HDFS Chapter 11

Physical and Cognitive Development inAdolescence

Adolescent egocentrism

a characteristic of adolescents’ thinking in which they have difficulty separating others’ perspective from their own; composed of the imaginary audience and personal fable.

Amygdala

a brain structure that is part of the limbic system and plays a role in emotion, especially fear and anger.

Care orientation

Gilligan’s feminine mode of moral reasoning, characterized by a desire to maintain relationships and a responsibility to avoid hurting others.

Delayed phase preference

change in pubertal hormone levels that causes adolescents’ sleep patterns to shift such that they tend to remain awake late at night and groggy early in the morning.

Dural-process model

provides an account of how thought can arise in two different ways, or as a result of two different processes.

Estrogen

a sex hormone that’s necessary for maintaining your sexual and reproductive health.

Formal operational reasoning

entails the ability to think abstractly, logically, and systematically. Piaget’s fourth stage of cognitive development, characterized by abstract, logical and systematic thinking.

Gonads

an organ that produces gametes(sperms in males, eggs in female) and secrete sex hormones.

Hypothalamus-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis

a hormone-regulating mechanism containing three different compoent structures that operate in a coordinated fashion and whcih are involved in the regulation of several reproductive and developmental processes in humans and other species.

Hypothetical-deductive reasoning

a scientific method where researchers propose a hypothesis, deduce predictions from it, and then test those predictions through experiments or observations to either confirm or refure the initial hypothesis.

Imaginary audience

an experienced as self-conciseness, feeling as if all eyes are on them. is an error in perspective-taking. it contributes to the heightened self-consciousness characteristics of adolescence.

Justice orientation

an individual’s tendency to prioritize fairness, equity, and moral principles in their interactions and judgments, viewing justice as a fundamental moral virtue.

Personal fable (adolescent egocentrism)

adolescents’ preoccupation with themselves also leads them to believe that they are special, unique, and invulnerable.

Postconventional moral reasoning

Kohlberg’s third level of moral reasoning emphasizing autonomous decision-making based on principles such as valuing human dignity.

Primary sex characteristics

those organs and other physiological structures that are directly related sexual reproduction.

Puberty

the biological transition to adulthood, in which hormones cause the body to physically mature and permit sexual reproduction

Secondary sex characteristics

any physical characteristics developing at puberty which distinguishes between the sexes but is not directly involved in reproduction.

Spermarche

a boy’s first ejaculation of sperm

Testosterone

the primary male sex hormone responsible for development and regulation of the male reproductive system and secondary sex characteristics.