1. Unit 9 Developmental Psychology

2. Adolescence: Physical and Cognitive Development
Module 51
Learning Targets
51-1 Define adolescence, and discuss how the physical changes during this period affect developing teens.
51-2 Describe adolescent cognitive and moral development according to Piaget, Kohlberg, and later researchers.
Adolescence: Physical and Cognitive Development

3. What is adolescence? the transition period from childhood to
adulthood, extending from puberty
to independence

4. Anne Frank on adolescence…
Anne Frank, writing in her diary while hiding from the Nazis, described tumultuous teen emotions: “My treatment varies so much. One day Anne is so sensible and is allowed to know everything; and the next day I hear that Anne is just a silly little goat who doesn’t know anything at all and imagines that she’s learned a wonderful lot from books Oh, so many things bubble up inside me as I lie in bed, having to put up with people I’m fed up with, who always misinterpret my intentions.”

5. Do you agree with G. Stanley Hall?
G. Stanley Hall, one of the first psychologists to describe adolescence, believed that this tension between biological maturity and social dependence creates a period of “storm and stress.”
Talk about it.

6. by the time adolescents complete eighth grade.
adolescence
It’s a time when teens crave social acceptance but often feel socially disconnected. Three in four U.S. friendships started in seventh grade dissolve
by the time adolescents complete eighth grade.
(Hartl et al., 2015)

7. Looking back on adolescence….
After age 30, many who grow up in independence-fostering Western cultures look back on their teenage years as a time they would not want to relive—a time when their peers’ social approval was imperative, their sense of direction in life was in flux, and their feeling of alienation from their parents was deepest. (Arnett, 1999; Macfarlane, 1964)

8. What do you think?
Do you think you will feel about adolescence the way many over 30 reported feeling in Macfarlane and Arnett’s studies?
Talk with your partner.

9. What is puberty?
the period of sexual maturation, during which a person becomes capable of reproducing
Just as in the earlier life stages, the sequence of physical changes in puberty (for example, breast buds and visible pubic hair before menarche—the first menstrual
period in girls, or spermarche, the first ejaculation
in boys) is far more predictable than their timing.
Some girls start their growth spurt at 9, some boys as late as age 16.

10. How does early maturation impact boys?
For boys, early maturation has mixed effects.
Boys who are stronger and more athletic
during their early teen years tend to be more popular, self-assured, and independent, though also more at risk for alcohol use, delinquency, and premature sexual activity.
(Conley & Rudolph, 2009; Copeland et al., 2010; Lynne et al., 2007).

11. How does early maturation impact girls?
For girls, early maturation can be
a challenge.
(Mendle et al., 2007)
If a young girl’s body and hormone-fed feelings are out of sync with her emotional maturity and her friends’ physical development and experiences,
she may begin associating with older adolescents, suffer teasing or sexual harassment, and
experience increased rumination with anxiety or depression.
(Alloy et al., 2016; Ge & Natsuaki, 2009; Weingarden & Renshaw, 2012)

12. How does the brain change during puberty?
An adolescent’s brain is still a work in progress. Until puberty, brain cells increase their connections, like trees growing more roots and branches. Then, during adolescence, comes a selective pruning of unused neurons and connections.
(Blakemore, 2008)

13. How do the frontal lobes develop?
As teens mature, their frontal lobes also continue to develop. The continuing growth of myelin, the fatty tissue that forms around axons and speeds neurotransmission, enables better communication with other brain regions. These developments bring improved judgment, impulse control, and long-term planning.

14. developing impulse control
Surveys of more than 7000 American 12- to 24-year-olds
reveal that sensation seeking
peaks in the mid-teens, with impulse control developing more slowly as frontal lobes mature.
National Longitudinal Study of
Youth and Children and Young
Adults survey data presented by
Steinberg, 2013.

15. 1. What Would You Answer?
What development in adolescents allows for greater impulse control? A. the hormonal surge of early adolescence B. hindbrain changes associated with the onset of puberty C. frontal lobe maturation in late adolescence D. limbic system development in mid-adolescence E. a decrease in myelin production throughout adolescence

16. How do adolescents think?
During the early teen years, reasoning is often self-focused. Adolescents may think their private experiences are unique, something parents just could not understand: “But, Mom, you don’t really know how it feels to be in love”. Capable of thinking about their own thinking, and about other people’s thinking, they also begin imagining what others are thinking about them.

17. How does reasoning change in later adolescence?
When adolescents achieve the intellectual summit that Jean Piaget called the formal operational stage, they apply their new abstract reasoning tools to the world around them. Adolescents may think about what is ideally possible and compare that with the imperfect reality of their society, their parents, and themselves. Older teens may debate human nature, good and evil, truth and justice.

18. demonstrating reasoning ability
Although on opposite sides of the immigration policy debate, these teens are all demonstrating their ability to think logically about abstract topics. According to Piaget, they are in the final cognitive stage, formal operations.

19. 2. What Would You Answer?
Piaget would argue that as an adolescent, Mildred is better able to understand calculus because she is in the A. sensorimotor stage. B. preoperational stage. C. concrete operational stage. D. formal operational stage E. accommodation stage

20. What research has been conducted on moral development?
Psychologist Lawrence Kohlberg posed moral dilemmas (for example, the Heinz dilemma which questioned whether a person should steal medicine to save a loved one’s life) and asked children, adolescents, and adults whether the action was right or wrong. His analysis of their answers led him to propose three basic levels of moral thinking: preconventional, conventional, and postconventional

21. AP® Exam Tip
Kohlberg’s is an important stage theory. It’s very important to understand that the stage you’re in doesn’t depend on what you decide to do (for example, steal the medicine), it depends on why you decide to do it.

22. Kohlberg’s stages of moral development
Lawrence Kohlberg claimed these levels form a moral ladder.

23. What would you do?
Your close friend has been kicked out of his house and is living on the streets. You start taking food from the school cafeteria to give to him.
How might you rationalize or explain your actions if you were in Kohlberg’s preconventional level of moral development? How about conventional? Postconventional?

24. Are there criticisms of Kohlberg?
Kohlberg’s critics have noted that his postconventional stage is culturally limited, appearing mostly among people from large societies that prize individualism.
(Barrett et al., 2016; Eckensberger, 1994; Miller & Bersoff, 1995)

25. Carol Gilligan on Lawrence Kohlberg’s theory
Research by Carol Gilligan and her colleagues suggests that this ladder of moral development describes Western individualist males more than relationship-oriented females. Gilligan challenged Kohlberg’s findings which were drawn from data collected by wealthy middle-class males and did not reflect female moral development.

26. What is moral intuition?
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt believes that much of our morality is rooted in moral intuitions—“quick gut feelings, or affectively laden intuitions.” According to this intuitionist view, the mind makes moral judgments in much the same way that it makes aesthetic judgments—quickly and automatically. Feelings of disgust or of elation trigger moral reasoning, says Haidt.

27. What about your own moral development?
Can you recall making an impulsive decision when you were younger that you later regretted? Would you approach the situation differently today?
Talk about it.

28. Learning Target 51-1 Review
Define adolescence, and discuss how the physical changes during this period affect developing teens.
Adolescence is the transition period from childhood to adulthood, extending from puberty to social independence.
For boys, early maturation has mixed effects; for girls, early maturation can be a challenge.
The brain’s frontal lobes mature and myelin growth increases during adolescence and the early twenties, enabling improved judgment, impulse control, and long-term planning.

29. Learning Target 51-2 Review
Describe adolescent cognitive and moral development according to Piaget, Kohlberg, and later researchers.
Jean Piaget theorized that adolescents develop a capacity for formal operations and that this development is the foundation for moral judgment.
Lawrence Kohlberg proposed a stage theory of moral reasoning, from a preconventional morality of self-interest, to a conventional morality concerned with upholding laws and social rules, to (in some people) a postconventional morality of universal ethical principles.

30. Learning Target 51-2 Review cont.
Describe adolescent cognitive and moral development according to Piaget, Kohlberg, and later researchers.
Other researchers believe that morality lies in moral intuition and moral action as well as thinking.
Some critics argue that Kohlberg’s postconventional level represents morality from the perspective of individualist cultures.