PSYCH 133A: Adolescent Development Exam I

Adolescence Start and End

Begins: Onset of puberty
Ends: societal and cultural implications

Define Adolescence

• The second decade of life marked by multiple transitions

  • (physical and reproductive maturation, increased independence from parents, heightened peer orientation, elevated risk taking, and identity formation)

• to grow towards 

  • ad: towards

  • escence: growth

Preparation to become member of society, a thinking individual 

Positives and Negatives of Prolonged Adolescence

• Positives: more time to find your interests, identity, and career, as well as to educate yourself

• Negatives: difficulties in gaining psychological independence from parents

Adolescence as Distinct Period in Development

• Universally tied to biological development

  • Puberty and rapid physical growth

  • Unique feats of brain development

• Socially and culturally defined and structured

  • Family, schooling, and work

  • Often involves rites of passage

  • Changes historically

• Economic system and conditions are significant

G Stanley Hall (1844-1924) – Father of Developmental Psychology

• Integrated Darwin’s emphasis of struggle humans underwent as a species

  • “...Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny” – development of specific individual mimics evolution of species

  • Evolution embedded in genetic structure, to be repeated as one grows older

    • Sequential, infallible– cannot skip one

• Storm and stress

  • Describe the emotional turmoil, conflict, and risk-taking behavior he observed as characteristic of adolescence. 

Anna Freud – Daughter of Sigmund Freud

• Took ideology of Sigmund Freud and applied it towards the adolescence stage

  • Sexual drives disappearing in latency stage reawakes, however ego not fully developed and uncontrollable 

    • Adolescence is a developmental disturbance

• Emphasis of biological innateness, like hall

  • Unlike Hall, felt there was something that could be done – distancing

• “...Nothing helps here except the complete discarding of the love objects of the child, that is, the parents.”

Margaret Mead (1901-1978)

Graduate student of Frank Boas

• “...Are the disturbances which vex our adolescence due to the nature of adolescence or to civilization? Under different conditions does adolescence present a different picture.”

• Evidence of cultural differentiation of adolescence outside of western world

  • Childhood and adolescence much freer and less worrisome in Samoa, less sexually restricting

  • Proved adolescence was not biological determined and storm and stress was not universal

• Critiques:

  • Misrepresentation of teenagers in Samoa

    • Mead distance from villages and only lived there in nine-months

Ruth Benedict (1887-1948)

• Although it is a fact of nature that the child becomes a man, the way in which this transition is affected varies from one society to another, and no one of these particular cultural bridges should be regarded as the ‘natural’ path to maturity”

• Continuity vs. Discontinuity

  • Transition from childhood from adulthood more contagious leads to smoother transition

  • Discontinuous transition, meaning a more disconnected path from childhood to adulthood, leads to much more difficult transition

Continuity vs. Discontinuity

• Transition from childhood from adulthood more contagious leads to smoother transition

• Discontinuous transition, meaning a more disconnected path from childhood to adulthood, leads to much more difficult transition

Contemporary Views and Model

ADOLESCENCE IS CONTINUOUS IN SOME AND DISCONTINUOUS IN OTHERS

Historical Perspective (John Modell – Social Historian):

•  Gathering information on day to day lives of normal individuals – from early modern europe to industrial revolution

Early Modern Europe: 

• Agrarian Society 

• Family is central economic (and social) unit – often function as self-sustaining unit

  • Produced what was needed and traded to get whatever else was needed

• Continuous, clear, and long transition

  • Continuous: Children learned whatever needed to succeed as an adult throughout

    • Gradually acquiring more skills and more responsibilities 

  • Clear: Knew what their life was from the beginning, no mystery

    • No room for choice or freedom

  • Long: Owning property (men) or marrying someone with property (women) marker for adulthood

    • Only way to acquire properties is through inheritance

Industrial Revolution:

• Industrial and specialized work

  • Working for factories outside of home

• Family less center as economic unit

  • Institution taking care of functions that families used to serve

    • Public schooling – changed nature of adolescence (time of life that needed protection, focusing on character building NOT skillbuilding)

• Discontinuous, unclear, shorter transition

  • Discontinuous: Skills needed to be learned much more quickly, rather than gradually throughout childhood due to schooling and employment

  • Unclear: More individual choice means future becomes less clear

Historical Perspective (John Modell – Social Historian)

• Gathering information on day to day lives of normal individuals – from early modern europe to industrial revolution

Early Modern Europe

• Agrarian Society 

• Family is central economic (and social) unit – often function as self-sustaining unit

  • Produced what was needed and traded to get whatever else was needed

• Continuous, clear, and long transition

  • Continuous: Children learned whatever needed to succeed as an adult throughout

    • Gradually acquiring more skills and more responsibilities 

  • Clear: Knew what their life was from the beginning, no mystery

    • No room for choice or freedom

  • Long: Owning property (men) or marrying someone with property (women) marker for adulthood

    • Only way to acquire properties is through inheritance

Industrial Revolution

• Industrial and specialized work

  • Working for factories outside of home

• Family less center as economic unit

  • Institution taking care of functions that families used to serve

    • Public schooling – changed nature of adolescence (time of life that needed protection, focusing on character building NOT skillbuilding)

• Discontinuous, unclear, shorter transition

  • Discontinuous: Skills needed to be learned much more quickly, rather than gradually throughout childhood due to schooling and employment

  • Unclear: More individual choice means future becomes less clear

Main Conclusions (John Modell)

1. Dominant economy helps to define adolescence, descriptively, and prescriptively 

2. Experience of adolescence closely tied to structure of adult society

3. Societal and cultural differences may be partly due to the dominant economic system

Urie Bronfenbrenner (Bioecological Model)

• An individual's development is influenced by a series of interconnected environmental systems

Cynthia Garica-Coll (Integrative Model)

• ecological structures (social, economic) differentially affects individuals 

Communicating and Applying Science

• Communication of the science of adolescence

  • “Promise of Adolescence”: census on summarizations of studies done on adolescence + suggests what can be done to best support adolescence

  • Building Opportunities: surveying the public opinion on adolescence when trying to communication science

  • Building Opportunities into Adolescence: 

    • Some Cultural Models of Adolescence

      • When it really starts to matter

      • Dangerous times

      • Biological takeover

      • Stress makes you stronger

      • Peers matter most 

      • Parents as authorities, equal, scaffolder 

        • Scaffold refers to support without being overbearing

      • Modernity as threat and progress

      • Culture of poverty

        • American Ideal: viewing poorness as the poor individual’s fault

      • Availability of opportunities 

Your Views

• Emotions felt more than ever before, most of which are influenced through peers

Core Science of Adolescent Development

• One way to communicate science is through science, which is still accurate and specific

  • Learning mentioned throughout: all aspects in course will have to do with social learning in some sense

• Not that adolescence will be a negative outcome, but if needs are not met– a negative outcome increased

Biological Changes and Puberty

Puberty: 

• Key Pubertal Events

• Secular Trend 

  • Change throughout historical time

• Social Context

• Impacts of Early Experience

• Social and Psychological Effects

Sleep: affected by pubertal development

• Chronotype

• Historical Change

• School Start Time

Puberty

• Key Pubertal Events

• Secular Trend 

  • Change throughout historical time

• Social Context

• Impacts of Early Experience

• Social and Psychological Effects

Sleep: affected by pubertal development

• Chronotype

• Historical Change

• School Start Time

Key Pubertal Events during Adolescence

• Representation of key events during pubertal development

  • Activational and organizational effects of puberty

  • Gradual process, not discrete event

  • Begins well before adolescent, continuing till mid-20s

• Adrenarche (under 10 y.o): HBA Axis matures, resulting in adrenal androgen increase until early 20s

  • Results in secondary sex characteristics (body hair, etc)

• Menarche: HPG Axis reactivates, rising gonadal hormones

  • Results in breast development, genital development

• GnRH signals HPG axis to mature

  • In this, body fats is necessary (more for women)

    • Due to this gymnastics and ice skaters are generally shorter

Adrenarche (under 10 y.o)

• HBA Axis matures, resulting in adrenal androgen increase until early 20s

  • Results in secondary sex characteristics (body hair, etc)

Menarche

• HPG Axis reactivates, rising gonadal hormones

  • Results in breast development, genital development

GnRH signals HPG axis to mature…

• In this, body fats is necessary (more for women)

  • Due to this gymnastics and ice skaters are generally shorter

Secular Trend in Pubertal Timing

• Gradual decline in menarche across several countries after only under 600 years

  • OGS (onset of growth spurt) simultaneous went down

  • PHV (peak height growth) has gone down historically

• Due to:

  • Nutrition: children observed have better diets than in the past

  • Health: Vaccines are more commonly administered 

• These earlier onsets will not continue, rate seem to be approaching a flat for biological onset of menarche

• Breast budding may occurs earlier, resulting for several factors

  • Rising levels of animosity

  • Ingestion of hormones (meat, etc)

Social Context of Pubertal Development

• Puberty also a social and cultural process

• Sociocultural construal of changes, particularly menarche

  • How the environment responds to changes

    • Fear, shame v. Excitement, pride

• Anticipatory socialization can make a difference

  • Studies suggest prior preparations impacts feelings of changes

    • Stress, excitement, etc

• Social reactions to the changing body

  • Peer popularity

  • Sexual attention to girls

  • Fear of physically larger boys

  • Timing plays a role here

• Ethnic variations in the US

  • Somewhat earlier for African American and [POTENTIALLY] Latina girls 

    • Role of high levels of racial discrimination (stress hastens pubertal process)

Early Experience and Puberty

Adversities lower age of onset of pubertal development, may send single for earlier maturation (for safety and wellbeing): May NOT be evolutionary, simply that stresses kick in the process

• Sexual and physical abuse

• Parental harshness

• Father absence and caretaker transitions 

• Evolutionary adaptive

• /Caveats/

  • Primarily only examined among girls, focusing on timing of menarche

  • Potential genetic confounds not always controlled

• Those who have experienced adversity have earlier onset upo passing 11 years old as compared to non-impacted peers

Early Life Stress is Associated with Earlier Emergence of Permanent Molars

• Molars erupted, on average for females, earlier

• As a function of income, children of lower income had molars erupt much earlier than those with higher income

• Early adverse childhood experiences (abuse, neglect) predicted earlier molar eruption

Puberty as a Sensitive Period

• Puberty can be a period for plasticity, where things can be heavily influenced

  • Period of self-care (independent of family), social systems

• Earlier maturation can lessen window of plasticity available

Psychological and Behavioral Effects of Puberty

• Rise in risk for internalizing issues (i.e., anxiety)

  • Maybe more for females

  • Exacerbated by stressors

• Rise in risk for externalizing issues (i.e., fighting, acting out)

  • Most evident for timing v. status

• Minor distracting and tension with parents

• Increased attention to peer evaluation (?)

Sleep Chronotype and Phase-Delay Shift

• Sleep begins earlier, goes later in adolescence, then returns to earlier times in 20s (across the two charts)

Sleep Phase-Delay Shift and Sleep Duration

• As one becomes older, there is a biological want to sleep later

  • On weekdays, there is a restriction (school start time) 

Sleep across the Lifespan

• Sleep time spreads out, meaning there are more individual differences

• Efficiency is spread

Sleep Indicators

• Duration

  • Time actually asleep from initial sleep onset to final awakening

• Continuity

  • Sleep onset latency, wakenings, efficiency

• Variability

  • Nightly variability in varies sleep parameters

• Quality

  • Subjective sense of restful and restorative sleep

Historical Change in Sleep

• Younger individuals getting less sleep when considering historical context

  • Fewer percentages report at least 8 hours of sleep

  • Higher self-derogation and low self-esteem reported too

• NOT social media, more so due to emotionality

School Start Time

• Changes in circadian rhythm, academic demands, and social expectation creates need to go to bed 

  • School start times are early however, creating a bind on sleep

• Seattle delaying their school start times

  • High schoolers given sleep watches, measuring activity (movement)

    • Waking up later in 2017 than 2016

      • Sleep gain is obtained through getting more sleep in the morning

• Grades went up when school start times changed and reported feeling less sleepy

• Low resource high school (FHS) had less absences and tardies with later start time

• Economic Analysis:

  • Higher rates of car accidents with early starts times

  • Higher rates of high school graduation with later start times

    • Leads to economic gains that outweigh the cost

Brain Development During Adolescence

• Main Developmental Changes:

  • Structural and Functional Changes 

  • Connectivity and Plasticity 

  • Implications

• Models of Brain Development

• Sleep

• Early Adversity

Structural Changes

• Reduction in Gray Matter — Synaptic Pruning

  • Removal of unnecessary or unused synapses from the brain – apoptosis 

    • These synapses are made to prepare one for the world

    • What is unneeded for the environment surrounding you

    • Can lead to cognitive shortcuts

      • Possible lead to stereotypes

    • Happens in different regions at different times

      • Earlier life has synaptic pruning in the back (occipital, temporal)

      • Later stages has synaptic pruning towards the front (frontal, parietal)

• Increase in White Matter — Myelination

  • Myelin sheath is increasingly insulated for efficient and much faster singling to the neuron

    • Think of a extension cord

    • Greater white matter in males due to larger brain size

    • Increase in white matter makes brain grow larger in size, not smaller despite reduction of gray matter

Functional Changes

• Enhanced Limbic Activation: Motivation and Reward

  • Systems responsible for motivation, reward, emotions

    • Higher circulating levels of dopamine during adolescence

      • Receptors more receiving of dopamine

    • Pushes individuals to go out to get desired rewards

• Enhanced Limbic Activation: Exploration and Learning

  • Motivation to explore and learn the world 

    • Learning and exploring potential interests

      • Acting, attraction

  • Adolescence are better at a game than adults

    • Motivated to try countless solutions

  • Greater activation for striatum and hippocampus in adolescence 

Connectivity

• Working on enhancing some necessary connections between limbic regions while pruning unnecessary ones

  • Regions are working together going into the adolescence 

    • Functional Connectivity: When one part brain is activated, another part is activated at the same time

Plasticity

• Necessary dendritic spines are sent out while others are pruned, or repressed

• Neurons can gain and lose ~25% of their connections weekly at puberty 

Key Brain Systems and Regions during Adolescence

• Brain regions that aid in social cognition and control

Implications

• Increased risk taking

• Exploratory and flexible learning skills

• Abstract and relativistic thinking skills

• Social orientation 

• Increasing social cognition 

• Increasing cognitive control

Models

• Mature activate system and immature contradicting themselves

  • Giving rise to more dangerous risk taking and mental health experiences

• Trends in Cognitive Science:

  • Dual-system models imply adolescence to be inherently dangerous and emotional

• Another representation of adolescent brain development:

  • Motivational context is necessary to be relevant to adolescence

    • Reward will not work if not relevant

Social Reorientation Model

• Focuses on social cognition

  • How different parts of brain starts working together in adolescence

    • Energized by pubertal hormones and dopamine

  • If dysfunctional, could result in mental health issues (anxiety, etc)

Sleep Quality, Risk Taking, and Brain Function

• Sleep prevents interactions of brain to reduce chance of poor behavior

  • Those with poorer sleep are more likely to engage in risk taking behavior

• Ballon Example:

  • Risk-taking game: Blowing up balloon for a reward, but the risk is it popping

    • Those with poorer sleep quality pumped balloon significantly more

    • Higher activation of indium with poorer sleep and more likely to blow up balloon further

Conflict Frequency

• Average of actual conflict frequency does not change significantly

  • resulting in periods of conflict that are resolved, then peaked at a later time

Conflict Intensity

• Tension increases on average during conflict, from early to middle adolescence 

  • At high school ages, intensity goes down progressively

    • Due to struggles with autonomy, more eloquent arguments

      • Decrease in conflict due to emotional maturity

• Gender differences, most tension is more intense with daughters and mothers

Time with Family

• Time spent with family significantly decreases in mid-adolescence

  • Time with friends significantly increases during adolescence

  • Time is more spent arguing with parents during adolescence

    • Hence individuals feel conflict increases when it doesn’t on average

  • Conflicts occur to lessening time spend with children (as parents)

    • A hard thing for parents to experience

Parental Authority

• Asking adolescence their feelings on whether their parents feels their in control

  • Decrease across adolescence

• Less likely to say a parent should make rules later into adolescence

  • Very little ethnic differences

• When parents and adolescents list topics of conflict and disagreements

  • Mundane issues like chores and curfew v debate about values and morals

• When parents and adolescents give their reasoning behind the issue

  • Parents view issues as conventional and pragmatic (prudential - is that really a smart thing to do..?)

  • Adolescents view issues as matters of personal choice

Age Expectations for [Behavioral] Autonomy

• At which age should you be allowed to do things

  • Date

  • Decide what shows to watch

  • Stay home alone

  • Have sex

  • Choose own friends

  • Decide own hairstyle, clothing, etc

  • Have a smartphone

  • Sign up for social media

• Immigrant families have differing autonomy expectations

Emotional Closeness

• Emotional closeness decreases into early adolescence, then steadies in later adolescence

  • Emotional closeness increases in later adolescence for daughters and mothers only

Early Views and Models

• Anna Freud (1895-1982):

  • Nothing helps here except complete disregarding of the love objects of the child, that is, the parents

• Discarding of child will lead to poor psychological outcome

Changes in Parent-Child Relationships

• Conflict and authority 

  • Acceptance of parental authority declines

  • Willingness to disagree with parents increases

  • Actual conflict is rare and does not change in frequency

  • Minor increase in conflict intensity in early to mid adolescence

• Time together declines

• Emotional closeness declines, but remains good

Greater decline for fathers

Why the Changes

• Pubertal Changes

  • Physical differences and reactions to it

  • Testosterone increases (more for biological male) – attuned to status and given respect

  • Emotional sensitivities 

• Increased cognitive ability

• Changes in emotional experience and expression

• Expansion of social world

• Expectation and structures of schools

Parenting Styles

Parenting Styles and Adjustment

• Authoritative

  • Responsible, confident, creative, curious, adaptive, school success

• Authoritarian

  • Dependent, passive, less socially adept and curious

• Indulgent

  • Less mature and responsible

• Indifferent

  • More problem behavior

Universal Benefits of Parenting Styles

• Authoritative

  • Seemingly beneficial across ethnic, economic, and national groups

• Authoritarian 

  • Negative effects most evident among European Americans

  • Less so among ethnic minority groups

  • Why?

    • Cultural values and traditions

    • Socioeconomic and neighborhood conditions

    • Treatment by society

Parental Monitoring

• Higher monitoring results in lessened problematic behavior

Parental Monitoring and Adolescent Disclosure

• NOT just monitoring but willingness of adolescence to disclose their activities

• Adolescent disclosure predicted more parental knowledge more than solicitation and control

Family Obligation

• A collection of values and behaviors related to family support, assistance, and respect

• A type of connection to the family that is distinct from dyadic relationships

  • An identification with the family as a group or unit

• An underappreciated yet fundamental aspect of adolescent development?

  • Motivation, values, and behaviors

• Lack of studies due to adolescence change pre-industrial revolution v post-industrial

  • Families were less likely to rely on adolescence for economic support

Motivations for Supporting the Family

• Economic

  • Economic need is not only explanation 

• Cultural

  • A defining cultural value

• Social

  • Takes advantage of fundamental social dynamics

    • Sense of purpose 

• Neutral 

  • Engages in mesolimbic reward and motivational system

    • Social motivation and reward

Cultural

• Filipino, Chinese, Central/South American, and MX backgrounds rated respect for family higher as relative to European backgrounds

• Mexican backgrounds and Chinese spent more time assisting family as relative to European Non-Immigrant 

  • Asian and South American non-immigrants retain familial values; Spend more time helping families

• Children from immigrant families took pictures of families (pictures of pictures), and responsibilities 

  • Being with family of unit, not just parents

Social

• Family as a Social Identity

  • The first and perhaps primary group

  • Made socially obvious through salient cues

  • Experienced through shared values, norms, and beliefs

  • Social identities provide belonging, motivation, purpose, and well-being

  • Helping the group enhances in psychological well-being

• Looking into time spent helping families and emotional effects

  • Can be burdensome yet meaningful simultaneously 

• Doing things to fulfill role is psychologically positive

  • In a troubled family: can be MORE challenging for adolescence

Neural

• Costly donation activates reward brain regions, in the same manner as non-costly reward

  • Higher activation for latinos (non-replicated results)

Adolescence: It’s Psychology

• Stage of development shifted toward independence rather than reliance on parental guidance and aid. 

• Elements of person few, but well organized on a simple effective plan: heritability stable 

• Jean Rousseau (early freedom —> discipline introduced at 12 y.o.)

• Biological psychology confirms view, if proper environment is provided 

• Child revels in ‘savagery’ (fighting, hunting)

Adolescence as Developmental Disturbance

• Adolescence is characterized as a period of developmental disturbance due to significant changes in mental, emotional, and physical aspects.

• The balance between internal drives, ego, and external demands becomes precarious during adolescence, leading to psychological instability.

• Adolescents experience profound shifts in drives, ego organization, object relations, and social relations, which are prototypes of developmental disturbances.

The Concept of Developmental Disturbances:

• Developmental disturbances occur when internal and external balances shift due to growth and maturation.

• Adolescents face challenges reconciling instinctual drives, ego control, and environmental influences.

• These disturbances are necessary for growth but often lead to temporary instability.

Adolescent Reactions as Prototypes

1. Alterations in Drives:

• Adolescents experience heightened sexual and aggressive drives compared to earlier developmental stages.

• New sexual urges and aggressive tendencies create conflicts and require adjustments in behavior.

2. Alterations in Ego Organization:

• Adolescents develop stronger defense mechanisms to manage internal conflicts.

• Ego defenses may manifest in exaggerated behaviors, regression, or rigid control over impulses.

3. Alterations in Object Relations:

• Shifts in relationships with parents and authority figures occur.

• Adolescents seek independence by rejecting parental control while maintaining ambivalence toward their caregivers.

4. Alterations in Ideals and Social Relations:

• Adolescents redefine their ideals, often rejecting parental or societal norms.

• They may align with peer groups or external causes, filling the gap left by disconnection from childhood attachments.

The Promise of Adolescence: Realizing Opportunity for All Youth

• Adolescents (ages 10–25) make up nearly 25% of the U.S. population.

• Adolescence is a critical time for brain development, offering unique opportunities for positive growth and recovery from adversity.

• The report emphasizes the need for policies that leverage developmental opportunities and address inequities in education, health care, and other areas.

Key Insights

1. The Adolescent Brain

• Adolescence is a period of heightened brain plasticity, with stronger, more efficient neural connections forming.

• Changes in the brain enhance risk-taking, social awareness, and adaptability—important for exploring new environments and building independence.

• Adolescents develop cognitive, social, and emotional skills essential for adulthood.

2. Biology and Environment

• Genes and environment interact to shape development; supportive environments promote positive growth.

• Investments in programs during adolescence can help youth overcome adversity and improve life trajectories.

3. Inequities in Adolescence

• Economic, social, and structural disadvantages, including racism and discrimination, hinder adolescent development.

• Disparities in outcomes include:

  • Lower educational achievement for low-income and minority youth.

  • Higher mortality rates for Black youth (ages 10–24) due to homicide.

  • Poorer health outcomes for LGBTQ+ youth and those in poverty.

  • Interventions can reduce disparities and help adolescents realize their potential.

Recommendations

1. Education System

• Address resource disparities in disadvantaged schools.

• Incorporate nonacademic skills (decision-making, adaptability) into education.

• Foster culturally sensitive, supportive learning environments.

2. Health System

• Strengthen insurance coverage and healthcare access for adolescents.

• Improve access to behavioral health services and adolescent-specific care.

• Train more health providers for adolescent needs.

3. Child Welfare System

• Address racial and economic disparities in child welfare involvement.

• Provide developmentally informed services for adolescents and families.

• Collaborate across welfare, justice, education, and health systems.

4. Justice System

• Reduce racial and ethnic disparities in the juvenile justice system.

• Ensure adolescents receive developmentally appropriate, fair treatment.

• Focus on rehabilitation and prioritize health and education for justice-involved youth.

Teenage Brain: Sensitivity to Reward

Adolescence Features:

• Heightened reward sensitivity; linked to neurodevelopmental changes in dopamine systems.

• Reward-seeking behaviors aid transition to independence but can result in risky actions (e.g., drugs, reckless driving).

• Reward sensitivity = motivation for novel experiences and social learning.

Animal Studies:

• Similar reward-related behaviors in adolescent humans, rodents, and primates.

• Dopamine system changes: ↑ dopamine receptor activity and firing rates in adolescence.

• ↑ dopamine release in response to social interactions and environmental stimuli.

Human Studies:

• Adolescents show peak reward sensitivity (e.g., monetary, thrill-seeking rewards) around 14-15 yrs.

• fMRI: ↑ ventral striatum (VS) activation in adolescents during reward tasks vs. children/adults.

• Adolescents focus on actual reward outcomes, while adults focus on reward cues.

Individual Differences:

• Reward sensitivity varies by personality (e.g., sensation-seeking), peer influence, and neural variability.

• ↑ VS activation linked to real-life risky behaviors (e.g., drug use, thrill-seeking).

Role of Puberty:

• Pubertal hormones (e.g., testosterone) amplify reward sensitivity.

• Hormonal changes interact with dopamine systems.

Future Research:

• Explore striatum-prefrontal cortex connectivity (impulse control).

• Study contextual factors (stress, peers, psychopathology) influencing reward behavior.

• Examine if ↑ reward sensitivity enhances learning in humans as in animals.

Conclusion:

• Reward sensitivity supports independence and growth but requires nuanced understanding for policy and applications (schools, homes, courts).

The Social Re-orientation of Adolescence

Adolescence Changes (Social): 

• Shift: ↑ time w/ peers, ↓ time w/ family.  

• Emergence of romantic/sexual interests.  

Neurobio Basis:  

• Puberty: ↑ gonadal steroids → limbic system changes (emotional processing).  

• Gradual maturation of prefrontal cortex (PFC) → better social info regulation.  

Social Info Processing Network:

• Limbic-PFC interactions key in social/emotional behavior.  

• Dysregulation may lead to psychopathology (e.g., mood/anxiety disorders).  

Key Findings:

• Puberty triggers emotional sensitivity to social stimuli.  

• PFC dev. lags → immature social regulation in early adolescence.  

Psychopathology Links:

• Adolescence = risk period for mood, anxiety disorders.  

• Dysregulated social processing may contribute to onset.  

Attitudes toward Family Obligations among American Adolescents with Asian, Latin American, and European Backgrounds

Study Purpose:

• Examines attitudes toward family obligations (assistance, respect, future support) among over 800 American adolescents (10th & 12th grade) from Filipino, Chinese, Mexican, Central/South American, and European backgrounds.

Key Findings:

1. Ethnic Differences in Family Obligations:

• Asian and Latin American adolescents emphasized family obligations more than European peers.

• Filipino youths valued family obligations most among all groups.

• Ethnic differences in attitudes were consistent across gender, generation, family structure, and socioeconomic background.

2. Generational Trends:

• Family obligation values remained strong across generations.

• Slight decline in future support values for third-generation youths, except Central/South Americans.

3. Family Interactions:

• Strong family obligation attitudes correlated with closer family bonds, more discussions with parents/siblings, and higher family cohesion.

• Perceived parent-teen disagreement on "respect" was common but greater among European adolescents.

4. Peer Relationships:

• High family obligation values did not negatively affect peer relationships.

• Adolescents emphasized friendship as much as peers with lower family obligation values.

5. Academic Adjustment:

• Moderate family obligation values associated with positive academic outcomes (e.g., study time, motivation).

• Extremely high obligation values correlated with lower grades, possibly due to time spent on family responsibilities.

Social and Cultural Context:

• Collectivistic Cultures:

  • Strong emphasis on group goals, family support, and respect (e.g., Confucian and Latin American traditions).

  • Obligations include household chores, respecting elders, and future financial/emotional support.

  • Values are integral to ethnic identity development.

• American Adolescents:

  • Face societal norms of autonomy and peer focus, conflicting with traditional familistic values.

  • Despite cultural pressures, Asian and Latin American adolescents retain strong family obligation values.

Implications:

1. Positive Effects:

• Family obligations foster responsibility, academic motivation, and strong family relationships.

• Shared values provide a foundation for ethnic identity and cultural pride.

2. Challenges:

• Extremely high family obligations can hinder academic performance.

• Generational shifts may cause tension between traditional values and American societal norms.

3. No Group-Level Negative Impact:

• Strong family obligation values among Asian/Latin American adolescents did not create significant developmental disadvantages compared to European peers.

Future Research Directions:

• Explore how attitudes translate into behaviors.

• Examine family obligations in younger children and during young adulthood.

• Investigate specific instances where obligations affect academic performance.

Peer Influence on Risk Taking

Purpose and Hypotheses:

• Purpose: Examine the impact of peer presence on risk-taking, risk preference, and risky decision-making across three age groups: adolescents (13–16), youths (18–22), and adults (24+).

• Hypotheses:

  • 1. Risk-taking, risk preference, and risky decision-making decrease with age.

  • 2. Individuals will take more risks, prefer riskier choices, and make riskier decisions in peer groups compared to when alone.

  • 3. Peer effects will be stronger in adolescents compared to youths and adults.

Method:

• Sample:  

  • 306 participants: 106 adolescents (M age = 14.01), 105 youths (M age = 18.78), 95 adults (M age = 37.24).  

  • Gender-balanced and ethnically diverse (49% White, 38% African American, 13% other).  

• Design:  

  • Participants completed tasks either alone or in groups of three same-age peers.

  • Tasks included:

    • Risk-taking: "Chicken" video game measuring real-time risk-taking behavior.

    • Risk preference: Benthin Risk Perception Measure (BRPM), assessing the perceived benefits vs. costs of risky behavior.

    • Risky decision-making: Youth Decision-Making Questionnaire (YDMQ), measuring choices in hypothetical risky scenarios.

    • Peer groups could discuss and provide advice during group tasks.

Key Results

• 1. Age Differences:

  • Risk-taking and risky decision-making significantly decreased with age.  

  • No significant age differences were found in risk preference (weighing benefits over costs).  

• 2. Peer Influence:

  • Peer presence increased risk-taking, risk preference, and risky decision-making.  

  • Peer effects were stronger among adolescents and youths compared to adults.  

• 3. Gender and Ethnicity:

  • Males weighed the benefits of risky behavior more heavily than females, especially in younger age groups.  

  • Non-White participants engaged in greater risk-taking but made fewer risky decisions compared to White participants.  

  • Peer effects were stronger for non-White adolescents compared to their White counterparts.

Discussion:

• Adolescents and youths are more susceptible to peer influence in risky situations than adults.

• Peer presence increases risky behavior, with adolescents showing the largest shifts.

• Gender and ethnicity moderate risk-taking, with males and non-White participants showing unique patterns.

• Findings support the idea that psychosocial factors, such as peer pressure and impulse control, develop across adolescence and early adulthood.

• Implications: Interventions should target peer influence and resistance strategies, especially for adolescents and youths from minority backgrounds.

Developmental Functions of Friendship

• Piaget/Sullivan: 

  • Symmetrical and egalitarian nature of friendships allow children to uniquely:

• Learn to develop and express alternative views and opinions

• Learn to self-disclose and share intimate thoughts and feelings

• Learn to be sensitive to the needs, views, and concerns of others

• Friendships are voluntary, unlike families:

  • Have to be accommodating to maintain friendships

  • Resulting in healthier development of other intimate relationships (romantic)

Cliques

• Small groups defined by common activities and friendships

• Usually around 5 or 6 individuals of the same age and sex

• “Staging area” of adolescent’s friendships 

• Peer Crowds DIFFERENT from Cliques

Social Network Map

• Measures of particular friendships, shown in studies

  • Clique Member

  • Liaison

  • Isolate 

Predictors of Clique and Friendship Formation

• Rarely a free choice as initially thought to be

  • Due to factors in the environment and of self:

    • Age

    • Gender/Sex (less important in later adolescence)

    • Social Class

    • Ethnicity/Race (not as important in early childhood, more in later adolescence)

    • Academic Performance/School Orientation

    • Involvement in Antisocial Activities

    • Shared Interests

Peer Crowds

• Distinct from the idea of cliques

• Large, reputation-based collectives of similarly stereotyped individuals who may or may not spend time together 

• Vary in terms of:

  • Involvement of adult institutions

  • Involvement in peer culture

• Membership based mainly on reputation and stereotypes 

  • There is no choice in the involvement of peer crowds, may be unknown to categorized individual

Functions of Peer Crowds

• Locate adolescence within the social structure of the school

• Channel adolescents into associations with some peer and away from others

• Provide contexts that reward certain lifestyle and disparage others

Types of Peer Crowds — in 1990!

• Vary across high schools, but will remain on the displayed on the dimensions

Selection v. Socialization

• Selection:

  • Adolescent join peer groups that are similar to themselves 

• Socialization:

  • Peer groups make adolescents similar to one another

Popularity and Social Status

• Sociometric popularity:

  • How well-liked someone may be

• Perceived popularity:

  • Perceived social status

    • Aggressive individuals tend to be higher status

• Aggression:

  • Some forms predict popularity early in adolescence, but kindness and pro-sociality become more important over time

• Studies show that popularity is not always the greatest thing

  • Those with some level of popularity have better social satisfaction, self-concept, and friendship quality

    • Those with highest levels have lessened satisfaction levels

The Societal Role of Peers

• Postfigurative Cultures: (Model of adulthood comes from the past)

  • Static, experiencing little to no change

  • Future adult world of adolescent is equal to that of their elders

  • Parents and older elders are primary socializers 

• Cofigurative Cultures: (Model of adulthood comes equally from peers and parents)

  • Moderate rate of social change 

  • Adult world of adolescent will different from that of elders

  • Peers become as important socializers as parents

• Prefigurative Cultures: (Model of adulthood is taught by peers and children)

  • Extremely rapid rate of social change

  • Adult world of adolescents will have nothing to do with that of elders

  • Adolescents and peers will become socializers of parents

Historical Trends and Role of Peers

• Clear Transition → Particularistic Norms (Family-Specific)

• Particularistic Norms → Family is Primary Socializer

• Industrial Revolution:

  • Unclear Transition → Universalistic Norms

  • Universalistic Norms → Peers Become Important Socializers

Key Questions (Gardner, Peer Risk-Taking)

• Is risk taking higher among adolescents than adults?

• Is there greater risk taking in the presence of peers?

• Is the impact of peers greatest during adolescence?

Sample and Method (Gardner, Peer RiskTaking)

• Three age groups: 13-16, 18-22, 24-older

• Two conditions: alone vs. a triad of friends

• Three measures:

  • Risk preference: Reported cost-benefits of risky scenarios

  • Risky decision-making: Reported decisions in risky scenarios

  • Risk taking: Behavior in “Chicken” video game

Results (Gardner, Peer RiskTaking)

• Risk taking and risky decision making decreased with age

• Presence of peers increases risk taking, risky decision making, and more focus on benefits of risk taking

• The effect of the presence of peers on risk taking and risky decision making was greater for adolescents

• Indication of risky driving

  • Bars are decreasing with older ages 

  • Greater for adolescence, greater differential risk-taking

Discussion and Implications (Gardner, Peer Risktaking)

• Adolescents are riskier despite understanding the costs of risk-taking

• Peers may be an important source of higher levels of risk-taking during adolescence because of the greater susceptibility to peer influence

• Can’t change risky behavior, but can change the context of risky behavior

Peers, RiskTaking, and Reward Circuitry

• Ventral striatum is more active with peers during adolescence, making decision-making

  • As compared to Y.A. and Adults 

  • Similar with lateral prefrontal cortex

Even in Mice

• Juvenile mice spent more time drinking when with peers than alone (activated socially)

  • For adult mice, there was no difference with peers and without

Peers also Influence Prosocial Behavior

• Seeing another individual act prosocially, adolescence were more likely to act prosocially as well

Prosocial RiskTaking

• “Many young people are inclined toward risk taking and also toward helping other people. Prosocial risk taking is a term that can describe different ways that youth provide significant instrumental and emotional support to family members, friends, and strangers, even when it involves a personal risk. 

• Research to date suggests that young people are more likely to engage in prosocial risk taking when they are more tolerant of uncertainty, have greater sensation-seeking, perspective-taking, and empathy, and when they are motivated by reputational concerns.

• Providing opportunities for youth to direct their risk-taking tendencies toward prosocial outlets may help minimize risks to their psychosocial health and promote individual and community well-being.”

Positive RiskTaking

• Risk-taking is not inherently negative, some developmentally appropriate

Risk Taking and Lifespan

• Risk-taking is fundamentally part of adolescence development

  • Younger are more likely to take risks to find answers or solutions

Erik Erikson (1902-1994)

• Trained in Freudian Psychoanalysis, but moved away

• Influenced by surged in anthropological research, looking into role social forces play in development

  • Became ego-psychologist (placed emphasis on ego, not on destructive impulsive on ID) 

• Epigenetic Principle of Development

  • “Anything that grows has a ground plan, and that out of this ground plan the parts arise, each part having its time of special ascendancy, until all parts have risen to form a functional whole”

    • Develop according to plan inherit to us as a species (an orderly process of development)

Erikson’s Eight Stages of Development

• Eight stage model of psychosocial development

  • Psychosocial conflicts with two potential outcomes 

  • One stages solution will influence another stages outcome

    • How trust v mistrust is solved will impact solution to identity v confusion

  • Identity crisis (5th stage) has individuals to confront need to develop coherent sense of identity

    • Not every fully resolved, can occur at any time in life (divorce, new career)

      • Adolescence need to resolve initial identities to better adjust to later identity crises

Marcia’s Identity Statuses

• Based on Erikson’s stage theory

  • To what extent an identity has been committed to, or explored

    • Explored and committed to identity = Identity Achievement 

    • Explored and not committed to identity = Moratorium 

    • Not explored and committed to identity = Foreclosure (‘fore’-others)

    • Not explored and not committed to identity = Diffusion

Identity Statuses and Individual Characteristics

• Achievement

  • Healthiest, most balanced

• Moratorium

  • Anxious, but openly searching 

• Foreclosure

  • Most rigid, least autonomous

• Diffusion

  • Most problems, not well integrated socially

  • No real sense of self