Adolescence, Essay Example

Adolescence has been described as a time of biopsychosocial transition. This means that adolescence is accompanied by biological, psychological, and social behavioral changes. Individuals entering adolescent stage experience biologicalmaturity and sense of independence and self-reliance. They become more aware of their social image and increasingly develop life outside homes. Boys and girls also experience development in their sexual organs and undergo significant physical changes such as taller heights and more adult-like features such as facial hair or more pronounced breasts. Similarly, their brains also grow in size and capabilities, resulting in greater analytical and judgmental skills. Girls usually react adversely to physical maturity especially if it’s ahead of their peers while boys tend to show pride in such changes. Because their brains are still a work-in-progress, adolescents are also more likely to engage in risky behaviors in order to seek thrill because though aware of the risks involved, they tend to underestimate the costs(Myers, 2009).

Adolescents’ worldview expands and instead of purely self-centered view of everything, they start considering themselves as part of a bigger social system and worry about their image in the eyes of others. According to Jean Piaget, adolescents finally start developing abstract reasoning skills which is due to their cognitive growth. Lawrence Kohlberg found that before adolescence, children’s moral values are guided by self-interests but in adolescence, they start taking into account the overall interests of the society and form ethical guidelines to shape their moral positions(Myers, 2009).

According to Erikson’s Stages of Psychosocial Development, adolescents attempt to create a personal identity and want to figure out who they really are. They search for a purpose in life and set goals and values to live by. Erik Erikson himself struggled with a personal identity because of discrimination against Jews in schools as well as bias against non-Jewish traditional looks in Synagogues. Adolescents attempt to find their individual and social identities through trial and error until they figure out a role they feel most comfortable in and groups they blend in well. But adolescents have greater freedom in individualistic cultures to form their own identities while traditional cultures usually try to impose certain identity elements on their adolescent members. Because adolescents are trying to form independent thinking and identity, it is no surprise that their relationships with their parents and other elders suffer. In addition, at the same time that parents influence grows weaker on adolescents, peer influence grows stronger (Myers, 2009). This may be because adolescents feel that their peers are of the same age and go through the similar experiences thus, the peers understand their concerns and life choices better.

Dr. Reed Larson at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign addresses a common misconception among parents regarding sudden change of behavior among children as they enter adolescence. Parents often argue that hormones cause emotional upswings among children but Dr. Larson clarifies that it is very hard to study hormones and  when kids with either high or low hormones around the age of puberty are studied, they don’t show substantial differences in terms of emotional level. Similarly, if teenagers are studied before and after puberty, a major difference is not found in terms of their emotional swings. Thus, the changes in emotional behavior among adolescents are more due to different life experiences that accompany adolescence rather than hormones(Larson). Similarly, Dr. Ronald Dahl at the University of Pittsburgh also attempts to address the misconceptions about the role of hormones in adolescents’ behavior. Dr. Dahl explains that brain undergoes changes at puberty and these are the changes in brains that make the hormone levels go up rather than the other way around. Dr. Dahl argues that adolescents’ behaviors are also influenced by the environment in addition to the complex changes that brain goes through (Dahl).

References

Dahl, R. (n.d.). Adolescence and Brain Development . (McGrawHill, Interviewer)

Larson, R. (n.d.). Adolescence and Hormones. (McGrawHill, Interviewer)

Myers, D. (2009). Adolescence. In Psychology (pp. 195-205). NY: Worth Publishers.