The Self, Identity, and Religious/Spiritual Development
Self-Esteem
The self-esteem of girls declines more during adolescence.
Self-esteem reflects perceptions that do not always match reality.
For example, one’s perception of one’s own intelligence or attractiveness.
High self-esteem may refer to accurate, justified perceptions but can also indicate an unwarranted sense of superiority.
Narcissism: a self-centered and self-concerned approach toward others.
Self-Regulation
Self-regulation is important to many aspects of adolescents’ lives.
Academic achievement.
Good health habits.
Avoiding risky behaviors.
A key component is effortful control, which involves:
Inhibiting impulses.
Not engaging in destructive behavior.
Focusing and maintaining attention despite distractions.
Initiating and completing tasks that have long-term value, even if they may seem unpleasant.
Identity
Identity is a self-portrait composed of many pieces and domains:
Vocational/career identity.
Political identity.
Religious identity.
Relationship identity.
Achievement, intellectual identity.
Sexual identity.
Cultural/ethnic identity.
Interests.
Personality.
Physical identity.
Erikson’s View
The fifth developmental stage, experienced in adolescence, is identity versus identity confusion.
The search for identity is aided by a psychosocial moratorium—the gap between childhood security and adult autonomy.
Adolescents experiment with different roles and personalities.
Adolescents who cope with conflicting identities emerge with a new sense of self.
Adolescents who do not successfully resolve the identity crisis suffer identity confusion.
Developmental Changes
Most significantly, the individual can now sort through and synthesize childhood identities to construct a path toward maturity.
James Marcia classifies individuals at this stage based on the existence or extent of their crisis or commitment.
Crisis: a period of identity development during which the adolescent is exploring alternatives.
Commitment: a personal investment in identity.
Marcia’s Four Statuses of Identity
Identity diffusion: individuals who have not yet experienced a crisis (explored meaningful alternatives) or made any commitments.
Identity foreclosure: those who have made a commitment but have not experienced a crisis.
Identity moratorium: those who are in the midst of a crisis, but their commitments are either absent or vaguely defined.
Identity achievement: those who have undergone a crisis and have made a commitment.
Emerging Adulthood and Beyond
Key changes in identity are more likely to take place in emerging adulthood—or later—than in adolescence.
College can have significant effects, including increased complexity in reasoning and a wide range of new experiences.
Identity does not remain stable throughout life.
Many follow “MAMA” cycles: from moratorium to achievement to moratorium to achievement.
The first identity should not be expected to be the final product.
Cultural and Ethnic Identity
Identity development is influenced by culture and ethnicity.
Ethnic identity: an enduring aspect of the self that includes a sense of membership in an ethnic group and the attitudes and feelings related to that membership.
Many adolescents develop a bicultural identity, based on both their ethnic group and the majority culture.
Pride in one’s ethnic identity group and a strong ethnic identity and connection has positive outcomes.
Influenced by positive and diverse friendships.
Identity Development and the Digital Environment
Social media platforms have introduced ways for youth to express and explore their identity, casting themselves as positive on their digital devices.
Post attractive photos and videos of themselves, friends, and family.
Describe themselves in idealistic ways.
Continually edit and rework their online self-portraits.
These platforms provide the opportunity for public feedback—which, as in the offline world, is not always positive.
Religious/Spiritual Development
Although important to many, religious interest among adolescents has declined in the twenty-first century.
Assessed in terms of frequency of prayer, discussion of teachings, and deciding moral actions for religious reasons, along with the overall importance of religion in everyday life.
Adolescent girls are more religious than are adolescent boys.
Emerging adults in less developed countries are more likely to be religious than their counterparts in more developed countries.
Cognitive Development and Religion in Adolescence
More so than in childhood, adolescents think abstractly, idealistically, and logically.
The increase in abstract thinking lets adolescents consider various ideas about religious and spiritual concepts.
Increased idealistic thinking provides a foundation for considering religion’s role in a better world.
An increased capacity for logical reasoning enables them to develop hypotheses and sort through answers to spiritual questions.
The Positive Role of Religion in Adolescents’ Lives
Religion plays a role in adolescents’ health and has an influence on whether they engage in problem behaviors.
Research links religiosity or spirituality to a decreased likelihood of engaging in substance use and to positive health outcomes.
In one study, spirituality but not religiosity was linked to higher life satisfaction.
Many religious adolescents adopt their religion’s message about caring and concern for people.
Increased likelihood of engaging in community service.
Families
Parental Monitoring and Information Management
A key aspect of the managerial role of parenting is effective monitoring.
Supervising adolescents’ choice of social settings, activities, and friends.
Supervising academic efforts.
Higher levels of monitoring and rule enforcement are linked to:
Engaging later in sex and using condoms.
Getting more sleep.
Better health behavior in adolescence and college.
Adolescents’ Management of Parents’ Access to Information
Disclosing or concealing information about their activities.
When parents engage in positive parenting practices, adolescents are more likely to disclose information.
This disclosure is linked to positive adolescent adjustment.
Adolescents who engage in problem behaviors are more secretive and disclose less to parents.
Autonomy and Attachment
Parents must weigh competing needs for autonomy and control, for independence and connection.
The push for autonomy may puzzle and frustrate some parents.
Adolescents often have a strong desire to make their own decisions—and to spend time with friends.
Adolescents’ ability to attain autonomy is acquired through appropriate adult reactions to their desire for control.
When given autonomy, teens feel they have more independence and a better parental relationship.
Boys are typically given more independence.
Cultural diversity in timing and roles must also be considered.
The Role of Attachment
Securely attached adolescents are less likely to have emotional difficulties and to engage in problem behaviors, juvenile delinquency, and drug abuse.
Balancing freedom and control: Adolescents still need to stay connected with their family.
For example, those who do not eat with a parent on most days have higher rates of substance use.
A high monitoring, high autonomy support parenting profile is positively linked to adolescent adjustment.
Parent-Adolescent Conflict
Parent-adolescent conflict increases in early adolescence, but much of it involves the everyday events of family life.
Rarely major dilemmas.
Such conflicts may serve a positive developmental function by facilitating the transition to greater autonomy.
Parents are important attachment figures and support systems while adolescents explore a more complex social world.
When conflict is prolonged and intense, it is associated with various problems, many of them serious.
Some conflict is especially likely between immigrant parents and their adolescents as adolescents quickly adapt to new norms.
Peers
Friendships
Most teens prefer a smaller number of friendships that are more intense and more intimate.
Friends become increasingly important in meeting social needs.
Developmental advantages occur when friends are:
Socially skilled.
Supportive.
Oriented toward academic achievement.
Developmental disadvantages are more likely with:
Coercive friends who encourage drinking.
Conflict-ridden, poor-quality friendships.
Peer Groups
Social Media and Peer Relations
Five ways social media use transforms adolescent peer relationships:
Changing the frequency or immediacy of their experiences.
Amplifying their experiences and demands.
Altering the qualitative aspects of their interactions.
Facilitating new opportunities for their compensatory behaviors.
Creating completely novel behaviors.
Peer Pressure
Young adolescents conform more to peer standards than children.
Boys are more influenced by peer pressure involving sexual behavior than girls.
Adolescents with low self-esteem and high social anxiety are most likely to conform to peers and during transitions (for example, a new school).
Cliques and Crowds
Clique: a small group of about five or six individuals that may form among adolescents who engage in similar activities.
May also form because of friendship.
Crowd: a larger group structure that is usually based on reputation.
Members may or may not spend much time together.
Most are defined by the activities adolescents engage in— that is, “jocks” and “druggies.”
The appearance of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) in 2020 quickly affected the ways friendship and peer relations take place.
Social distancing—maintaining a distance of 6 feet or more from others—may for some increase feelings of social isolation.
In this respect, the dramatic increase in social media use may prove to be of great value, allowing adolescents to stay connected with friends and peers online.
Dating and Romantic Relationships
Developmental Changes
Three stages characterize the development of romantic relationships in adolescence:
Entry into romantic attractions and affiliations at about 11 to 13 years of age.
Exploring romantic relationships at approximately 14 to 16 years of age, often through casual dating and dating in groups.
Consolidating dyadic romantic bonds at about 17 to 19 years of age.
Two variations are considered early bloomers and late bloomers.
Dating in Gay and Lesbian Youth
Many date other-sex peers, which can help clarify their sexual orientation or disguise it from others.
Most gay and lesbian youth have had some same-sex experience, often with peers who are “experimenting.”
Sociocultural Contexts and Dating
Cultures, values, beliefs, and traditions often dictate the age at which dating begins, how much freedom is allowed, whether dates must be chaperoned, and the roles of males and females.
Dating can be a source of conflict in families, especially if parents grew up in a culture where little freedom is allowed.
Dating and Adjustment
Experiencing romantic encounters can increase social acceptance, friendship competence, and romantic competence.
Supportive romantic relationships can improve the likelihood of positive outcomes for adolescents experiencing conflict in other parts of their lives.
Having more romantic relationships can also have negative implications.
Higher levels of substance use, delinquency, and sexual behavior.
In girls, depression and pregnancy.
Culture and Adolescent Development
Cross-Cultural Comparisons
Depending on the culture, adolescence may involve many different experiences.
Health
Overall, fewer adolescents die from infectious diseases and malnutrition today; but health-compromising behaviors are increasing in frequency.
Gender
The experiences of male and female adolescents continue to be quite different.
In much of the world, males have far greater access to education, a variety of careers, and leisure activities.
Far more restrictions are placed on the sexual activity of adolescent females than on that of males.
Differences are narrowing over time, however.
Family
In some countries, families are close-knit and have extensive kin networks; but current trends of mobility and migration are bringing change.
Countries like the United States are seeing greater numbers of divorced families and stepfamilies.
Peers
In some regions, peer relations are restricted (especially for girls); in others, the peer network can serve as surrogate family.
Activities
U.S. adolescents have far more discretionary time than adolescents in other industrialized countries.
When given a choice, they typically engage in unchallenging activities such as hanging out and watching TV.
Rites of Passage
Some societies have elaborate ceremonies that signal the adolescent’s move to maturity and achievement of adult status—commonly referred to as a rite of passage.
Often characterized by some form of ritual death and rebirth.
American culture does not have universal formal ceremonies, but some religious and social groups have initiation ceremonies.
For example, the Jewish bar and bat mitzvah and the Catholic confirmation.
School graduation may be the most culture-wide rite of passage in the United States.
Socioeconomic Status and Poverty
Adolescents from low-income and impoverished families are at greater risk for low academic achievement, emotional problems, and lower occupational attainment.
Psychological problems and physical illness are also more prevalent among low-SES adolescents.
The following factors appear to improve academic achievement for children living in poverty:
Greater academic commitment;
Emotional control;
Family involvement; and
A supportive school climate.
Ethnicity
Immigration
Immigrants often experience stressors uncommon to or less prominent among long-time residents.
Language barriers.
Dislocations and separations from support networks.
The dual struggle to preserve identity and to acculturate.
Changes in socioeconomic status.
Many individuals in immigrant families are also dealing with the problem of being undocumented.
The ways ethnic minority families deal with stress depend on many different factors.
Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status
Ethnicity and SES can interact in ways that exaggerate the influence of ethnicity, because ethnic minorities are overrepresented in the lower-SES levels of American society.
Thus, many ethnic minority adolescents experience a double disadvantage:
Prejudice, discrimination, and bias because of their ethnic minority status.
Stressful effects of poverty.
Economic advantage among middle-income ethnic minority youth does not mean they escape prejudice, discrimination, and bias.
Media Use and Screen Time
Screen time includes how much time individuals spend watching television or DVDs, playing video games, and using computers or mobile media devices.
Nighttime mobile phone use and poor sleep behavior increases from 13 to 16 years of age.
Among both girls and boys, heavy users of digital media are twice as likely to have low psychological well-being.
The more screen time adolescents have, the more their academic achievement suffers.
One major trend is the dramatic increase in media multitasking, which at a general level is distracting and impairs performance on many tasks.
Technology and digitally mediated communication: Mobile media such as smartphones are mainly driving the increased media use by adolescents.
A national survey also revealed dramatic increases in adolescents’ use of social media and text messaging.
Twenty-four percent of those surveyed said they were online almost constantly.
Less screen time has been linked to better health-related quality of life among adolescents.
Text messaging is the preferred method of contact with friends, while voice mail is used to connect with parents.
Adolescent Problems
Juvenile Delinquency
Juvenile delinquent: an adolescent who breaks the law or engages in behavior that is considered illegal.
Delinquency rates:
Males are more likely to engage in delinquency than females.
Rates among minority groups and lower-SES youth are especially high.
Causes of delinquency:
Lower-SES culture.
Parents less skilled in discouraging antisocial behavior.
Siblings and delinquent peers.
Depression and Suicide
Depression
Factors contributing to depression:
Genes.
Certain family factors.
Poor peer relationships.
Treatment of depression:
Drug therapy using serotonin reuptake inhibitors.
Cognitive behavioral therapy.
Interpersonal therapy.
Suicide
In the United States, suicide is now the third-leading cause of death in 10- to 19-year-olds.
Adolescents contemplate or attempt it unsuccessfully more often than they actually commit it.
Females are more likely to attempt suicide, but males are more likely to succeed.
Risk factors for suicide:
History of family instability and unhappiness.
Lack of supportive friendships.
Cultural contexts and genetic factors.
Depressive symptoms.
The Interrelation of Problems and Successful Prevention/Intervention Programs
The four problems that affect the most adolescents are:
Drug abuse.
Juvenile delinquency.
Sexual problems.
School-related problems.
A review of the programs that have been successful in preventing or reducing adolescent problems found these common components: