HDFS 3103 - Exam 3

Independence

Capacity to behave on your own​

Autonomy

Acting on your own, but ALSO feeling independent and thinking of yourself​

Autonomy isn’t just one big ____ against parents (e.g., NOT storm and stress); instead, ____ process​

rebellion; gradual

Autonomy and independence are tricky for adolescents because many find this FRUSTRATING – feel ____ independence but must abide by parents’ rules if they are supporting financially

emotional

Autonomy is a psychosocial concern that surfaces and resurfaces through the life cycle:

Thus, it is not resolved forever when young adulthood is reached.​

Like identity, autonomy can be thought about across the 3 major domains of adolescence:​

• Biological transitions (puberty)​

• Cognitive transitions​

• Social transitions​

Puberty and the Development of Autonomy​:

• From an evolutionary perspective, adolescent independence-seeking is a natural consequence of sexual and physical maturation.​

  • Animals “leave home” after puberty too​

• Puberty drives the adolescent away from exclusive emotional dependence on the family.​

  • The older you look, the more responsibility you may be given​

Cognitive Change and the Development of Autonomy​:

• Part of being autonomous involves being able to make independent decisions.​

• This involves being able to consider other people’s perspectives, reason in more sophisticated ways, and foresee future consequences.​

  • Oftentimes conflicting advice is present: friends say go to party, professor says study for the exam​

• The cognitive changes of adolescence are important prerequisites to developing a system of values based on one’s own sense of right and wrong, not just on rules and regulations from authority figures.​

3 Types of Autonomy:

• Emotional

• Behavioral

• Cognitive

Emotional Autonomy

The establishment of more adult-like and less childish close relationships with family members and peers.​

Behavioral Autonomy

The capacity to make independent decisions and to follow through with them.​

Cognitive Autonomy

The establishment of an independent set of values, opinions, and beliefs.​

Relationship between children and parents changes over the life cycle:​

• Older adolescents no longer rush to parents when upset, worried, or needing help.​

  • Instead, they may go to their friends for their opinions​

• They do not see parents as all-knowing, all-powerful.​

• Adolescent emotional energy is invested in other relationships.​

• Older adolescents are able to see, interact with parents as people.​

Emotional Autonomy - Psychoanalytic Theory

Argues that puberty causes disruption and conflicts in family system. Early adolescents driven to separate from parents emotionally and turn energies to relationships with peers, especially the opposite sex. Coined the terms “detachment” and “individuation”​

Detachment

In psychoanalytic theory, the process through which adolescents sever emotional attachments to their parents or other authority figures, due to increased tension

• Research studies have not supported the psychoanalytic view of adolescent conflict with parents.​

• Most families get along well during the adolescent years.​

• Parents and adolescents may bicker; however, this does not diminish closeness.​

• Research supports a transformation of family relationships, not a breaking-off or severing.​​

Individuation

The progressive (gradual) sharpening of an individual’s sense of being an autonomous, independent person.

• Begins during infancy.​

• Entails relinquishing childish dependencies on parents in favor of more mature, responsible relationships.​

• Acceptance of responsibility for choices and actions.​

• This is the more asserted today as the reasonable explanation by researchers ​​

Many indicators of emotional autonomy exist:​

• Seeing parents’ flaws, not holding on to idealized images of parents​

• Depending on self rather than on parents.​

• Recognizing things about self that parents are unaware of.​

• Increasing size of social networks.​

• Possessing different beliefs from parents.​

• Drawing distinctions between aspects of life subject to and not subject to parents’ authority.​

De-Idealization

This involves removing parents from their pedestals.​

• It may be one of the first pieces of emotional autonomy.​

• It may not develop until young adulthood.​

The Importance of Maintaining a Connection with Parents:

• Development of autonomy results in different psychological effects depending on the closeness of the parent-child relationship.​

• Adolescents who have both autonomy and closeness with their parents are psychologically healthier.

What triggers individuation? There are 2 Models:​

• Changes in adolescent’s appearance provoke changes in how adolescent views self and how parents view teen; this alters parent-adolescent interactions.​

• Cognitive development stimulates movement toward individuation.​

Separating from one’s parents is not always ____, but it often has its difficult moments.

turbulent

Adolescents whose parents impede the individuation process are more likely to show signs of psychological ____.

distress

Psychological Control

Parenting that attempts to control the adolescent’s emotions and opinions.

• May lead to difficulty individuating, depression, anxiety, aggression, feelings of incompetence, and dependence.

Cross-cultural comparisons find that, on average, Chinese parents use psychological control more than American parents.

• Contributes to the lower self-esteem of Chinese adolescents.​

• Helicopter parenting led to Chinese adolescents to have trouble making decisions.​

• Chinese adolescents who were over-controlled were more likely to be depressed and anxious, causing an increased risk of being bullied by peers.​

• When Chinese adolescents feel that their parents don’t respect their privacy, they may become defensive and secretive.​

Being subjected to psychological control by parents can increase adolescents’ likelihood of being ____ by peers.​

victimized

Authoritative Parenting

Parenting style using responsibility, self-esteem, and positive mental health. Flexible and adequately explained standards and guidelines are easy to adjust and modify as the child matures.

Authoritarian Parenting

See child’s emotional independence as rebellious or disrespectful; resist adolescent’s growing need for independence. Problems are compounded when both closeness and support for autonomy are missing.​​

Indulgent and Indifferent Parenting

Not enough guidance exists in developing autonomy/independence

Permissive Parenting

Are caught off-guard later by consequences of lack of strictness.​

More sophisticated reasoning leads adolescents to hold multiple viewpoints in mind simultaneously, allowing them to compare different perspectives:

• Crucial for weighing opinions and advice of others.​

• More likely to contemplate long-term consequences.​

• Consider both risks and consequences.​

• Consider others’ point of view.​

The ultimate result is ____ ____-____ skills and an increased ability to behave independently.

improved decision-making

Important improvements in decision-making abilities during middle and late adolescence are linked to gains in ____-____​.

self-regulation

Exposure to ____ during childhood has been linked to diminished self-regulation in adolescence, which can lead to delinquent behavior.

adversity

Improvements in self-regulation appears to be due to two separate, but related developments:

• Decline in how much decisions are influenced by potential immediate rewards

• Increased ability to control impulses

During early and mid-adolescence, adolescents under a lot of ____ tend to make risky, or even dangerous, decisions due to heightened reward sensitivity and immature impulse control.​

stress

Many debates revolve around where we should draw the legal boundary between adolescence and adulthood:

• It is difficult to determine when adolescents can make legal decisions as well as adults.​

• Mature decision making is the product of both cognitive abilities and emotional factors, aspects that do not develop at the same time.​

• If the skills necessary for making one type of decision mature earlier than those necessary for another, it would make sense to have a different age boundary for each.​

As adolescents come to spend more time outside the family, the opinions and advice of others become more ____.

important

Changes in Susceptibility to Influence - The Influences of Parents and Peers​:

• Turn to different people for advice in different situations.​

• Peers for short-term, day-to-day, social matters.​

  • Example: WHERE to have a date, not if a date should take place at all​

• Parents for long-term questions.​

Responding to Peer Pressure:

• Most peer pressure happens in adults’ absence.​

• Conformity to peers is greater during first half of adolescence.​

• Consequences of susceptibility depend on who the peers are.​

  • One possible reason for why adolescents respond to peer pressure is that peer pressure is especially strong around age 14.​

  • A second reason is that adolescents have a heightened orientation toward other people.​

• Not all peer influence is bad: Adolescents listen to peers when discouraged from taking risks, as evidenced by behaviors during COVID-19 pandemic. ​

• A third reason is that being around other teenagers changes the way the adolescent brain functions, activating the regions associated with rewards.​

COVID-19 cases ____ in counties with universities that continued in-person instruction but not in counties that switched to remote instruction, where cases were about the same as in counties without universities at all.

rose

Adolescents usually experience ____ when they are with their peers, so they are more likely to go along with the crowd to avoid being rejected.

pleasure

A difficult challenge of adolescence is that being popular with peers often requires a willingness to engage in behaviors that adults ____ of.

disapprove

Teenagers who are especially ____ to social rewards are more likely to engage in risk taking when exposed to peers or siblings who endorse such behavior.​

sensitive

Individual Differences in Susceptibility to Peer Influence:

• Girls are less susceptible than boys.​

• Black adolescents are less susceptible than adolescents from other ethnic backgrounds.​

• Asian American adolescents are particularly susceptible.​

• Youth from single-parent families, less supportive parents, or more controlling parents are more susceptible.​

• The fewer friends an adolescent has, the more susceptible they are to their friends’ influences.​

• There are differences in neural activity related to individual differences in susceptibility to peer influence.​

Changes in Susceptibility to Influence - Parenting and Behavioral Autonomy​

• Behavioral autonomy is associated with authoritative parenting.​

• Adolescents from authoritative homes are less susceptible to antisocial peer pressure.​

• Less positive relationships with parents correspond with increased peer orientation.​

Ethnic/Cultural Differences in Expectations Regarding Autonomy

• Behavioral autonomy development varies across cultures​

• White adolescents and their parents have earlier expectations for autonomy than do Asian adolescents and parents.​

• Parents and adolescents in immigrant families often have differing expectations from each other regarding autonomy.​

• Adolescents’ expectations for autonomy are shaped by their perceptions of how much independence their friends have.​

Cognitive autonomy development involves changes in the adolescent’s beliefs, opinions, and values. 3 trends are noteworthy:​

1. Beliefs about moral, political, and religious issues become more abstract.​

2. Beliefs become increasingly rooted in general principles.​

3. Beliefs become founded in the young person’s own values.​

____ autonomy gives adolescents the ability to view their parents more objectively.​

Emotional

Prosocial Behavior

Behaviors intended to help others.​

Assessing Moral Reasoning​:

• The dominant theoretical viewpoint in the study of moral reasoning is grounded in Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. ​

• Researchers assess individuals’ moral reasoning by examining their responses to hypothetical dilemmas about difficult real-world situations (e.g., Heinz Dilemma).

Stages of Moral Reasoning​:

1. Preconventional

2. Conventional

3. Postconventional

Preconventional Moral Reasoning

The first level of moral reasoning, which is typical of children and is characterized by reasoning that is based on rewards and punishments associated with different courses of action.​

Conventional Moral Reasoning

The second level of moral development, which occurs during late childhood and early adolescence and is characterized by reasoning based on the rules and conventions of society.​

Postconventional Moral Reasoning

The level of moral reasoning during which society’s rules and conventions are seen as relative and subjective rather than as authoritative, also called principled moral reasoning.​

____ ____ individuals enter a stage of consistent postconventional thinking during adolescence, but many begin to place greater emphasis on abstract values and moral principles.​

Not all

During adolescence, individuals increasingly define their moral identity in terms of how they see ____ (an internal motivation), rather than on how they want ____ to see them (an external motivation).​

themselves; others

Moral Reasoning and Moral Behavior:

• Individuals do not always behave in ways that are absolutely consistent with their moral reasoning.​

• The correlation between adolescents’ moral reasoning and moral behavior is more likely to break down when they define issues as personal choices rather than ethical dilemmas.​

Moral Disengagement

Rationalizing immoral behavior as legitimate, as a way of justifying one’s own bad acts​. For example, cheating on a test to get revenge on a teacher for putting you in detention.​

Changes in Prosocial Reasoning​:

• Prosocial reasoning becomes more sophisticated during late adolescence.​

• Some research connects these changes in reasoning to developments in regions of the brain that govern our ability to look at things from other people’s perspectives.​

• The same type of parenting that facilitates the growth of healthy emotional autonomy also contributes to the development of moral and prosocial reasoning.​

Prosocial Reasoning and Prosocial Behavior​:

• Adolescents who show more advanced prosocial reasoning and who place a high value on prosocial behavior behave in ways that are consistent with this.​

• Adolescent girls generally score higher on measures of prosocial moral reasoning than do boys.​

• Prosocial reasoning becomes more advanced over the course of adolescence, but changes in prosocial behavior during adolescence are not as consistent.​

• Prosocial behavior is fairly stable with age and across different contexts.​

During middle adolescence, there is a marked ____ in the extent to which people value being socially responsible, such as caring about one’s school or community.

decline

Civic engagement is one of the most ____ ways in which adolescents can demonstrate prosocial behavior.

obvious

Civic Engagement

Involvement in political and community affairs, as reflected in knowledge about politics and current affairs, participation in conventional and alternative political activities, and engaging in community service.

• Only a small proportion of adolescents are politically engaged.​

• Most research on civic engagement is focused on community service.​​

Service Learning

The process of learning through involvement in community service.​

Adolescents are ____ ____ likely to favor lowering the voting age than adults are.​

much more

Involvement in local organizations may have a ____ impact on autonomy, identity, prosocial attitudes, and social competence.

positive

Engaging in community service leads to benefits:​

• Short-term gains in mental health and social responsibility.​

• Increases in the importance individuals place on helping others.​

• Increased commitment to tolerance, equal opportunity, and cultural diversity.​

There are mixed responses to school districts’ requirements for community service:​

• Does not result in negative attitudes about volunteering.​

• May not result in positive effects.​

• Widely varying quality of experiences.​

Changes in Political Thinking During Adolescence

• Becomes more principled, more abstract, and more independent.​

• Becomes less authoritarian and less rigid.​

• Develops into a roughly coherent and consistent set of attitudes based on overarching principles.​

Political Thinking and Political Behavior​:

• There are often gaps between adolescent political thinking in hypothetical situations and actual behavior and attitudes.​

• Most important influence is experiences young people have had growing up.​

• Young people’s political views usually mirror those of the adults in their lives.​

• It is too soon to know how the Black Lives Matter movement and the COVID-19 pandemic have affected teenagers’ attitudes.​

• It is likely that concerns about social justice and financial insecurity increased during recent years.​

Like moral and political beliefs, religious beliefs during adolescence go through change: ​

• Become more abstract​

• Become more principled.​

• Become more independent.​

• Become more oriented toward spiritual and ideological matters.​

Compared to children, adolescents place ____ emphasis on the internal aspects of religious commitment (what an individual believes) and less on the external manifestations (whether an individual goes to church).​

more

Religious development has 2 main components:​

Religiosity and Spirituality

Religiosity

The degree to which one engages in religious practices, like attending services.

Spirituality

The degree to which one places importance on the quest for answers to questions about God and the meaning of life.​

Patterns of Religious Involvement:

• Stated importance of religion and religiosity declines during adolescence, particularly during the transition to adulthood.​

• Development of religious thinking during late adolescence is best understood as part of the overall development of cognitive autonomy.​

• Continued compliance with parents’ religious beliefs without question may be sign of immature conformity or identity foreclosure, not spiritual maturity.​

Over the course of adolescence and into young adulthood there are ____ in church attendance, prayer, scripture study, religious importance, spirituality, and the stated importance of religion.​

declines

Individuals are usually ____ involved in formal religion during adolescence.​

less

The Impact of Religious Involvement on Development​:

• Compared to nonreligious adolescents, religious adolescents are better adjusted, less depressed, less likely to have premarital sexual sex, less likely to use drugs, and less likely to engage in delinquent behavior​

• Some positive effects are partly due to other positive influences.​

• Religiosity, rather than spirituality, is the stronger predictor of staying out of trouble.​

Intimate relationships are important throughout the life span, but they are of particular importance in adolescence:​

• The first truly intimate relationships characterized by openness, honesty, self-disclosure, and trust emerge.​

• The development of intimacy is linked to normative biological, cognitive, and social changes of adolescence.​

Puberty and the Development of Intimacy​:

• Changes in sexual impulses provoke interest in sex, leading to development of romantic relationships.​

• Some adolescents are hesitant to discuss topics related to sex or dating with their parents.​

Cognitive Change and the Development of Intimacy​:

• Advances in thinking permit relationships with greater empathy, self-disclosure, and sensitivity​

• The maturation of connections among brain regions goes hand-in-hand with improvements in interpersonal competence.​

Changes in Social Roles and the Development of Intimacy:

• Behavioral independence provides more opportunity for intimate discussion.​

• As “near adults,” adolescents become confidants, sources of support for parents and other adults. ​

• Relationships gradually transform from the friendly but activity-oriented friendships of childhood to the more self-conscious, analytical, and intimate relationships of adulthood.​

Sullivan’s Theory of Interpersonal Development:

• Sullivan’s theory is a less biological view than other theorists.​

• He emphasized the social aspects of development.​

• Sullivan charted a developmental progression of interpersonal needs.​

• Security derived from having satisfying relationships is the glue that holds one’s sense of self together.​

• Psychosocial development is cumulative.​

• A solid foundation of security in past relationships aids in successful interpersonal transitions

Capacity for intimacy first develops in ____-____ relationships​.

same-sex

Quality of same-sex friendships ____ of quality of later romantic relationships (reverse not true).​

predictive

The challenge is to transition between nonsexual, intimate same-sex friendships to sexual, intimate other-sex friendships of ____ adolescence.

late

Platonic Relationships

Non-sexual relationships with individuals who might otherwise be romantic partners.​

Attachment

The strong affectional bond that develops between an infant and a caregiver.​

Secure Attachment

A healthy attachment between an infant and a caregiver, characterized by trust.​

Anxious-Avoidant Attachment

An insecure attachment between an infant and a caregiver, characterized by indifference on the part of the infant toward the caregiver.​

Anxious-Resistant (or Ambivalent) Attachment

An insecure attachment between an infant and a caregiver, characterized by distress at separation and anger at reunion (ambivalence).​

Disorganized Attachment

A relationship between an infant and a caregiver characterized by the absence of normal attachment behavior; most at risk for psychological problems.​

Some argue that the initial attachment relationship forms the basis for the model of interpersonal relationships employed throughout life.​ There are 2 models:

Internal Working Model and Rejection Sensitivity

Internal Working Model

The implicit model of interpersonal relationships that an individual employs throughout life, believed to be shaped by early attachment experiences.​

Rejection Sensitivity

Heightened vulnerability to being rejected by others​. Being especially sensitive to rejection and having emotional insecurity are linked to depression and anxiety, which lead to further increases in rejection sensitivity.​

Attachment Theory argues that:

Interpersonal development is cumulative

Interpersonal Development is Cumulative:

• Infancy affects early childhood, which affects middle childhood, and soon.​

• People who had secure infancy may be on a different interpersonal trajectory than those who did not.​

• It is possible for interpersonal development to be cumulative without the root cause being the individual’s internal working model.​

• There are mixed study results concerning a direct link between infant attachment and the quality of interpersonal relationships.​

Adult Attachment Interview

A structured interview used to assess an individual’s past attachment history and “internal working model” of relationships.​ Responses are often categorized as “secure,” “dismissing,” or “preoccupied.”​ Responses are linked to more social competence, more success in school, less substance use, and better adjustment.​

Attachment security is generally ____ but can change in dysfunctional family situations or with chronic stress.​

stable