The development of the prefrontal cortex during adolescence permits them to engage in sophisticated thinking. For example, they are able to compare different possibilities, they are able to monitor their own thought processes and comprehend abstract logic. Therefore, when it comes to making decisions, adolescents are able to value possibilities and consequences better than a child, but still not like an adult. Despite of the improvements in decision-making and cognition, adolescents are still driven towards risk-involving activities. As per Steinberg (2013), this could be explained by the time gap between the development of the limbic system in puberty and the prefrontal cortex maturing years after.
In Erikson’s view he sees these conflicts centered around developing a psychological quality or failing to develop that quality. Erikson’s theory is stage theory based on the assumption that development is universal and although there may be individual differences in terms of when and how it is experienced everyone in the end should develop and go through the same stages. In our world today, Erikson’s theory is often questioned due to the growing cross-cultural evidence that people in different cultures develop and go through different experiences and stages in life. Erikson’s fifth stage of his theory is the most controversial and fought over stage. This stage in Identity vs. Confusion and concerns adolescence children and the way they explore their independence and develop a sense of self.
Bowlby proposed that an internal working model (IWM) developed in childhood will determine or affect later adult relationships and how successful they are. Ainsworth’s strange situation helped develop three main types of attachment: secure, resistant and avoidant. Secure children develop a positive model of themselves and relationships as their primary caregiver was sensitive, emotionally responsive and supportive. Resistant children have parents who were inconsistent in their care giving, resulting in the child having a negative image of themself - often seeking attention but not finding comfort when they receive it. Avoidant children often have rejecting parents, which leads to them developing an internal model which makes them think they are unacceptable and unworthy.
Cognitive development requires an individual to analyze their experiences and properly form concepts. There is a conscious effort and motivation in this theory. Freud describes unconscious urges in his psychoanalytic theory and claims there is a constant battle or obsession with unconscious impulses and sexual impulses. Observable behavior is emphasized in Albert Bandura’s social learning theory. Bandura believed that humans are able to learn through modeling.
A Gradual Transition: Emerging Adulthood What is emerging adulthood, and how has cultural change contributed to it? in emerging adulthood, young adults from about age 18 to 25 are released from parental oversight but have not yet taken on adult roles. During these years of extended exploration, young people prolong identity development as they explore alternatives in breadth and depth. increased education required for entry-level positions in many fields, gains in economic prosperity, reduced need for young people’s labor, and globalization have prompted the appearance and spread of emerging adulthood. In trying out possibilities, emerging adults must adjust to disappointments in love and work, and their explorations also extend risky behaviors of adolescence.
At this stage they may lack experience and confidence depending on the individual. With the help of cognitive development they begin to form personality traits. They have the ability to think in new ways allowing them to know how they feel about themselves. Self esteem continues to rise during adolescence as they gain confidence and self awareness. | At this stage will complete puberty and the physical transition from childhood to adult.
This may cause the teenager to become more independent as they may resent their parents, for getting divorced, and leave home. The family, in which an adolescent is living in at the time of puberty, can make a difference to how a teenager handles puberty. “Puberty is characterized by accelerated physical growth and intense psycho-social adjustment” (Mattson 6). Rapid transitions begin to take place, and their bodies start to transform. Boys commence to develop later than girls, causing stress due to identity quandaries.
At each stage, the individual’s libido known as energy is motivated on a part of our body that is mainly related at that stage. If the developing children are met at each stage and it will move on to the next stage. But if they struggle or conflict or some unsatisfactory experience, then individual becomes fixated known as stuck at this stage. The can result in definite ways of being or personality traits that are carried out into adulthood which can explain later in life. Oral stage is the first stage.
Kohlberg explains how adolescents try to refine their sense of identity and try out different “selves”. He states that the search for an identity lasts past the teen years and into early adulthood. The reason could be that the teenager is used to their parents choosing what they are going to be, that they just want to ignore the parents and do what they want to do and “find” themselves. The teenager has decided that they have seen the life their parents have and has not yet decided to choose that life and is rebellious to it because they want to experience other lives. The stage that this most fits in is the Conventional Phase in Kohlberg’s Moral ladder.
Maturing Maturing eventually will happen no matter what a childs will. To see things as they are, to take responsibility, and to do tasks that children cannot be expected to do. How fast a child matures depends on the child of course, but more greatly, the environmental pressure that the child is forced to withstand. Some children have everything done for them, they need not think for themselves, or to broaden their senses to care for others. Others, that usually have no choice but to adopt a mature state of mind, exist in a questionable society, where their needs are usually not met.