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Puberty

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•Time between the first onrush of hormones and full adult physical development •Usually lasting three to five years •Requires many more years are required to achieve psychosocial maturity

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Menarche

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Girl's first menstrual period, signaling that she has begun ovulation.

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Spermarche

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Boy's first ejaculation of sperm.

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Hormone

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Organic chemical substance that is produced by one body tissue and conveyed via the bloodstream to another to affect some physiological function. •Various hormones influence thoughts, urges, emotions, and behavior.

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Pituitary gland

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Gland in the brain that responds to a signal from the hypothalamus by producing many hormones, including those that regulate growth and control other glands, among them the adrenal and sex glands

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Adrenal glands

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Two glands, located above the kidneys, that produce hormones (including the "stress hormones" epinephrine [adrenaline] and norepinephrine).

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HPA (hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal) axis

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Sequence of a chain reaction of hormone production, originating in the hypothalamus and moving to the pituitary and then to the adrenal glands

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HPG (hypothalamus-pituitary-gonad) axis

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Sequence of hormone production that originates in the hypothalamus, moves to the pituitary, and then to the gonads.

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Gonads

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•Paired sex glands (ovaries in females, testicles in males). •Gonads produce hormones and gametes.

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Estradiol

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•Sex hormone, considered the chief estrogen. •Females produce more estradiol than males do.

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Testosterone

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Sex hormone, the best known of the androgens (male hormones). Secreted in far greater amounts by males than by females.

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Circadian rhythm

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•Day-night cycle of biological activity occurs approximately every 24 hours (circadian means "about a day"). •Hormones of the HPA axis at puberty cause a phase delay in sleep-wake cycles. •Biology (circadian rhythms) and culture (parties and technology) work to make teenagers increasingly sleep- deprived with each year of high school.

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Influences on the Age of Puberty

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•Age 11 or 12 is the most likely age of visible onset. •The rise in hormone levels that signals puberty is still considered normal in those as young as age 8 or as old as age 14. •Precocious puberty (sexual development before age 8) occurs about once in 5,000 children, for unknown reasons.

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Puberty Begins

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About two-thirds of the variation in age of puberty is genetic. • Genes on the sex chromosomes have a marked effect on age of puberty. • Girls generally develop ahead of boys. • Children who have a relatively large proportion of body fat experience puberty sooner than do their thin contemporaries.

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Leptin

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•Hormone affects appetite and is believed to be involved in the onset of puberty. •Leptin levels increase during childhood and peak at around age 12. •In both sexes, chronic malnutrition delays puberty

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Secular trend

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•Data on puberty over the centuries that reveals a dramatic example of a long-term statistical increase or decrease. •Each generation has experienced puberty a few weeks earlier, and has grown a centimeter or so taller, than did the preceding one. •Secular trend has stopped in developed nations.

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Too early, too late

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•Early-maturing girls tend to have lower self-esteem, more depression, and poorer body image than later-maturing girls. •Early-maturing boys are more aggressive, law-breaking, and alcohol-abusing than later-maturing boys. •Slow developing boys tend to be more anxious, depressed, and afraid of sex.

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Growth spurt

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•Spurt is a relatively sudden and rapid physical growth that occurs during puberty. •Each body part increases in size on a schedule. •Height spurt follows the increase in body fat, and then a muscle spurt occurs. •Lungs triple in weight; consequently, adolescents breathe more deeply and slowly. •Heart doubles in size and the heartbeat slows, decreasing the pulse rate while increasing blood pressure. •Only lymphoid system (which includes the tonsils and adenoids), decreases in size--teenagers are less susceptible to respiratory ailments.

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Skin and hair

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•Skin becomes oilier, sweatier, and more prone to acne. •Hair on the head and limbs becomes coarser and darker. •New hair grows under arms, on faces, and over sex organs. •In many ways, hair is more than a growth characteristic; it becomes a display of sexuality.

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Primary sex characteristics

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Parts of the body that are directly involved in reproduction, including the vagina, uterus, ovaries, testicles, and penis.

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Secondary sex characteristics

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Physical traits that are not directly involved in reproduction but that indicate sexual maturity, such as a man's beard and a woman's breasts.

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Nutrition

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Many adolescents are deficient in their intake of necessary vitamins or minerals. •Deficiencies of iron, calcium, zinc, and other minerals, since these are needed for bone and muscle growth. •Nutritional deficiencies result from the food choices that young adolescents are allowed, even enticed, to make.

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Body image

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•Person's idea of how his or her body looks. •Girls diet partly because boys tend to prefer to date thin girls. •Boys want to look taller and stronger partly because girls value well-developed muscles in males.

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Eating disorders

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•Anorexia nervosa - Eating disorder characterized by self-starvation. - Affected individuals voluntarily under eat and often over exercise, depriving their vital organs of nutrition. - RIDA symptoms are evident - Anorexia can be fatal. •bulimia nervosa- An eating disorder characterized by binge eating and subsequent purging, usually by induced vomiting and/or use of laxatives. - Binge-purge syndrome - BUA symptoms

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Different parts of the brain grow at different rates.

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•Limbic system (fear, emotional impulses) matures before the prefrontal cortex (planning ahead, emotional regulation). •Instinctual and emotional areas develop before the reflective ones do.

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Logic shut down

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•When emotions are intense, especially when one is with peers, the logical part of the brain shuts down. •When stress, arousal, passion, sensory bombardment, drug intoxication, or deprivation is extreme, the adolescent brain is overtaken by impulses that might shame adults.

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Positive aspects of adolescent brain development

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•Increased mylenation, which decreases reaction time •Enhanced dopamine activity, promoting pleasurable experiences •Synaptic growth, enhancing moral development and openness to new experiences and ideas

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Risk and reward

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•Neurological research finds that the reward parts of adolescents' brains are far stronger than inhibition parts. •Slower-maturing prefrontal cortex makes powerful sensations desirable—loud music, speeding cars, strong drugs—compelling.

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Adolescent egocentrism

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•Characteristic of adolescent thinking that leads young people (ages 10 to 14) to focus on themselves to the exclusion of others.

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Personal fable

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•Aspect of adolescent egocentrism characterized by an adolescent's belief that his or her thoughts, feelings, or experiences are unique, more wonderful or awful than anyone else's.

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Invincibility fable

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•Adolescent's egocentric conviction that he or she cannot be overcome or even harmed by anything that might defeat a normal mortal, such as unprotected sex, drug abuse, or high-speed driving.

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Imaginary audience

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•Other people who, in an adolescent's egocentric belief, are watching and taking note of his or her appearance, ideas, and behavior. This belief makes many teenagers self-conscious.

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Formal operational thought: Piaget

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•Fourth and final stage of cognitive development •Characterized by more systematic logic and the ability to think about abstract ideas

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Hypothetical thought

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•Reasoning that includes propositions and possibilities that may not reflect reality

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Deductive reasoning

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•Reasoning from a general statement, premise, or principle, through logical steps, to figure out (deduce) specifics • Sometimes called top-down reasoning

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Inductive reasoning

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•Reasoning from one or more specific experiences or facts to a general conclusion; may be less cognitively advanced than deduction •Sometimes called bottom-up reasoning

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Intuitive, emotional thought

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Notions that adolescents find it much easier and quicker to forget about logic and follow their impulses

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Dual-process model

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Notion that two networks exist within the human brain, one for emotional and one for analytical processing of stimuli

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Intuitive thought

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Thought that arises from an emotion or a hunch, beyond rational explanation, and is influenced by past experiences and cultural assumptions.

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Analytic thought

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•Thought that results from analysis, such as a systematic ranking of pros and cons, risks and consequences, possibilities and facts. •Analytic thought depends on logic and rationality.

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Secondary education

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•Period after primary education (elementary or grade school) and before tertiary education (college) •Usually occurs from about age 12 to age 18, although the age range varies somewhat by school and by nation.

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Middle school

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•School for children in the grades between elementary and high school. •Usually begins with grade 5 or 6 and ends with grade 8.

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Motivation

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•Cognitive perspective on development •Highlights the academic disengagement typical of middle school students

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Causes

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•Puberty, alienation from teachers, reliance on peers •May be an adolescent's assumptions about his or her potential

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Entity approach to intelligence

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Sees ability as innate, a fixed quantity present at birth •Reject idea that effort enhances achievement

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Incremental approach to intelligence

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•Poses intelligence can be directly increased by effort •Believe they can master whatever they seek to learn if they pay attention, participate in class, study, and complete their homework

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Entering a new school

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•Transition from one school to another often impairs a young person's ability to function and learn •Changing schools just when the growth spurt is occurring and sexual characteristics are developing is bound to create stress •The first year in any new school (middle school, high school, or college) correlates with increased bullying, decreased achievement, depression, and eating disorders

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Cyber danger

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•Adolescent cognitive growth benefits from shared experiences and opinions. •Often communication via the Internet bolsters fragile self- esteem. •Adolescents sometimes share personal information online without thinking about the possible consequences.

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Cyberbullying

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•Bullying that occurs via Internet insults and rumors, texting, anonymous phone calls, and video embarrassment •Anonymity provided by electronic technology often brings out the worst in people. •Cyberbullying is similar to other forms in intent or degree of harm.

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High School

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• In theory and sometimes in practice, high schools promote students' analytic ability. • In U.S., an increasing number of high school students are enrolled in classes that are designed to be more rigorous and that require them to pass externally scored exams. • Greater number of requirements require all students must fulfill in order to receive an academic diploma.

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High-stakes test

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•Evaluation that is critical in determining success or failure •Determines if a student will graduate or be promoted

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Choosing Vocations

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•Students that develop a vision of their future and select courses that will help them achieve their goal. •However, few students have such a vision. •Drifting is the more common pattern. • Seventy percent of high school graduates enter college

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PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment)

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•International test taken by 15-year olds in 50 nations that is designed to measure problem solving and cognition in daily life

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Identity versus role confusion

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•Erikson's term 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.

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Identity

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•Consistent definition of one's self as a unique individual, in terms of roles, attitudes, beliefs, and aspirations

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Identity achievement

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•Erikson's 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

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Role confusion (identity diffusion)

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•Situation in which an adolescent does not seem to know or care what his or her identity is

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Foreclosure

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•Erikson's term for premature identity formation, which occurs when an adolescent adopts parents' or society's roles and values wholesale, without questioning or analysis

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Moratorium

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•An adolescent's choice of a socially acceptable way to postpone making identity-achievement decisions. Going to college is a common example

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Four Areas of Identity Achievement

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1)Religious Identity 2)Gender Identity 3)Political/Ethnic Identity 4)Vocational identity

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Conflicts with parents

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Parent-adolescent conflict typically peaks in early adolescence and is more a sign of attachment than of distance

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Bickering

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Bickering involves petty, peevish arguing, usually repeated and ongoing

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Neglect

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Although teenagers may act as if they no longer need their parents, neglect can be very destructive.

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Closeness within the family

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•Communication: Do parents and teens talk openly with one another? •Support: Do they rely on one another? •Connectedness: How emotionally close are they? •Control: Do parents encourage or limit adolescent autonomy?

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Emotional dependency

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•Adolescents are more dependent on their parents if they are female and/or from a minority ethnic group. •This can be either repressive or healthy, depending on the culture and the specific circumstances.

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•Parental monitoring: Parents' ongoing awareness of what their children are doing, where, and with whom.

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- Positive: Part of a warm, supportive relationship - Negative: When overly restrictive and controlling - Worst: Psychological in which parents make a child feel guilty and impose gratefulness by threatening to withdraw love and support

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Clique

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•Group of adolescents made up of close friends who are loyal to one another while excluding outsiders.

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Crowd

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Larger group of adolescents who have something in common but who are not necessarily friends.

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Peer pressure

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•Encouragement to conform to one's friends or contemporaries in behavior, dress, and attitude •Usually considered a negative force, as when adolescent peers encourage one another to defy adult authority

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Selection

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Teenagers select friends whose values and interests they share, abandoning friends who follow other paths.

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Facilitation

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•Peers facilitate both destructive and constructive behaviors in one another. •Makes it easier to do both the wrong thing ("Let's all skip school") and the right thing ("Let's study together") •Helps individuals do things that they would be unlikely to do on their own

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Deviancy training

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

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Sequence of male-female relationships during childhood and adolescence

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•Groups of friends, exclusively one sex or the other •A loose association of girls and boys, with public interactions within a crowd •Small mixed-sex groups of the advanced members of the crowd •Formation of couples, with private intimacies

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Straight

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•First romances appear in high school and rarely last more than a year. •Girls claim a steady partner more often than boys do. •Breakups and unreciprocated crushes are common. •Adolescents are crushed by rejection and sometimes contemplate revenge or suicide.

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Gay

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•Many do not acknowledge their sexual orientation. •National and peer cultures often make the homosexual young person feel ashamed. •Many gay youth date members of the other sex to hide their true orientation. •Past cohorts of gay youth had higher rates of clinical depression, drug abuse, and suicide than did their heterosexual peers. •True number of homosexual, heterosexual, bisexual, or asexual youth is unknown.

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Learning from peers

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•Adolescent sexual behavior is strongly influenced by peers. •Specifics of peer education depend on the group: All members of a clique may be virgins, or all may be sexually active. •"Virginity pledge" in church-based crowds. If a group considers itself a select minority, then virginity. •Only about half of U.S. adolescent couples discuss issues such as pregnancy and STIs and many are unable to come to a shared conclusion based on accurate information.

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Learning from parents

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•Parents often underestimate their adolescent's need for information. •Many parents know little about their adolescents' sexual activity and wait to talk about sex until their child is already in a romantic relationship. •Gender and age are the most significant correlates of parent-child conversations

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Sex Education

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• Parents tend to underestimate adolescents' capacity to engage in responsible sex. • Proper condom use is higher among adolescents than among adults. • Parental example may be more important than conversation.

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Abstinence-Only Programs

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•1998: U.S. government decided to spend about $1 billion over 10 years to promote abstinence-only sex education in public schools. •Goal: To prevent teen pregnancy and STIs by waiting until marriage before becoming sexually active. •Assessment: No information about other methods of avoiding pregnancy and infection was provided. Abstinence-only curriculum had little effect

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Starting early: The most effective programs

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•Begin before high school •Include assignments that require parent-child communication •Focus on behavior (not just on conveying information) •Provide medical referrals on request •Last for years Important: Some school programs make a difference!

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Selected examples

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•In 2007, more than half of all U.S. teenagers had had sexual intercourse by age 16. •The rate of teenage pregnancy in the United States has declined dramatically since 1960. •86% of new teenage mothers are unmarried. •About 20% of teenage couples use the pill and condoms, to prevent both pregnancy and infection

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Depression

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•Self-esteem for boys and girls dips at puberty •Signs of depression are common •2007 Youth Risk Behavior Survey of ninth- to twelfth- graders: - 36% of girls and 21% of boys experienced depressed symptoms within the past year

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Clinical depression

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•Feelings of hopelessness, lethargy, and worthlessness that last two weeks or more

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Gender differences

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•20% of female and 10% of male teenagers experience clinical depression. •Cause for the gender disparity may be biological, psychological, or social.

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Cognitive explanation: Rumination

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•Repeatedly thinking and talking about past experiences; can contribute to depression and is more common in girls

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Suicidal ideation

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•Thinking about suicide, usually with some serious emotional and intellectual or cognitive overtones •Adolescent suicidal ideation is common, completed suicides are not. •Adolescents are less likely to kill themselves than adults are.

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Misconceptions about adolescent suicide rates

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•The suicide rate for adolescents, low as it is, is higher than it was in the early 1960. •Statistics on "youth" often include emerging adults, whose suicide rates are higher than those of adolescents. •Adolescent suicides capture media attention. •Suicide attempts are relatively common in adolescence.

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Cluster suicides

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Several suicides committed by members of a group within a brief period of time

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Parasuicide

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•Any potentially lethal action against the self that does not result in death •Parasuicide is common, completed suicide is not.

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Completed suicide: Four factors increase risk

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•Availability of guns •Use of alcohol and other drugs •Lack of parental supervision •A culture that condones suicide

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Gender differences in suicide

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•Suicide rate among male teenagers in the U.S. is four times higher than the rate for female teenagers REASONS: •Availability of lethal means •Male culture that shames those who attempt suicide but fail METHODS: •Males tend to shoot themselves; females swallow pills or hang themselves •Girls tend to let their friends and families know that they are depressed, but boys do not.

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Anger

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•Increased anger during puberty is normal but most adolescents express their anger in acceptable ways.

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Aggression

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Steady aggression throughout childhood and adolescence (7%) is warning sign.

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Juvenile delinquent

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Person under the age of 18 who breaks the law

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Life-course-persistent offender

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A person whose criminal activity typically begins in early adolescence and continues throughout life; a career criminal

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Adolescence-limited offender

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Person whose criminal activity stops by age 21

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Variations in drug use

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Age differences •Drug use becomes widespread from age 10 to 25 and then decreases •Drug use before age 18 is the best predictor of later drug use National differences •Nations have markedly different rates of adolescent drug use, even nations with common boundaries. •These variations are partly due to differing laws the world over.

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Cohort differences

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•Drug use among adolescents has decreased in the U.S. since 1976. •Adolescent culture may have a greater effect on drug-taking behavior than laws do. •Most adolescents in the U.S. have experimented with drug use and say that they could find illegal drugs if they tried. •Most U.S. adolescents are not regular drug users and about 20% never use any drugs. •Rates vary from state to state.

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Gender differences in drug use

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•Adolescent boys generally use more drugs and use them more often. •Gender differences are reinforced by social constructions about proper male and female behavior (e.g., "If I don't smoke, I'm not a real man").

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Tobacco

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•Slows down growth (impairs digestion, nutrition, and appetite) •Reduces the appetite •Causes protein and vitamin deficiencies caused •Can damage developing hearts, lungs, brains, and reproductive systems

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Alcohol

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- Most frequently abused drug among North American teenagers - Heavy drinking may permanently impair memory and self-control by damaging the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex. - Alcohol allows momentary denial of problems ! when problems get worse because they have been ignored, more alcohol is needed. - Denial can have serious consequences.

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Marijuana

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•Adolescents who regularly smoke marijuana are more likely to drop out of school, become teenage parents, and be unemployed. •Marijuana affects memory, language proficiency, and motivation.

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Occasional use of any drug

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•Drug use is progressive and the first use usually occurs as part of a social gathering. •Few adolescent drug users are addicts but occasional drug use can lead to addiction. •The younger a person is when beginning drug use, the more likely addiction will occur. •Occasional drug use excites the limbic system and interferes with the prefrontal cortex ! drug users are more emotional and less reflective.

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Generational forgetting

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•The idea that each new generation forgets what the previous generation learned. As used here, the term refers to knowledge about the harm drugs can do.

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Project DARE

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•Drug Abuse Resistance Education •Features adults (usually police officers) telling •students about the dangers of drugs •DARE has no impact on later drug use

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Scare tactics: May increase drug use because

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•The advertisements make drugs seem exciting. •Adolescents recognize the exaggeration. •The ads give some teenagers ideas about ways to show defiance.

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Advertising campaigns against teen smoking

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•Antismoking announcements produced by cigarette companies increase use

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Important!

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•Prevention and moderation of adolescent drug use and abuse are possible. •Antidrug programs and messages need to be carefully designed to avoid a backlash or generational forgetting.

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Emerging adulthood

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•The period between the ages of 18 and 25, which is now widely thought of as a separate developmental stage. •Also called young adulthood or youth.

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Strong and active bodies

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•Emerging adults are usually in good health. •Traditionally, the years between ages 18 and 25 were a time for hard physical work and childbearing. •Physical work and parenthood are no longer expected of every young adult in the twenty-first century.

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Growth

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•The current level of food availability means that in almost every nation, emerging adults have reached full height (girls usually by age 16, boys by age 18). •For both sexes, muscle growth and fat accumulation continue into the early 20s, when women attain adult breast and hip size and men reach full shoulder width and upper-arm strength.

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Immune system and disease

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•By age 20, the immune system has developed well enough to fight off everything from the sniffles to cancer. •Usually, blood pressure is normal, teeth develop no new cavities, heart rate is steady, the brain is fully grown, and lung capacity is as large as it will ever be. •Death from disease almost never occurs during emerging adulthood.

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Sex and reproduction

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•The sexual-reproductive system is especially vigorous during emerging adulthood. •The sex drive is powerful, infertility is rare, orgasm is frequent, and birth is easy, with fewer complications in the early 20s than at any other time. •Sexual-reproductive characteristics are produced by sex hormones, which peak in both sexes at about age 20.

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Pregnancy and contraception

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•With frequent intercourse and without contraception, the average woman in her early 20s becomes pregnant within three months. •Globalization, advanced technology, and modern medicine have combined to produce effective contraception, available in almost every nation. •As fewer infants die, people no longer need to begin childbearing before age 20 or to have four or more children simply to ensure that some of their children will survive. •Advances in contraception have not only reduced the birth rate; they have also increased the rate of sexual activity, especially among unmarried adults. •Globally, emerging adults have fewer babies but engage in more sexual activity than older adults (married or not) do or than people their own age once did.

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Risks

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•Half of all emerging adults in the United States have had at least one sexually transmitted infection (STI). •Emerging adulthood is marked by a greater willingness to take risks of all sorts, not just sexual ones. •Young adults enjoy danger, drive without seat belts, carry guns, try addictive drugs.

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Extreme sports

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•Forms of recreation that include apparent risk of injury or death and that are attractive and thrilling as a result

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Drug abuse

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•Ingestion of a drug to the extent that it impairs the user's biological or psychological well-being.

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Drug addiction

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•Condition of drug dependence in which the absence of the given drug from the individual's system produces a drive—physiological, biological, or both—to ingest more of the drug

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More risks

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•Drug abuse is particularly common among those who die violently. •In the U.S., between the ages of 15 and 25, almost 1 male in every 100 dies violently, through suicide, homicide, or a motor-vehicle accident. •About 4 times as many young men as young women commit suicide or die in motor-vehicle accidents, and 6 times as many are murdered.

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Informed by experience

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•Labouvie-Vief investigated age differences in the way people described themselves. •Self-description categories Self-protective (high in self-involvement, low in self-doubt) Dysregulated (fragmented, overwhelmed by emotions or problems) Complex (valuing openness and independence above all) Integrated (able to regulate emotions and logic)

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Postformal thought

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•Proposed adult stage of cognitive development, following Piaget's four stages. •Postformal thought goes beyond adolescent thinking by being more practical, more flexible, and more dialectical.

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Really a Stage?

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• No one under age 20 had reached the advanced "integrated" stage, but some adults of every age had. • The largest shift in self-description toward higher levels occurred between adolescence and emerging adulthood.

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Postformal thinkers

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•Use formal analysis to learn science, distill principles, develop arguments, and resolve the world's problems •Are less impulsive than adolescents •Do not wait for someone to present a problem to solve or for circumstances to require a reaction

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Stereotype threat

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•Fear that someone else will judge one's appearance or behavior negatively and thereby confirm that person's prejudiced attitudes •Mere possibility of being negatively stereotyped arouses anxiety that can disrupt cognition and distort emotional regulation •Stereotype threat makes people of all ages doubt their ability, which reduces learning if their anxiety interferes with cognition

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Cognitive growth and higher education

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•Most contemporary students attend college primarily to secure their vocational and financial future. •College also correlates with better health. College graduates everywhere smoke less, eat better, exercise more, and live longer. •There is no doubt that tertiary education improves verbal and quantitative abilities, knowledge of specific subject areas, skills in various professions, reasoning, and reflection.

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Massification

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•Idea that establishing higher learning institutions and encouraging college enrollment could benefit everyone (the masses), leading to marked increases in the number of emerging adults in college.

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Continuity and change

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•Psychological research on personality traits of twins from ages 17 to 24 finds both genetic continuity and developmental improvements. •Emerging adults are open to new experiences. •The trend is toward less depression and more joy, along with more insight into the self.

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Ethnic, economic, religious, and cultural diversity

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•Discussion among people of different backgrounds, ages, and experiences leads to intellectual challenge and deeper thought. •Those who are most likely to be postformal thinkers are also those with the most friends from other backgrounds (Galupo et al., 2010).

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Identity achieved

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•The search for identity still begins at puberty, but it continues much longer. •Most emerging adults are still seeking to determine who they are. •Erikson believed that, at each stage, the outcome of earlier crises provides the foundation of each new era.

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Ethnic identity

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•About half of the 18- to 25-year-olds identify with very specific ethnic groups. •More than any other age group, emerging adults have friends with diverse backgrounds. •Ethnic identity may affect choices in language, manners, romance, employment, neighborhood, religion, clothing, and values.

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Vocational identity

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•Establishing a vocational identity is considered part of growing up. •Emerging adulthood is a "critical stage for the acquisition of resources"— including the education, skills, and experience needed for family and career success.

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Continuity and change

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•Psychological research on personality traits of twins from ages 17 to 24 finds both genetic continuity and developmental improvements. •Emerging adults are open to new experiences. •Trend is toward less depression and more joy, along with more insight into the self.

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Rising self-esteem

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•Psychological research finds both continuity and improvement in attitudes. •Positive trend of increasing happiness has become more evident over recent decades, perhaps because young adults are more likely to make their own life decisions (Twenge et al., 2008).

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Mental health and illness

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•Stresses and transitions of emerging adulthood might be thought to reduce self-esteem, but the research seems to say otherwise. •Dealing with transitions successfully—especially leaving home, achieving identity, attending and then graduating from college, and securing a full- time job—correlates with well-being.

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Psychopathology

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•Each particular psychopathology has a developmental trajectory and becomes more common at certain ages than at others. •In addition to substance use disorders, specific other problems—including mood disorders, anxiety disorders, and schizophrenia—are more likely to appear in emerging adulthood.

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Personality

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•Personality is not fixed by age 5, or 15, or 20, as it was once thought to be. •Emerging adults are open to experiences, which allows personality shifts and eagerness for more education

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Intimacy

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•Erikson's sixth psychosocial stage, intimacy versus isolation, particularly emphasizes that humans are social creatures. •Intimacy progresses from attraction to close connection to ongoing commitment. •Marriage and parenthood, as emerging adults are discovering, are only two of several paths to intimacy.

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Romantic partners

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•Most emerging adults are postponing, not abandoning, marriage. •"Hooking up" and "friends with benefits" are becoming more common.

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Interethnic marriage

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•In 2008, 15 percent of all U.S. marriages were officially counted as interethnic. •Although emerging adults do not usually exclude relationships with people of other ethnicities, their neighborhoods, religious institutions, and colleges make it more likely they will meet others of similar backgrounds.

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Social network and dating sites

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•Choice overload - Having so many options makes a thoughtful choice difficult. - Regret after making a choice is more likely.

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Cohabitation

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•Living with an unrelated person—typically a romantic partner—to whom one is not married. •Most young adults in the United States, England, and northern Europe cohabit rather than marry before age 25.

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Family

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•Emerging adults are supposedly independent, leaving their childhood home and parents behind. •Parents continue to be crucial influences after age 18—more so now than in the past. •Fewer emerging adults today have established their own families, secured high-paying jobs, or achieved a definitive understanding of their identity and goals.

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Living with parents

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•Happiness of emerging adults living with parents depends upon economy and culture. •Almost all unmarried young adults in Italy and Japan remain in their childhood home. •Fewer emerging adults live with parents in the U.S. if separate households are affordable.

Lifespan Exam 3 Answers – Flashcards

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