Psychological Thinking Changes During Adolescence

What do you think when you hear the word “teenager”? Most people think of teenagers as pugnacious and restless human beings. Their rebellious and rambunctious behavior usually leads people to believe this. Teens tend to participate in jeopardous activities such as dangerous driving, binge-drinking, or fighting that could land them in serious trouble, the ER or the police station. Although engaging in these exercises is strongly frowned upon, some studies show that most of these actions cannot be controlled. Adolescents are drawn to risky acts due to specific messengers in the brain, peer pressure and their odd methods of apprehending the outcomes of a situation.

Adolescence is a time where adolescents grow and mature at a rapid rate. It is also a time where adolescents are more vulnerable to taking risks, such as using and becoming addicted to illegal substances, due to raging hormones. Whether or not an adolescent chooses to engage in drug use and abuse depends on their home environment and those they choose to associate themselves with. Adolescents are confronted with an enormous amount of pressure to participate in risky behaviors by their peers. According to Broderick and Blewitt (2015), “risky behaviors are behaviors that constitute a departure from socially accepted norms or behaviors that pose a threat to the well-being of individuals or groups” (p. 389). One such risky behavior is drug use and addiction. Some adolescents use cocaine, heroin, methamphetamine, and prescription drugs in order to get “high”. Adolescents who engage in drug use are likely to become addicted, and thus, their addiction will negatively affect their brain development.

Emerging adults have reached a step up from childhood but are not yet ready to fully take on adult responsibilities. This part of life is open to many new experiences which can be very good for the morality of this upcoming generation of adults. People find themselves changing majors in college or taking different classes to explore their interests and find out where they best belong in their future career field.

Adolescence is a transitional stage of becoming an adult by going through puberty. Hence, an adolescent is an individual going through the stages adolescence. This is a critical stage for physical, emotional, intellectual, and social development. Since the onset of puberty varies, it is difficult to give a specific age range for an adolescent. There is crucial evidence of substance use among boys and girls during this transition. The use of drugs

Substance abuse isn’t a new thing. Long ago since the start of human history, people have looked for ways to alter our consciousness with the use of herbs, alcohol and drugs.

Adolescence is a critical time of development. During this period there are significant changes in brain development, emotions, cognition, behavior, and personal relationships. It is during this time that most major mental health disorders appear, many of which carry over into adulthood. Behavior patterns such as substance abuse also often develop during this time and may continue throughout adulthood. Many adolescents struggling with mental health issues begin to exhibit symptoms such as acting out at home or in school, showing a decreased interest in activities that they previously enjoyed, or bringing home poor grades. Others ultimately are charged with offenses ranging from status

In this paper I plan to discuss the developmental stages of adolescence. Adolescents are also referred to as "teenagers" or "young adults." Adolescence begins after the childhood stage and ends right before adulthood. The years of adolescence range from 12 years old to 21 years old. The years of adolescence can be quite a roller coaster ride. Young people in this stage encounter a great deal of changes in their life as they prepare for adulthood. I will discuss emotional, intellectual, physiological, and social domains of development and how it relates to adolescents. I will also discuss some helpful tips for teachers to aide in communicating effectively to adolescents and understanding their

Adolescence is a time of stressful transition for teenagers. They are straddling the fence between childhood and adulthood. Changes in their bodies, brains, thinking, values, friends, responsibilities and expectations cause events that are usually a time fraught with turbulence, for both the teen and their parents. This is a normal part of human development, and must be endured in order to come out the other side, hopefully well-adjusted, happy, healthy, and

I choose Chapter 15, Adolescence: Cognitive Development as my project topic. As I was working on my project I used the multiple intelligences developed by Howard Gardner. In my presentation I used spatial learning by creating my project as a powerpoint with all the definitions along with pictures to help explain the definitions. For example, with my slide on high school and middle school I incorporated pictures from the schools that I attended. THe next intelligence I used with my slides was the logical/mathematical and naturalistic learning. I used the mathematical intelligence with the statistics I included on my cyberbullying slide. By looking up statistics and comparing them it helped me see how much of an impact bullying is having on kids in school today. I used naturalistic intelligence by categorizing all my slides to match up with the definitions and have the correct flow to connect to the next topic. By categorizing these slides together I was able to create a flow to my project to present it in an orderly manner. A intelligence I used while organizing my project was musical, as I put together my slides and while writing this paper I was listening to Beethoven. When I

Emerging Adulthood is a fascinating period of development with the shifting of life choices thanks to people living longer in countries such as the US. The 18 to mid 20-year-old person has a different outlook on life with the competitive job market, and the decision to try to attend college at the risk of not being able to find the job they need. The days of getting married before adulthood are long gone as people try to have a social life before settling down with a single individual. Trying new things and meeting new people is exciting and has taken a stronger meeting than to buy a home and start a family. With the healthier trends, people are living longer, and the age bracket has expanded and shifted for when settling down begins. Many

Adolescence most important task is to develop an identity separate from one’s parents, a social and sexual role that supports their life. As an adolescence, peers are one factor that shapes you into who you are. However, it is easy to get caught up in the wrong crowd, experience insecurity, anxiety, depression, and have an increasingly high expectations of others. Biologically the changes during

Keeping up with the life of a typical adolescent is not as simple as it seems. Adolescents frequently get consumed with negative thoughts about the future which causes anxiety and prevents sleep. These are all signs that can lead one to a state called depression1. Once an adolescent is depressed, it is common for them to reach out to substances that numb their pain such as: alcohol, cigarettes, and marijuana. These drugs can be extremely destructive when abused. Since these substances can easily be bought by young adolescents, it is becoming more common for youngsters to reach out to these dangerous substances. Alcohol being the most prevalent and the easiest to get places a lot of trouble on youths. According to past research, there is a direct correlation between depression and alcohol abuse among teenagers aged 13-18.

Adolescence is the transitional period in a persons life time that links childhood and adulthood. The factors that influence development during adolescence include genetic/biological and environmental/social. There are many developmental issues that take place during the transition from an adolescent to a young adult. The issues of emerging adulthood(18-25) are characterized by new experiences, experimentation, exploration as well as new developmental tasks.

There are five characteristics that all adolescents have. These characteristics are biological growth and development, an undefined status, increased decision-making, increased pressures, and the search for self. The brain and the endocrine system control biological growth and development. During the early stages of adolescence, individuals experience growth in height and weight, changes in the body, the development of sexual characteristics, and skin problems. For example, I started getting curves in my body when I hit puberty. My body started to develop changes. Our society’s expectations for children and adults are clear, but for the adolescent, expectations are inexplicit. Some adolescents are treated like children, but some are treated like adults. There is an undefined status. For example, my parents pay for my lunch, but I have to have a job so I can support myself.

Adolescence is the distinct transitional stage between childhood and adulthood in human development, extending primarily over the teenage years and terminating legally when the age of majority is reached (Rathus, 2014). However in some instances, this biological, cognitive, social and emotional maturity may not be reached until a later stage and may be dictated by gender. Adolescence is characterised by rapidly changing and unpredictable behaviour (Freud, as cited in Rathus 2014), heightened and unstable emotions (Hall, as cited in Rathus 2014), disturbances in identity, the gradual development of one’s moral reasoning (Kohlberg, as cited in Rathus, 2014) and the gradual establishment of one’s independence. Several of these changes may occur at differing phases in adolescent growth. This development is categorized into three separate stages; early adolescence, middle adolescence, and late adolescence. Early Adolescence, commencing from the ages of eleven or twelve until the age of fourteen, comprises of several features such as rapid biological development and maturity, heightened stress levels and limited coping capabilities. On the other hand, middle adolescence, from the approximate age of fourteen to sixteen, involves the gradual cease of biological change, an increase in coping strategies and declined stress levels. Furthermore, late adolescence, commencing from the age of sixteen until the age of eighteen or nineteen, encompasses physical maturity, whereby the