Kathleen Stassen Berger

Part V

Chapter Sixteen

Adolescence: Psychosocial Development

Identity Relationships

Sexuality
Sadness and Anger
Prepared by Madeleine Lacefield Tattoon, M.A.
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Identity
A consistent definition of ones self as a unique individual, in terms of roles, attitudes, beliefs, and aspirations.

Identity
identity versus diffusion
Eriksons terms for the fifth stage of development, in which the person tries to figure out Who am I? but is confused as to which of many possible roles to adopt.

Identity, cont.
identity achievement
Eriksons term for the attainment of identity, or the point at which a person understands who he or she is as a unique individual, in accord with past experiences and future plans.

Identity, cont.
Not Yet Achievement
identity diffusion is the opposite of identity achievement
it is a situation in which an adolescent does not seem to know or care what his or her identity is.
Whatever.

Identity, cont.
Not Yet Achievement
Foreclosure
Ericksons term for premature identity formation, which occurs when an adolescent adopts parents or societys roles and values wholesale, without questioning and analysis.
short-circuit their search by not questioning traditional values

Identity, cont.
Not Yet Achievement, cont.
moratorium
A way for adolescents to postpone making identity achievement choices by finding an accepted way to avoid identity achievement.
going to college is the most common example

Identity, cont.
Four Arenas of Identity Achievement highlighted by Erikson
religious identity
few teenagers achieve most religions expect young people to struggle with theological questions

sexual or gender identity

sex/sexual referring to biological male/female characteristics gender referring to cultural and social characteristics

Identity, cont.
Four Arenas of Identity Achievement
political or ethnic identity
political, identifying with a party ethnic, identifying with a person

vocational identity
few teenagers can find meaningful work most available jobs are different from in the past the required skills for many vocations take years to attain makes it premature to select at age 16

Relationships
Adults and teenagers Conflicts at home
bickering repeated, petty arguments

What do you see in the body position of these two that suggests a generational conflict?

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Relationships
Closeness with the family
Communication
talk openly with one another

Support
rely on one another

Connectedness
emotionally close

Control
encourage or limit autonomy
parental monitoring parent knowledge about childs whereabouts
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Relationships
Ongoing influence Peer Support Cliques and Crowds
Clique
A group of adolescents made up of close friends who are loyal to one another while excluding outsiders

Crowd
A large group of adolescents who have something in common but who are not necessarily related

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Relationships
Choosing friends
peer pressure
social pressure to conform to peer activities

deviance training
destructive peer support in which one person shows another how to rebel against authority or social norms

peer selection
ongoing, active process whereby adolescents select friends based on shared interests and values

peer facilitation
encouragement adolescents give one another to partake in activities or behaviors they would not otherwise do alone constructive or destructive
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Relationships
Friends of Both Sexes
parents sometime worry about boy-girl contact..

Immigrant Youth
millions of immigrants born abroad or those whose parents were born in another nation
one-third in Frankfurt one-half in Amsterdam two-thirds in Los Angeles and New York

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Sexuality
Before Committed Partnership
1. groups of friends, exclusively one sex or the other 2. a loose association of girls and boys, with public interactions within a crowd 3. small mixed-sex groups of the advanced members of the crowd 4. formation of couples, with private intimacies

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Sexuality
Romances
first appears in high school

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Sexuality

Homosexual Youth
complications slow down the formation of friendships and romantic bonds parents and societies continue to be concerned about adolescent sexual relationships sexual behavior is strongly influenced by information, and examples of other adolescents

Learning About Sex

Peers

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Sexuality, cont.

Parents
play a pivotal role in teenagers sexual decisions U.S. began a massive experiment in 1998 not all adolescents are having sex rates vary from nation to nation teen births overall have decreased dramatically in every nation the use of protection has increased the abortion rate is also down

Sex Education in School Sexual Behavior

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Sadness and Anger

Comorbidity
a situation in which two or more unreleated illnesses or disorders occur at the same time

Depression
Clinical depression

Suicide
Suicidal ideation
Parasuicide Cluster suicides

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Sadness and Anger, cont.

More destructiveness Breaking the law
Incidence Prevalence

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Sadness and Anger, cont.

Cause of delinquency
Life-course-persistent offender Adolescence-limited offender

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