Adolescent Development In Dead Poet's Society

Zealous and aspiring teens have numerous expectations for their upcoming adulthood life and desire the wonders that are yet to come. Similar to the boy in the poem “Fifteen”, William Stafford writes about the speaker who struggles between temptation and integrity. Through the use of irony and symbolism, Stafford enhances that the act of maturity is not dependent on age. He accentuates the morals and virtues in which the teenage boy acts upon. With a covetous tone, he portrays that no matter the age, maturity is justified by the decisions people make.

Todd shows that he learned most from Keating because he found what gave his life purpose and what mattered to him, his friends and Welton. Todd early in the movie was hesitant to be friends with the boys, but overtime he becomes part of their social

Todd Anderson enrolls into is a timorous person, that has high academic standard to live up to by his parents and teachers. Throughout the movie Todd develops a strong moral for the justice of others. The problem is Todd believes he has no voice, and that nobody would listen to him. Mr. Keating sees this weakness in Todd, and pushes him out of his comfort zone by bringing an inner voice to Todd through poetry. When Mr. Keating is fired for being blamed for Neil’s death, Todd brings appropriate justice to Mr. Keating by standing up for him to let him know he wasn’t the one to blame and others followed Todd’s lead.

Change can be depicted by characters in Dead Poets Society notably in the character of Todd Anderson. Change for Todd in the film is inevitable to miss as he is introduced as a shy and extremely timid person. After his encounter with Mr Keating, Todd is viewed from a high camera angle to show that he is timid and not a strong and courageous person whom Neil represents. At this particular scene, Keating makes Todd 'yawp '. This is the beginning of Todd 's change in his self confidence. The main fear in Todd 's character is that he thinks life has no meaning, which in return, has no passion to contribute. Examples given of his behaviour is shown when Todd writes Carpe Diem on a piece of paper then continues to throw it into the bin thinking it has no meaning in life.

Diffusion is the state that represents young adolescents as they deal with the identity development process (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015). Adolescents in this state lack both exploration and commitment; they are not looking for any possible life choices (Broderick & Blewitt, 2015). At the beginning of the film, Todd was in the diffusion state. He attends the first assembly meeting with parents but he shows no passion about anything that is mentioned during the meeting. He is very shy, and he is not able to hold a conversation with other people without feeling secured. He refuses Neil’s invitation to be part

Erik Ericson psychosocial theory attempts to explain some of the natural changes that occur in each human being in relation between the social environment and self-understanding. In his eight stages, he describes, “the emergence of the self, the search for identity, the individual's relationships with others, and the role of culture throughout life” (Woolfolk, 2013, p. 87). In one of the eight stages, Ericson established the role that adolescence plays in a person’s life, identity versus role confusion. Identity refers to the organization of the individual's drives, abilities, beliefs, and history into a consistent image of self” (p. 90). According to Erickson in the adolescence, a person must confront the “central issue of constructing an identity that will provide a firm basis for adulthood… adolescence marks the first time that a conscious effort is made to answer the now pressing question: ‘Who am I?’” (p. 90)

Adolescence, too, can be divided into sub-stages: Early Teen Years (from twelve to fourteen); Middle Teen Years (fifteen to eighteen); and, Late Teen Years (nineteen to twenty) (pink). Erikson’s Developmental Theory labels this time as the fifth stage: Identity vs. Role Confusion. Up until this stage, all the prior stages involved events enacting their influence on the individual, this, the fifth stage, involves the opposite-the influence the individual can enact. The primary task of adolescence is to establish one’s identity, that is, to answer the question “Who am I?”. This quest for identity is achieved by experimentation; failure to experiment can result in role confusion according to Erikson (gold). This may mark a withdrawal from

The play went great, and everyone is cheering for Neil. But after he comes down, his father is there and he’s very mad, Neil didn’t tell him all the things Mr. Keating told him to. So he takes Neil with him home. Neil gets told off by his father, his mom doesn’t say a word. Neil is getting removed from Welton and is being sent to military school. He doesn’t want that, and when his parents are asleep, he goes downstairs, takes his father revolver and shoots himself.

According to Erikson (1950), identity formation is a period during adolescence (starting in puberty to late teens and towards early/middle adulthood) where one experiences a crisis (a choice). During this crisis, adolescents are making choices about their ideology (the ways in which they view the world) and their career (who are they going to be in the world). Adolescence is also characterized by the commitments and personal investments one makes to these choices. This is a crucial point in one’s life because these choices may be influenced by parental figures but are ultimately made by the individual. Erikson suggests that adolescence is not only a period of physiological changes but also of cognitive changes. During this period adolescents become more sophisticated in their thinking and they will begin to differentiate from both parents and peers. Based on Erikson’s previous stages, the child has essentially developed the necessary tools, including self-esteem and trust, which allows them to successfully face the crisis and take the necessary steps toward defining their own identity.

Identity development is a fluid process throughout the human life cycle. Seemingly, adolescence, development after the age of 12 through young adulthood, is the most difficult transitive period in the life cycle. Adolescence is a critical time for a human, because it is the period when various personal roles are examined and one tries to assimilate these roles into a perception of self. Adolescents are struggling to identify different areas in their life such as religious preferences, sexuality, future careers, and hobbies.

This paper will consist of psychological based research, containing the development of adolescence and how it relates to my own life. From identity vs. role of confusion, real life scenarios will be interpreted. The research will analyze concepts based on Erik Erikson 's new and exciting work on identity and (related to how people think and treat each other) development in the 1960s and Canadian developmental psychologist James Marcia refined and extended Erikson’s model, primarily focusing on adolescent development. There will be four identity statuses covered based on psychological identity development from James Marcia. The work shown in this paper will display certain choices made by an individual, and how much he or she displays a commitment to those choices. Implications of the results for the developmental period of adolescents research will be discussed.

Suicide makes a lot of families and friends feel guilty of thinking they played a part in the victim’s suicide. This is because it makes them think about all the wrong things they might have done to harm the individual and make them feel that they were the main cause of their death. This in a lot of cases leads to them attempting suicide. They often do not realize that their death could’ve been caused by a bully or feeling left out of the circle. “ I didn’t tell anyone about it… maybe I should have asked or told someone.”(Josh, Suicide loss victim) In this instance, Josh knew that his friends had problems in life but he didn’t tell anyone about them. After his friend’s death, he thought back to it and felt guilty that he did not help save a life. He has a feeling that he is now the main cause of his friends loss it is all his fault now. When they become guilty, it could often make them victims of

Todd Anderson has been sent to the school where his popular older brother was valedictorian. His roommate, Neil, although exceedingly bright and popular, is very much under rule of his overbearing father. The two, along with their other friends, meet Professor Keating, their new English teacher, who tells them about the Dead Poets Society, and encourages them to go against

According to Erickson (1968), adolescents were often at the fifth psychosocial stage of human development. This stage was called “Identity versus Identity Confusion.” According to Erickson, if adolescents were not allowed to explore their new roles and follow a future positive path, they may remain confused about their identity. Resolving conflicts during adolescence, according to Erickson, assists adolescents to become who they would be, unique individual, progressing further into higher developmental stages. Erickson noted that for adolescents to become autonomous, their self-concept and self-esteem

Adolescents are involved in the difficult task of identifying themselves and making important life decisions. (Smits, Soenens, Vansteenkiste, Luyckx, & Goossens, 2010). The support from parents seems to greatly assist adolescents in their identity formation process. Two theories that have been used in research to examine adolescent identity are the psychosocial development of adolescents and Bandura’s social learning theory. Psychosocial development as theorized by Erikson has eight stages through which a healthily developing human should pass from infancy to late adulthood (Kail & Cavanaugh, 2010). Adolescents fall into stage five, Identity vs. Role Confusion, in which the question of “Who am I” is trying to be answered. In trying to