Psychology - Adolescence

Chapter 6 - Middle Childhood an Adolescence Middle childhood is the period from age 6 to age 12. Adolescence is the period from age 12 to 22. Changes occur in the areas of physical, cognitive, social, emotional and sexual development. Middle Childhood: Six to Twelve Robert Havinghurst has listed nine developmental task for this period: 1. Learning physical skills necessary for ordinary games. 2. Developing fundamental skills in reading, writing, and calculating 3. Developing concepts necessary for everyday life 4. Building wholesome attitudes towards yourself as a growing person 5. Developing conscience, morality and a scale of values 6. Learning to get along with people your own age 7. Learning an appropriate masculine or feminine social role 8. Developing attitudes toward social groups and institutions 9. Achieving personal independence

Robert Havinghurst 9 developmental tasks of Adolescence 1. Accepting one’s physical make-up and acquiring a masculine or feminine sex role. 2. Developing appropriate relations with age mate of both sexes. 3. Becoming emotionally independent of parents and other adults. 4. Achieving the assurance that one will become economically independent. 5. Deciding on, preparing for and entering a vocation 6. Developing the cognitive skills and concepts necessary for social competence 7. Understanding and achieving socially responsible behavior 8. Preparing for marriage and family 9. Acquiring values that are harmonious with the appropriate scientific world picture.

Playmates are Important Peer group relationships contribute greatly to a childs' development. An intense desire to belong characterizes social relationships of this period. The Club Phase The reverse, or desire to exclude, also occurs and causes many hurt feelings. Male-female relationships do not have the same meaning as during later stages with a majority of the peer groups being gender specific. - The Cooties Phase The environment that the child is raised in also has a major effect on the development at this stage. Learning Sex Role A sex role is the part a person plays in life, based on being either male or female. These roles tend to be learned from modeling the behavior of adults. Where do you get these? The Traditional sex role - is one with a dominant male figure who goes to work and a dependent female who stays home. The Joint sex role position see a mixing of the two areas for both males and females. Other influences – Social Media, Books, Movies, TV, Peers etc.

Moral Development: Deciding What is Right It is during the middle childhood years that a child adopts the values, beliefs and attitudes that are handed down by others. Moral judgments are key to this developmental area. These are judgments that people make about their own behavior and depend not on what a person can do but on what a person ought to do. Lawrence Kohlberg developed a theory on moral development by studying how people responded to different moral dilemmas and questions. Levels of Response At the first level – Pre- Conventional-self interest and the avoidance of punishment form the base for which the moral decision is made. At level two – Conventional -the child is primarily conscious of the effect his or her behavior is having on others. Behavior is designed to win approval or to maintain respect or authority. At the third level – Post Conventional - the child is reaching maturity and moral good is seen as residing in abstract principles rather than in individuals or even in society. Kohlberg then sees each of these levels as having developmental stages that go in a chronological order.

Heinz Dilema

The Adolescent Years This is a cultural period. Some cultures in the world move the child from childhood to adulthood. Adolescence is an extended training period to prepare the child to become a part of the adult world. Physical Changes This is a period of rapid growth traditionally called growth spurts. Puberty follows the period of growth. During puberty the body begins to mature physically. Physical features change and hormones begin to be produced. The body is now able to reproduce. Hormones are active throughout life but a large spurt seems to occur during this period. This sudden physical change causes the boy or girl to have to deal with new feelings and these can cause turmoil because of the cultural expectations of the society. The physical growth greatly outpaces the emotional growth until around age 19.

The family also has influences over children at this time. How the child is raised will also have an impact on the way the child matures. Loving and nurturing environments or rejection and indifference all can impact the growth of the child. Diana Baumrind seems to have found a link between parental styles and the development of competence by adolescents.

She feels there are relationships that can be noticed: 1. Socially competent adolescents come from homes where there is high social status and self esteem. Youth tends to model itself after the family image. 2. Achieving and independent adolescents tend to have parents that enforce high, but realistic, aspirations for them. Both positive and negative reinforcement tend to be used in such an environment. 3. Adolescents who were able to talk out their problems with their parents are likely to have confidence that they can change what they believe needs changing through self assertive but nonviolent means. Parents who tended not to explain their demands had more dependent children as adolescents.

Styles of Adolescence Psychologists Stone and Church developed four generalized categories for adolescence. Adolescent behavior changes as they search fro their identity. These are not cut in stone and quite often blend together, but trends from their development during adolescence tend to follow the individual into adult life. 1. Conventionalists - they tend to fit into society and go along with how it exists. They tend to do what is acceptable and socially appropriate 2. Idealist - They want to change society. 3. Hedonists - They tend to be pleasure seekers. They live for the present without any regard for the future. They are self-centered 4. Psychopaths - they are bullies without conscience. They tend to be self-centered with little to no moral concern for others.

The Identity Crisis – Identity vs Role Confusion According to Erikson developing a sense of who you are is the most important task of late adolescence. Some of what the parent taught is there but the search by the individual for them self can lead to changes and developments that make them their own person. Questioning Values - The child begins to search for their own understanding of values and sometimes question those of the parents. This can lead to conflicts with parents and friends Looking Inward - This is the development of a sense of who you are, it deals with the entire sense of the self. Identity information, independence, intimacy and other feelings all combine to form the self. Erikson feels that this crisis is needed for a person to become a productive adult. Role Confusion – results if the adolescent only acts or behaves in manners that reflect or please others. They are not becoming their own individual. In some ways this is an easy path of development.

Adolescent Issues There are a number of problems that must be faced. Some of these focus on the individuals psychological state but most deal with relations with peers, authority figures and society in general. Parental Authority - This seems to be an area of conflict. Some of the conflicts result because of the parents difficulty with letting go. Sometime it deals with the adolescence desire to have adult responsibilities before the society says they are ready. It is not unusual for the individual to desire to be independent but still have parental support. What are some areas that you have issues with adults? Peer Relations - Sociologist James Coleman believes that adolescence have their own subculture. This is a point of conflict between professionals. Most do agree on the importance of peers. Peers tend to have a large impact on the development of the child. What are some elements of a culture? Language, Music, Literature, Religion, Traditions, Regions, Social structure

Juvenile Crime - This is not a new problem. Many psychologists and others have felt that there were a number of factors that caused this. - Socioeconomic - committed by low income inner city youth. - Absent-father - Fatherless homes had a higher incidence of crimes - Alienation - they want to be cut off from society or they do not accept societies norms. - Individually concerned - The desires come from within themselves Many believe that it is some form of combination of the above ideas, but that there is no way to tell the exact causes. The Elderly are afraid of Adolescents – Why? How are adolescents depicted in the media or news?

Adolescent Stereotypes 1950’s1970’s 2000’sToday