Socioemotional Dev in Adolescence

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Socioemotional Dev in Adolescence

• Lecture 17
• C6035 Human Development

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Identity

• Some Contemporary Thoughts About Identity
• Identity formation begins with appearance of
  attachment - development of sense of self,
  emergence of independence in infancy
• Healthy identities are flexible, adaptive open
  to changes in society, in relationships in
  careers
• It is long, synthesizing process with tremendous
  amount of conflict resolution

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Identity Statuses Development

• James Marcia outlined four identity statuses, or
  modes of resolution following a crisis which is
  defined as period of identity development during
  which adolescent is choosing among meaningful
  alternatives also involved is commitment in
  which adolescents show personal investment in
  what they are going to do

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Identity Statuses Development

• Identity diffusion adolescents have not yet
  experienced a crisis or have made any commitments
• Identity foreclosure adolescents who have made
  commitment but have not experienced crisis
• Identity moratorium commitments are either
  absent or vaguely defined
• Identity achievement adolescents who have
  undergone crisis have made commitment

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Family Influences on Identity

• Democratic parents who encourage adolescents to
  participate in family decision making, foster
  identity development
• Presence of family atmosphere that promotes both
  individuality connectedness is important in
  adolescents identity development
• Individuality consists of self-assertion
  separateness
• Connectedness consists of mutuality, sensitivity
  to respect for others views permeability or
  openness to others views

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Culture, Ethnicity, and Gender

• Erikson believes that struggle for an inclusive
  identity, or an identity within larger culture,
  has been driving force in founding of churches,
  empires revolutions throughout history
• Ethnic minority youths awareness of negative
  appraisals, conflicting values restricted
  occupational opportunities can influence life
  choices plans for future

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Culture, Ethnicity, and Gender

• Context in which ethnic minority youth live
  influence their identity development
• Many live in poverty are exposed to violence
  related to drugs alcohol abuse
• Some researchers believe Eriksons identity
  stages are reversed for females in that for them,
  intimacy precedes identity
• Relationships emotional bonds are more
  important concerns of females, while autonomy
  achievement are more important concerns of males

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Families Autonomy and Attachment

• Ability to attain autonomy and gain control over
  ones behavior in adolescence is acquired through
  appropriate adult reactions to adolescents
  desire for control
• There is evidence that secure attachment to
  parents in adolescence may facilitate
  adolescents social competence well-being, as
  reflected in such characteristics as self-esteem,
  emotional adjustment physical health

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Families Insecure Categories of Attachment

• Dismissing/avoidant Attachment
• Individuals de-emphasize importance of attachment
  - associated with consistent experiences of
  rejection of attachment needs by caregivers
• Preoccupied/ambivalent attachment
• Adolescents are hypertuned to attachment
  experiences - Occurs mainly when parents are
  inconsistently available to adolescent.
• Unresolved/disorganized attachment
• Adolescent has an unusually high level of fear
  is disoriented - may result from such traumatic
  experiences as a parent's death or parent abuse

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Parent-Adolescent Conflict

• Many parents see adolescent changing from
  compliant child to someone who is noncompliant,
  oppositional resistant to parental standards
• Conflict with parents increases in early
  adolescence, but it does not reach tumultuous
  proportions G. Stanley Hall envisioned at
  beginning of 20th century
• Much of conflict involves everyday events of
  family life rarely involve major dilemmas, such
  as drugs or delinquency
• Everyday conflicts actually serve positive
  developmental function by facilitating
  adolescents transition from being dependent on
  parents to becoming an autonomous individual

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Maturation of Adolescents Parents

• Conflict between parents adolescents is the
  most stressful during apex of pubertal growth
• Parental changes include
• marital dissatisfaction - greater when offspring
  is an adolescent
• economic burdens - greater economic burden is
  placed on parents during rearing of their
  adolescents.
• career reevaluation

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Competent Adolescent Development

• Most likely to happen when parents
• Show them warmth mutual respect,
• Demonstrate sustained interest in their lives
• Recognize their cognitive socioemotional
  development
• Display authoritative, constructive ways of
  dealing with problems

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Peer Groups

• Conformity to peer pressure in adolescence can be
  positive or negative
• Negative conformity behavior includes using seedy
  language, stealing vandalizing
• Great deal of peer conformity consists of desire
  to be involved in peer world, such as dressing
  like friends wanting to spend large amounts of
  time with members of a clique

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Peers Crowds vs Cliques

• The crowd is largest least personal of
  adolescent groups
• They meet because of their mutual interest in
  activities
• Cliques are smaller, involve greater intimacy
  among members have more group cohesion than
  crowds

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Cliques and Groups of Peers

• In one study, clique membership was associated
  with adolescent self-esteem
• The cliques included jocks, populars, normals,
  druggies or toughs nobodies
• Self-esteem of jocks and populars was highest,
  while nobodies was lowest
• Members of children groups often are friends or
  neighborhood acquaintances
• During adolescent years, groups tend to include a
  broader array of members
• Ethnic minority adolescents often have two sets
  of peer relationships, one at school , other in
  community where peers are more likely to be from
  their own ethnic group

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Cliques and Groups of Peers

• Observational study by Dexter Dunphy supports
  notion that opposite-sex participation in groups
  increases during adolescence
• As they move into early adolescent years,
  same-sex cliques begin to interact with each
  other eventually high-status leaders begin to
  form heterosexual cliques which participate in
  large crowd activities
• In late adolescence crowd begins to dissolve, as
  couples develop more serious relationships make
  long-range plans that might include engagement
  marriage

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Friendships

• Developmentally, friends become increasingly
  depended on to satisfy need for playful
  companionship during adolescence
• Adolescents also say they depend more on friends
  than on parents to satisfy their needs for
  companionship, reassurance of worth intimacy
• In one study, adolescents spent an average of 103
  minutes per day in meaningful interactions with
  friends, compared with just 28 minutes per day
  with parents
• Although most adolescents develop friendships
  with those who are close to their own age, some
  become best friends with younger or older
  individuals

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Youth Organizations

• Youth organizations can have an important
  influence on adolescent development
• Adolescents who join such groups are more likely
  to participate in community activities in
  adulthood they have higher self-esteem, are
  better educated come from families with higher
  incomes than their counterparts
• Participation in youth groups can help
  adolescents practice interpersonal
  organizational skills that are important for
  success in adult roles

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Dating and Romantic Relationships

• In their early romantic relationships, many
  adolescents are not motivated to fulfill
  attachment or even sexual needs
• Adolescents often find comfort in numbers begin
  hanging out together in heterosexual groups

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Terms associated with dating

• Hooking up describes two individuals who
  casually see each other mainly just kiss make
  out
• Seeing each other casual form of dating but it
  lasts longer than hooking up
• Going out describes a dating relationship in
  which adolescents stop seeing other people and
  see each other exclusively
• Cyberdating dating over internet

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Dating Scripts and Emotions

• Dating scripts are cognitive models that guide
  individuals dating interactions
• In one study, first dates were highly scripted
  along gender lines
• Males script involved initiating date,
  controlling public domain initiating sexual
  interaction
• Female script focused on private domain,
  participating in structure of date established by
  male responding to his sexual overtures
• In another study, male and female adolescents
  were more likely to describe romance in terms of
  interpersonal qualities, while boys used terms of
  physical attraction

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Dating and Romantic Relationships

• Learning to manage these strong emotions can give
  adolescents a sense of competence
• In one study of 9th-12th graders, it was revealed
  that strong emotions were attached far less to
  school (13), family (9) same-sex peer
  relations (8) than to heterosexual relationships
  (33)
• Majority of emotions were reported as positive,
  but substantial minority (42), were reported as
  negative, including feelings of anxiety, anger,
  jealousy depression
• Infants who had anxious attachment with their
  caregiver in infancy were less likely to develop
  positive couple relationships in adolescence

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Culture and Adolescent Development

• Cross-Cultural Comparisons and Rites of Passage
• Ideas about nature of adolescents orientation
  toward adolescents may vary from culture to
  culture within same culture over different time
  periods

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Culture and Adolescent Development

• Cross-cultural studies involve comparison of
  culture with one or more other cultures, which
  provides information about degree to which
  development is similar, or universal, across
  cultures, or degree to which it is
  culture-specific
• Study of adolescence has emerged in context of
  Western industrialized society has evolved as
  norm for all adolescents of human species
• Can produce erroneous conclusions about nature of
  adolescents

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Rite of Passage

• Ceremony or ritual that marks individuals
  transition from one status to another-focus on
  transition to adult status
• Often involve dramatic practices intended to
  facilitate adolescents separation from immediate
  family, especially mother
• Religion
• Bar mitzvah Catholic confirmation
• School graduation
• Closest to being culture-wide rites of passage in
  U.S.
• Sexual Intercourse
• By end of adolescence, more than 70 of Americans
  had sexual intercourse

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Ethnicity and Socioeconomic Status

• Ethnicity and socioeconomic status can interact
  in ways that exaggerate influence of ethnicity
  because ethnic minority individuals are
  over-represented in lower socioeconomic levels of
  American society
• Middle-income ethnic minority youth still
  encounter much of prejudice, discrimination,
  bias associated with being member of an ethnic
  minority group

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Differences and Diversity

• Ethnic minority groups are not homogeneous they
  have different social, historical economic
  backgrounds
• Mexican, Cuban Puerto Rican immigrants are all
  Latinos, but they migrated for different reasons,
  came from varying socioeconomic backgrounds in
  their native countries experience different
  rates types of employment in U.S.

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Juvenile Delinquency

• Adolescent who breaks the law or engages in
  behavior that is considered illegal
• FBI statistics estimate that at least 2 of all
  youth are involved in juvenile court cases
• Heredity, identity problems, community influences
  family experiences have been proposed as causes
  of delinquency
• Some characteristics of lower-class culture may
  promote delinquency
• Norms of many lower-class peer groups gangs are
  antisocial, or counterproductive of the goals of
  society at large

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Depression and Suicide

• Adolescents have higher rate of depression than
  children
• Female adolescents are more likely to have mood
  depressive disorders than males
• Family factors such as having depressed parent,
  emotionally unavailable parent, parents who have
  high marital conflict 7 parents with financial
  problems contribute to teenage depression
• Adolescent suicide has tripled since 1950s, and
  is third leading cause of death in 15-24
  year-olds
• Males are three times more likely to commit
  suicide than females, but females attempt it more
  frequently

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Successful Prevention/Intervention Programs

• Most at-risk adolescents have more than one
  problem
• As many as 10 of all adolescents in U.S. have
  multiple-problem behaviors
• Some programs that have proved successful in
  helping adolescents with problems are
• Intensive individualized attention
• Community-wide multiagency collaborative
  approaches
• Early identification intervention