Week 11 (Adolescent and Early Adult Development)

Moratorium

Away from the safety of childhood but no responsibilities of adulthood; can use this ‘time out’ from adult responsibilities to explore different identities.

What is a key NEURAL developmental task in adolescence?

Pruning of synaptic connections.

• A 3 year old child has 2-3 times the synaptic connections of an adult and will burn twice times as much glucose

Cognitive Development — Formal operational thought

Propositional reasoning (if-then propositions, logic)

• All men are mortal

• Socrates is a man

• Therefore Socrates is mortal

Psychosocial crisis: If the crisis is not resolved (i.e., an integrated and stable identity is not achieved), according to Erikson the following are possible consequences:

• Role confusion

•Identity crisis

• Delinquency

•Aggression

•Anti-social behaviour

Autonomy (Steinberg, 1990)

“....an ability to regulate one’s own behaviour and to select and guide one’s own decisions and actions without undue control from or dependence on one’s parents”

Internalised Morality

• Capacity to consider multiple perspectives

• More abstract issues of social justice, human rights

‘Emerging adulthood’ Arnett 2000

18-29 in Western cultures.

Arnett identified five characteristics people between 18 and 29 have in common in Western cultures

1. Identity exploration: answering the question “who am I?” and trying out various options, especially in love and work

2. Instability, in love, work, and place of residence

3. Self-Focus, as obligations to others reach a lifespan low

4. Feeling “In-Between”, in transition, neither adolescent nor adult

5. Possibilities/Optimism, when hopes flourish and people have unparalleled opportunity to transform their lives.

A similar stage noted in the 70s: the ‘novice phase’

Daniel Levinson (1978) — 17-33 years

• Transition at 28-33

Brain development

Full cortex development

• Mid-late twenties

• Males later than females

• Full white matter development (optimal connectivity) maybe into early-mid 30s in males

With fully developed cortex comes:

• Better management of impulses and emotions

• Better focus and attention

• More cognitive flexibility

• Better planning, problem solving, decision making, abstract thinking, thinking through consequences etc.

Cognitive development — Post-formal thought (Kramer, 1989)

• Knowledge is relative and non-absolute; has subjective components

• Accept contradiction as a basic aspect of reality (light is both a wave and a particle; intense relationships may have love & hate)

• Can synthesise contradictions into a coherent whole. Integrated framework and narrative.

Schaie’s stages of adult thinking

• Acquisitive stage – all four of Piaget’s stages, build basic skills

• Achieving stage (young adults)

• Responsible stage (middle adults)

• Executive stage (for some middle adults)

• Reintegrative stage (late adults)

Achieving stage (young adults)

• Direct intelligence toward specific goals as opposed to every inclination – follow the bright and shiny object ...

• Considers both the contexts and consequences involved in making important decisions such as planning career or starting a family

Responsible stage (middle adults)

Consider responsibilities to others when making decisions

Executive stage (for some middle adults)

• Apply postformal thinking about systems to solve practical problems

• E.g. a mining exec must make decisions about community relations that takes into account company staff, local residents concerns about mining waste and their children’s health, ATSI title holders, the localeconomy and the local social structures etc.

Reintegrative stage (late adults)

• Less focus on long term plans and fewer responsibilities

• Focus on personal interests and values and things that bring meaning to their lives

• Make sense of their lives

Contextual relativism

Truth is relative and contextual and depends on the framework of the ‘knower’.

Perry (1970)

In young adults basic dualism (right/wrong, good/bad, we/they) becomes more nuanced with time >

Extended by Belensky et al (1986)

Constructed knowing

• Knowledge is constructed and contextual, the frame of reference matters

Greenhaus (1987): five career stages

1. Preparation for work (0-25) occupational self image, assess alternatives, education

2. Organisational entry (18-25) obtain job offers, select best fit from accurate info

3. Early career (25‐40) learn job, fit in, grow in competence, pursue dream.

4. Mid-Career (40 – 55) Re-evaluating initial career goals against actual achievements and navigating changes in personal or family obligations.

5. Late Career (55 years old to retirement) Maximizing final professional contributions, building a legacy, and preparing for a structured exit from full-time work.

Erikson’s Intimacy versus isolation crisis

Task – to develop the ability to establish close committed relationships with peers (including intimate relationships)

Vaillant’s Grant study — Conclusions

• Growth and development are lifelong processes (this aligns with neural plasticity)

• Lives shaped more by sustained relationships than isolated traumatic events

• Adaptive mechanisms determine mental health

Vaillant’s Grant study — ‘Adaptive mechanisms’

• Mature mechanisms – sublimation (redirecting anxiety/unacceptable impulses toward acceptable goals); altruism

• Immature mechanisms (e.g., hypochcondria and fantasy)

• Psychotic mechanisms (distortions of reality, hallucinations)

• Neurotic mechanisms (irrational fears, repression).

Marriage types (Scanzoni et al., 1989)

• Conventional marriages – heterosexual, man head of house

• Equal partnerships – egalitarian, responsibilities shared by negotiation, flexible with frequent re- negotiation

• Junior partnerships – elements of the other two types. Often in heterosexual relationships with the junior partner, who brings in some income and has some say in decision making, being the woman.

The adolescent brain (2008) B.J. Casey, Sarah Getz, Adriana Galvan,

Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by suboptimal decisions and actions that give rise to an increased incidence of unintentional injuries and violence, alcohol and drug abuse, unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Traditional neurobiological and cognitive explanations for adolescent behavior have failed to account for the nonlinear changes in behavior observed during adolescence, relative to childhood and adulthood. This review provides a biologically plausible conceptualization of the neural mechanisms underlying these nonlinear changes in behavior, as a heightened responsiveness to incentives while impulse control is still relatively immature during this period. Recent human imaging and animal studies provide a biological basis for this view, suggesting differential development of limbic reward systems relative to top-down control systems during adolescence relative to childhood and adulthood. This developmental pattern may be exacerbated in those adolescents with a predisposition toward risk-taking, increasing the risk for poor outcomes.