substance use

Barrett and Frank (1987) studied children from Guatemala who were classified as having high nutrient levels or low nutrient levels. Compared to children with low nutrient levels, children with high nutrient levels were __________.

more likely to explore new environments and to persist in a frustrating situation

What language did the babies that Frederick II, the Holy Roman Emperor, ordered to be exposed to no language end up speaking "naturally"?

none

While learning language, children who learn English and other Western languages have been shown to fast-map __________ first.

nouns

Even at age 5, about __________ of children occasionally fail to control urination and defecation, usually at night.

one fourth

After his brother accidentally put the peanut butter in the refrigerator, Carl heard his father say, "Well, that was smart." Carl understood that his father was not giving his brother a compliment and it did not mean that his brother was especially intelligent. This is an example of increased understanding of __________.

pragmatics

Four-year-old Nicco uses infant-directed speech when talking to his neighbor's new baby; this demonstrates __________.

pragmatics

According to the World Health Organization, about one fourth of children worldwide have diets deficient in __________.

protein

The most effective treatment for major depressive disorder in adolescence combines __________.

psychotherapy and antidepressant medications

Every child has a genetically based __________ for intelligence, meaning a range of possible developmental paths.

reaction range

Some countries and local areas add fluoride to the water system, which impacts children by __________.

reducing rates of tooth decay

Sam is unpopular and has trouble making friends. He is aggressive and just last week started a fight by punching a boy who disagreed with him. Which of the following is most likely the case? Sam is a(n) ________ child.

rejected

Adolescents who are more religious __________.

report less depression

One highly important finding that attests to the importance of environmental influences on intelligence is that the median IQ score in Western countries __________ in the course of the 20th century.

rose dramatically

When learning to weave, boys in the Dioula culture start by watching their fathers weave, and then learn to weave themselves in early adolescence. A boy starts off working on his own to complete a simple pattern and gets help when he makes mistakes. He moves on to more complex patterns and continues to consult with his father for several years until he can weave completely on his own. This is an example of __________.

scaffolding

Toddlers by 12 months generally can __________.

scribble vigorously

__________ is a person's overall sense of worth and well-being.

self-esteem

The capacity of toddlers to think about themselves as they would about other persons and objects is __________.

self-reflection

The process by which people seek to maintain consistency between their gender schemas and their behavior is referred to as __________.

self-socialization

Which classification best fits the United States in terms of its cultural beliefs about the acceptability (or not) of premarital sex?

semirestrictive

According to Vygotsky, __________ is required for cognitive development.

social interaction

The substance use of an adolescent who drinks alcohol only when hanging out with friends would be classified as __________.

social substance use

Compared to his 7-year-old brother, a 14-year-old will have an easier time reading a book and listening to music at the same time because he's more adept at __________.

tasks that require divided attention

Both Gardner's and Sternberg's theories of intelligence propose __________.

that there are multiple components of intelligence

Although his brother dropped out of college after becoming dependent on marijuana, Jonah thinks that if he starts smoking marijuana, he will be able to quit when he wants to and nothing bad will happen. This way of thinking demonstrates __________.

the personal fable

Research on Kohlberg's stages of moral development has shown that __________.

the stage of moral reasoning achieved tends to increase with age

Tomas thinks that the word bear refers solely to his stuffed animal. This is an example of __________.

underextension

Compared to the concrete thinking abilities displayed in childhood, the ability to reason in adolescence __________.

utilizes the hypothetical thinking involved in a scientific experiment

In middle childhood, __________ becomes the main reason for children ending friendships.

violating trust

In traditional cultures such as Uganda, _________ can be a major event in the lives of toddlers and it may have an influence on the security of attachment.

weaning

Compared to children with low socioeconomic status who did not attend Head Start, those children who did attend __________.

were less likely to be placed in special education classes

Compared to low-income children who did not participate in the High Scope Preschool Project, children who did participate __________.

were more likely to be married and own their own home by age 27

According to Vygotsky, children learn best if the instruction they are provided is __________.

within the zone of proximal development

Tran is an 8-year-old girl who lives in a Western country in an urban area. If one were to compare the timing of puberty for Tran to the timing of puberty for her ancestral female lineage, one would expect that Tran will experience puberty at a __________ others in her family's history.

younger age than