Adolescence
Adolescence (from Latin adolescere 'to mature') is a transitional stage of physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age of majority).
In males, these changes involve appearance of pubic, facial, and body hair, deepening of the voice, roughening of the skin around the upper arms and thighs, and increased development of the sweat glands.
[37]: 57–58 The changes in secondary sex characteristics that take place during puberty are often referred to in terms of five Tanner stages,[48] named after the British pediatrician who devised the categorization system.
The second is the information-processing perspective, which derives from the study of artificial intelligence and attempts to explain cognitive development in terms of the growth of specific components of the thinking process.
)[76] This also permits the application of advanced reasoning and logical processes to social and ideological matters such as interpersonal relationships, politics, philosophy, religion, morality, friendship, faith, fairness, and honesty.
They begin to differentiate between rules instituted out of common sense—not touching a hot stove—and those that are based on culturally relative standards (codes of etiquette, not dating until a certain age), a delineation that younger children do not make.
In addition, from a population perspective, there is an advantage to having a group of individuals willing to take more risks and try new methods, counterbalancing the more conservative elements more typical of the received knowledge held by older adults.
Hall, who was the first president of the American Psychological Association, defined adolescence to be the period of life from ages 14 to 24, and viewed it primarily as a time of internal turmoil and upheaval (sturm und drang).
Freud believed that the psychological disturbances associated with youth were biologically based and culturally universal while Erikson focused on the dichotomy between identity formation and role fulfillment.
[92] The studies looked at human development during the Great Depression and World War II, unique historical circumstances under which a generation of children grew up.
[91] Evolutionary biologists like Jeremy Griffith have drawn parallels between adolescent psychology and the developmental evolution of modern humans from hominid ancestors as a manifestation of ontogeny recapitulating phylogeny.
[97] Since choices made during adolescent years can influence later life, high levels of self-awareness and self-control during mid-adolescence will lead to better decisions during the transition to adulthood.
[103][105] Further distinctions in self-concept, called "differentiation," occur as the adolescent recognizes the contextual influences on their own behavior and the perceptions of others, and begin to qualify their traits when asked to describe themselves.
Young children tend to assert themselves forcefully, but are unable to demonstrate much influence over family decisions until early adolescence,[137] when they are increasingly viewed by parents as equals.
[168] Adolescents use online technology to experiment with emerging identities and to broaden their peer groups, such as increasing the amount of friends acquired on Facebook and other social media sites.
College Professor Lucia O'Sullivan and her colleagues found that there were no significant gender differences in the relationship events adolescent boys and girls from grades 7–12 reported.
Practitioners diagnosing depression among urban minority teens should assess for both physical and non-physical forms of IPV, and early detection can help to identify youths in need of intervention and care.
While some of these, such as emotional distress (fear of abuse or exploitation) and sexually transmitted infections/diseases (STIs/STDs), including HIV/AIDS, are not necessarily inherent to adolescence, others such as teenage pregnancy (through non-use or failure of contraceptives) are seen as social problems in most western societies.
Across the country, clinicians report rising diagnoses of herpes and human papillomavirus (HPV), which can cause genital warts, and is now thought to affect 15 percent of the teen population.
[195] In his short book "The Teenage Consumer" published in July 1959, the British market research pioneer Mark Abrams identified the emergence of a new economic group of people aged 13–25.
[201] Proper development of autonomy has been tied to good mental health, high self-esteem, self-motivated tendencies, positive self-concepts, and self-initiating and regulating behaviors.
[207] Differences between families in the distribution of financial responsibilities or provision of allowance may reflect various social background circumstances and intrafamilial processes, which are further influenced by cultural norms and values, as well as by the business sector and market economy of a given society.
[214] While organized religion is not necessarily a part of every adolescent's life experience, youth are still held responsible for forming a set of beliefs about themselves, the world around them, and whatever higher powers they may or may not believe in.
Furthermore, since the advent of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 (children here defined as under 18), almost every country in the world (except the U.S. and South Sudan) has legally committed to advancing an anti-discriminatory stance towards young people of all ages.
[221] Specific legal ages for adolescents that also vary by culture are enlisting in the military, gambling, and the purchase of alcohol, cigarettes or items with parental advisory labels.
[225] Peer acceptance and social norms gain a significantly greater hand in directing behavior at the onset of adolescence; as such, the alcohol and illegal drug habits of teens tend to be shaped largely by the substance use of friends and other classmates.
[240] Some examples of social and religious transition ceremonies that can be found in the U.S., as well as in other cultures around the world, are Confirmation, Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, Quinceañeras, sweet sixteens, cotillions, and débutante balls.
[248] In an article for Scientific American, Robert Epstein and Jennifer Ong state that "American-style teen turmoil is absent in more than 100 cultures around the world, suggesting that such mayhem is not biologically inevitable.
They argue that this threshold is the one at which an individual is objectively capable of speaking for himself or herself, as opposed to culturally arbitrary measures of "maturity" which often treat this ability as a sign of "immaturity" merely because it leads to questioning of authorities.
They also argue that since it never took many years to move from one group to another to avoid inbreeding in the paleolithic, evolutionary psychology is unable to account for a long period of "immature" risk behavior.
