L8.5 - Adolescence Period Flashcards

Flashcards about Adolescence Period

Adolescence Period

Transitional phase of growth and development between childhood and adulthood.

Adolescent

Any person between ages 10 and 19, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Puberty

A period of rapid physical maturation involving hormonal and bodily changes that occurs primarily during early adolescence.

Menarche

A girl’s first menstruation.

Hormones

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

Testosterone

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

Estradiol

A type of estrogen; in girls it is associated with breast, uterine, and skeletal development

Precocious puberty

The very early onset and rapid progression of puberty, usually diagnosed before 8 years of age in girls and before 9 years of age in boys.

Body Image

Adolescents are preoccupied with their bodies and develop images of what their bodies are like.

Anorexia nervosa

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

Bulimia nervosa

An eating disorder in which the individual consistently follows a binge-and-purge pattern.

Corpus callosum

Thickens in adolescence, and this improves adolescents’ ability to process information.

Prefrontal cortex

The highest level of the frontal lobes involved in reasoning, decision making, and self-control.

Amygdala

The seat of emotions such as anger.

Dual-process model

States that decision making is influenced by two cognitive systems—one analytical and one experiential—which compete with each other.

Piaget’s Formal Operational Thought

Shift from concrete to formal operations, allowing for greater abstract thinking skills, symbolic reasoning, and hypothetical analysis.

Imaginary audience

A term that Elkind used to describe the phenomenon that an adolescent anticipates the reactions of other people to him/herself in actual or impending social situations.

Personal fable

The term Elkind created to describe this notion, which is the complement of the construction of imaginary audience.

Self-esteem

The overall way we evaluate ourselves.

Identity diffusion

The status of individuals who have not yet experienced a crisis or made any commitments.

Identity foreclosure

The status of individuals who have made a commitment but not experienced a crisis.

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 made a commitment.

Rite of passage

A ceremony or ritual that marks an individual’s transition from one status to another.