Lifespan Development Exam 2 Review

Chapters 7-10 Middle Childhood, Late Childhood, and Adolescence

G. Stanley Hall

A researcher who proposed the “storm and stress” model for adolescence, believing that adolescence was a turbulent time plagued with conflict and mood swings.

Puberty

A brain-neuroendocrine process occurring primarily in early adolescence that provides stimulation for the rapid physical changes that take place during this period of development. Mainly, sexual maturation and increases in height and weight occur as a result of this process.

1) Increase in penis size

2) Growth of straight pubic hair

3) A minor voice change

4) First ejaculation

5) Growth of kinky pubic hair

6) Beginning of height and weight growth

7) Growth of armpit hair

8) More major voice changes

9) Growth of facial hair

In what order do male pubertal characteristics develop?

1) Breast enlarge

2) Pubic hair appears

3) Armpit hair appears

4) Height increases and hips become wider than shoulders

5) First menstruation occurs

What is the order of pubertal characteristics in females?

Menarche

A girl’s first menstruation.

Nine

At what age does the beginning of the growth spurt in puberty occur in girls?

Eleven

At what age does the beginning of the growth spurt in puberty occur in boys?

3½ inches

How many inches do girls grow per year during their pubertal growth spurt?

4 inches

How many inches do boys grow per year during their pubertal growth spurt?

Greater/surpass

Girls have a ( ) height and weight than boys at the beginning of the adolescence period, but by the end of the adolescence period, boys ( ) girls in height and weight.

11 ½ years

At what age does the peak of the growth spurt in puberty occur in girls?

13 ½ years

At what age does the peak of the growth spurt in puberty occur in boys?

Hormones

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

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

The sex glands, i.e. the testes in males and the ovaries in females.

Eighteen-fold/two-fold

During puberty, testosterone levels increased ( ) in boys but only ( ) in girls.

Eight-fold/two-fold

During puberty, estradiol levels increases ( ) in girls but only ( ) in boys.

True

True or False

According to research, hormonal effects by themselves do not account for adolescent development.

1) Improved nutrition and health

2) Higher BMI

3) Stress and conflict

What three factors are associated with earlier onset of puberty?

10 to 13½

From what ages can puberty begin in males?

13 to 17

From what ages can puberty end in males?

9/13

In a normal range, menarche occurs between ( ) and ( ) years of age.

Early

During adolescence, is it more advantageous to mature early or later for boys?

Late Maturing

During adulthood, do early maturing or late maturing males have better outcomes?

Girls who matured earlier

Do girls who matured earlier or girls who matured later experience difficulties and problem behaviors like smoking, drinking, and delinquency?

Corpus callosum

A brain region consisting of fibers that connect the brain’s left and right hemispheres. This region of the brain thickens during adolescence and improves their ability to process information.

Limbic System

A region of the brain that mainly controls emotions and rewards. This area of the adolescent brain matures faster than the prefrontal cortex, which may explain the impulses of adolescents.

Prefrontal Cortex

The highest level of the frontal lobes that is involved in reasoning, decision making, and self-control. This area of the frontal lobes doesn’t fully mature until 18-25 years of age.

Amygdala

The region of the brain that is the seat of emotions in the limbic system.

1) Efficiency

2) Focal Activation

3) Networks across regions of the brain

During adolescence, what increases within the brain?

Adolescent Sexual Identity

Involves an adolescent’s activities, interests, styles of behavior, and an indication of sexual orientation.

Fewer

Over the past thirty years, ( ) adolescents have reported engaging in sexual behaviors.

Earlier/later

According to research, while African Americans are more likely to engage in sexual activity ( ), Asian Americans are likely to engage in sexual activity ( ).

Fewer

Adolescents who had oral sex first reported ( ) instances of teenage pregnancy than adolescents who engaged in genital sex first.

1) They have bisexual attractions

2) They may view same-sex attractions as purely physical

3) They may have no early recollection of same-sex attractions from childhood

What are some of the main characteristics of the development of sexual minority adolescents?

1) Socioeconomic status

2) Peer relations

3) School performance

4) Sports participation

5) Religious orientation

6) Relationship with parents

7) Substance abuse

8) Low self control and impulsiveness

What are the main factors affecting sexual risk-taking in adolescence?

Low/increasing

While contraceptive use for adolescents is quite ( ), an ( ) number of adolescents use long-acting reversible contraception like IUDs and implants.

Highest/declined

While America has one of the ( ) teen pregnancy rates compared to other countries, teen pregnancy rates in America have ( ) in recent years.

Increased

Both adolescent mothers and their children are at an ( ) risk of poverty, unemployment, mental health issues, childhood illness, neurological problems, low birth weight, and drug usage.

False

True or False…

Abstinence-only programs have been found to be effective in reducing adolescent sexual activity, while programs that emphasize contraceptive knowledge are not effective.

Overweight

Many adolescents are ( ) or obese, with many living off of fast food and little to no fruits or vegetables.

Emerging

Being obese in adolescence predicts obesity in ( ) adulthood.

1) Parenting

2) Peer Relationships

3) Screen-Time

What three main factors affect adolescent physical activity?

Less

Even though exercise in adolescence has been found to reduce a variety of health issues, individuals still become ( ) active as they reach and progress through adolescence.

Less

A majority of adolescents get ( ) than 8 hours of sleep a night, with late adolescents getting ( ) sleep than their early adolescent counterparts.

Hour

Research suggests that the release of melatonin shifts to a whole ( ) later in adolescents, delaying their period of wakefulness by that time.

Negative

Due to her research on the release of melatonin in adolescents, Mary Carskadon concluded that early start times have more ( ) effects on late adolescents than early adolescents.

1) Electronic media use

2) Caffeine

What are two of the main reasons for poor sleep in adolescence?

Change

Research finds that during emerging adulthood, sleep patterns ( ). This is based on a study of first year versus final year college students. Final year college students had earlier bedtimes and rise times than their younger counterparts.

1) Unintentional Injuries

2) Suicide

3) Homicide

What are the main three causes of death in adolescence?

Highest

While adolescent drug usage has declined over recent years, the U.S. still has the ( ) rate of adolescent drug usage.

1) Parenting

2) Peers

3) Academic Success

Which three factors mainly influence the use of drugs and drinking in adolescence?

Anorexia Nervosa

An eating disorder that involves the relentless pursuit of thinness through starvation.

1) A restriction in energy intake leading to low body weight

2) An intense fear of gaining weight or presence of a behavior that interferes with gaining weight

3) Lack of recognition of how serious the current low weight is

What are the three diagnostic characteristics of anorexia nervosa?

Bulimia Nervosa

An eating disorder in which the individual consistently follows a binge-and-purge pattern, periodically overeating and then engaging in self-induced vomiting or use of laxatives.

1) Eating in a specific amount of time an amount of food that is larger than what most would eat in that time frame

2) Lack of control over eating during an episode

What are the two diagnostic signs of bulimia nervosa?

Formal Operational Stage

The final stage of Piaget’s theory for cognitive development in which from adolescence onward, individuals use concrete experiences as merely anchors of thought, conjuring up make-believe situations or propositions before pondering them.

Individuals also begin to think about thought itself and speculate about ideal characteristics, especially ideal characteristics they desire in themselves and others.

Hypothetical-Deductive Reasoning

Problem-solving that develops in adolescence and involves creating a hypothesis and deducing its implications, which provides ways to test the hypothesis. Moreover, individuals who use this problem-solving develop hypotheses about ways to solve problems and then systematically deduce the best path to follow to solve the problem.

1) He didn’t emphasize individual variation in cognitive development

2) He didn’t emphasize culture and education on cognitive development

3) He viewed development as stage-like, which isn’t necessarily the case

What are some of the main criticisms for Piaget’s cognitive theory?

Adolescent Egocentrism

The heightened sense of self-consciousness of adolescents, which has two components: the imaginary audience and the personal fable.

Imaginary Audience

A belief in adolescence that others are as interested in them as they themselves are. This phenomenon also includes adolescents engaging in attention-getting behavior.

Personal Fable

A part of adolescent egocentrism involving a sense of uniqueness and invincibility, or invulnerability.

Ex) A teenage holds the belief that she simply won’t get pregnant, as if she is invincible to teenage pregnancy.

Cool Executive Function

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

Hot Executive Function

Psychological processes driven by emotion, with emotion regulation an especially important process.

Increases/peaks

Cool executive function ( ) from 12-17 years of age, but hot executive function ( ) at 14-15 years of age before declining.

1) Intrusive Distractions (thinking of something else)

2) External Distractions (a distraction from the environment)

3) Self-Oriented Thoughts (worry or self-doubt that diverts your attention)

What three things can make controlling attention difficult?

Top-Dog Phenomenon

The circumstance of moving from the top position in elementary school to the lowest position in middle or junior high school.

Service Learning

A form of education that promotes social responsibility and service to the community.

1) Giving students some degree of choice in the activities they participate in

2) Providing students opportunities to reflect about their participation

Service learning is most effective when which two conditions are met?

Identity vs. Identity Confusion

The fifth stage of Erikson’s identity development model in which adolescents are faced with deciding who they are, what they are all about, and where they are going in life.

Psychosocial Moratorium

The gap between childhood security and adult autonomy where adolescents are relatively free of responsibilities and are able to try out different identities.

Lifelong

Identity development is…

Crisis

A period of identity development during which the individual is exploring alternatives. Another word for this period is exploration.

Commitment

A personal investment in identity.

James Marcia

An Eriksonian researcher who believed that Erikson’s theory of identity development encompasses four statuses of identity, or ways of resolving an identity crisis.

Identity Diffusion

The status of individuals who have not yet experienced a crisis or made any commitments. Not only are they undecided about occupational and ideological choices, they are also likely to show little interest in such matters.

Identity Foreclosure

The status of individuals who have made a commitment but have not experienced a crisis. This occurs most often when parents hand down commitments to their adolescents, usually in an authoritarian way, before adolescents have had a chance to explore different approaches, ideologies, and vocations of their own.

Identity Moratorium

The status of individuals who are in the midst of a crisis but whose commitments are either absent or are only vaguely defined.

Identity Achievement

The status of individuals who have undergone a crisis and have made a commitment.

Dual Cycle Identity Model

A model of identity development that separates it into two processes….

1) A formation cycle that relies on exploration in breadth and identification with commitment

2) A maintenance cycle that involves exploration in depth as well as reconsideration of commitments

Narrative Approach

A way of examining identity changes in which researchers ask individuals to tell their life stories. These narrative stories are stories people construct and tell about themselves to define who they are for themselves and others; they typically consist of family stories.

More

College upperclassmen are ( ) likely than high school students or college freshmen to be identity achieved.

“MAMA” Cycles

A phenomenon in which an adolescent’s identity status typically changes from moratorium to achievement to moratorium to achievement.

More

Adolescents with identity achievement were ( ) likely to be securely attached to their parents than were adolescents who were identity diffused or identity foreclosed.

1) Career and Vocational Identity

2) Political Identity

3) Religious Identity

4) Relationship Identity

5) Achievement and Intellectual Identity

6) Sexual Identity

7) Cultural or Ethnic Identity

8) Interests or Hobbies

9) Personality

10) Physical Identity

What are the main domains of identity or one’s self-portrait?

Ethnic Identity

An enduring aspect of the self that includes a sense of membership in an ethnic group, along with the attitudes and feelings related to that membership.

Increasingly

Adolescents ( ) consider the meaning of their ethnicity and also have more ethnic-related experiences.

More

Adolescents with ( ) pride in their ethnic group experience positive outcomes, such as lower levels of depression, positive relationships, and high self-esteem.

Farther

Generations who are ( ) removed from their original heritage often align more with the dominant culture and their ethnic identity is affected by factors unrelated to acculturation, such as racism and discrimination.

Effective Monitoring

A parental role that involves supervising adolescents’ choice of social settings, activities, and friends, as well as their academic efforts.

Higher

A ( ) level of parental monitoring is associated with adolescents having better grades, initiating sexual intercourse later, less marijuana usage, and better sleep.

Positive

( ) parenting practices, like asking questions and forming a positive relationship with their children, make adolescents more willing to disclose information about their activities

Relinquish

When balancing an adolescent’s need for autonomy, it is important for parents to ( ) control over decisions an adolescent can reasonably make while guiding adolescents in areas that the adolescent is less knowledgeable in.

Boys

When it comes to autonomy-granting, ( ) are more likely to be granted more freedom by the parents, especially in Latino or traditional gender-role cultures.

Important/positive

Just as in infancy, secure attachment is an ( ) aspect in parent-adolescent relationships and is linked to a wide range of ( ) outcomes for adolescents.

Increases/decreases

Parent-adolescent conflict ( ) in early adolescence, but ( ) by the time late adolescence rolls around.

Old Model of Parent-Adolescent Relationships

Suggested that adolescents try to fully detach themselves from their parents, that parent and peer worlds are totally isolated, and that intense, stressful conflicts between parents and adolescents occur consistently.

New Model of Parent-Adolescent Relationships

Suggests that parents are important support systems and figures to adolescents and that parent-adolescent conflict is moderate; any conflicts typically involve everyday negotiations and minor disputes.

Positive

Surprisingly, conflict and negotiation in adolescence has a ( ) impact on development, easing the adolescent’s transition from being dependent on parents to being an autonomous individual.