Erikson’s stage: IDENTITY vs. CONFUSION

What does that mean?

According to Erikson, adolescence represents the struggle between identity and identity confusion, with the primary question, “Who am I?”

Three distinguishable periods of adolescence:

Early Adolescence: begins at puberty-14 yrs old; characterized by important physical changes and great need for peer approval

Middle Adolescence: 15-17 years old; high-school yrs.; characterized by reflection and self-discovery

Late Adolescence: 18-22 years old; characterized by independence from the family and development of personal identity

Concerned about their physical appearance and about others’ perceptions of how they look

Become more aware that their bodies are developing

Girls have their first menstrual cycle

Boys have their first nocturnal emission or “wet dream”

Biologically speaking, adolescence begins with the onset of puberty.

The onset of puberty for girls has been getting earlier since it was first recorded in the 1800s.

Records from the 1840s in Norway show the average age of the first menstruation in girls was 17 – now it is 11-12 years old.

Any idea what it is here in the United States?

According to the book – 12.4 years!

Having menstrual cycles associated with greater social maturity, improved status among peers, higher self-esteem, and greater self-awareness

Most girls find this time mildly stressful

Girls often receive some preparation on their first menstrual cycle

Boys receive little or no preparation for their experiences of nocturnal emissions and spontaneous erections

What can be done to better prepare young people for these impending body changes?

The pubertal process

Identified by the combination of the growth spurt, maturation of the physiological mechanisms, and the development of secondary sex characteristics, such as pubic hair, breasts

Physical changes experienced by both males and females include:

» Endocrine glands produce hormones» Pelvic changes» Growth in gonads» Appearance of pubic hair» Growth of external genitalia» Vocal changes» Broadening of body frame

Myelinization (the process in which neurons surround themselves by a fatty covering called the myelin sheath) continues throughout adolescence.

Why is this important?

The Myelin sheath insulates the wire-like fibers connecting regions of the brain – which allows impulses to travel faster and more efficiently leading to improved problem-solving and coordination as well as faster reflexes.

Final growth spurt in gray matter of the brain’s frontal lobes (regions that guide planning, problem solving and judgment) occurs around ages 11-13.

Why is that important information for people who work with teens?

This is important because other cognitive functions like problem solving, maturity, and insight are still developing in adolescence

Example: Helps to explain why a 15 year old might get into a car driven by an older friend who has had too much to drink

This cognitive issue is even more extreme in cases of teens diagnosed with ADD/ADHD

Should teens be executed for crimes they committed when they were 15 years old?

Adolescents need to increase caloric intake to match their rate of growth

On average, a girl needs 2,200 calories per day and a boy needs 2,800 calories

Often adolescents don’t get proper nutritional diet

20% of their calories comes from snack food

Adolescents don’t eat enough fruits/vegetables and over-consume soft drinks (in place of milk)

Obesity:

body weight of 20% or more above recommended weight for one’s height

Associated with certain diseases, high blood pressure, and social and psychological problems

Experience name-calling, stigma, peer rejection

80% of obese adolescents become obese adults

One research study showed:

50% of high-school students went to bed after midnight on school nights

90% did so on weekends

Sleep experts believe adolescents need about 9.25 hours of sleep every night

Not getting enough sleep leads to poor cognitive functioning, irritability, anxiety, and depression

Piaget - Formal Operations Stage

Adolescent is capable of abstract thought – flexible thinking

Use of hypothetical-deductive reasoning: the problem-solving process that tests and evaluates hypotheses to find the best solution

Adolescents begin to ponder their own thoughts and to recognize both possibility and actuality     

Formal operational thought is believed to occur in two stages of adolescence:

Assimilation: Cognitive process of consolidating new information into existing knowledge; characterized by a focus on the ideal, with unlimited possibilities

Accommodation: the adolescent must adjust to the cognitive changes that have occurred.

Research has found that by late adolescence only about 60% of young people use formal operations

A woman was dying of a particular type of cancer. However, there was one drug that doctors believes could save her. A druggist in the town where the woman and her husband lived had discovered this drug. Although the drug was expensive to make, the druggist charges ten times what the drug cost him to make. He paid $200 for the drug and was charging $2,000 for a small dose of it. The woman’s husband, Heinz, went to all their friends to borrow money for the drug; however, he gathered only $1,000-half the cost. He told the druggist that his wife was dying and asked him to sell it more cheaply or let him pay later. The druggist said, “No, I discovered the drug, and I am going to make money from it.” So Heinz got desperate and broke into the druggist’s store to steal the drug for his wife.

1. Should Heinz have stolen the drug?

2. Does Heinz have a duty to steal the drug for his wife if he cannot get it in another way?

Did the druggist have a right to charge so much for the drug?

Moral Development refers to the rules of conduct people use in their interactions with others

Kohlberg proposed six different states of moral development

1. Stage 0-Egocentric Reasoning-I should get my way; get rewards avoid punishments

2. Stage 1-Unquestioning obedience-I should do what I’m told; to stay out of trouble

3. Stage 2-What’s-in-it-for-me-I should look out for myself, but be fair to those who are fair to me; Self-interest: What’s in it for me?

4. Stage 3-Interpersonal conformity-I should be a nice person and live up to expectations of people I know and care about; Want others to think well of me and feel good about myself

5. Stage 4-Responsibility to the system-I should be true to the social and value system I am a part of; Need to keep my system from falling apart

Stage 5-Principled conscience-Should support a system to protect human rights; Obligation to have respect for all human beings

Carol Gilligan-theory supports gender bias

Based on justice perspective-focus is on rights of individual

Most moral development theories only tested on males

Does this mean women are not capable of moral development?

Gilligan suggests care perspective-focus in on people’s connectedness to others

Along with an improvement in thinking abilities in adolescence comes a greater capacity for effective communication.

The nature of boys and girls communication becomes increasingly different during adolescence.

Boys appear to talk more in terms of competitive conversation comparing knowledge and experiences

Girls talk more about themselves, feelings, and relationships

More complete friendships begin to develop

Adolescents describe friendship using terms like trust, loyalty, intimacy, and commitment

Gender differences are apparent:

Female friendships reflect more supportive and emotional aspects

Male friendships reflect more shared interests

Conduct Disorder

Involve a constellation of behaviors such as: stealing bullies, threatens, or intimidates others fire setting physically cruel to animals truant from school before the age of 13 running away from home physical assault

May be related to factors such as temperament or personality, deficits in moral development, family structure and environment (divorced parents, absent fathers, uncaring and abusive parents), and negative modeling-Biopsychosocial theory at work!

A lot of delinquent behavior is related to status in the peer group

Delinquent acts are committed both with peers and for peers

When deviant behavior occurs at early ages the problem is seen as conduct disorder

When the behaviors lead to illegal acts by juveniles the problem is considered delinquency

High school dropouts remain a serious problem – the percentage of youths who do not finish high school has decreased

Studies of the characteristics of dropouts have found several factors that predict dropout:

Poor attendance Disinterest in school Living in poverty Single-parent families Parents who do not participate in decision making concerning

the students

Dropping out is not usually a response to a lack of ability – these students have average intelligence scores.

Seem to be related to the developmental need for young people to associate with peer groups

Gangs often play a very important function for young people by providing social support, bonding, and protection from rival gangs

Long term studies have found that the most important risk factor for gang membership is growing up in a neighborhood with poverty where there is little attachment to people and social institutions . Why???

Defined as “intentional, self-effected, low-lethality bodily harm of a socially unacceptable nature, performed to reduce psychological stress” (Walsh, 2005)

*Usually performed in secret and often begins in adolescence

*It evokes strong feelings of shame and guilt and can take on an addictive quality

The most commonly cited reasons for self-harm include:

expressing painmethod of

copingeuphoric

feelingsestablishing

controlcommunication

In childhood, up to puberty, more boys than girls are depressed

In late adolescence the number of girls experiencing depression is twice that of boys

Do you know what the most significant factor related to depression in girls is?

Body image!!!

Research shows that girls interpret their maturing bodies negatively.

Why do you think that is?

What can be done to help our adolescent population?

Adolescent Self-Esteem

Self-esteem: a global evaluation of one’s self; one’s sense of self-worth; a favorable or unfavorable attitude toward the self

Strategies for enhancing self concepts:

Encouraging achievement

Promoting competencies in specific areas

Providing peer and parental support

Developing coping skills

At what age should parents start working on their child’s self-esteem?

There are lots of intervention and treatment methods

Six treatment methods are widely used with delinquent youth:

Restitution and community service Family intervention Token economies Fear, emotional shock and avoidance training Wilderness training Social-skills training

What works the best?

It really depends on the child. As we know, each child is different so we can’t use a cookie cutter approach. Human Service Professionals must find the method that works best for each child.

Family intervention and social-skills training have best results reducing recidivism.

That was a lot of information!

Any questions, thoughts, comments???