LECTURE 1: INTRODUCTION
PART 1: INTRODUCTION
Three adolescent research projects:
1. Large-scale, national, longitudinal research project on pubertal
development, love, romantic relationships, and sexuality among
adolescents
o Longitudinal survey study of Dutch youth N = 1470
adolescents at wave 1, Four waves in total, every 6 months
(began Fall 2011), 5 age cohorts, 11-15 yrs at W1; 13-17 yrs at
W4
o The role of personal characteristics in normative and non-
normative romantic and sexual development
o 1) Role of physical (puberty, attractiveness) and
personality characteristics in romantic and sexual
development
o 2) How do these individual characteristics interact with
contextual factors in predicting specific developmental
paths?
2. ART project (Adolescent Risk Taking): An experimental investigation
of developmental and individual differences in adolescent risky
decision making: the role of peers, siblings and parents
o Dutch Study – 607 Adolescents 11-17 (1st and 3rd year) –
Followed 1X per year for 3 years (T3 2014/5)
o St. Martin Study – 450 Adolescents 11-17 (1st and 3rd year)
– Followed 1X per year for 2 years (T2 Jan 2014) – Lower
educational tracks – NL 40% minority SXM 99%
o 10 risk behaviors:
Alcohol
Delinquency
Gambling
Internet
“Extreme sports”
Smoking
School
Unsafe sex
Softdrugs
Traffic
Risk perception, peer and parent risk behavior
and attitudes, experimental studies
3. When being different becomes the norm: How microaggressions
affect Dutch lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth
o Three studies:
o On-line sample of 267 Dutch sexual minorities (16-22
years)
o School sample of 600 adolescents (school climate)
o Qualitative interviews with Dutch adolescents
Course set up
, - Foundations (4 lectures, 1 debate, exam prep session)
o Intro, puberty, cognition, identity
- Social world (4 lectures, 1 debate, exam prep session)
o Family, peers, morality, love & sex
- Broader issues (4 lectures, 1 expert panel, exam prep session)
o Social media, achievement, problems
Written assignment
- Part 1: pre-paper
o Decide if you will work alone or with a partner
o Decide on a topic and research question
o Find 6/8 research articles
o Write abstract (summary) about 3
- Part 2: term paper
o Write critical review of 5/7 research articles
o See details on Blackboard
PART 2: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF
ADOLESCENCE
- Learning objectives
o To understand how adolescence has been conceptualized
across time and contexts
o Understand old and new views about storm and stress
o Understand how the beginning and end of adolescence has
been defined
Conceptualizing Adolescence
- The Health Paradox of Adolescence
o Adolescence in the healthiest and most resilient period of the
lifespan
From childhood to adolescence:
strength speed, rt, mental reasoning, immune function
resistance to cold, heat, hunger, dehydration, and most
types of injury
o Yet: overall morbidity and rates increase 200-300% from
childhood to late adolescence
- Sources of Morbidity and Morality in Adolescence
o Primary causes of death/disability are related to problems of
control of behavior and emotion
o rates of accidents, suicides, homicides, depression, alcohol &
substance use, violence, reckless behaviors, eating disorders,
health problems related to risky sexual behaviors
o risk-taking, sensation-seeking, and erratic (emotionally
influenced) behavior
- Recognized for a long time
o Youth are heated by Nature as drunken men by wine.
~Aristotle
, o I would that there was no age between ten and twenty-three…
for there is nothing in between but getting wenches with child,
wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting… ~ Shakespeare
(The Winter’s Tale, Act III)
- Scientific Questions (Ronald Dahl)
o What is the empirical evidence that adolescents are “heated
by Nature”?
o Are these changes based in biology?
In the hormones of puberty?
In specific brain changes that underpin some behavioral
and emotional tendencies & problems that emerge in
adolescence?
o What are the implications for interventions? Should we
intervene?
- The Father of Adolescence
o G. Stanley Hall (1904) (1st president of APA)
o Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology,
Anthropology, Sociologiy, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education
(2 volumes)
o Recapitulation Theory
Development of individual reflected the development of
the species
Thrown out for multiple reasons
o Storm and Stress
Normal for all adolescents that as a result of the
biological changes, all adolescents go through the period
of storm and stress
Results in mental health issues and reckless
behavior
- Arnett (1999) Review of storm and stress
o Oversimplifies a complex issue
o Many adolescents navigate this interval with minimal
difficulties
Don’t expect that people have to go through major
depression or something
o However, empirical evidence for:
Increased conflicts with parents (intensity)
Mood volatility (and negative mood)
Moods fluctuate more
Increased risk behavior
o Came up with modified view of storm and stress
Not a myth, real for many, but not all and not
necessarily related to psychopathology
Males and females separated helps
- Conceptualizing (the study of) Adolescence across Time
o Aristotle: Youth are heated by Nature as drunken men by wine.
o G.S. Hall (1904) a period of heightened “storm and stress.”
1920 Margaret Meade – questioned storm and stress in
all cultures
, Not all youth experiences this
1930-50s – psychoanalytic perspective – Anna Freud –
storm and stress is normal
All adolescents go through this emotional phase
o 1960s and 1970s: attempts to understand the problems as
due to “raging hormones.”
- Later conceptualizations…
o 1980s Petersen (1988) questioned the idea that all youth
experience trouble (11% chronic difficulties, 32% intermittent,
57% healthy)
Her answer = no
o 1990s Arnett (1999) revised the idea of storm and stress
o 1990s-2000s context and time period recognized as important,
thus different developmental trajectories (Dubas, Miller &
Petersin, 2003) with consideration of time and context
o 2000s evolutionary ideas applied to recast concept of risk
o 2010s neuroscience models of the adolescent brain in relation
to behavior
- EX Developmental trajectories of binge drinking during
college
o
- How to conceptualize Adolescent Development from a
different scientific standpoint?
o Adolescence –interactions between biology, behavior and
social context
o Interdisciplinary approach needed
Defining adolescence
- Defining adolescence
o The period between the onset of sexual maturation and the
attainment of adult roles and responsibilities
o The transition from:
“Child” status (requires adult monitoring)
To “adult” status (self-responsibility for behavior)
o We don’t have a clear mark for the end of adolescence
- John P. Hill (1973) first president of the Society for Research
on Adolescence
o Framework for the Study of Adolescence
o Primary Changes – the developmental changes that make
adolescence distinctive
o 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
PART 1: INTRODUCTION
Three adolescent research projects:
1. Large-scale, national, longitudinal research project on pubertal
development, love, romantic relationships, and sexuality among
adolescents
o Longitudinal survey study of Dutch youth N = 1470
adolescents at wave 1, Four waves in total, every 6 months
(began Fall 2011), 5 age cohorts, 11-15 yrs at W1; 13-17 yrs at
W4
o The role of personal characteristics in normative and non-
normative romantic and sexual development
o 1) Role of physical (puberty, attractiveness) and
personality characteristics in romantic and sexual
development
o 2) How do these individual characteristics interact with
contextual factors in predicting specific developmental
paths?
2. ART project (Adolescent Risk Taking): An experimental investigation
of developmental and individual differences in adolescent risky
decision making: the role of peers, siblings and parents
o Dutch Study – 607 Adolescents 11-17 (1st and 3rd year) –
Followed 1X per year for 3 years (T3 2014/5)
o St. Martin Study – 450 Adolescents 11-17 (1st and 3rd year)
– Followed 1X per year for 2 years (T2 Jan 2014) – Lower
educational tracks – NL 40% minority SXM 99%
o 10 risk behaviors:
Alcohol
Delinquency
Gambling
Internet
“Extreme sports”
Smoking
School
Unsafe sex
Softdrugs
Traffic
Risk perception, peer and parent risk behavior
and attitudes, experimental studies
3. When being different becomes the norm: How microaggressions
affect Dutch lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth
o Three studies:
o On-line sample of 267 Dutch sexual minorities (16-22
years)
o School sample of 600 adolescents (school climate)
o Qualitative interviews with Dutch adolescents
Course set up
, - Foundations (4 lectures, 1 debate, exam prep session)
o Intro, puberty, cognition, identity
- Social world (4 lectures, 1 debate, exam prep session)
o Family, peers, morality, love & sex
- Broader issues (4 lectures, 1 expert panel, exam prep session)
o Social media, achievement, problems
Written assignment
- Part 1: pre-paper
o Decide if you will work alone or with a partner
o Decide on a topic and research question
o Find 6/8 research articles
o Write abstract (summary) about 3
- Part 2: term paper
o Write critical review of 5/7 research articles
o See details on Blackboard
PART 2: INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF
ADOLESCENCE
- Learning objectives
o To understand how adolescence has been conceptualized
across time and contexts
o Understand old and new views about storm and stress
o Understand how the beginning and end of adolescence has
been defined
Conceptualizing Adolescence
- The Health Paradox of Adolescence
o Adolescence in the healthiest and most resilient period of the
lifespan
From childhood to adolescence:
strength speed, rt, mental reasoning, immune function
resistance to cold, heat, hunger, dehydration, and most
types of injury
o Yet: overall morbidity and rates increase 200-300% from
childhood to late adolescence
- Sources of Morbidity and Morality in Adolescence
o Primary causes of death/disability are related to problems of
control of behavior and emotion
o rates of accidents, suicides, homicides, depression, alcohol &
substance use, violence, reckless behaviors, eating disorders,
health problems related to risky sexual behaviors
o risk-taking, sensation-seeking, and erratic (emotionally
influenced) behavior
- Recognized for a long time
o Youth are heated by Nature as drunken men by wine.
~Aristotle
, o I would that there was no age between ten and twenty-three…
for there is nothing in between but getting wenches with child,
wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting… ~ Shakespeare
(The Winter’s Tale, Act III)
- Scientific Questions (Ronald Dahl)
o What is the empirical evidence that adolescents are “heated
by Nature”?
o Are these changes based in biology?
In the hormones of puberty?
In specific brain changes that underpin some behavioral
and emotional tendencies & problems that emerge in
adolescence?
o What are the implications for interventions? Should we
intervene?
- The Father of Adolescence
o G. Stanley Hall (1904) (1st president of APA)
o Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology,
Anthropology, Sociologiy, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education
(2 volumes)
o Recapitulation Theory
Development of individual reflected the development of
the species
Thrown out for multiple reasons
o Storm and Stress
Normal for all adolescents that as a result of the
biological changes, all adolescents go through the period
of storm and stress
Results in mental health issues and reckless
behavior
- Arnett (1999) Review of storm and stress
o Oversimplifies a complex issue
o Many adolescents navigate this interval with minimal
difficulties
Don’t expect that people have to go through major
depression or something
o However, empirical evidence for:
Increased conflicts with parents (intensity)
Mood volatility (and negative mood)
Moods fluctuate more
Increased risk behavior
o Came up with modified view of storm and stress
Not a myth, real for many, but not all and not
necessarily related to psychopathology
Males and females separated helps
- Conceptualizing (the study of) Adolescence across Time
o Aristotle: Youth are heated by Nature as drunken men by wine.
o G.S. Hall (1904) a period of heightened “storm and stress.”
1920 Margaret Meade – questioned storm and stress in
all cultures
, Not all youth experiences this
1930-50s – psychoanalytic perspective – Anna Freud –
storm and stress is normal
All adolescents go through this emotional phase
o 1960s and 1970s: attempts to understand the problems as
due to “raging hormones.”
- Later conceptualizations…
o 1980s Petersen (1988) questioned the idea that all youth
experience trouble (11% chronic difficulties, 32% intermittent,
57% healthy)
Her answer = no
o 1990s Arnett (1999) revised the idea of storm and stress
o 1990s-2000s context and time period recognized as important,
thus different developmental trajectories (Dubas, Miller &
Petersin, 2003) with consideration of time and context
o 2000s evolutionary ideas applied to recast concept of risk
o 2010s neuroscience models of the adolescent brain in relation
to behavior
- EX Developmental trajectories of binge drinking during
college
o
- How to conceptualize Adolescent Development from a
different scientific standpoint?
o Adolescence –interactions between biology, behavior and
social context
o Interdisciplinary approach needed
Defining adolescence
- Defining adolescence
o The period between the onset of sexual maturation and the
attainment of adult roles and responsibilities
o The transition from:
“Child” status (requires adult monitoring)
To “adult” status (self-responsibility for behavior)
o We don’t have a clear mark for the end of adolescence
- John P. Hill (1973) first president of the Society for Research
on Adolescence
o Framework for the Study of Adolescence
o Primary Changes – the developmental changes that make
adolescence distinctive
o 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
