Summary literature exam 2 – Adolescent Development
Summary literature AD
EXAM 2
Contents
Contents ...................................................................................................................................................1
Chapter 4 – Families ..................................................................................................................................1
Chapter 9 (236 – 243) ................................................................................................................................6
Chapter 5 – Peer groups ...........................................................................................................................8
Kaufman ................................................................................................................................................. 12
Chapter 10 - Intimacy ............................................................................................................................. 12
Chapter 11 - Sexuality ............................................................................................................................ 17
Chapter 6 - Schools ................................................................................................................................ 21
Chapter 12 - Achievement ...................................................................................................................... 24
Chapter 7 – Work, leisure and media ...................................................................................................... 27
Valkenburg ............................................................................................................................................. 31
Cingel ..................................................................................................................................................... 33
Chapter 4 – Families
The family systems theory is a perspective on family functioning that emphasizes interconnections among
different family relationships (such as marital, parent- child, sibling).
- According to this theory relationships in families change most dramatically during times when individual
family members or the circumstances are changing because during these times the family’s equilibrium
often is upset
- One period in which this changes is often adolescence, with a peak at 13/14 years
Self-fulfilling prophecy: the idea that individuals’ behavior is influenced by others' expectations for them
The conflict between adolescents and parents is conflict about everyday matters. It is less frequent
in ethnic minorities than in white families. Topics of arguments are similar across ethnic groups and
cultures.
Teenagers and parents define the issues of contention very differently. Parents view issues as right or
wrong and teenagers as matters of personal choice.
Youngsters rarely rebel against their parents just for the sake of rebelling. Adolescents are willing to
accept the rules of their parents as legitimate when they agree that the issue is a moral one or an issue of
safety. They tend to disagree when they see the issue as a personal one. Adolescents who are less likely
to believe their parents have a right to know how to spend their time are more likely to not tell the truth
about their activities. Adolescents who think that their parents are overcontrolling are likely to become
oppositional. How parents get their information about their teenagers matters for the teenagers.
Adolescents understand that some issues are matters of personal choice, rather than social convention.
Parents are more likely to lie to younger adolescents than older ones about activities they wish their teens
wouldn’t do.
It is important to keep in mind that adolescence is a period of change and reorganization in family
relationships and daily interactions, even though it is incorrect to characterize adolescence as a time of
high conflict in most families.
1
,Summary literature exam 2 – Adolescent Development
What impact could an overlap in life crisis have on family relationships?
Many parents are in their forties when their child reaches adolescence. A lot of people have difficulties
with being in their forties. Some theorists have called this a time of midlife crisis. That is a psychological
crisis over identity believed to occur between the ages of 35 and 45. When midlife meets adolescence
there is a certain overlap in crisis and this is likely to have an impact on family relationships. Society has
labeled adolescents as one of the most physically attractive, while parents have started to feel increased
concern about their bodies and physical attractiveness. Adults in midlife are starting to measure time in
terms of how much longer they have to live, while people younger than this measure time in terms of how
long they have been alive. Adults in midlife are starting to feel that possibilities for changing their lives are
limited. Adolescence is a time of endless possibilities, while midlife starts to be a time of accepting the
consequences of choices made earlier in life.
A strained relationship between a midlife parent and his or her adolescent child may drive the parent to
devote relatively more time to work. Parents’ mental health problems negatively affect the way they
interact with their adolescents. Parents’ mental health is worse during their teens and adolescence than
when they leave the home.
But this generalization about the collision of adolescence and midlife must be tempered because the
average age of marriage and childbearing is higher now and as a consequence, parents tend to be older
when their children reach adolescence. The consequence of this has not been studied.
It varies across ethnic groups how adolescents and parents adjust because certain cultures are more
likely to stress family obligations. Some cultures place a high value on familism. That is an orientation
toward life in which the needs of one’s family take precedence over the needs of the individual.
Adolescents who value familism are more likely to develop prosocial values and less likely to get
depressed and get into antisocial peer groups. Parental effectiveness was greater in families where the
parents and teenagers preferred to speak the same language.
Immigrant parents’ ideas sometimes clash with the more individualistic orientation of the many
mainstream American families. Different expectations between immigrant parents and teenagers lead to
stress. Sometimes there is a generational dissonance. That is a divergence of views between
adolescents and parents that is common in families of immigrant parents and adolescents born in
America.
Transformations in family relations
All the transitions of adolescence, changes in midlife experienced by parents, and the changes the family
experiences during this stage set in motion a series of transformations in family relationships:
- Changes in the balance of power. First adolescents try to play a more forceful role in the family (with
little impact then) and slowly with age, they gain more power. An increase in adolescents’ negative
feelings about their mothers goes together with an increase in the extent to which they are more
focused on themselves. By middle adolescence, teenagers act and are treated more as adults.
Between ages 16-20, adolescents’ relationships with parents improve. Frequent communication
between parents and teenagers over mobile devices strengthens the relationship and helps FOMO.
Parents and teenagers live in separate ‘realities’. Parents describe their parenting more positively
than their teenagers do.
- The role of puberty. Puberty seems to distance adolescents from their parents and there is more
bickering. Diminished closeness is manifested more in increased privacy and less physical affection.
The frequent bickering can take a toll on parents’ and teenagers’ mental health. The first half of
adolescence is a more strained and distant time for firstborns than later-borns
Differences between the family relations of sons and daughters are minimal. Some evidence is that
adolescent girls are more affected by the quality of their relationship with their parents. Adolescents tend
to be closer to their mothers. Fathers often rely on mothers for information about their adolescent’s
activities, they are more distant authority figures, and this leads to them being consulted for objective
2
,Summary literature exam 2 – Adolescent Development
information, not emotional support. Adolescents fight more often with their mothers and perceive their
mothers as more controlling, but this doesn’t jeopardize the relationship. Time spent with fathers is more
predictive of adolescents’ social competence and feelings of self-worth.
Socialization is a two-way street: parents affect their adolescents’ behavior and adolescents affect how
their parents behave. The link between negative parenting and adolescent problem behavior is stronger
among adolescents who are more temperamentally impulsive.
According to Diana Baumrind, a psychologist, two aspects of the behavior of parents toward the
adolescent are critical:
- Parental responsiveness: the extent to which the parent responds to the child’s needs in an
accepting, supportive manner.
- Parental demandingness: the degree to which the parent expects and demands mature,
responsible behavior.
The possible combinations of these two dimensions lead to the following four styles of parenting:
- Authoritative parents: parents who use warmth,
firm control, and rational, issue-oriented
discipline, in which emphasis is placed on the
development of self-direction.
- Authoritarian parents: parents who use punitive,
absolute, and forceful discipline and who place a
premium on obedience and conformity.
- Indulgent parents: parents who are
characterized by responsiveness but low
demandingness, and who are mostly concerned
with the happiness of the child.
- Indifferent parents: parents who are
characterized by low levels of both responsiveness and demandingness.
Adolescents seem to fare best with the authoritative style of parenting. Young people raised in this
household are more psychologically mature and have better regulation of emotions. Authoritative
parenting is less prevalent among black, Asian, or Latinx families than among whites. Ethnic minority
parents are often more demanding than White parents. Authoritative parenting is linked to healthy
adolescent development for a few reasons:
- These parents provide an appropriate balance between restrictiveness and autonomy.
- The adolescent can develop self-control while providing the standards that teenagers still need
- More independence when getting older leads to the development of self- assurance and enhances
the ability to withstand potentially negative influences
- Authoritative parents engage their children in verbal give-and-take. Because of this, they are more
likely to promote intellectual development for the development of maturity
- Authoritative parents are less likely to assert their authority by turning adolescents’ personal
decisions into moral issues
- Authoritative parenting is based on a warm parent-child relationship. Adolescents are more likely to
identify with, admire, and form strong attachments to their parents which makes them more open to
their influence
- The child’s behavior, temperament, and personality shape parenting practices.
Tiger Mother: an approach to parenting that may foster academic achievement, but that may also increase
adolescents’ anxiety and distress. Strict affectionate: protective, not authoritarian.
3
, Summary literature exam 2 – Adolescent Development
As children mature into early adolescence, sibling conflict increases. Two common sources of sibling
conflict:
1. Invasion of the personal (like wearing a siblings’ sweater)
2. Disagreements over equity and fairness
Adolescents see aggression towards siblings as more acceptable. In same-sex dyads, intimacy increases
between pre-adolescence and middle adolescence and then declines. In mixed-sex dyads the pattern is
opposite. By late adolescence, brothers and sisters are closer than same-sex siblings. The quality of the
parent- adolescent relationship influences the quality of relations among siblings. Adolescents learn
much about social relationships from sibling interactions and bring this knowledge to other relations (the
reverse is true as well). Positive sibling relationships contribute to adolescents’ academic competence,
romantic competence, familism, sociability, health, autonomy, and self-worth. Siblings influence each
other’s development.
What are the genetic influences on adolescent development?
Behavioral genetics is the scientific study of genetic influences on behavior. Genetic influences are
studied in three main ways:
1. Studying adolescents who are twins. Are identical twins more similar than fraternal twins?
2. Studying adopted adolescents. Are they more like their biological parents or their adoptive parents?
3. Studying adolescents and their siblings in stepfamilies.
Molecular genetics is the scientific study of the structure and function of genes. These scientists have
identified specific genes that are linked to particular traits.
Alleles are different versions of the same gene, which arise because of genetic mutations. These may
guide development in different directions.
Researchers distinguish between two types of environmental influences in studies of genetic and
environmental influences on the development of adolescents:
1. Shared environmental influences. Those are nongenetic influences that make individuals living in
the same family similar to each other.
2. Nonshared environmental influences. Those are the nongenetic influences in individuals’ lives that
make them different from the people they live with.
Studies show that both genetic and nonshared environmental influences are particularly strong in
adolescence. Shared environmental factors are less influential. Genetic factors have been linked to
emotional and behavioral problems. Intelligence in adolescence is under strong genetic control, this is
higher in highly educated families. Adolescents with the same genetic predispositions (such as genes for
depression) develop differently if they grow up in different environments.
Genes may shape tendencies, but whether these tendencies are actualized often depends on the
environment. The inverse is also true. As a consequence of their genes, people who are exposed to the
same environment may be affected differently.
The diathesis-stress model is a perspective on psychological disorders that posits that problems are the
result of an interaction between a preexisting condition (the diathesis) and exposure to stress in the
environment. Diathesis = vulnerability. This model can be applied to many psychological disorders. Some
people are genetically inclined to benefit from positive influences in their environment.
The differential susceptibility theory is the idea that the same genetic tendencies that make an
individual especially susceptible to developing problems when exposed to adverse environmental
influences also make him or her especially likely to thrive when exposed to positive environmental
influences. Differential susceptibility also predicts which adolescents are more likely to benefit from
interventions.
4
Summary literature AD
EXAM 2
Contents
Contents ...................................................................................................................................................1
Chapter 4 – Families ..................................................................................................................................1
Chapter 9 (236 – 243) ................................................................................................................................6
Chapter 5 – Peer groups ...........................................................................................................................8
Kaufman ................................................................................................................................................. 12
Chapter 10 - Intimacy ............................................................................................................................. 12
Chapter 11 - Sexuality ............................................................................................................................ 17
Chapter 6 - Schools ................................................................................................................................ 21
Chapter 12 - Achievement ...................................................................................................................... 24
Chapter 7 – Work, leisure and media ...................................................................................................... 27
Valkenburg ............................................................................................................................................. 31
Cingel ..................................................................................................................................................... 33
Chapter 4 – Families
The family systems theory is a perspective on family functioning that emphasizes interconnections among
different family relationships (such as marital, parent- child, sibling).
- According to this theory relationships in families change most dramatically during times when individual
family members or the circumstances are changing because during these times the family’s equilibrium
often is upset
- One period in which this changes is often adolescence, with a peak at 13/14 years
Self-fulfilling prophecy: the idea that individuals’ behavior is influenced by others' expectations for them
The conflict between adolescents and parents is conflict about everyday matters. It is less frequent
in ethnic minorities than in white families. Topics of arguments are similar across ethnic groups and
cultures.
Teenagers and parents define the issues of contention very differently. Parents view issues as right or
wrong and teenagers as matters of personal choice.
Youngsters rarely rebel against their parents just for the sake of rebelling. Adolescents are willing to
accept the rules of their parents as legitimate when they agree that the issue is a moral one or an issue of
safety. They tend to disagree when they see the issue as a personal one. Adolescents who are less likely
to believe their parents have a right to know how to spend their time are more likely to not tell the truth
about their activities. Adolescents who think that their parents are overcontrolling are likely to become
oppositional. How parents get their information about their teenagers matters for the teenagers.
Adolescents understand that some issues are matters of personal choice, rather than social convention.
Parents are more likely to lie to younger adolescents than older ones about activities they wish their teens
wouldn’t do.
It is important to keep in mind that adolescence is a period of change and reorganization in family
relationships and daily interactions, even though it is incorrect to characterize adolescence as a time of
high conflict in most families.
1
,Summary literature exam 2 – Adolescent Development
What impact could an overlap in life crisis have on family relationships?
Many parents are in their forties when their child reaches adolescence. A lot of people have difficulties
with being in their forties. Some theorists have called this a time of midlife crisis. That is a psychological
crisis over identity believed to occur between the ages of 35 and 45. When midlife meets adolescence
there is a certain overlap in crisis and this is likely to have an impact on family relationships. Society has
labeled adolescents as one of the most physically attractive, while parents have started to feel increased
concern about their bodies and physical attractiveness. Adults in midlife are starting to measure time in
terms of how much longer they have to live, while people younger than this measure time in terms of how
long they have been alive. Adults in midlife are starting to feel that possibilities for changing their lives are
limited. Adolescence is a time of endless possibilities, while midlife starts to be a time of accepting the
consequences of choices made earlier in life.
A strained relationship between a midlife parent and his or her adolescent child may drive the parent to
devote relatively more time to work. Parents’ mental health problems negatively affect the way they
interact with their adolescents. Parents’ mental health is worse during their teens and adolescence than
when they leave the home.
But this generalization about the collision of adolescence and midlife must be tempered because the
average age of marriage and childbearing is higher now and as a consequence, parents tend to be older
when their children reach adolescence. The consequence of this has not been studied.
It varies across ethnic groups how adolescents and parents adjust because certain cultures are more
likely to stress family obligations. Some cultures place a high value on familism. That is an orientation
toward life in which the needs of one’s family take precedence over the needs of the individual.
Adolescents who value familism are more likely to develop prosocial values and less likely to get
depressed and get into antisocial peer groups. Parental effectiveness was greater in families where the
parents and teenagers preferred to speak the same language.
Immigrant parents’ ideas sometimes clash with the more individualistic orientation of the many
mainstream American families. Different expectations between immigrant parents and teenagers lead to
stress. Sometimes there is a generational dissonance. That is a divergence of views between
adolescents and parents that is common in families of immigrant parents and adolescents born in
America.
Transformations in family relations
All the transitions of adolescence, changes in midlife experienced by parents, and the changes the family
experiences during this stage set in motion a series of transformations in family relationships:
- Changes in the balance of power. First adolescents try to play a more forceful role in the family (with
little impact then) and slowly with age, they gain more power. An increase in adolescents’ negative
feelings about their mothers goes together with an increase in the extent to which they are more
focused on themselves. By middle adolescence, teenagers act and are treated more as adults.
Between ages 16-20, adolescents’ relationships with parents improve. Frequent communication
between parents and teenagers over mobile devices strengthens the relationship and helps FOMO.
Parents and teenagers live in separate ‘realities’. Parents describe their parenting more positively
than their teenagers do.
- The role of puberty. Puberty seems to distance adolescents from their parents and there is more
bickering. Diminished closeness is manifested more in increased privacy and less physical affection.
The frequent bickering can take a toll on parents’ and teenagers’ mental health. The first half of
adolescence is a more strained and distant time for firstborns than later-borns
Differences between the family relations of sons and daughters are minimal. Some evidence is that
adolescent girls are more affected by the quality of their relationship with their parents. Adolescents tend
to be closer to their mothers. Fathers often rely on mothers for information about their adolescent’s
activities, they are more distant authority figures, and this leads to them being consulted for objective
2
,Summary literature exam 2 – Adolescent Development
information, not emotional support. Adolescents fight more often with their mothers and perceive their
mothers as more controlling, but this doesn’t jeopardize the relationship. Time spent with fathers is more
predictive of adolescents’ social competence and feelings of self-worth.
Socialization is a two-way street: parents affect their adolescents’ behavior and adolescents affect how
their parents behave. The link between negative parenting and adolescent problem behavior is stronger
among adolescents who are more temperamentally impulsive.
According to Diana Baumrind, a psychologist, two aspects of the behavior of parents toward the
adolescent are critical:
- Parental responsiveness: the extent to which the parent responds to the child’s needs in an
accepting, supportive manner.
- Parental demandingness: the degree to which the parent expects and demands mature,
responsible behavior.
The possible combinations of these two dimensions lead to the following four styles of parenting:
- Authoritative parents: parents who use warmth,
firm control, and rational, issue-oriented
discipline, in which emphasis is placed on the
development of self-direction.
- Authoritarian parents: parents who use punitive,
absolute, and forceful discipline and who place a
premium on obedience and conformity.
- Indulgent parents: parents who are
characterized by responsiveness but low
demandingness, and who are mostly concerned
with the happiness of the child.
- Indifferent parents: parents who are
characterized by low levels of both responsiveness and demandingness.
Adolescents seem to fare best with the authoritative style of parenting. Young people raised in this
household are more psychologically mature and have better regulation of emotions. Authoritative
parenting is less prevalent among black, Asian, or Latinx families than among whites. Ethnic minority
parents are often more demanding than White parents. Authoritative parenting is linked to healthy
adolescent development for a few reasons:
- These parents provide an appropriate balance between restrictiveness and autonomy.
- The adolescent can develop self-control while providing the standards that teenagers still need
- More independence when getting older leads to the development of self- assurance and enhances
the ability to withstand potentially negative influences
- Authoritative parents engage their children in verbal give-and-take. Because of this, they are more
likely to promote intellectual development for the development of maturity
- Authoritative parents are less likely to assert their authority by turning adolescents’ personal
decisions into moral issues
- Authoritative parenting is based on a warm parent-child relationship. Adolescents are more likely to
identify with, admire, and form strong attachments to their parents which makes them more open to
their influence
- The child’s behavior, temperament, and personality shape parenting practices.
Tiger Mother: an approach to parenting that may foster academic achievement, but that may also increase
adolescents’ anxiety and distress. Strict affectionate: protective, not authoritarian.
3
, Summary literature exam 2 – Adolescent Development
As children mature into early adolescence, sibling conflict increases. Two common sources of sibling
conflict:
1. Invasion of the personal (like wearing a siblings’ sweater)
2. Disagreements over equity and fairness
Adolescents see aggression towards siblings as more acceptable. In same-sex dyads, intimacy increases
between pre-adolescence and middle adolescence and then declines. In mixed-sex dyads the pattern is
opposite. By late adolescence, brothers and sisters are closer than same-sex siblings. The quality of the
parent- adolescent relationship influences the quality of relations among siblings. Adolescents learn
much about social relationships from sibling interactions and bring this knowledge to other relations (the
reverse is true as well). Positive sibling relationships contribute to adolescents’ academic competence,
romantic competence, familism, sociability, health, autonomy, and self-worth. Siblings influence each
other’s development.
What are the genetic influences on adolescent development?
Behavioral genetics is the scientific study of genetic influences on behavior. Genetic influences are
studied in three main ways:
1. Studying adolescents who are twins. Are identical twins more similar than fraternal twins?
2. Studying adopted adolescents. Are they more like their biological parents or their adoptive parents?
3. Studying adolescents and their siblings in stepfamilies.
Molecular genetics is the scientific study of the structure and function of genes. These scientists have
identified specific genes that are linked to particular traits.
Alleles are different versions of the same gene, which arise because of genetic mutations. These may
guide development in different directions.
Researchers distinguish between two types of environmental influences in studies of genetic and
environmental influences on the development of adolescents:
1. Shared environmental influences. Those are nongenetic influences that make individuals living in
the same family similar to each other.
2. Nonshared environmental influences. Those are the nongenetic influences in individuals’ lives that
make them different from the people they live with.
Studies show that both genetic and nonshared environmental influences are particularly strong in
adolescence. Shared environmental factors are less influential. Genetic factors have been linked to
emotional and behavioral problems. Intelligence in adolescence is under strong genetic control, this is
higher in highly educated families. Adolescents with the same genetic predispositions (such as genes for
depression) develop differently if they grow up in different environments.
Genes may shape tendencies, but whether these tendencies are actualized often depends on the
environment. The inverse is also true. As a consequence of their genes, people who are exposed to the
same environment may be affected differently.
The diathesis-stress model is a perspective on psychological disorders that posits that problems are the
result of an interaction between a preexisting condition (the diathesis) and exposure to stress in the
environment. Diathesis = vulnerability. This model can be applied to many psychological disorders. Some
people are genetically inclined to benefit from positive influences in their environment.
The differential susceptibility theory is the idea that the same genetic tendencies that make an
individual especially susceptible to developing problems when exposed to adverse environmental
influences also make him or her especially likely to thrive when exposed to positive environmental
influences. Differential susceptibility also predicts which adolescents are more likely to benefit from
interventions.
4
