Adolescent development
Toets 1
Hoorcollege 1
Project 1 – project stars
- Large scale, national, longitudinal research project on pubertal
development, love, romantic relationships and sexuality among
adolescents
- Longitudinal study of dutch youth
- N = 1470
- Four waves in total, every 6 months
- 5 age cohorts
- 11-15 years, 13-17 years
Project 2 – ART project
An experimental investigation of developmental and individual differences
in adolescent risky decision making: the role of peers, siblings and parents
- Dutch study:
607 adolescents 11-17 years
Followed 1x per year for 3 years
- St. Martin study:
450 adolescents 11-17 years
Followed 1x per year for 2 years
Lower educational tracks
10 risk behaviors:
- Alcohol
- Delinquency
- Gambling
- Internet
- Extreme sports
- Smoking
- School
- Unsafe sex
- Softdrugs
- Traffic
Project 3: when being different becomes the norm: how microaggressions
affect Dutch lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth
Three studies:
- Online sample of 267 dutch sexual minorities (16-22 years)
- School sample of 600 adolescents (school climate)
- Qualitative interviews with dutch adolescents
Defining adolescence
- The period between the onset of sexual maturation and the
attainment of adult roles and responsibilities
- The transition from:
, ‘’child’’ status (requires adult monitoring)
To ‘’adult’’ status (self-responsibility for behavior)
Course set up:
1. foundations
intro, puberty, cognition, identity
2. social world
family, peers, morality, love & seks
3. broader issues
social media, achievement, problems
Adolescents in action
- teens react to the netherlands welcomes Trump
- teens are able to reflect, know the worries of the world
Conceptualizing adolescence
- adolescence is the healthiest and most resilient period of the
lifespan
- from childhood to adolescence:
increase in: strength speed, mental reasoning, immune function
increase in: resistance to cold, heat, hunger, dehydration and
mosttypes of injury
Sources of morbity and mortality in adolescence:
- primary caus of death/disability are related to problems of control of
behavior and emotion
- increase in: rates of accidents, suicides, homicides, depression,
alcohol & substance use, violence, reckless behaviors, eating
disorders, health problems related to risky sexual behaviors.
- Increase in: risk-taking, sensation-seeking, anderratic (emotionally
influenced) behavior
Recognized for a long time
- Youth are heated by nature as drunken men by wine – Aristoteles
Scientific questions – Ronald Dahl
- What is the empirical evidence that adolescents are ‘’heated by
nature’’?
- Are these changes based in biology?
In the hormones of puberty?
In specific brain changes that underpin some behavioral and
emotional tendencies and problems that emerge in
adolescence?
What are the implications for interventions? Should we
intervene?
The father of adolescence
- G. Stanley Hall (1904) (1st president of APA)
, - Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology,
Anthropology, Sociologiy, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education (2
volumes)
- Recapitulation Theory = he believed that development of the
individual reflected the development of the species (infants were like
animals, adolescents are savages and adults are normal)
- Storm and Stress = normal for all adolescents that as a result of
biological changes adolescents go through moments of storm and
stress
Amett (1999) – review of storm and stress
- Oversimplifies a complex issue
- Many adolescents navigate this interval with minimal difficulties
- However, empirical evidence for:
Increased conflicts with parents (intensity)
Mood volativity (and negative mood)
Increased risk behavior
- Modified view of storm and stress
Not a myth, real for many, but not all and not necessarily related to
psychopathology
Conceptualizing Adolescence across time
- Aristotle: youth are heated by nature as drunken men by wine
- G.S. Hall (1904): a period of heightened ‘’storm and stress’’
- 1920 Margaret Meade – questioned storm and stress in all cultures
- 1930-50s: a psychoanalytic perspective – Anna Freud – storm and
stress is normal (those who don’t experience storm and stress will
develop problems later on in life)
- 1960s and 1970s: attempts to understand the problems as due to
‘’raging hormones’’
- 1980s Petersen: questioned the idea that all youth experience
trouble (11% chronic difficulties, 32% intermitent, 57% healthy)
- 1990s Arnett: revised the idea of storm and stress
- 1990s-2000s: context and time period recognized as important,
thus different developmental trajectories, with consideration of time
and context
- 2000s: evolutionary ideas applied to recast concept of risk
- 2010s: neuroscience models of the adolescent brain in relation to
behavior
, Developmental trajectories of binge drinking during college
How to conceptualize Adolescent Development from a scientific
standpoint?
- Adolescence – interactions between biology, behavior and social
context
- Interdisciplinary approach needed
B. Defining adolescence
- The period between the onset of sexual maturation and the attainment
of adult roles and responsibilities
- The transition from:
“Child” status (requires adult monitoring)
To “adult” status (self-responsibility for behavior)
John P. Hill (1973) first president of the Society for Research on
Adolescence
– Framework for the Study of Adolescence
Primary Changes – the developmental changes that make
adolescence distinctive
Secondary changes – the psychological consequences of the
interaction between the primary changes and the settings –
organized into the domains of identity, autonomy, intimacy,
sexuality, and achievement
Universal primary changes
- Biological changes of puberty (brain)
- Development of abstract thinking
- Social redefinition of an individual from a child to an adult (or at
very least a non-child)
Age boundaries are not consistent across researchers
- Steinberg text:
Early adolescence (10-13 years)
Middle adolescence (14-17 years)
Late adolescence (18-21)
Young adulthood (22-30)
- Others:
Toets 1
Hoorcollege 1
Project 1 – project stars
- Large scale, national, longitudinal research project on pubertal
development, love, romantic relationships and sexuality among
adolescents
- Longitudinal study of dutch youth
- N = 1470
- Four waves in total, every 6 months
- 5 age cohorts
- 11-15 years, 13-17 years
Project 2 – ART project
An experimental investigation of developmental and individual differences
in adolescent risky decision making: the role of peers, siblings and parents
- Dutch study:
607 adolescents 11-17 years
Followed 1x per year for 3 years
- St. Martin study:
450 adolescents 11-17 years
Followed 1x per year for 2 years
Lower educational tracks
10 risk behaviors:
- Alcohol
- Delinquency
- Gambling
- Internet
- Extreme sports
- Smoking
- School
- Unsafe sex
- Softdrugs
- Traffic
Project 3: when being different becomes the norm: how microaggressions
affect Dutch lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth
Three studies:
- Online sample of 267 dutch sexual minorities (16-22 years)
- School sample of 600 adolescents (school climate)
- Qualitative interviews with dutch adolescents
Defining adolescence
- The period between the onset of sexual maturation and the
attainment of adult roles and responsibilities
- The transition from:
, ‘’child’’ status (requires adult monitoring)
To ‘’adult’’ status (self-responsibility for behavior)
Course set up:
1. foundations
intro, puberty, cognition, identity
2. social world
family, peers, morality, love & seks
3. broader issues
social media, achievement, problems
Adolescents in action
- teens react to the netherlands welcomes Trump
- teens are able to reflect, know the worries of the world
Conceptualizing adolescence
- adolescence is the healthiest and most resilient period of the
lifespan
- from childhood to adolescence:
increase in: strength speed, mental reasoning, immune function
increase in: resistance to cold, heat, hunger, dehydration and
mosttypes of injury
Sources of morbity and mortality in adolescence:
- primary caus of death/disability are related to problems of control of
behavior and emotion
- increase in: rates of accidents, suicides, homicides, depression,
alcohol & substance use, violence, reckless behaviors, eating
disorders, health problems related to risky sexual behaviors.
- Increase in: risk-taking, sensation-seeking, anderratic (emotionally
influenced) behavior
Recognized for a long time
- Youth are heated by nature as drunken men by wine – Aristoteles
Scientific questions – Ronald Dahl
- What is the empirical evidence that adolescents are ‘’heated by
nature’’?
- Are these changes based in biology?
In the hormones of puberty?
In specific brain changes that underpin some behavioral and
emotional tendencies and problems that emerge in
adolescence?
What are the implications for interventions? Should we
intervene?
The father of adolescence
- G. Stanley Hall (1904) (1st president of APA)
, - Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology,
Anthropology, Sociologiy, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education (2
volumes)
- Recapitulation Theory = he believed that development of the
individual reflected the development of the species (infants were like
animals, adolescents are savages and adults are normal)
- Storm and Stress = normal for all adolescents that as a result of
biological changes adolescents go through moments of storm and
stress
Amett (1999) – review of storm and stress
- Oversimplifies a complex issue
- Many adolescents navigate this interval with minimal difficulties
- However, empirical evidence for:
Increased conflicts with parents (intensity)
Mood volativity (and negative mood)
Increased risk behavior
- Modified view of storm and stress
Not a myth, real for many, but not all and not necessarily related to
psychopathology
Conceptualizing Adolescence across time
- Aristotle: youth are heated by nature as drunken men by wine
- G.S. Hall (1904): a period of heightened ‘’storm and stress’’
- 1920 Margaret Meade – questioned storm and stress in all cultures
- 1930-50s: a psychoanalytic perspective – Anna Freud – storm and
stress is normal (those who don’t experience storm and stress will
develop problems later on in life)
- 1960s and 1970s: attempts to understand the problems as due to
‘’raging hormones’’
- 1980s Petersen: questioned the idea that all youth experience
trouble (11% chronic difficulties, 32% intermitent, 57% healthy)
- 1990s Arnett: revised the idea of storm and stress
- 1990s-2000s: context and time period recognized as important,
thus different developmental trajectories, with consideration of time
and context
- 2000s: evolutionary ideas applied to recast concept of risk
- 2010s: neuroscience models of the adolescent brain in relation to
behavior
, Developmental trajectories of binge drinking during college
How to conceptualize Adolescent Development from a scientific
standpoint?
- Adolescence – interactions between biology, behavior and social
context
- Interdisciplinary approach needed
B. Defining adolescence
- The period between the onset of sexual maturation and the attainment
of adult roles and responsibilities
- The transition from:
“Child” status (requires adult monitoring)
To “adult” status (self-responsibility for behavior)
John P. Hill (1973) first president of the Society for Research on
Adolescence
– Framework for the Study of Adolescence
Primary Changes – the developmental changes that make
adolescence distinctive
Secondary changes – the psychological consequences of the
interaction between the primary changes and the settings –
organized into the domains of identity, autonomy, intimacy,
sexuality, and achievement
Universal primary changes
- Biological changes of puberty (brain)
- Development of abstract thinking
- Social redefinition of an individual from a child to an adult (or at
very least a non-child)
Age boundaries are not consistent across researchers
- Steinberg text:
Early adolescence (10-13 years)
Middle adolescence (14-17 years)
Late adolescence (18-21)
Young adulthood (22-30)
- Others:
