PSYC 255: CH. 9 - PHYSICAL AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN ADOLESCENCE

Which of G. Stanley Hall’s views of adolescence states that it is a turbulent time of conflict and mood swings?

“storm-and-stress"

Acting out and testing boundaries are the ways in which adolescents are moving toward accepting what?

parental and societal values. 

In the last decade, there has been a call for adults to have a what?

more positive attitude toward youth and emphasize their positive development.

Puberty

an important marker of the beginning of adolescence, is a brain-neuroendocrine process occurring primarily in early adolescence that provides stimulation for rapid physical changes to take place.  

The most noticeable changes of puberty include what?

• Sexual maturation. 

• Increases in height and weight.

Behind the physical changes in adolescence is a flood of what?

hormones

Hormones

Powerful chemical substances secreted by the endocrine glands and carried through the body by the bloodstream. 

The endocrine system’s role in puberty involves the interaction of what?

• hypothalamus

• pituitary gland

• gonads

Hypothalamus

a structure in the brain that monitors eating and sex.

Pituitary gland

an important endocrine gland that controls growth and regulates other glands.

Gonads

glands, controlled by the pituitary glands, that are particularly important in pubertal changes. In males, they are the testes and in females they are the ovaries. 

The concentrations of certain hormones increase dramatically during adolescence. This includes what?

• testosterone

• estradiol

Testosterone

a hormone that, in boys, is associated with the development of genitals, and increase in height, and a change in voice.

Estradiol

a type of estrogen that, in girls, is associated with breast, uterine, and skeletal development.

Adolescents are preoccupied with their what?

bodies and develop images of what their bodies are like.

• This is influenced by the Internet, particularly social media platforms.

Girls are what?

less happy with their bodies and have more negative body images than boys throughout puberty. 

In both boys and girls, body images become what?

more positive as they move from the beginning to end of adolescence.

Due to what, by the end of adolescence we have fewer, more selective, more effective neuronal connections than we did as children?

pruning

The what, where nerve fibers connect the brain’s left and right hemispheres, thickens in adolescence, which improves the ability to process information?

corpus callosum

Prefrontal cortex

responsible for reasoning, decision making, and self-control, is still maturing until 18-25 or later. 

Limbic system

responsible for emotions and rewarding experiences, matures much earlier than the prefrontal cortex and is almost completely developed by early adolescence. 

Amygdala

the limbic system structure that is especially involved in emotion.  

The research of Charles Nelson views adolescents as?

capable of very strong emotions, but incapable of controlling their passions because their prefrontal cortex is not adequately developed.

With puberty, levels of what change, including an increase in dopamine in the prefrontal cortex and the limbic system?

neurotransmitters

• This is linked to increased risk taking and plays an important role in reward seeking during adolescence.

Adolescence is a bridge between the what?

asexual child and the sexual adult.

An adolescent’s sexual identity involves what?

• Activities. 

• Interests. 

• Styles of behavior. 

• An indication of sexual orientation.

Formation of sexual identity involves what?

• Learning to manage sexual feelings. 

• Developing new forms of intimacy. 

• Learning the skills to regulate sexual behavior to avoid undesirable consequences. 

A special concern among American adolescents is the amount of what consumed?

fat

Research has found that individuals become what?

less active as they reach and progress through adolescence, yet exercise is linked to positive physical outcomes in adolescence.

Adolescent exercise levels are associated with what?

• Parenting. 

• Peer relationships. 

• Screen-based activity.

Sleep has an important influence on what?

well-being.

Research has found that adolescents will sleep an average of what?

9 hours and 25 minutes a night, but most get less than this, creating a sleep deficit.

Older adolescents tend to be sleepier than younger adolescents because their what?

biological clocks have undergone a shift, delaying the period of wakefulness and the nightly release of melatonin.

Around age __, we are in Piaget’s formal operational stage.

11

Formal operational thought

more abstract thought where the individual can conjure up make-believe situations, abstract propositions, and events that are purely hypothetical and can try to reason logically about them.

Formal operational thought is evident in what?

• The ability to make an inference or solve a problem through concrete elements rather than verbal presentation. 

• The increased tendency to think about thought.

In the formal operational stage, thought is full of what?

idealism and possibilities, and it is logical.

Logical thought requires what?

hypothetical-deductive reasoning, which involves creating a hypothesis and deducting its implications, which provides ways to test the hypothesis.

Adolescent egocentrism

the heightened self-consciousness of adolescents

What are the 2 components of adolescent egocentrism?

• imaginary audience

• personal fable

Imaginary audience

the adolescent belief that others are as interested in them as they themselves are and includes attention-getting behavior.

• Adolescents sense that they are "on-stage,” believing that they are the main actors, and all others are the audience.

Personal fable

involves a sense of uniqueness and invincibility or invulnerability to the dangers and catastrophes that happen to other people.

Adolescents are more likely than children to what?

initiate changes in thinking rather than depend on others to direct their thinking.

The most important cognitive change in adolescence is improvement in what?

executive function an umbrella-like concept that consists of a number of higher-level cognitive processes linked to the development of the prefrontal cortex. 

Executive function includes managing one’s thoughts to engage in what?

goal-directed behavior and to exercise self-control.

Two categories of executive function include what?

• cool executive function

• hot executive function

Cool executive function

psychological processes involving conscious control driven by logical thinking and critical analysis. 

Hot executive function

psychological processes driven by emotion, including emotion regulation. 

Important changes in executive function in adolescence are in the areas of?

• Cognitive control. 

• Decision making.

Cognitive control involves what?

• Controlling attention.

• Reducing interfering thoughts. 

• Being cognitively flexible.

Cognitive control continues to what?

increase in adolescence and emerging adulthood. 

Adolescence is a time of?

increased decision making.

Adolescents are more likely than children to what?

• Generate different options. 

• Examine a situation from a variety of perspectives. 

• Anticipate consequences. 

• Consider credibility of sources.

The willingness of adolescents to make risky decisions is more likely to occur in contexts where what?

• Temptations are readily available. 

• Peers are present.