Parenting Styles, Moral Development, and Adolescent Psychology

AUTHORITARIAN

Parents are coercive. They impose rules and expect obedience. Love is perceived as conditional and dependent on good behavior and obedience.

PERMISSIVE

Parents are unrestraining. Love is abundant. They make few demands, set few limits, and use little punishment.

NEGLECTFUL

Parents are uninvolved, and love is absent. They are neither demanding nor responsive, and do not seek a close relationship with their child.

AUTHORATIVE

Parents are confrontive. They are strict but not uncompromising, and love is unconditional. They exert control by setting rules but encourage open discussion.

MORAL DEVELOPMENT

Developing reasoning and morality through discerning right from wrong and developing character.

PRECONVENTIONAL

Self-interested; obeying rules to avoid punishment or gain a concrete reward. Example: 'If you steal the medicine, you will go to jail.'

CONVENTIONAL

Uphold laws and rules to gain social approval or maintain social order. Example: 'If you steal the medicine, everyone will think you're a criminal.'

POSTCONVENTIONAL

Actions reflect belief in basic rights and self-defined ethical principles. Example: 'People's rights to live matters more than property or profits.'

ADOLESCENE

The transition period from childhood to young adulthood, extending from puberty to independence.

PUBERTY

Timing of puberty varies; some girls start at 8-9 and some boys as late as 16. Early maturation can pose mental health risks.

TEENAGE BRAIN

Selective pruning occurs; frontal lobes develop, improving judgment, impulse control, and emotional regulation.

TEENAGE DELUSIONS

Common delusions in teenagers include the Imaginary Audience and the Personal Fable.

Imaginary Audience

A delusion where someone believes they are constantly being observed and judged by others, leading to heightened self-consciousness.

Personal Fable

A delusion where someone believes that their thoughts, feelings, and experiences are unique and special.

Chūnibyō (中二病)

A Japanese term for a young teenager experiencing a 'personal fable' and having delusions of grandeur.

Eight-grader syndrome

A delusion that reflects the period of time when it is most likely to occur.

Erik Erikson's psychosocial tasks

Each stage of life has its own crisis that needs resolution; for adolescents, it is forming an identity.

Identity

For adolescents and adults, group identities are often formed by how we differ from those around us.

Social Identity

The groups one belongs to.

Self-esteem in adolescence

Typically falls during early teen years, with an increase in depression for girls.

Self-image rebound

Self-image tends to rebound during late teens and 20s, with shrinking self-esteem and gender differences.

Agreeableness and emotional stability

Scores increase in late adolescence.

Capacity for intimacy

Developing capacity for intimacy follows adolescent identity formation.

Parent-teen relations

Positive parent-teen relations and positive peer relations often go hand in hand.

Personality development

Heredity and peer influences contribute to personality differences.

Teenagers and immediate rewards

Teens tend to discount the future and focus more on immediate rewards when interacting with peers.

Self-definition in adolescence

Eventually becomes more blended and unified into a comfortable sense of who one is.

Parent and child conflict

Tends to increase during adolescence, especially between first-born children and their mothers.

Teenagers as herd-animals

They try to emulate their peers as much as possible.

Emerging adulthood

A period from about age 18 to mid 20s, when individuals are no longer adolescents but have not yet achieved full independence.

Social clock

The culturally preferred timing of social events, such as marriage, parenthood, and retirement.

Cultural variations in social clock

The Social Clock varies from culture to culture and from era to era.

Life events and transitions

Major life events such as divorce, job loss, or illness trigger transitions to new life stages.

Love in early adulthood

A major component of the early adulthood stage of development.

Monogamous nature of humans

Humans are relatively monogamous by nature, which makes us rare among mammals.

Standards for partners

Have increased over the years.

Cohabitation and divorce rates

Those who live together before marriage have higher divorce rates.

Importance of love in marriage

93% of Americans say that 'love' is a very important reason to marry.

Conflict resolution in couples

Couples that succeed learn to 'fight fair' rather than eliminate conflict altogether.

Main conflict in middle adulthood

According to Erikson, it is between stagnation and generativity.

Fertility decline in women

Aging brings a gradual decline in fertility, especially for women.

Menopause age

Usually occurs around the age of 50.

Men's fertility changes

Men experience a gradual decline in sperm count, testosterone level, and speed of erection and ejaculation.

Physical vigor in adulthood

More dependent on health and exercise habits than one's literal age.

Sexual interest in older adults

Decreases but is still active in healthy relationships.

Older adults population segment

13% are 60 or older.

Life expectancy difference

Women outlive men by 4.4 years.

Aging brain

Brain regions important to memory begin to atrophy during aging.

Blood-brain barrier breakdown

Begins in the hippocampus.

Frontal lobe atrophy

Some impulsiveness returns as the frontal lobe begins to atrophy.

Neuroplasticity

Some remains, compensating for what the brain loses by recruiting and reorganizing neural networks.

Erikson's main conflict in late adulthood

Integrity versus despair.

Exercise impact on aging

Slows both physical and mental aging.

Memory task dependency

An older adult's ability to remember depends a lot on the type of memory task that is being asked.

Decline in specific memory tasks

Time-based tasks, quick-thinking tasks, and prospective memory (without context) all decline significantly.

Types of memory that remain intact

Semantic, procedural, implicit, and recognition all remain relatively intact.

Terminal decline

Cognitive decline typically accelerates in the last 3 or 4 years of life.

Neurocognitive Disorder

Progressively damages the brain, causing mental erosion, also known as dementia.

Alzheimer's Disease

Often with onset after age 80, entailing a progressive decline in memory and other cognitive abilities.

Memory deterioration in Alzheimer's

Memory deteriorates, then reasoning.

Loss of brain cells in Alzheimer's

Deterioration of neurons that produce the neurotransmitter acetylcholine.

Learning definition

The process of gaining new knowledge or behaviors through experience—and keeping those changes over time.

Association in learning

Our minds naturally connect events that occur together.

Associative learning

Learning that certain events occur together, which may be two or more stimuli or a behavior and its consequence.

Stimulus

Any event or situation that evokes a response.

Respondent behavior

The behavior that occurs as an automatic response to a stimulus.

Classical conditioning

A type of learning in which we link two or more stimuli.

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)

Naturally causes a response.

Unconditioned Response (UCR)

Natural reaction to UCS.

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

Previously neutral, now triggers response.

Conditioned Response (CR)

Learned reaction to CS.