Module 9: Adolescence - Social and Emotional Development

Content

1. Kohlberg’s stages of moral development

2. Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development at this stage

3. Development of self-understanding

4. Familial and peer relationships influence on development

5. Early and late onset of delinquency in adolescence

6. Risk factors for persistence of delinquency

Piaget’s Formal Operations

Starts at about 11 years old. Refers to capacity for abstract, systematic and scientific thinking. Kids no longer require concrete things as objects of thought

Consequences of abstract thought:

• Increase in self-focused thinking

• Imaginary audience: they are the objects of everyone’s attention

• Personal fable: inflated sense of self importance, special and unique

  • Most likely a result of increased perspective-taking, thus concern with what others think

Identity Development

• Identity Achievement:
  – Explored options and made a strong commitment (e.g., career, values)
  – Healthy and stable identity

• Moratorium:
  – Actively exploring, but not yet committed
  – Often involves questioning and uncertainty

• Identity Foreclosure:
  – Commitment made without exploration
  – Often adopts beliefs/roles from parents or authority figures

• Identity Diffusion:
  – No exploration and no commitment
  – Often directionless, disconnected, or apathetic

Moral Development

Kohlberg’s Theory

• Cognitive developmental approach

• Focus: development of reasoning about moral dilemmas

Pre-conventional Level

• Stage 1: Punishment and Obedience

  • The right thing to do is the one that avoids getting in trouble

  • “It is wrong because you will get in trouble”

• Stage 2: Individualism and exchange

  • Right actions serve individual’s needs or involve a fair exchange

  • “You scratch my back, I will scratch yours

Conventional Level

• Stage 3: Good-Boy-Good-Girl Orientation

  • Behaviour that pleases others is right

  • “Good people do not do that”

• Stage 4: Law and Order Orientation

  • Authorities and rules determine what is right

  • “If nobody abode the rules, the society would fall apart”

Post-Conventional Level

• Stage 5: Social Contract Orientation

  • Values and principles guide what is right

  • Laws are important, but can be challenged for the greater good

• Stage 6: Universal Ethical Principle Orientation

  • Morality based on abstract principles like justice, equality

  • May involve civil disobedience if laws conflict with ethics

  • Rare; ideal moral reasoning

Developmental progression:

• Most children at stages 1 and 2

• Most adolescents at stage 3

• Adults:

  • 30% at stage 3

  • 60% at stage 4

  • < 10% at stage 5

• Stage 6 is not always included due to few qualifying

Evaluation

• Too much emphasis on moral reasoning, too little on moral behaviour

• Reasoning in real life dilemmas is lower as entails practical considerations and emotional reaction

• Similar development (stages 1-4) across cultures

Parent and Child Relationships

• Need to unconsciously break childish attachments to love peers

• More of a transformation, rather than traumatic severing

While warm and supportive parenting is associated with optimal adolescent behaviour, coercive and controlling parenting is associated with

• Low self-esteem

• Depression

• Substance abuse

• Antisocial behaviour

Uninvolved parenting is associated with delinquency and risky behaviours

Parent-Adolescent conflict:

• Mainly daily living hassles

• Adolescents engage in psychological distancing

• Independence vs control/protection

Parents are also going through a developmental task around the time their kids become adolescents. While teenagers have endless possibilities for their future, around that time parents start feeling like their opportunities are closing in. While kids discover love and sex, their parents are at the lowest point in their marital satisfaction. While adolescents are in their physical prime, their parents are starting to notice first effects of aging.

Conflict is strongest:

• early adolescence

• girls

• early maturers

• first borns

• with mothers

Conflict level is predicted by quality of relationship

Peers and Cliques

Adolescent Friendships

• Provide mutual support

• Experimentation with rules and identity

• Forum for questioning adult values

• Meeting opposite sex

Increased intimacy for same-sex friends most important assistance with sexuality and identity

Cliques and Crowds

Clique: groups of 2-12 members that live near each other and meet up during the week to share, plan, talk, etc; often same sex

Crowd: aggregates of 2 or more cliques that meet up on the weekends for social functions; based on reputation and stereotypes

Cliques are same sex at the start of adolescence, but become mixed sex gradually to facilitate dating. In later adolescence there is a breakdown of cliques and crowds, due to facilitation of identity and experience in dealing with opposite sex

Peer Pressure

• Strongest in early adolescence

• Negative peer pressure is associated with

  • shyness

  • transition to new school

  • aspiration to higher status peer group

  • low self-esteem

  • poor relationships with parents

  • authoritarian, permissive, uninvolved parenting

Juvenile Delinquency

Conduct Disorder: the more medical term

Juvenile Delinquency: the more legalistic term

• Age inappropriate actions and attitudes that violate family expectations, social norms, and personal and property rights of others

Conduct Disorder (CD) diagnostic criteria

• 3+ behaviours in the past 12 months from following categories:

  • Aggression to people and animals

  • Destruction of property

  • Deceitfulness or theft

  • Serious violation of rules

May be childhood- or adolescence- onset

• ODD string precursor to childhood-onset

• Adolescent-onset more likely to remit by adulthood

Population prevalence 2 - 10%, increases from childhood to adolescence, higher in boys

High comorbidity with ADHD (30-50%)

Path to chronic delinquency from early childhood

• Early childhood: difficult temperament, harsh/inconsistent parenting, insecure attachment

• Preschool: oppositional behaviour, early signs of ODD

• Primary school: defiance, poor peer relations, academic issues

• Late childhood: transition to Conduct Disorder, peer rejection, increased rule-breaking

• Adolescence: association with deviant peers, serious delinquent acts, poor impulse control

• Early adulthood: risk of Antisocial Personality Disorder, continued criminal behaviour, poor life outcomes

Important variables:

• Difficult temperament as a baby

• Unhappy family life

• Defiant behaviour and aggression

• Rejection by peers

• Academic failure

• Commitment to deviant groups

Interventions/Treatment

• Functional Family Therapy (FFT)

  • Targets dysfunctional family patterns contributing to CD

  • Focuses on improving communication, parenting skills, and reducing negativity in the home

  • Short-term, strengths-based, often 12–14 sessions

  • Delivered in the home or clinic

  • Effective for moderate cases of CD

  Multisystemic Therapy (MST)

  • Intensive intervention for serious, chronic offenders

  • Addresses multiple systems: family, school, peers, neighbourhood

  • Delivered in-home by a team, available 24/7, lasts 3–6 months

  • Focuses on parenting, school engagement, cutting off deviant peer ties

  • Strong evidence for reducing recidivism and out-of-home placements

  Multidimensional Treatment Foster Care (MTFC)

  • Alternative to residential care for high-risk youth

  • Youth is placed with trained foster parents while bio-family receives parallel support

  • Foster home enforces consistent rules and reinforcement

  • Intensive supervision, therapy, school coordination

  • Focused on behaviour change, improving relationships, and reintegration