ADOLESCENT PSYCHOLOGY

MORAL COGNITIONS AND PROSOCIAL RESPONDING IN ADOLESCENCE

2007-06-23T08:52:00.000-07:00

From the late 1960s through the 1980s, research on moral judgment flourished, especially
work influenced by Kohlberg’s (1981, 1984) influential cognitive developmental
approach to moral judgment. In addition, there was a marked upsurge in empirical research
on prosocial development from the early to mid-1970s until approximately a
decade ago. Much of the early research on moral judgment included adolescent study
participants; moreover, in recent years there has been an inordinate amount of research
on adolescents’ aggression and antisocial behavior. Nonetheless, as noted by Hoffman
in 1980 and Eisenberg in 1990, studies of the prosocial aspects of moral development
during adolescence have been limited in quantity. Indeed, in 1987 Hill commented that
“capability for relatedness, connectedness, communion, and for what Gilligan has
termed ‘caring morality’ have . . . been little studied” (p. 24). Perhaps the relative
dearth of research on adolescents’ prosocial tendencies is not surprising, given that social
science researchers and the popular press have tended to emphasize the negative
aspects of adolescence, painting a picture of this developmental period as one of emotional
turmoil, hormones, and delinquency (Steinberg & Morris, 2001).
Nonetheless, there is a body of research on adolescent moral reasoning and prosocial
behavior that is informative for researchers and practitioners interested in adolescent
development. In this chapter we review findings on adolescents’ moral reasoning
or attributions and prosocial behaviors and emotional reactions (e.g., empathy and
sympathy). We begin with a brief discussion of some of the reasons why one would expect
morality to continue to develop in adolescence. Next, findings on moral cognitions
(e.g., moral judgment and attributions) are discussed, including those pertaining to
justice-oriented and prosocial issues. Then data on adolescents’ prosocial behavior (including
volunteer and civic activities) and empathy-related responding are reviewed.
Normative development (i.e., age-related changes) and variables related to individual
differences in moral development are considered. Research conducted with children in
late elementary school and high school is emphasized in this chapter, rather than work
with college students. Moreover, more recent findings and trends in conceptual and empirical
work often are highlighted; readers can access earlier reviews for detailed summaries
of prior work (e.g., Hoffman, 1980; Eisenberg, 1990).
155
Work on this chapter was supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health (1 R01 MH
60838) and the National Institute of Drug Abuse (DA05227).
THE FOUNDATIONS FOR MORAL COGNITIONS AND PROSOCIAL
DEVELOPMENT IN ADOLESCENCE
During the preschool and elementary school years, major advances are evident in moral
judgment and in regard to the frequency of some types of morally relevant behaviors
(e.g., some positive behaviors; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998; Rest, 1983). Nonetheless, there
are reasons to expect further change in moral cognitions and prosocial tendencies in
adolescence. First, moral judgment and prosocial behaviors such as helping, sharing,
and comforting have been linked both conceptually and empirically with perspectivetaking
skills (Eisenberg, 1986; Kohlberg, 1981, 1984), which continues to develop in
adolescence. For example, it is not until preadolescence (ages 10–12) that individuals
are “aware of the infinite regress (I know that you know that I know that you know, etc.)
characteristic of dyadic relations; that each person is simultaneously aware of his own
and others’ subjective abilities . . . [and begins] to view his own interactions with and
subjective perspectives of others from a third person perspective” (Selman, 1975,
p. 40). Moreover, later in adolescence, the individual may become aware that in taking
another’s perspective, “the mutuality of perspectives includes a view of both self and
other as complex psychological systems of values, beliefs, attitudes, etc. [and the] . . .
further awareness that the mutuality of understanding of each other’s point of view can
take place at different qualitative levels—for example, persons can ‘know’ each other
as acquaintances, friends, closest friends, lovers, etc.” (p. 40). Selman (1980) reported a
linear pattern of change in social perspective taking from childhood to adulthood, including
advances for many individuals from adolescence into adulthood. Given the
conceptual importance of understanding another’s perspective for sympathy, otheroriented
prosocial behaviors, and higher level moral reasoning, advances in perspectivetaking
skills in adolescence would be expected to be associated with further development
of these capabilities during the same period (Colby, Kohlberg, Gibbs, & Lieberman,
1983; Eisenberg, 1986; Kohlberg, 1984).
Similarly, the advances in social problem-solving skills and interpersonal negotiation
skills noted during adolescence (e.g., Berg, 1989; Brion-Meisels & Selman, 1984)
would be expected to contribute to the development of other-oriented social interaction,
as would advances in conceptions of friendship and relationships (Brown & Gilligan,
1992; Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998; Selman, 1980) and in the ability to make
accurate attributions about others’ motives (Crick & Dodge, 1994; see also Eisenberg,
1986). In addition, changes in conceptions of the self from childhood into adolescence
likely promote moral and prosocial development. In childhood, the self is defined primarily
in terms of nonmoral properties (e.g., bodily properties, material possessions, or
typical behavior); in contrast, by late adolescence, the self is defined in terms of social
and psychological aspects of the self, and morality is the major regulator of social interactions,
whereas belief systems are central to characterizing the psychological self
(see Damon & Hart, 1988; Harter, 1999).
Finally, changes in the quality of moral reasoning and in the likelihood of sympathetic
responding during adolescence that are discussed in this chapter have been conceptually
linked to the development of altruistic tendencies (e.g., Eisenberg, 1986; Eisenberg
& Fabes, 1998). For example, Hoffman (2000) argued that the ability to sympathize
with the distresses of others who are abstract (i.e., are not in the immediate situation)
156 Moral Cognitions and Prosocial Responding in Adolescence
and with the chronic distress of others (including disadvantaged social groups) develops
in late childhood or early adolescence, based on early adolescents’ newfound ability
to view others as having continuing personal identities and life experiences beyond
the immediate situation. This change in sympathy is believed to promote adolescents’
willingness to assist abstract individuals or groups (who are not immediately present).
In brief, during late childhood and adolescence there are significant changes in sociocognitive
skills and affective responses that are believed to foster the development of
moral reasoning and altruistic tendencies (i.e., high-level prosocial responding). Therefore,
adolescence would be expected to be a period of growth for moral and prosocial
dispositions, cognitions, and behaviors.
MORAL REASONING
As mentioned previously, one reason to expect change in moral behavior in adolescence
is that moral reasoning continues to mature during adolescence and into adulthood.
Moral reasoning (or judgment), depending on its conceptualization, reflects the
structure and content of an individual’s reasoning about hypothetical or real-life moral
dilemmas—that is, how an individual justifies his or her moral decisions (Eisenberg,
1986; Kohlberg, 1981; Rest, 1979). In some studies, scores of moral reasoning may reflect
the actual decision made by a person as much or more than its reasoning (e.g., Piaget,
1932/1965).
Time does not permit an in-depth review of the basic findings on the development
of moral reasoning and recent changes in its measurement (see Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau,
& Thoma, 1999a, 1999b; Walker, in press). Rather, focal issues in recent research on
adolescents’ moral judgment are briefly summarized. These include findings on adolescents’
level of moral reasoning and its structure and the relations of moral reasoning
to adolescents’ adjustment, social competence, and risky behaviors, as well as to socialization
correlates.
The Nature of Adolescents’ Moral Reasoning
Justice Reasoning
The type of moral reasoning that has received the most empirical attention is Kohlberg’s
(1981) justice-oriented reasoning. According to Colby et al. (1983), although Stage 2
(individualism, instrumental purpose, and exchange) reasoning is predominant in early
adolescence, at about age 13, and throughout adolescence, Stage 3 (mutual interpersonal
expectations, relationships, and interpersonal conformity reasoning) moral reasoning
is the most common, dominant mode of moral reasoning. In this type of reasoning,
the “right” includes living up to what is expected by people close to you or what
others generally expect of people in your role (as son, wife, etc.). “Being good” is important
and is reflected in having good motives, showing concern for others, and maintaining
mutual relationships through trust, loyalty, respect, and gratitude (Colby et al.,
1983). At this stage, the focus in moral reasoning shifts from self-interest (Stage 2) to
fulfilling others’ expectations and concern with one’s position in others’ eyes, as well as
maintaining positive interpersonal relationships with others. Stage 4 (social system and
Moral Reasoning 157
conscience) reasoning also is used by some adolescents, but generally only infrequently.
Stage 4 reasoning increases with age from early adolescence into adulthood. Stage 4
reasoning emphasizes fulfilling the duties to which you agreed, upholding laws except
in extreme cases in which they conflict with other fixed social duties, and contributing
to the society, group, or institution (Colby et al., 1983).
Recent research is consistent with earlier findings (e.g., Dawson, 2002; Walker,
Gustafson, & Hennig, 2001; Pratt, Arnold, Pratt, & Diessner, 1999; see also Narvaez,
1998) in regard to the nature of adolescents’ moral reasoning. However, it has been argued
that what has been coded as Stage 3 might actually be two different stages (Dawson,
2002) or that there are really only three developmental schemas or levels: personal
interest (Stages 2 and 3), maintaining norms (Stage 4), and postconventional (Stages 5
and 6; Rest, Narvaez, Bebeau, & Thoma, 1999b). Thus, there is currently no consensus
on the nature of moral stages in adolescence.
In recent years there has been a considerable amount of research in which adolescents
have been asked to reason about real-life rather than hypothetical moral dilemmas.
Walker, Pitts, Hennig, and Matsuba (1995) found that there was no significant difference
between 16- to 19-year-olds’ (senior high school students’) moral reasoning
about real-life moral conflicts (coded using Kohlberg’s stages) and 18- to 25-year-olds’
(undergraduates’) reasoning, although 35- to 48-year-olds and 65- to 84-year-olds reasoned
at higher levels than did the two younger groups. Thus, change in moral reasoning
in late adolescence about real-life moral dilemmas (as well as hypothetical dilemmas)
appears to be relatively gradual.
Consistent with Kohlberg’s theory (1981), it also appears that for justice reasoning,
at least as traditionally coded, there is a cycle of consolidation and then transition upward
from stage to stage (with a mix of reasoning—especially higher level reasoning
and one’s modal level of reasoning during the transition). These findings support a
structural model in which moral reasoning during late childhood and adolescence advances
from lower to more mature levels, with periods of apparent disequilibrium between
them (Walker et al., 2001). In addition, it appears that both adolescents and
adults are more likely to use alternative ethical systems (other than Kohlberg’s) such as
religious prescriptions, community norms, professional codes, and care reasoning when
they are in a period of transition between stages (Thoma & Rest, 1999).
Prosocial Reasoning
As was acknowledged by Thoma and Rest (1999), individuals sometimes use moral reasoning
that is not well represented in Kohlberg’s (1981) justice-oriented moral reasoning.
One type of reasoning used by adolescents is care-oriented reasoning (Perry &
McIntire, 1995; Skoe et al., 1999). According to Gilligan (1982), the focus of care reasoning
is on not turning away from others rather than not treating others unfairly (i.e.,
justice concerns). Gilligan’s care reasoning is similar to the stages of prosocial moral
reasoning delineated by Eisenberg (1986), who defines prosocial moral reasoning as
reasoning about moral dilemmas in which one person’s needs or desires conflict with
those of others in a context in which the role of prohibitions, authorities’ dictates, and
formal obligations is minimal.
In the last decade, Eisenberg and colleagues (Eisenberg, Miller, Shell, McNalley, &
Shea, 1991; Eisenberg, Carlo, Murphy, & Van Court, 1995) have followed children
158 Moral Cognitions and Prosocial Responding in Adolescence
through adolescence into early adulthood to delineate the development of their prosocial
moral reasoning. In general, they have found that some self-reflective and internalized
modes of moral reasoning (e.g., reasoning pertaining to role taking; positive or
negative affect based on the consequences of behavioral choices; positive affect related
to living up to internalized values; internalized norm, rule, and law reasoning; generalized
reciprocity) increased in use, whereas stereotypic reasoning (e.g., references to expected
or normative behavior, e.g., “it’s nice to help”) continued to decrease in use from
childhood until the late teens. The linear increases in references to positive affect and
values about consequences and negative affect about consequences was not found until
late adolescence. However, hedonistic reasoning (i.e., reasoning in which the justification
is one’s own desires, e.g., “She wouldn’t help because she would rather go to the
party”), which had decreased from childhood into early midadolescence, increased
modestly in midadolescence and then again in late adolescence, primarily for males.
Moreover, direct reciprocity and approval-oriented reasoning, which had begun to decline
in midadolescence, showed little evidence of declining in the late teens (and even
increased somewhat). Although there was a linear increase in overall level of reasoning
throughout adolescence (see also Eisenberg-Berg, 1979), moral reasoning at age 19 to
20 was not predicted from moral reasoning at earlier points in adolescence, apparently
because of substantial declines in reasoning (due to increases in direct reciprocity and
hedonistic reasoning) for some people and substantial increases in reasoning due to the
use of higher level categories of reasoning for some others. In contrast, there was some
continuity in moral reasoning from age 13 to 14 years to 17 to 18 years.
Somewhat similar findings have been obtained by other researchers using a variety
of methods (Carlo, Eisenberg, & Knight, 1992). For example, in a study of Israeli 12-
to 13-, 14- to 15-, and 16- to 17-year-olds’ self-reported motives for their own volunteering
to help, reports of altruistic motives (i.e., personal willingness to assist without
any expectation of reward or approval, and without reference to compliance) increased
with age (Bar-Tal & Nissim, 1984). Further, in work on attributions about the value of
others’ prosocial actions, investigators have found that from early adolescence into
early adulthood, students increasingly devalue prosocial actions done for self-related
reasons (e.g., tangible rewards, returning a favor), approval, or praise or to avoid criticism
and punishment and increasingly value prosocial actions done out of empathy (see
Eisenberg, 1986, 1990, for reviews).
In one of the few cross-cultural studies on the topic, Boehnke, Silbereisen, Eisenberg,
Reykowski, and Palmonari (1989) examined German, Polish, Italian, and American
elementary, junior, and high school students’ attributions for why story characters
engaged in prosocial actions. Interest in others was a relatively favored motive at all
ages, whereas self-focused motives were chosen infrequently by the preadolescents and
junior and senior high school students. Conformity-related reasons decreased with age
in Italian, German, and Polish samples across grades 6, 9, 10, and 12, whereas taskoriented
reasons (i.e., pragmatic concerns related to the completion of a task) increased.
In another sample of German students in grades 5–6 or 7–9, preference for hedonistic
motives (i.e., motives related to an individual’s feelings of physical well-being
but not other aspects of self-interest) decreased with age, and preference for taskoriented
motives (e.g., “because I know if I helped, the work would get done more
quickly”) increased. For American children in grades 2–3, 5–6, and 7–8, selection of he-
Moral Reasoning 159
donistic motives decreased with age in early adolescence (Boehnke et al., 1989). Thus,
adolescents preferred other-oriented or task-oriented motives for assisting, and conformity
and hedonistic motives were somewhat less preferred with age. The lack of an
age-related change in other-oriented motives may have been due to the format of the
measure.
Gilligan (1982) argued that care-related moral reasoning is somewhat more common
among females, and there is some support for this assertion. In a meta-analysis,
Jaffee and Hyde (2000) found a small sex difference in care-related reasoning (broadly
defined) favoring females (effect size = .28). Of particular interest, this difference was
much larger in adolescents (.53) than in children (.08), university students (.18), or
young adults who were not university students (.33). However, in adolescence, whether
girls score higher than boys in care-related reasoning may depend on the country or culture.
For example, in a study with young adolescents, a sex difference was found in
Canada but not in Norway (Skoe et al., 1999). In the United States, however, the sex
difference favoring females’ higher use of care-oriented reasoning was replicated in a
study of African American seventh graders’ reasoning about dating dilemmas (Weisz
& Black, 2002).
In regard to prosocial moral reasoning, Eisenberg et al. (1987) found that a sex difference
in types of reasoning reflecting an other-orientation seemed to emerge in early
adolescence and generally was maintained throughout adolescence for at least some
higher level modes of other-oriented moral reasoning and for the overall level of prosocial
moral reasoning (Eisenberg et al., 1991, 1995). Similarly, Boehnke et al. (1989)
found modest evidence of females providing more other-oriented and less self-interested
reasons for hypothetical story characters’ prosocial actions.
Thus, in general, investigators have found that moral reasoning and attributions regarding
motives for prosocial behavior tend to stabilize or become more other-oriented
and higher level with age during the adolescent years and that females tend to express
more of such reasoning and attributions than do males.
Relations of Higher Level Moral Reasoning to Adolescents’ Adjustment and
Social Competence
Adolescents’ levels (and type) of moral reasoning are important in part because they
relate to differences in their behavior (or attitudes toward various behaviors), including
externalizing problems, prosocial behaviors, adjustment, and risky behaviors.
Moreover, adolescents’ moral reasoning has been linked to their political attitudes and
tolerance of others.
Externalizing Problems
Adolescents’ moral reasoning has been relatively consistently related to their antisocial
behavior. In reviews a decade apart, Nelson, Smith, and Dodd (1990) and Jurkovic
(1980) found that juvenile delinquents use less mature moral reasoning than do their
nondelinquent peers. Additional studies not in those reviews generally are consistent
with their conclusions (e.g., Aleixo & Norris, 2000; Carlo, Koller, & Eisenberg, 1998;
Trevethan & Walker, 1989), although self-reported offending was not related to justicerelated
moral reasoning within a group of convicted young male offenders (Aleixo &
160 Moral Cognitions and Prosocial Responding in Adolescence
Norris, 2000). Similarly, adolescents who score lower on moral judgment are more
aggressive (for boys but not girls; Schonert-Reichl, 1999), hold more positive attitudes
toward violent groups (Sotelo & Sangrador, 1999), and are more likely to perceive intentionally
injurious sport actions as legitimate (Bredemeier, 1985). Acting out preadolescent
and adolescent males are also more accepting in their judgments about others’
aggressive actions (Sanvitale, Saltzstein, & Fish, 1989; see also Berkowitz, Mueller,
Schnell, & Padberg, 1986). Further, gains in moral reasoning due to an intervention
with delinquents have been linked to lower recidivism in adolescents (although the
gains in moral reasoning due to the intervention were not significant; Gibbs, Potter,
Barriga, & Liau, 1996).
Conversely, adolescents who reason at more mature levels are more prosocial and
socially competent. For example, higher level and other-oriented prosocial moral
judgments generally have been positively related to humanitarian political attitudes
(Eisenberg-Berg & Mussen, 1978), as well as self- and other-reported prosocial tendencies
and sympathy across the teen years (Carlo, Eisenberg, & Knight, 1992; Eisenberg
et al., 1991, 1995, 2002). Moreover, measures of moral reasoning tapping a justice
orientation more than a care orientation have been associated with Italian adolescents’
involvement in volunteer activities (Comunian & Gielen, 1995) and with 10- to 13-yearold
Canadian girls’ (but not boys’) prosocial nominations by peers (Schonert-Reichl,
1999), as well as with tolerance of others’ views or lifestyles (Breslin, 1982; Raaijmakers,
Verbogt, & Vollebergh, 1998). In regard to social competence, level of justice-oriented
moral reasoning has been related to pre- and young adolescents’ peer sociometric status
and peer nominations for leadership (girls only). Socially withdrawn behavior or shyness
with peers has been negatively related to the level of justice-related moral reasoning
for boys in early adolescence (Schonert-Reichl, 1999) and for emotionally disturbed
individuals in early and midadolescence (Sigman & Erdynast, 1988; Sigman, Ungerer,
& Russell, 1983). Further, justice-related moral judgment has been linked to higher
level social-problem-solving skills in 14- to 18-year-old inner city youth (Kennedy, Felner,
Cauce, & Primavera, 1988) and with mature ego functioning (inter- and intrapersonal
strategies for coping; Matsuba & Walker, 1998). Mature ego defense mechanisms
at ages 13–14 and 16–18 also have been associated with higher level justice-reasoning
10 to 20 years later (sometimes even when controlling for moral reasoning in adolescence;
Hart & Chmiel, 1992). Thus, although the findings have not always been significant
and the percent of variance accounted for by these relations is generally modest,
adolescents who are more advanced in their moral reasoning appear to be not only
more moral in their behavior but also better adjusted and higher in social competence.
The Relation of Moral Judgments to Adolescents’ Attitudes About Risky Behavior
A special concern in adolescence is with the rise in risky behaviors such as drug use,
sexual activity, and suicide. Although very limited, there is some evidence of links between
cognitions about morality and adolescents’ tendencies to endorse or engage in
such behaviors.
Some investigators have examined the relation of level of moral judgment to adolescents’
risky behavior. There appear to be weak but not very consistent relations between
the two (Berkowitz et al., 1995). For example, in a study of undergraduates,
Hubbs-Tait and Garmon (1995) found that risk taking during sexual intercourse (i.e.,
Moral Reasoning 161
lower likelihood of using condoms) was inversely related with level of justice-related
moral reasoning (on Rest’s, 1979, defining issues test, or DIT). In contrast, in a study
of sexually active teenage girls, Jurs (1984) found no relation between moral reasoning
(also on the DIT) and the responsible use of birth control, getting pregnant, and the decision
to abort (although adolescents reasoning at higher levels were more likely to have
taken a sex education course).
However, whether an individual considers a given risky behavior to be a moral issue
may moderate the relation of moral judgment to risky behaviors. Some investigators
have examined adolescents’ tendencies to categorize risky behaviors as involving
moral, social-conventional, personal, or prudential decisions. Moral judgments involve
categorical and prescriptive judgments of right and wrong about interpersonal issues
such as harm and justice. Social-conventional issues pertain to customs or regulations
intended to ensure social coordination and social organization, such as choices about
modes of dress, table manners, and forms of greeting. Personal choices refer to issues of
private behavior that impinge primarily on the self. For example, within Western culture,
the choice of friends or recreational activities usually is considered a personal
choice, whereas prudential issues involve actual or potential self-harm (but do not involve
others’ welfare; Nucci, Guerra, & Lee, 1991; Tisak, Tisak, & Rogers, 1994).
Many high school students consider the use of legal drugs such as nicotine, caffeine,
and alcohol, as well as premarital sex, as a personal or prudential choice (especially the
latter, if assessed) rather than a behavior that should be controlled by authorities or as
a moral issue (Killen, Leviton, & Cahill, 1991; Kuther & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2000;
Nucci et al., 1991). In contrast, the use of illegal drugs such as cocaine, crack, and marijuana
is less likely to be viewed as an issue under personal jurisdiction and is more
likely to be viewed as wrong, regardless of authority or laws (Killen et al., 1991). Risky
behaviors are seldom viewed as social-conventional issues (Killen et al., 1991; Nucci et
al., 1991; see Tisak et al., 1994, for data on adolescents’ views on the legitimacy of parents’
attempts to prohibit contact with drug-using friends). Of importance, students
who are higher in the use of drugs are more likely than are their low-using students to
view the drug use as a personal choice (Kuther & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2000), and
less likely to view it as harmful and a prudentially unacceptable choice (wrong only because
it hurts the self; Nucci et al., 1991). High drug users also are more likely to view
themselves as the only authority with regard to the choice to use drugs and are less
likely than are their peers to view parents or the law as legitimate authorities (Nucci et
al., 1991). Moreover, in one study, adolescents’ views about the nature of decisions regarding
drug use were found to moderate the relation of the level of justice-related
moral reasoning to drug use. When adolescents considered drug use a moral decision,
a higher degree of substance use was related to lower level justice-oriented moral reasoning,
whereas moral reasoning was unrelated to the use of drugs for adolescents who
considered it to be a personal decision (similar findings were not obtained for sexual
behavior or suicide; Kuther & Higgins-D’Alessandro, 2000). Findings such as these
suggest that moral reasoning is related to some risky behaviors, but only for adolescents
who view them as having moral relevance. However, it is not clear whether moral reasoning
actually affects risky behavior or participation in risky behavior affects how
adolescents categorize risky behaviors.
162 Moral Cognitions and Prosocial Responding in Adolescence
Socialization of Moral Reasoning
Parental Influences
Socialization by parents typically has been assigned a circumscribed role in moral development
by cognitive developmental theorists such as Kohlberg (Walker & Hennig,
1999). Thus, it is not surprising that the contributions of parenting to the development
of moral reasoning have not been studied extensively. Some aspects of socialization
that have received the most attention in studies with adolescents are parental moral
reasoning, parental warmth, and aspects of parent-child discussions that might stimulate
perspective taking or autonomous moral thinking.
Based on cognitive developmental theory, one would expect parenting practices that
create cognitive conflict about moral issues to be linked to higher level moral judgment.
Somewhat consistent with this notion, there is evidence that a Socratic style of discussion
(encouraging the child to form opinions and to use reasoning) between parents
and children, combined with other variables (such as parental support) is most conducive
to the development of justice-related moral reasoning in late childhood and adolescence.
Based on studies in which parents and their child discussed hypothetical and
real-life moral dilemmas (sometimes one in the child’s life) and attempted to reach a
consensus, Walker and Hennig (1999) concluded that
parents who engage in cognitively challenging and highly opinionated interactions, who
are hostile, critical, and interfering, and who display poor ego functioning (defensiveness,
rigidity, rationalization, insensitivity, inappropriate emotional expression) provide a context
that hinders children’s opportunities to move toward more mature moral understandings.
In contrast, effective parents are more child-centered and scaffold their child’s development
by eliciting the child’s opinions, drawing out the child’s reasoning with appropriate
probing questions, and checking for understanding; all in the context of emotional support
and attentiveness and with the challenging stimulation of advanced moral reasoning.
(pp. 370, 372)
In Walker’s studies, parent behaviors such as critiquing and directly challenging the
child (especially in a hostile manner), presenting of counterconsiderations, and simply
providing information were not associated with children’s moral growth. Direct challenges
to the child’s reasoning may have been viewed as hostile by the child and, consequently,
may have been counterproductive, whereas simple provision of information
may have been viewed as lecturing (Walker & Hennig, 1999; Walker, Hennig, & Krettenauer,
2000; see Walker & Taylor, 1991). Similar findings in regard to style of interactions
have been found in other studies of preadolescents or adolescents, although
there are some inconsistencies in the literature. Buck, Walsh, and Rothman (1981) examined
the relation of parental behaviors during a discussion with their 10- to 13-yearold
boys’ moral reasoning of how to handle sons’ aggression. Boys with higher moral
reasoning had parents who considered their son’s view and tended to encourage their
son to express his views. Similarly, Holstein (1972) found that parents who encouraged
their children’s participation in discussion and decision making were more likely to
have children who reasoned at relatively high levels. In contrast to Walker and Hennig
Moral Reasoning 163
(1999), Pratt et al. (1999) observed that fathers’ tendencies to extend, challenge, or clarify
the reasoning of their adolescents were positively related to adolescents’ concurrent
moral reasoning and reasoning two years later. Similar findings were not obtained for
mothers, although mothers’ tendencies to consider their children’s perspectives when
recalling socialization encounters were related to higher level moral reasoning at the
2-year follow-up.
Other investigators besides Walker and Hennig (1999) have obtained associations
between parental warmth or involvement and high-level moral reasoning in adolescents
(e.g., Buck et al., 1981; McDevitt, Lennon, & Kopriva, 1991; Palmer & Hollin,
1996; Powers, 1988; Speicher, 1992). In some relevant studies, researchers found relations
between parental nurturance and moral reasoning for one parent or for one group
of children (e.g., age or sex group) but not the other (e.g., Bakken & Romig, 1994; Hart,
1988). Inconsistencies may occur because parental warmth by itself probably is not sufficient
to stimulate higher level moral reasoning. As noted by Hoffman (2000), parental
warmth provides an optimal environment for socialization because children are more
likely to attend to parents and care about pleasing them when the relationship generally
is supportive. Thus, parental warmth may not have a direct effect on children’s
moral reasoning but may moderate the effectiveness of other parental practices in fostering
the growth of moral reasoning. A combination of warmth and other productive
parental practices such as using a Socratic method in discussions and holding high
standards for children may be necessary to foster adolescents’ moral reasoning. In support
of this premise, authoritative parenting (which includes support, demands for appropriate
behavior and control, and practices such as induction) has been linked to
higher level moral judgment in adolescents (Boyes & Allen, 1993; Pratt et al., 1999), although
democratic parenting has not always been associated with adolescents’ moral
reasoning (Speicher, 1992).
Consistent with the relation of authoritative parenting to higher level moral reasoning,
there appears to be a modest relation between parental use of inductions (reasoning)
during discipline and older children and adolescents’ moral judgment (Janssen,
Janssens, & Gerris, 1992), although such relations often vary across parent, social class,
or age group (e.g., Eisikovits & Sagi, 1982; Parikh, 1980; see Eisenberg & Valiente,
2002, for more detail). Moreover, parental emphasis on prosocial behavior has been associated
with higher level prosocial moral reasoning (McDevitt et al., 1991). Further,
agreement between parents in regard to child-rearing practices, attitudes, and values at
age 3 has predicted higher moral reasoning for 14-year-old males (but not females;
Vaughn, Block, & Block, 1988).
In summary, higher level reasoning in adolescence is related to parenting that is supportive
and stimulates adolescents to question and expand on their reasoning, as well
as with an authoritative parenting style (including inductive discipline). However, findings
are limited in number and sometimes inconsistent (e.g., Leahy, 1981; see Eisenberg
& Valiente, 2002). Although infrequently examined, it is possible that the parenting behaviors
and characteristics associated with adolescents’ moral judgment vary across
adolescence. For example, based on her finding that moral judgment was predicted by
reports of comfort with and frequency of family moral and political discussions in later
adolescence and early adulthood, but not earlier adolescence, Speicher (1992) suggested
that the quality of interpersonal family relationships may be more important for
164 Moral Cognitions and Prosocial Responding in Adolescence
the development of moral reasoning in early adolescence, whereas aspects of the family
environment related to cognitive stimulation and perspective taking may be important
at an older age. Currently, there are too few data to test such a prediction. Moreover,
because all the extant data with adolescents are correlational, it is unclear to what
degree parental behaviors actually cause changes in adolescents’ moral reasoning; indeed,
variations in adolescents’ moral reasoning may elicit different parenting styles
and practices (and some other factor such as genetics may affect both parenting and
adolescents’ moral judgment). In addition, it is unclear whether the findings just reviewed
generalize to non-Western countries; little of this work was conducted in non-
Western societies, and there is debate regarding the degree to which systems for coding
moral judgment developed in the United States accurately represent the development
of moral judgment in non-Western, nonindustrialized countries.

SCHOOLS, ACADEMIC MOTIVATION AND STAGE-ENVIRONMENT FIT

2007-06-23T08:50:00.000-07:00

From the time individuals first enter school until they complete their formal schooling,
children and adolescents spend more time in schools than in any other place outside
their homes. Exploring all of the possible ways in which educational institutions influence
motivation and development during adolescence is beyond the scope of a single
chapter. In this chapter I discuss the ways in which schools influence adolescents’ socialemotional
and behavioral development through organizational, social, and instructional
processes ranging from those based in the immediate, proximal relation between
students and the tasks they are asked to perform to the role that principals and the
school boards play in setting school-level and district-level policies, which in turn influence
the social organization of the entire school community. I discuss at length three
examples of the ways in which these multiple organizational levels interact synergistically
to influence adolescent development through their impact on the daily experiences
that adolescents in the United States encounter as they move through the American
school system. The first example focuses on the role of school transitions, the
second on the role of curricular tracking, and the third on extracurricular activities.
Few of these processes have been studied in countries other than the United States. I
assume similar processes are true in other countries, but this remains to be demonstrated
empirically.
A DEVELOPMENTAL VIEW OF THE IMPACT OF SCHOOLS
ON DEVELOPMENT
Understanding the impact of schools on adolescent development requires a conceptual
framework for thinking simultaneously about schools as contexts in which development
takes place and about the changing developmental needs of students as they move
through the school system. My colleagues and I have been working on such a framework
for the last 20 years. In the late 1980s Carol Midgley and I proposed our model of stageenvironment
fit to guide research on the impact of school transitions on adolescent development
(see Eccles & Midgley, 1989; Eccles et al., 1993). We argued that individuals
have changing emotional, cognitive, and social needs and personal goals as they mature.
Drawing on ideas related to person-environment fit and self-determination theory
(e.g., Deci & Ryan, 1985), we argued that schools need to change in developmentally
125
appropriate ways if they are to provide the kind of social context that will continue to
motivate students’ interest and engagement as the students mature. To the extent that
this does not happen, we predicted that students would disengage first psychologically
and then physically from school as they matured into and through adolescence. This
should be particularly true as the adolescents acquired more incentives and more power
to control their own behavior. I say more about both of these psychological perspectives
on the impact of classroom experiences later.
More recently, Robert Roeser and I (see Eccles & Roeser, 1999) proposed a framework
for thinking about school influences that dissected the school context into a series
of hierarchically ordered, interdependent levels of organization beginning at the most
basic level of the classroom and then moving up in complexity to the school as an organizational
system embedded in a larger cultural system. In adopting this heuristic, we
assumed that (a) schools are systems characterized by multiple levels of regulatory processes
(organizational, social, and instructional in nature); (b) these processes are interrelated
across levels of analysis; (c) such processes are usually dynamic in nature,
sometimes being worked out each day between the various social actors (e.g., teachers
and students); (d) these processes change as children move through different school levels
(elementary, middle, and high school); and (e) these processes regulate children’s and
adolescents’ cognitive, social-emotional, and behavioral development. In this chapter
I focus on the interface between these theoretical frameworks. I begin with a summary
of Eccles and Roeser’s multilevel description of school contexts.
AN ECOLOGICAL VIEW OF SCHOOLS AND THEIR IMPACT ON
DEVELOPMENT DURING ADOLESCENCE
From the location of the school within macroregulatory systems characterized by national,
state, and school district laws and educational policies to the miniregulatory systems
that involve the minute-to-minute interactions between teachers and individual
students, schools are a system of complex, multilevel, regulatory processes. Eccles and
Roeser (1999) described these different levels of the school environment in terms of
their hierarchical ordering—moving from the student in a classroom, to the school
building itself, then to the school district, and finally to the larger communities in which
school districts are located. Within each of these levels, we discussed those beliefs and
practices that affect students’ experiences on a daily basis. At the classroom level, we
focused attention on teacher beliefs and instructional practices, teacher-student relationships,
the nature and design of tasks and instruction, and the nature and structure
of classroom activities and groups. At the level of the school building, we focused attention
on organizational climate and such schoolwide practices as academic tracking,
school start time, and the provision of extracurricular activities. At the level of the
school district, we focused on the between-school grade configurations that create particular
school-transition experiences for students. Finally at the level of schools embedded
in larger social systems, we discussed such issues as school resources, as well as
the linkages of schools with parents and with the labor market.
Eccles and Roeser (1999) further assumed that in any given school setting these multilevel
processes are interwoven with one another. Relations between different levels of
126 Schools, Academic Motivation, and Stage-Environment Fit
organization in the school may be complementary or contradictory and may influence
students either directly or indirectly. For instance, a principal may decide that all of his
or her teachers should use a particular practice such as cooperative learning. However,
the impact of such a decision on the daily experiences of students depends on how well
this practice is actually implemented at the classroom level. If done well, students
should be seen working successfully in groups on complex, authentic problems. Such a
well-implemented school policy is likely to produce gains in self-esteem, interethnic relationships,
and achievement among students, especially those of low ability or status
(Slavin, 1990). In contrast, if done poorly, chaos can result, leading to far less positive
outcomes at the student level. How such a schoolwide instructional policy is implemented
depends on many factors including the morale within the school, the relationships
between the principal and the teachers, the teachers’ understanding and endorsement
of the new instructional practice, the way in which the policy change was
decided upon, the provision of adequate in-service training, the provision of adequate
supports for implementation of new strategies, and the students’ willingness to go
along with the new practice. Recent debates about the likely impact of national standards
testing provide another example of the complex ways in which a new policy—this
time a state- or national-level policy—can affect the daily experiences of teachers and
students in the classroom and in the school building.
Eccles and Roeser (1999) also assumed that the processes associated with the different
levels of school interacting dynamically with each other, rather than static resources
or characteristics of the curriculum, teachers, or school per se, influence adolescents’
development. In addition, adolescents’ own constructions of meaning and interpretations
of events within the school environment are critical mediators between school
characteristics and students’ feelings, beliefs, and behavior.
Finally, in keeping with the stage-environment perspective proposed by Eccles and
Midgely (1989), Eccles and Roeser (1999) assumed that these different school-related
processes change across the course of children’s and adolescents’ development as they
progress through elementary, middle, and high school. That is, not only are children
and adolescents developing, but so too is the whole nature of the schools that they attend.
For example, the organizational, social, and instructional processes in schools
change as children move from elementary to middle school. Eccles and Midgley argued
that these changes are often associated with declines in many adolescents’ motivation
and behavior. Understanding the interaction of different school features with the developmental
needs of adolescents is critical to understanding the role of schooling in
young people’s development (see Eccles & Midgley, 1989). In the next sections I discuss
those characteristics of each level likely to be most important for understanding the impact
of schools on adolescent development. I also discuss how school characteristics at
each level may also influence group differences in adolescent development, paying particular
attention to gender and ethnic group differences within the United States.
LEVEL 1: CLASSROOMS
The most immediate educational environment to the student is the classroom. This is
also the level that has received the most attention from educational psychologists. In
Level 1: Classrooms 127
this section I review what we know about teacher beliefs, classroom climate, the nature
of the academic work itself, and experiences of racial/ethnic discrimination.
Teacher Beliefs
Teacher beliefs have received much attention in educational psychology. In this section
I focus on two types of beliefs: Teachers’ general sense of their own teaching efficacy
and teachers’ expectations for specific students in their class.
Teachers’ General Sense of Efficacy
When teachers hold high general expectations for student achievement and students
perceive these expectations, students learn more, experience a greater sense of self-worth
and competence as learners, feel more connected to their teacher and their school, and
resist involvement in problem behaviors (Eccles et al. 1993; Lee & Smith, 2001; Roeser,
Eccles, & Sameroff, 1998; Rutter, 1983; Weinstein, 1989). Similarly, teachers who feel
they are able to reach even the most difficult students and who believe in their ability to
affect students’ lives communicate such positive expectations and beliefs to their students.
Thus, a high sense of general teacher efficacy can enhance students’ own confidence
in their ability to master academic material, thereby promoting effort investment
and achievement as well as a positive emotional relationship with their teacher and
greater engagement in school as a social institution (Ashton, 1985; Midgley, Feldlaufer,
& Eccles, 1989b). Alternatively, teachers who have low confidence in their teaching efficacy
often engage in behaviors that reinforce feelings of incompetence and alienation
in their students, increasing the likelihood that their students will develop learned helpless
responses to failure in the classroom, depressive affect, anger, and disengagement
(see Cole, 1991; Roeser, Eccles, & Freedman-Doan, 1999). Lee and Smith (2001) stressed
this aspect of teachers’ general beliefs as a critical component for secondary school reform
(see also Jackson & Davis, 2000).
As I discuss in more detail later, the prevalence of teachers with a low sense of personal
teaching efficacy is higher in junior high and middle schools than in elementary
schools and higher in schools that serve high proportions of ethnic minority and poor
adolescents than in schools that serve more affluent and higher achieving adolescents
(Darling-Hammond, 1997; Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998). This fact alone provides
a possible explanation for both average levels of declining school engagement
during early to middle adolescence and for social class and ethnic group differences in
school engagement.
Differential Teacher Expectations
Equally important are the differential expectations teachers often hold for various individuals
within the same classroom and the differential treatments that sometimes accompany
these expectations. Beginning with the work by Rosenthal (1969), many researchers
have shown that undermining teacher-expectancy effects depend on how
teachers structure activities differently, as well as interact differently with, high- and lowexpectancy
students and on how the students perceive these differences (Brophy, 1985;
Cooper, 1979; Eccles & Wigfield, 1985; Weinstein, 1989). Most concerns have been
128 Schools, Academic Motivation, and Stage-Environment Fit
raised over behaviors that create a self-fulfilling prophecy by undermining the learning
and well-being of those students for whom the teachers hold the lowest expectations.
Much work on teacher expectancy effects has focused on differential treatment related
to gender, race/ethnic group, and/or social class. Most of this work has documented
the small but fairly consistent undermining effects of low teacher expectations
on girls (for math and science), on minority children (for all subject areas), and on children
from lower-social-class family backgrounds (again for all subject areas) (see Eccles
& Wigfield, 1985; Ferguson, 1998; Jussim, Eccles, & Madon, 1996; Valencia, 1991).
In addition, Jussim et al. (1996) found that even though these effects are typically quite
small, young women, African American adolescents, and students from poorer homes
are more subject to both the positive and negative teacher expectancy effects than are
other students.
Researchers such as Steele (1992) have linked this form of differential treatment,
particularly for African American students, to school disengagement and disidentification
(the separation of one’s self-esteem from all forms of school-related feedback).
Steele argued that African American students become aware of the fact that teachers
and other adults have negative stereotypes of African Americans’ academic abilities.
This awareness (labeled stereotype threat by Steele and his colleagues) increases their
anxieties, which in turn lead them to disidentify with the school context to protect their
self-esteem. It is interesting that recent studies using the same theoretical notions and
experimental techniques have shown that Asian students believe that teachers and
adults expect them to perform very well and that this belief leads Asian students to perform
better on tests when their ethnic identity is made salient (Shih, Pittinsky, & Ambady,
1999). Thus, the psychological processes associated with stereotype threat can
either undermine or facilitate performance on standardized tests depending on the nature
of commonly held stereotypes about the intellectual strengths and weaknesses of
different social groups.
Classroom Climate
Classroom climate refers to the more general character of the classroom and teacherstudent
relationships within the classroom. In this section I focus on the following aspects
of classroom climate: Teacher-student relationships, classroom management, and
motivational climate.
Teacher-Student Relationships
Teacher-student relationships are a key component of classroom climate: High-quality
teacher-student relationships facilitate academic motivation, school engagement, academic
success, self-esteem, and more general socioemotional well-being (Deci & Ryan,
1985; Eccles et al., 1998; Goodenow, 1993; Midgley et al., 1989b; Roeser, Midgley, &
Urdan, 1996). Teachers who trust, care about, and are respectful of students provide
the social-emotional support that students need to approach, engage, and persist on
academic learning tasks and to develop positive achievement-related self-perceptions
and values. Feeling emotionally supported is one of the most important characteristics
of contexts that support positive development. Correlational studies with adoles-
Level 1: Classrooms 129
cents show that students’ perceptions of caring teachers enhance their feelings of selfesteem,
school belonging, and positive affect in school (Roeser & Eccles, 1998; Roeser
et al., 1996).
Declines in both adolescents’ perception of emotional support from their teachers
and in the adolescents’ sense of belonging in their classrooms are quite common as adolescents
move from elementary school into secondary schools (Eccles et al., 1998). This
shift is particularly troublesome in our highly mobile society in which teachers represent
one of the last stable sources of nonparental role models for adolescents. In addition
to teaching, teachers in mobile societies such as the United States can provide
guidance and assistance when social-emotional or academic problems arise. This role
is especially important for promoting developmental competence when conditions in
the family and neighborhood cannot or do not provide such supports (Eccles, Lord, &
Roeser, 1996; Simmons & Blyth, 1987).
Classroom Management
Work related to classroom management has focused on two general issues: orderliness/
predictability and control/autonomy. With regard to orderliness and predictability, the
evidence is quite clear: Student achievement and conduct are enhanced when teachers
establish smoothly running and efficient procedures for monitoring student progress,
providing feedback, enforcing accountability for work completion, and organizing
group activities (e.g., Eccles et al., 1998; Pintrich & Schunk, 1996). Unfortunately, such
conditions are often absent, particularly in highly stressed and underfunded schools
with inexperienced teachers (Darling-Hammond, 1997).
In addition, research on international comparisons of instruction suggest that
American teachers are often more lax in their classroom management and provide less
systematic and rigorous control over the instructional sequences (Stevenson & Stigler,
1992). Furthermore, this research suggests that these differences in teachers’ controlrelated
practices could be a partial explanation for the relatively poor performance of
many American youth on international standardized tests of math and science achievement
(Schmidt, McKnight, & Raizen, 1997).
Motivational Climate
Several teams of researchers have suggested that teachers engage in a wide range of behaviors
that create a pervasive motivational climate in the classroom. For example,
Rosenholtz and Simpson (1984) suggested a cluster of general teaching practices (e.g.,
individualized vs. whole-group instruction, ability grouping practices, and publicness
of feedback) that should affect motivation because these practices make ability differences
in classrooms especially salient to students (see Mac Iver, 1988). They assumed
that these practices affect the motivation of all students by increasing the salience of extrinsic
motivators and ego-focused learning goals, leading to greater incidence of social
comparison behaviors and increased perception of ability as an entity state rather than
an incremental condition. All of these changes reduce the quality of students’ motivation
and learning. The magnitude of the negative consequences of these shifts, however,
should be greatest for low-performing students: As these students become more aware
of their relative low standing, they are likely to adopt a variety of ego-protective strategies
that unfortunately undermine learning and mastery (Covington, 1992).
130 Schools, Academic Motivation, and Stage-Environment Fit
More recently, researchers interested in goal theory have proposed a similar set of
classroom characteristics (Ames, 1992; E. M. Anderman, & Maehr, 1994; Maehr &
Midgley, 1996; Pintrich & Schunk, 1996; Roeser, Midgley, & Maehr, 1994). Goal theorists
propose two major achievement goal systems: mastery-oriented goals and performanceoriented
goals. Students with mastery-oriented goals focus on learning the material
and on their own improvement over time. Students with performance-oriented goals
focus on doing better than other students in their class. Goal theorists further argue
that a mastery orientation sustains school engagement and achievement better than
does a performance orientation (see Ames, 1992; Maehr & Midgley, 1996; Midgley,
2002). Evidence is quite strong for the first prediction and more mixed for the second:
The desire to do better than others often has positive rather than negative consequences,
whereas the fear of failing (performance-avoidance goal orientation) undermines school
performance (see Midgley, 2002). Finally, these theorists suggest that the publicness of
feedback, particularly social comparative feedback, and a classroom focus on competition
between students undermine mastery motivation and increase performance motivation.
The school-reform work of Midgley, Maehr, and their colleagues has shown
that social reform efforts to reduce these types of classroom practices, particularly
those associated with performance feedback, social comparative grading systems, and
ego-focused, competitive motivational strategies have positive consequences for adolescents’
academic motivation, persistence on difficult learning tasks, and socioemotional
development (e.g., Maehr & Midgley, 1996).
The work on understanding group differences in achievement and achievement
choices is another example of an attempt to identify a broad set of classroom characteristics
related to motivation. The work on girls and math is one example of this approach.
There are sex differences in adolescents’ preference for different types of learning
contexts that likely interact with subject area to produce sex differences in interest
in different subject areas (Eccles, 1989; Hoffmann & Haeussler, 1995). Females appear
to respond more positively to math and science instruction if it is taught in a cooperative
or individualized manner rather than a competitive manner, if it is taught from an
applied or person-centered perspective rather than a theoretical or abstract perspective,
if it is taught using a hands-on approach rather than a book-learning approach,
and if the teacher avoids sexism in its many subtle forms. The reason given for these effects
is the fit between the teaching style, the instructional focus, and females’ values,
goals, motivational orientations, and learning styles. The few relevant studies support
this hypothesis (Eccles & Harold, 1993; Hoffmann & Haeussler, 1995). If such classroom
practices are more prevalent in one subject area (e.g., physical science or math)
than another (e.g., biological or social science), one would expect sex differences in motivation
to study these subject areas. In addition, however, math and physical science
do not have to be taught in these ways; more girl-friendly instructional approaches can
be used. When they are, girls, as well as boys, are more likely to continue taking courses
in these fields and to consider working in these fields when they become adults.
The girl-friendly classroom conclusion is a good example of person-environment fit.
Many investigators have suggested that students are maximally motivated to learn in
situations that fit well with their interests, current skill level, and psychological needs,
so that the material is challenging, interesting, and meaningful (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi,
Rathunde, & Whalen, 1993; Eccles et al., 1993; Krapp, Hidi, & Renninger, 1992). Vari-
Level 1: Classrooms 131
ations on this theme include aptitude by treatment interactions and theories stressing
cultural match or mismatch as one explanation for group differences in school achievement
and activity choices (e.g., Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Suarrez-Orozco & Suarrez-
Orozco, 1995; Valencia, 1991). For example, Valencia (1991) concluded that a mismatch
of both the values of the school and the materials being taught contributed to
the poor performance and high dropout rates among Latino youth in the high school
they studied. Deyhle and LeCompte (1999) made a similar argument in their discussion
of the poor performance of Native American youth in traditional middle school contexts.
The misfit between the needs of young adolescents and the nature of junior high
school environments is another example of these person-environment fit dynamics.
The Nature of Academic Work
Academic work is at the heart of the school experience. Two aspects of academic tasks
are important: the content of the curriculum and the design of instruction. The nature
of academic content has an important impact on students’ attention, interest, and cognitive
effort. Long ago, Dewey (1902/1990) proposed that academic work that is meaningful
to the historical and developmental reality of students’ experiences will promote
sustained attention, high investment of cognitive and affective resources in learning,
and strong identification with educational goals and aims. In general, research supports
this hypothesis: Content that provides meaningful exploration is critical given
that boredom in school, low interest, and perceived irrelevance of the curriculum are
associated with poor attention, diminished achievement, disengagement, and alienation
from school (e.g., Finn, 1989; Jackson & Davis, 2000; Larson & Richards, 1989).
Curricula that represent the voices, images, and historical experiences of traditionally
underrepresented groups are also important (Valencia, 1991). Choosing materials that
provide an appropriate level of challenge for a given class, designing learning activities
that require diverse cognitive operations (e.g., opinion, following routines, memory,
comprehension), structuring lessons so that they build on each other in a systematic
fashion, using multiple representations of a given problem, and explicitly teaching students
strategies that assist in learning are but a few of the design features that scaffold
learning and promote effort investment, interest in learning, and achievement (Blumenfeld,
1992; Deci & Ryan, 1985; Eccles et al., 1998).
Unfortunately, American secondary schools have problems providing each of these
types of educational experiences. Recent work by Larson and his colleagues has documented
the fact that adolescents are bored most of the time that they are in secondary
school classrooms (Larson, 2000; Larson & Richards, 1989). Culturally meaningful
learning experiences are rare in many American secondary schools (Fine, 1991; Valencia,
1991). The disconnection of traditional curricula from the experiences of these
groups can explain the alienation of some group members from the educational process,
sometimes eventuating in school dropout (Fine, 1991; Sheets & Hollins, 1999).
Appropriately designed tasks that adequately scaffold learning are also rare in many
inner-city and poor schools (Darling-Hammond, 1997).
In addition, from a developmental perspective, there is evidence that the nature of
academic work too often does not change over time in ways that are concurrent with
the increasing cognitive sophistication, diverse life experiences, and identity needs of
132 Schools, Academic Motivation, and Stage-Environment Fit
adolescents as they move from the elementary into the secondary school years (Carnegie
Council, 1989; Lee & Smith, 2001). As one indication of this, middle school students
report the highest rates of boredom when doing schoolwork, especially passive work
(e.g., listening to lectures) and in particular classes such as social studies, math, and science
(Larson & Richards, 1989). There is also evidence that the content of the curriculum
taught in schools does not broaden to incorporate either important health or social
issues that become increasingly salient as adolescents move through puberty and
deal with the identity explorations associated with adolescence (Carnegie Council,
1989). Further, academic work sometimes becomes less, rather than more, complex in
terms of the cognitive demands as adolescents move from elementary to junior high
school (Eccles et al., 1998). It may be that declines in some adolescents’ motivation during
the transition to secondary school in part reflect academic work that lacks challenge
and meaning commensurate with adolescents’ cognitive and emotional needs (Eccles
& Midgley, 1989). Recent efforts at middle school reform support this hypothesis: motivation
is maintained when middle schools and junior high schools introduce more
challenging and meaningful academic work (Jackson & Davis, 2000). I discuss this in
more detail later.
Experiences of Racial-Ethnic Discrimination
Researchers interested in the relatively poor academic performance of adolescents
from some ethnic/racial groups have suggested another classroom-based experience as
critical for adolescent development, namely, experiences of racial/ethnic discrimination
(Essed, 1990; Feagin, 1992; Fordham & Ogbu, 1986; Garcia Coll et al., 1996; Rosenbaum,
Kulieke, & Rubinowitz, 1988; Ruggiero & Taylor, 1995; Taylor, Casten, Flickinger,
Roberts, & Fulmore, 1994; Wong, Eccles, & Sameroff, in press). Two types of
discrimination have been discussed: (a) anticipation of future discrimination in the labor
market, which might be seen as undermining the long-term benefits of education
(Fordham & Ogbu, 1986), and (b) the impact of daily experiences of discrimination on
one’s mental health and academic motivation (Essed, 1990; Wong et al., in press). Both
types are likely to influence adolescent development, but research on these issues is in
its infancy. Wong et al. (in press) found that anticipated future discrimination leads to
increases in African American youth’s motivation to do well in school, which in turn
leads to increases in academic performance. In this sample, anticipated future discrimination
appeared to motivate the youth to do their very best so that they would be maximally
equipped to deal with future discrimination. In contrast, daily experiences of
racial discrimination from their peers and teachers led to declines in school engagement
and confidence in one’s academic competence and grades, along with increases in
depression and anger.
Level 1: Summary
The studies of classroom-level influences suggest that development is optimized when
students are provided with challenging tasks in a mastery-oriented environment that
also provides good emotional and cognitive support, meaningful material to learn and
master, and sufficient support for their own autonomy and initiative. Connell and Well-
Level 1: Classrooms 133
born (1991), as well as Deci and Ryan (1985), suggested that humans have three basic
needs: to feel competent, to feel socially attached, and to have autonomous control in
their lives. Further, they hypothesized that individuals develop best in contexts that
provide opportunities for each of these needs to be met. Clearly, the types of classroom
characteristics that emerge as important for both socioemotional and intellectual development
would provide such opportunities.
LEVEL 2: SCHOOL BUILDINGS
Schools are formal organizations and, as such, have characteristics and features that
are superordinate to classroom characteristics. These aspects of the whole school environment
should impact on adolescents’ intellectual, social-emotional, and behavioral
development. Important school-level organizational features include school climate
and sense of community (Goodenow, 1993; Rutter, 1983) and the relationships among
the students themselves. School organizational features also include such schoolwide
practices as curricular tracking, start and stop times, and the availability of extracurricular
activities.
General Social Climate
Researchers have become interested in the social climate of the entire school. These researchers
suggest that schools vary in the climate and general expectations regarding
student potential and that such variations affect the development of both teachers and
students in very fundamental ways (e.g., Bandura, 1994; Bryk, Lee, & Holland, 1993;
Mac Iver, Reuman, & Main, 1995; Rosenbaum et al., 1988; Rutter, Maughan, Mortimore,
& Ouston, 1979). For example, in their analysis of higher achievement in Catholic
schools, Bryk et al. (1993) discussed how the culture within Catholic schools is fundamentally
different from the culture within most public schools in ways that positively
affect the motivation of students, parents, and teachers. This culture (school climate)
values academics, has high expectations that all students can learn, and affirms the belief
that the business of school is learning. Similarly, Lee and Smith (2001) showed that
between-school differences in teachers’ sense of their own personal efficacy as well as
their confidence in the general ability of the teachers at their school to teach all students
accounted, in part, for between-school differences in adolescents’ high school performance
and motivation. Finally, Bandura (1994) documented between-school differences
in the general level of teachers’ personal efficacy beliefs and argued that these differences
translate into teaching practices that undermine the motivation of many
students and teachers in the school.
Maehr, Midgley, and their colleagues argued that just as classroom practices give rise
to certain achievement goals, so too do schools through particular policies and practices.
A school-level emphasis on different achievement goals creates a schoolwide psychological
environment that affects students’ academic beliefs, affects, and behaviors
(e.g., Maehr & Midgley, 1996; Roeser et al., 1996). For example, schools’ use of public
honor rolls and assemblies for the highest achieving students, class rankings on report
cards, differential curricular offerings for students of various ability levels, and so on
134 Schools, Academic Motivation, and Stage-Environment Fit
all emphasize relative ability, competition, and social comparison in the school and create
a school-level ability rather than mastery/task focus. In contrast, through the recognition
of academic effort and improvement, rewards for different competencies that extend
to all students, and through practices that emphasize learning and task mastery
(block scheduling, interdisciplinary curricular teams, cooperative learning), schools
can promote a school-level focus on discovery, effort and improvement, and academic
mastery. The academic goal focus of a school also has important implications for students’
mental health. In a series of studies, Roeser and Eccles found that students’ belief
that their school is ability-focused leads to declines in students’ educational values,
achievement, and self-esteem and increases in their anger, depressive symptoms, and
school truancy as they move from seventh to eighth grade (Roeser & Eccles, 1998;
Roeser et al., 1998). Fiqueira-McDonough (1986) reported similar findings in a study
of two high schools that were similar in intake characteristics and achievement outcomes
but differed in their academic orientation and rates of delinquent behavior. The
high school characterized by a greater emphasis on competition and high grades (ability
orientation) had higher delinquency rates, and the students’ grades were a major
correlate of students’ involvement in delinquent behavior (low grades predicted increased
delinquent behavior). In contrast, in the school that had more diverse goals and
greater interest in non-academic needs, school attachment (valuing of school, liking
teachers) was greater on average, and those students with high school attachment engaged
in the least delinquent activity.
One final note on school-level academic goal emphases: They are strongly correlated
with adolescents’ perceptions of the school’s social climate. Adolescents who perceive
a task orientation in their school also report that their teachers are friendly, caring, and
respectful. These factors in turn predict an increased sense of belonging in school among
adolescents (see also Goodenow, 1993). In contrast, perceptions of a schoolwide ability
orientation are negatively correlated with adolescents’ perceptions of caring teachers
(Roeser et al., 1996). From the adolescents’ perspective, a deemphasis on comparison
and competition and an emphasis on effort and improvement are intertwined with
their view of caring teachers.
Academic Tracks and Curricular Differentiation
Another important school-level feature relates to academic tracks or curriculum differentiation
policies. These terms refer to the regularities in the ways in which schools
structure the learning experiences for different types of students (Oakes, Gamoran, &
Page, 1992). The practice of providing different educational experiences for students of
different ability levels is widespread in American schools. Tracking takes different
forms at different grade levels. It includes within-class ability grouping for different
subject matters or between-class ability grouping in which different types of students
are assigned to different teachers. Within-classroom ability grouping for reading and
math is quite common in elementary school. In secondary school, between-class tracking
is more widespread and is often linked to the sequencing of specific courses for students
bound for different post–secondary school trajectories (e.g., the college prep,
general, or vocational tracks). Differentiated curricular experiences for students of different
ability levels influence school experiences in two major ways: First, tracking de-
Level 2: School Buildings 135
termines the quality and kinds of instruction each student receives (Rosenbaum, 1976,
1980; Oakes et al., 1992), and second, it determines exposure to different peers and
thus, to a certain degree, the nature of social relationships that youth form in school
(Fuligni, Eccles, & Barber, 1995).
Despite years of research on the impact of tracking practices, few strong and definitive
answers have emerged (see Fuligni et al., 1995; Gamoran & Mare, 1989; Kulik &
Kulik, 1987; Slavin, 1990). The results vary depending on the outcome assessed, the
group studied, the length of the study, the control groups used for comparison, and the
specific nature of the context in which these practices are manifest. The best justification
for these practices, derived from a person-environment fit perspective, is the belief
that students are more motivated to learn if the material is adapted to their current
competence level. There is some evidence to support this view for students placed in
high ability and gifted classrooms, high within-class ability groups, and college tracks
(Dreeben & Barr, 1988; Fuligni et al., 1995; Gamoran & Mare, 1989; Kulik & Kulik,
1987; Pallas, Entwisle, Alexander, & Stluka, 1994).
The results for adolescents placed in low-ability and noncollege tracks are usually
inconsistent with this hypothesis. By and large, the effects found for this group of students
are negative (Dreeben & Barr, 1988; Pallas et al., 1994; Rosenbaum, 1976, 1980;
Rosenbaum et al., 1988; Vanfossen, Jones, & Spade, 1987). Low-track placement predicts
poor attitudes toward school, feelings of incompetence, and problem behaviors
both within school (nonattendance, crime, misconduct) and in the broader community
(drug use, arrests); it also predicts lower educational attainments (Oakes et al., 1992).
These negative effects reflect the fact that students placed in the lower tracks are often
provided with inferior educational experience and support.
Ability grouping also has an impact on students’ peer groups: Between-classroom
ability grouping and curricular tracking increase the extent of contact among adolescents
with similar levels of achievement and engagement with school. For those doing
poorly in school, tracking is likely to facilitate friendships among students who are similarly
alienated from school and are more likely to engage in risky or delinquent behaviors
(Dryfoos, 1990). Dishion, McCord, and Poulin (1999) showed experimentally how
such collecting of alienated adolescents increases their involvement in problem behaviors.
This collecting of adolescents with poor achievement or adjustment histories also
places additional discipline burdens on the teachers who teach these classes (Oakes et
al., 1992), making such classes unpopular with the teachers as well as the students and
decreasing the likelihood that the teachers with the most experience will allow themselves
to be assigned to these classes.
Concerns have also been raised about the way students get placed in different classes
and how difficult it is for students to change tracks once initial placements have been
made. These issues are important both early in a child’s school career (e.g., Entwisle &
Alexander, 1993) and later in adolescence, when course placement is linked directly to
the kinds of educational options that are available to the student after high school. Minority
youth, particularly African American and Latino boys, are more likely to be assigned
to low-ability classes and non-college-bound curricular tracks than are other
groups; furthermore, careful assessment of the placements has shown that many of
these youth were incorrectly assigned to these classes (Dornbusch, 1994; Oakes et al.,
136 Schools, Academic Motivation, and Stage-Environment Fit
1992). The consequences of such misassignment are great. It has long-term consequences
for students’ ability to go to college once they complete secondary school.

Adolescents’ socialization

2007-06-23T08:47:00.000-07:00

Adolescents’ socialization into adulthood and related self-development were conceptualized
in terms of four mechanisms: First, it was assumed that the age-graded developmental
tasks, role transitions, and institutional tracks define an opportunity space
that channels young people’s future-oriented motivation, thinking, and behavior. Second,
the kinds of motives and personal goals adolescents construct, and the ways in
which they explore, plan, construct strategies, and enter into commitments were assumed
to be responsible for the ways in which adolescents direct their future development
and select their developmental environments. Third, as a consequence of their efforts,
adolescents attain outcomes, either successes or failures, which requires them to
adjust their previous efforts in terms of goal reconstruction, coping, and the use of self-
110 Socialization and Self-Development
protective causal attributions. Finally, after ending up in a particular social position
and related life situation, adolescents construct reflections and tell stories about who
they are.
Socialization and Self-Development
A review of previous research suggested, first, that adolescents have relatively detailed
conceptions of their age-graded developmental environments (i.e., the timing and sequential
structure of the transitions and tracks they are facing in the future). It was
therefore no surprise that such age-graded structures channel adolescents’ personal
goals and interests: Young people’s future hopes and interests were found to focus typically
on the major developmental tasks of their own age period. Young people also
continuously reconstruct their personal goals to match with the specific stages of a particular
transition through which they are going, as well as the institutional tracks in
which they are involved.
Both the personal goals adolescents have and the cognitive strategies they deploy,
which were assumed to be the major mechanisms in the selection process, were found
to contribute to the developmental trajectories they face subsequently, as well as how
well they are able to deal with the related challenges and demands. Clear evidence was
found from longitudinal studies that adolescents’ motives and personal goals predict
how their lives will proceed in educational, occupational, and family-related trajectories.
Similarly, the kinds of plans and strategies that adolescents apply have consequences
for their success in dealing with major challenges at school, at work, and also
in interpersonal relationships. However, adolescents become interested in forthcoming
developmental tasks and transitions as they grow older, and the tools they have for
dealing with these demands and challenges develop rapidly during early adolescence in
particular. Although the majority of adolescents deploy adaptive strategies, such as optimistic
and task-focused patterns, some of them deploy avoidant strategies as a way to
deal with a fear of failure or anxiety.
This review showed also that adolescents whose goals focus on major age-graded developmental
tasks have higher well-being than do those who have other kinds of goals,
perhaps because such goals help them to deal with the major demands and challenges
they are facing. Although it has been assumed that thinking of self-related issues is a
part of adolescents’ lives, strong evidence was found that self-focused, existential type
of goals are detrimental to young people’s well-being. Moreover, the deployment of
adaptive strategies led not only to higher levels of success in academic and interpersonal
domains of life but also, in the longer run, to higher well-being.
There is also considerable evidence that parents and their adolescent children share
similar kinds of goals concerning the adolescent’s future. Moreover, positive and authoritative
parenting is associated not only with adolescents’ high level of interest in
major developmental tasks, such as education and occupation, but also with adolescents’
use of adaptive strategies, particularly in achievement contexts.
After adolescents have received feedback about the outcomes of their efforts to deal
with the major developmental challenges and demands, they have to adjust their previous
efforts in terms of coping, reconstruction of goals, and making causal attributions.
Conclusions 111
Surprisingly, much less research has been conducted on the antecedents and consequences
of this adjustment compared with those of selection processes. Research on
coping showed that problem-focused coping and engagement coping are associated
with higher levels of psychological adjustment, whereas emotion-focused coping seems
to lead to maladjustment. However, there was little evidence that coping has clear
consequences for individual success in dealing with particular kinds of tasks. Authoritative
and positive parenting was shown to be associated with problem-focused coping,
whereas more negative parenting is related to emotion-focused coping.
Very little research has been carried out on how adolescents reconstruct their personal
goals based on their previous successes and failures. The few studies suggest that
adolescents reconstruct their goals on the basis of the feedback they receive concerning
goal attainment and that such goal reconstruction contributes to their well-being.
Similarly, little research has been carried out on the role that causal attributions have
in the situations in which young people have had problems in dealing with previous demands.
The few studies that exist show that problems in dealing with major transitions
decrease the use of self-protective causal attributions, which then leads to an increase
in depressive symptoms. Dysfunctional causal attributions also lower adolescents’ active
engagement in school activities, and subsequently their academic achievement.
It was also assumed that entrance into certain roles and social positions has consequences
for the identities or self-concepts that adolescents construct. Although the
studies suggest that younger adolescents more frequently report less developed identity
statuses than do older adolescents, relatively little is know about the developmental antecedents
or consequences of these developments.
By contrast, we know much, on a descriptive level, about how self-concept and
self-esteem develop during adolescence. However, some of the recent findings have
challenged previous theories by suggesting a more dynamic view according to which
adolescents’ self-concepts fluctuate significantly and follow, in many cases, individual
developmental trajectories. This fluctuation has been found to reflect many changes in
the individual’s development environments, such as school transitions, grades, and a
variety of stressful life events.
Socialization in Place: Different Developmental Environments
In this chapter adolescent socialization and self-development were conceptualized in
terms of four mechanisms that are responsible for the transaction between the developing
adolescent, on the one hand, and his or her age-graded sociocultural environment,
on the other. It can also be assumed that the substantial amount of variation
across societies and cultures in the developmental environments in which adolescents
grow up (Brown, Larson, & Saraswathi, 2002; Hurrelmann, 1994) channels their subsequent
development in many ways. One key factor that contributes to this variation is
education: There are many differences in the educational systems that are reflected in
adolescents’ thinking and lives across the world (Hurrelmann, 1994; Nurmi, Seginer, et
al., 1995; Scnabel, Alfeld, Eccles, Köller, & Baumert, 2002). For example, in many European
countries and the United States, streaming in education based on academic
achievement begins relatively early (Hurrelmann, 1994), which also influences adolescents’
subsequent opportunities. In some other societies, such as Scandinavian coun-
112 Socialization and Self-Development
tries, adolescents receive comprehensive education until the age of fifteen without any
streaming (Nurmi & Siurala, 1994). These differences in educational transition then
cooccur with those of occupational life. For example, a large proportion of young
British youths leave school and enter the labor force at the age of 16, which is very different
compared to countries that aim at long education for a whole cohort, such as the
United States and Scandinavian countries.
There are also many cross-national differences in the transitions related to interpersonal
life, such as the age of first marriage and the patterns of starting family life, that
influence adolescents’ socialization into adulthood in many ways (cf. Martínez, de
Miguel, & Fernández, 1994; Roe, Bjurström, & Förnäs, 1994). One further factor along
which developmental environments vary is the relative importance of parents and peers
in adolescents’ lives. Although peers are an important part of adolescents lives in most
parts of the world, in some contexts (e.g., in India and in Arab countries) peer groups
play a relatively minor role, particularly for girls (Brown et al., 2002).
Besides cross-national differences, adolescents’ developmental environments vary
also within societies along many factors, such as ethnicity and socioeconomic status.
Young people who come from diverse backgrounds face different opportunity structures,
age-related normative demands, and standards and are provided different role
models and parental tutoring. Such differences then have consequences for the ways in
which adolescents direct their lives in the domains of education, occupation, and interpersonal
relations; for how they adjust to the outcomes of their efforts; and for the
kinds of reflections they construct about themselves during the transition from adolescence
to adulthood. For example, in the United States the percentage of adolescents
who had completed high school and the percentage of those who have a bachelor degree
vary substantially according to ethnicity: Whites show the highest percentages,
followed by Blacks, while Latinos show the lowest educational attainment (Kerckhoff,
2002). Such differences are important because they are also reflected in an individual’s
occupational career and problems with it, such as unemployment.
Another important factor that influences the challenges, opportunities, and standards
that adolescents face is the socioeconomic status of their family, which consists
of a number of interrelated variables, such as family income and values, parental education,
and membership in particular subcultures and communities. For example, family
income is a foremost factor in differentiating the paths taken through the transition
from adolescence to adulthood in many countries (Mortimer & Larson, 2002). As adolescents
have relatively detailed conceptions of their age-graded developmental environments
(Crockett & Bingham, 2000), they are probably also conscious of how their
social background will influence them. The impact of socioeconomic status is reflected
not only in the opportunity structure but also in parents’ values and aspirations, which
have been shown to influence adolescents’ subsequent life paths (Hogan, 1985).
Because the key assumption in this chapter is that adolescents’ age-graded developmental
environments provide a basis for the ways in which adolescents direct their development
and adjust to developmental outcomes, this variation in adolescents’ environments
across and within countries can be expected to be reflected in many ways in
the channeling, selection, adjustment, and reflection processes. For example, Scnabel
et al. (2002) showed that academic achievement was predictive of adolescents’ career
decisions both in Germany and the United States, whereas social background influ-
Conclusions 113
ences were more pronounced in Germany. Moreover, Nurmi, Seginer, et al. (1995)
found that due to earlier and shorter educational transitions, Australian adolescents
showed higher levels of exploration and commitments, both in the domain of future education
and work, compared with their Israeli and Finnish counterparts. They also expected
their goals and hopes related to future education and work to be realized earlier
in their lives than did young Finns and Israelis.
Overall, these results are important because they suggest that the different environments
in which adolescents grow up produce substantial amounts of variation in their
subsequent life paths. Consequently, one must be careful in making generalizations
from results found in one sociocultural context to other environments. However, this
variation provides researchers with an interesting option to examine the extent to which
their theories and findings generalize across different developmental environments.
Socialization in Time: Historical Changes
It is only during the past 100 years that adolescence emerged as an independent and extended
life period, mainly due to the extended period of education (Hurrelman, 1994).
Moreover, adolescence, as well as how it is defined by society and culture, shows continuous
change. Herdandez (1997) summarized the trends in the United States during
the past 150 years. According to him, the major changes in the developmental context
of children and adolescents during the century before the second world war included
the shift to nonfarm work by fathers, a drastic constriction of family size, and enormous
increases in educational attainments. After the half century that followed, the key
changes have included the increase of labor force participation by mothers, the rise of
single parenthood, and a large decline and then substantial rise in child poverty. Although
the timing of these historical changes has varied from one country to another,
the general patterns are more or less the same in industrialized countries. Moreover,
some of the recent changes in developing countries resemble the changes that happened
in industrialized societies several decades ago (Brown et al., 2002). The importance of
these analyses for adolescent research is that they help us to understand that how things
appear in young people’s lives at a given moment is not a consequence of unchangeable
general laws but rather is influenced by many historical and societal developments.
A few recent trends also modify adolescent development. First, gender differences
in adolescents’ thinking and interests seem to be changing in industrialized countries.
Although girls continue to be more interested in future family and human relationships
and boys in material aspects of life, comparisons of research findings across the past 30
years suggest that girls’ interests in education and occupation began to exceed those of
boys (Nurmi, 2001). These results accord well with the statistics that in many countries
the proportion of girls in higher education exceeds that for boys. However, in less industrialized
countries the experiences and opportunities of adolescents boys and girls
have remained markedly different (Brown & Larson, 2002).
Another still-continuing change is a move from rural areas to urban environments.
It has been suggested that living in urban versus rural living environments, along with
related differences in the opportunity structures, is reflected in young people’s motivation
and thinking in many ways. For example, Nurmi et al. (1994) found that adolescents’
exploration and commitments related to education and occupation increased
114 Socialization and Self-Development
with age in urban environments but not in rural environments. This difference was suggested
to be due to the fact that rural environments provide less educational choices
than do urban contexts.
The third developmental trend that influences adolescents’ lives in most parts of the
world is globalization (Brown & Larson, 2002). Besides a move from rural to urban environments
and increasing length of education, globalization refers also to the important
role of a uniform youth culture as reflected in standard elements of dress, music
taste, and entertainment. This development is closely connected to the increasing importance
of new information technologies and worldwide media business.
One recent change in adolescents’ lives in industrialized countries consists of an increase
in so-called turbulences in the transition into job markets. Many young people
start their occupational careers in jobs that both they and their employer expect to be
temporary. Although it has been suggested that this trend is due to the educational system
of the United States (Kerckhoff, 2002), a similar trend is evident in many European
countries. The problem of this development is that it may also postpone other transitions
during young adulthood, such as gaining independence from parents and starting
one’s own family.
The final important recent change in adolescent life is the increase in divorce and
single parenthood. If this trend continues, it may lead to many changes in adolescent
socialization. For example, as most of the single parents are women, increasing amounts
of adolescents are living in a situation in which they lack advice and support from their
fathers (Jenkins Tucker et al., 2001). This may cause particular problems in adolescent
socialization into the adult world, particularly for boys.
Methodological Implications
This chapter summarized the results of research about adolescents’ socialization and
self-development. Unfortunately, many parts of the literature review concluded that the
research included serious methodological limitations.
One typical feature of the reviewed studies was that the direction of influence was
presupposed on the basis of cross-sectional findings. This problem was particularly true
for the research that focused on the role of parent and peer relations in adolescents development.
Consequently, there is a need to enhance the quality of data when examining
any developmental mechanisms. One way to do this is to use cross-lagged longitudinal
data in which the same variables are repeatedly measured across time. This means
that the time for easy solutions to conduct adolescent research is over: Cross-sectional
procedures in the examination of developmental processes are in many cases wastes of
time and money.
Another way to test the direction of effects is to use intervention studies. This approach
has not been typical in the research on adolescents socialization, perhaps
because it is not clear what should be targeted in interventions. In the case of problem
behaviors, such as criminality and drug abuse, this, of course, is not a problem.
One assumption in this chapter is that adolescent development consists of interactions
between the developing individual and his or her changing age-graded environments.
The major idea is that age-graded environments channel adolescents motives
and interests, and feedback concerning their efforts in dealing with a variety of transi-
Conclusions 115
tions and challenges leads to the adjustment of previous strategies and goals and the
formation of reflections concerning oneself. Examination of such mechanisms requires
at least two features of the data.
First, as the processes included in socialization might be assumed to change rapidly,
there is a need for intensive measurements, such as every half year or even less. The
problem with traditional longitudinal studies is, namely, that they may not be intensive
enough to reach the critical developmental changes. Examination of developmental
processes should be preceded by theoretical analysis of the time range during which
major developmental processes take place, and this time range should then be applied
to define the length of the time intervals between the measurements (Aunola, Leskinen,
Onatsu-Arvilommi, & Nurmi, 2002).
The second requirement for the successful examination of processes such as socialization
is that studies focus on periods of adolescent development during which key developmental
processes take place. It might be assumed that the times when adolescents
are facing some major transitions in their lives are such important periods. During
early adolescence such transitions are typically scheduled by the individual’s age. During
late adolescence, they may appear more independently from age, which may require
less traditional research designs. One additional aspect of such studies on critical transitions
is that if a group of individuals is followed only across a particular transition, the
phenomena under focus can be measured intensively.
In sum, the results reviewed in this chapter indicate that we know much about how
age-graded sociocultural environments channel adolescent development, as well as
about the mechanisms by which adolescents select their developmental environments.
There are also data depicting how adolescents reflect themselves as a consequence of
these adventures. However, less is known about how adolescents try to adjust their previous
efforts as a means to deal with negative feedback and failures. Moreover, the fact
that only a few cross-lagged longitudinal studies have been conducted on the role that
parents and peers play in adolescent socialization and self-development limits our possibilities
to understand the processes taking place in these interpersonal settings.

Adjustment: Coping, Reconstruction of Goals, and Causal Attributions

2007-06-23T08:44:00.000-07:00

In the course of the selection process, adolescents may attain the goals to which they
were aiming. However, this is not always the case. In many situations, adolescents fail
to reach their goals or do not succeed to the extent they expected. Young people may
also face unexpected events that endanger some important aspects of their future lives.
When adolescents face problems in goal attainment, they need to adjust some of their
previous goals, cognitions, or behaviors (Figure 4.1). This adjustment process has been
described in terms of many psychological mechanisms (Table 4.1).
Coping
When adolescents face problems in goal attainment, they try to find new ways of dealing
with them, to avoid the difficult situation, or to avoid related information. These
kinds of efforts have been described previously in terms of coping strategies (Folkman,
Lazarus, Pimley, & Novacek, 1987). There are several ways to conceptualize coping.
According to Seiffge-Krenke (1993), for example, functional coping refers to efforts to
manage a problem by actively seeking support, undertaking concrete actions to solve a
problem, or reflecting on possible solutions. A dysfunctional coping includes withdrawing
from or denying the existence of the problem, avoiding active seeking of solutions,
and attempting to regulate the emotions (Seiffge-Krenke, 1993). Understandably, the
characteristics of the situation are important in the kind of coping an individual chooses
to use. For example, effective coping in changeable situations consists of a greater use
of problem-focused coping, whereas in an unchangeable situation effective coping involves
a greater use of emotion-focused coping (Compas, Banez, Malcarne, & Worsham,
1991; Folkman et al., 1987). Consistent with this proposition, Blanchard-Fields,
Jahnke, and Camp (1995) found that the use of problem-focused coping decreased,
whereas passive-dependent coping increased, in use with greater emotional salience.
92 Socialization and Self-Development
Research on coping shares similarities with research on strategy construction. Because
strategies are typically described as a way to attain a goal, they are here summarized
under the selection process. In turn, coping is often described as a way to deal
with goal nonattainment or with an unexpected event, and therefore it is discussed under
adjustment.
Goal Reconstruction
One further way for an adolescent to adjust to the negative outcomes he or she is facing
is to reconstruct personal goals. When people fail to actualize their goals for a specific
developmental trajectory, they are likely to modify their previous goals or to disengage
from them and engage in new kinds of goals as a part of accommodative strategies
(Brandtstädter & Renner, 1990). Doing this reconstruction helps the adolescent, after
a failure, to keep motivated, stay on a realistic level of functioning, and maintain positive
developmental perspectives when facing the next challenging life situation.
Goal reconstruction may lead to either positive or negative developmental changes.
For example, not succeeding in a particular sport may lead to a decision of trying another
kind of sport, which, in the long run, may result in a person’s finding a lifelong
hobby. In turn, having problems at school may lead to increasing interest in social activities
with peers, which may further increase low achievement. Goal reconstruction
on the basis of feedback from goal attainment is one key mechanism of motivational
development (Nurmi, Salmela-Aro, & Koivisto, 2002).
Causal Attributions
One mechanism that plays an important role in the adjustment to a failure in goal attainment
is an adolescent’s interpretation of events afterward. According to Weiner
(1986), after the event is interpreted as success or failure, an individual begins to
search for the possible reasons for this event. Such causal attributions typically refer to
one’s own effort, abilities, or skills; alternatively, they refer to the situation, other people,
or luck.
Most people apply self-protecting causal attributions in their efforts to deal with
negative outcomes in particular (Taylor & Brown, 1988; Zuckerman, 1979); that is, they
take credit for success but blame other people and situational factors for failure. The
function of this defensive thinking is to cope with negative feedback concerning their
self. Lack of such self-protective attributional bias has been shown to increase the likelihood
of depressive symptoms. The problem with the use of attributional bias is that it
leads to behavioral patterns that do not promote high effort in challenging situations
(Berglas & Jones, 1978).
An alternative approach to causal attributions is to conceptualize them from the
point of how functional they are for individual behavior. For example, Glaskow, Dornbusch,
Troyer, Steinberg, and Ritter (1997) suggested that dysfunctional attributional
style implies lack of faith in one’s performance capacities and a reluctance to assume
responsibility for one’s behavior and the outcomes it may generate. Their definition of
dysfunctional causal attribution included references to luck, teacher bias, task difficulty
for either success and failure, and lack of ability in response to failure. Functional
causal attributions refer to ability and effort after success, and effort attribution for a
failure.
Channeling, Selection, Adjustment, and Reflection 93
Reflection: Identity, Narratives, and Self-Concept
One psychological mechanism that plays a particularly important role during adolescence
is the way in which individuals perceive and reflect their individual characteristics,
behavioral outcomes, and social positions as a way to construct self-concept and
identity (Figure 4.1; Erikson, 1959; Harter, 1990). Three different conceptualizations
that have been used to describe this self-reflection process (Table 4.1) are discussed in
the next sections.
Identity
The ways in which an adolescent perceives him- or herself across time and space have
been described as identity (Baumeister & Muraven, 1996; van Hoof, 1999). One major
assumption of the original identity theory was that the particular social position or the
role the adolescent has adopted has consequences for his or her identity (Erikson,
1959). During adolescence, individuals explore different alternatives and end up in specific
adult roles. Perceiving oneself then in a particular role helps an individual to construct
an identity of who he or she is (Baumeister & Muraven, 1996; van Hoof, 1999).
Although identity, by definition, refers to the self-structures of an individual, the
vast majority of research in the field has relied on Marcia’s (1980) identity status paradigm,
which focuses on the processes that are assumed to lead to identity formation
rather than identity contents per se. Marcia originally operationalized Erikson’s (1959)
theory of identity formation in terms of four identity statuses. These were defined in
terms of the presence and absence of crises and commitment related to important life
decisions: identity diffusion (no current crisis or commitment); moratorium (current
crisis, no commitment); foreclosure (commitment, no apparent former crisis); and identity
achievement (commitment, previous crisis resolved).
Narratives
Individuals also construct narratives and tell stories about themselves as a way to create
an identity (McAdams, 1999). Because one main feature of human cognition is that
its contents can be shared by language, telling stories is an important means to increase
self-coherence, to support positive self-concept and high self-esteem, to relate one’s
identity to those of significant others, and to create prototypic identity narratives as a
member of a particular culture.
According to McAdams (1999), it is on the brink of adulthood that a person begins
to construe his or her life in narrative terms. The implicit goal of this is to create an internalized
story of the self that binds together the reconstructed past, perceived present,
and anticipated future in a way that confers upon life a sense of unity and purpose.
Although identity narratives vary in regard to content and structural features, agency
and communion are their typical themes, and they are often situated to a specific moral
or ideological setting (McAdams, 1999).
Self-Concept and Self-Esteem
Adolescents receive a substantial amount of feedback concerning their skills and competencies
during selection and adjustment processes. For example, how well an adolescent
is doing at school and the kinds of feedback he or she receives from peers and
94 Socialization and Self-Development
parents have consequences for what a person thinks about him- or herself (Harter,
1990). This self-concept has been among the most popular research fields in adolescent
psychology.
Although the concept of self has been expanded to refer to a wide variety of mechanisms,
the definition of self-concept is straightforward: It refers to relatively stable
schemata of oneself that are generalized to the extent that they refer to an individual’s
view of him- or herself across different situations. A person has a self-concept to the extent
that he or she has a coherent structure within which the multitude of self-relevant
thoughts and feelings achieve organization (Nowalk, Tesser, Vallacher, & Borkowski,
2000). By contrast, self-esteem is typically defined as the ways in which individuals evaluate
themselves according to normative or self-related standards. For example, positive
self-esteem might be assumed, by definition, to be caused by having more success than
expected, and negative self-esteem stems from having less success than expected.
CODEVELOPMENT: PARENTS AND PEERS
Although socialization and self-development, as evidenced in channeling, selection,
adjustment, and self-reflection processes, are often described as an individual development,
they are closely embedded in the adolescent’s interpersonal relationships (Nurmi,
2001). When thinking about their future life and related decisions, young people often
negotiate with, ask advice from, or reject information given by their parents and teachers.
Similarly, they model their peers and discuss their future lives with their friends
(Figure 4.2).
Three topics are particularly interesting in this context. First, to what extent is adolescent
socialization directed by parents, or do the outcomes of the adolescent socialization
activate certain kinds of parenting? Second, to what extent are adolescents influenced
by their peers, or do they rather select a peer group according to their own
interests and characteristics? Third, how are adolescents’ relationships to their parents
and peers related in the process of socialization into adulthood?
Adolescents and Parents: Cause or Effect?
Parent-adolescent relationships have been among the most examined topics in adolescent
development (Steinberg, 2001). Although family relationships have been theoretically
conceptualized as bidirectional interaction between the adolescent and his or her
parent (Bell, 1979; Lerner, 1982), empirical researchers seem to make a strong presumption
that it is parenting that influences adolescent development (Crouter, Mac-
Dermid, McHale, & Perry-Jenkins, 1990; Jacobson & Crockett, 2000). This seems to be
the case even for most recent research even though many researchers have challenged
this view and suggested that children also impact their parents’ child-rearing patterns
(Harris, 1995; Kerr, Stattin, Biesecker, & Fedder-Wreder, in press; Lerner, 1982; Lerner
& Spanier, 1978).
This issue of the extent to which parents’ attitudes, behaviors, and child-rearing patterns
influence their adolescents’ development, or whether it is children’s thinking and
behaviors that have an impact on their mothers’ and fathers’ parenting, is of key im-
Codevelopment: Parents and Peers 95
portance for this chapter. On the one hand, there are good reasons to assume that parents
influence the ways in which their adolescent children deal with the transition into
adulthood. There are at least three possible ways: First, parents may direct the development
of their children’s interests, goals, and values by communicating expectations
and setting normative standards; second, they may influence the ways in which their
adolescent child deals with various developmental demands by acting as role models
and providing tutoring; and finally, they may contribute to the ways in which adolescents
evaluate their success in dealing with these demands by providing support and
feedback (Nurmi, 1991). On the other hand, the adolescent’s success in dealing with the
key demands of his or her age-graded environments may well influence his or her parents’
expectations concerning their child’s future; adolescents’ competencies and coping
skills may evoke the use of certain parenting styles among the parents; and adolescents’
behavior may cause extra stress for parents, which then influence their thinking,
behavior, and even well-being (Figure 4.2).
Adolescents and Peers: Selection or Causation?
Aside from parents, peers and friends are involved in the ways in which adolescents deal
with the transition into adulthood (McGuire et al., 1999). Adolescents in a particular
peer group exhibit many similarities compared with adolescents in other groups. Such
homophily of the peer groups has been reported in many characteristics, such as aspirations
(Kandel, 1978), school work (Cohen, 1977), and problem behavior (Urberg,
Degirmenciogly, & Pilgrim, 1997). Two major mechanisms have been suggested to be
responsible for this homophily. First, peer groups may be important socialization
agents in adolescents’ development. In this case, adolescents become similar to their
peers because peers provide role models, feedback, and a platform for social comparisons
(Ryan, 2001). Second, adolescents may select peer groups having members who
share similar characteristics and interests with those they have themselves, or they may
leave groups that do not fit with their characteristics or motivation (Cohen, 1977).
Overall, selection and socialization into peer groups might be assumed to play an important
role in the ways in which adolescents deal with the transition into adulthood
(Figure 4.2).
Parents or Peers
Starting from early adolescence, children spend increasing amounts of time with their
peers both at school and after school (Larson & Richards, 1991), whereas they spend
less time with their parents (Collins & Russell, 1991). Some researchers have suggested
that children’s decreasing closeness to their parents is associated with their increased
orientation toward the peers. For example, Steinberg and Silverberg (1986) suggested
that the transition from childhood to adolescence is marked more by a trading of dependency
on parents for dependency on peers rather than a straightforward growth in
autonomy.
Parents and peers play different roles in individuals’ attempts to negotiate their ways
through adolescence. For example, Tao Hunter (1985) found that adolescents discussed
96 Socialization and Self-Development
with their parents particularly topics that related to adolescents’ social and economic
functioning in adulthood (i.e., academic, vocational, and social-ethical issues). By contrast,
they discussed with their friends particularly issues concerning interpersonal relations.
Another important issue is the extent to which adolescents’ relationships with
their parents and peers are associated. Fuligni and Eccles (1993) found that adolescents
who perceived high parental strictness and little opportunity for decision making were
higher in extreme peer orientation. In the following literature review I also examine what
is known about the role of parents and peers in adolescents’ socialization to adulthood.
RESEARCH ON SOCIALIZATION INTO ADULTHOOD
Earlier in this chapter, adolescent development into adulthood was described in terms
of four processes (Table 4.1). In the following sections I review the research on what we
know about the channeling, selection, adjustment, and reflection processes among
adolescents. For each process, the research on the nature of the processes, the developmental
changes, major antecedents and consequences, and the role of family and peers
are reviewed.
Channeling: Anticipations of Developmental Tasks and Transitions
Age-graded developmental tasks, role transitions, and institutional tracks were expected
to channel the ways in which adolescents direct their future development and select
their environments. Previous research supports this by showing that adolescents
have relatively detailed conceptions of their age-related developmental environments
(i.e., the timing of a variety of developmental tasks, role transitions, turning points, and
institutional tracks; Crockett & Bingham, 2000; Nurmi, 1989b). They also anticipate
their future lives as a sequence of transitions in which school completion is followed by
job entry, and then by marriage and parenthood. Moreover, their anticipations of the
major turning points is in accordance with the statistics of the median age at which individuals
go through these transitions in a particular society (Crockett & Bingham,
2000; Nurmi, Poole, & Kalakoski, 1996). This is not surprising because the cognitive
ability to make such estimations has been shown to develop well before the adolescent
years, by the age of 8 to 9 years (Friedman, 2000).
Research on how far into the future adolescents’ thinking and personal goals extend
gives a similar view. Nurmi (1989b, 1991), for example, showed that young people’s
thinking about the future extends to the end of the second and to the beginning of the
third decade of life: Adolescents expected their education-related goals to be actualized,
on average, at about the age of 18 to 19, occupation-related goals to be actualized
at the age of 22 to 23, and goals related to family at the age of 25 to 26. Adolescents’ life
course anticipations are also predictive of their subsequent life course events, particularly
in the family domain (Hogan, 1985).
Research has also shown gender differences in the life span anticipations. Girls tend
to anticipate forming a partnership, establishing a family, and having children earlier
than do boys (Malmberg, 1996), which again is in accordance with the statistics.
Research On Socialization into Adulthood 97
Among girls, the anticipations of the timing of educational and occupational transition
are closely connected to the anticipations of family formation (Crockett & Bingham,
2000). This finding is thought to reflect the fact that girls take into account the role conflicts
of these two domains more than boys do (Hogan, 1985).
The Role of Family
Family characteristics are associated with adolescents’ anticipations of their life span
transitions. For example, high parental education contributes to a later expected age
for all major transitions (Crockett & Bingham, 2000; Hogan, 1985). Similarly, adolescents
who have grown up in homes of lower socioeconomic standing expect earlier
youth-to-adult transitions. In addition, parents’ values are associated with their children’s
expectations: parents who have liberated sex-role attitudes have daughters who
expect to leave the parental household earlier than do the daughters of parents with
more conservative attitudes (Hogan, 1985).
Moreover, parents’ views of their adolescent child’s future transitions contribute to
the child’s future life. Hogan (1985) found in a longitudinal study that mothers’ educational
aspirations for their daughters predicted the timing of the daughters’ marital
transitions. Moreover, daughters of mothers who emphasized traditional sex roles were
more likely to marry as adolescents compared with other young women. By contrast,
daughters of mothers who emphasized the importance of career-preparatory education
tend to delay marriage and family.
Selection
Goal Construction
One mechanism that plays an important role in how an adolescent directs his or her development
and selects from a variety of environments is the kind of personal goals he
or she constructs. Such goals are important, because they help the young person to
move to a direction that would satisfy his or her personal motivation.
Transitions and Institutional Tracks One of the key assumptions of this chapter is that
adolescents construct their goals by comparing their individual motives to the opportunity
space created by their age-graded sociocultural environments. When adolescents
are asked about their future hopes and interests, they typically report topics that focus
on their personal future lives, such as education, occupation, family, leisure activities,
travel, and self-related issues (Nurmi, 1991; Salmela-Aro, 2001). It is interesting to note
that there is little variation across societies and cultures in such hopes and interests (for
a review, see Nurmi, 1991). During adolescence, individuals become increasingly interested
in future occupation, education, and family (Nurmi, 1989b). By contrast, adolescents’
interest in leisure activities decreases with age. The majority of the research on
developmental changes is based on age-group comparisons, although similar results
have been found in longitudinal studies (Nurmi, 1989b).
These results are in accordance with the life span theory of adolescent development
(Nurmi, 1991, 1993): A substantial proportion of adolescents’ future hopes and interests
focus on the major developmental tasks of this period. The finding that ado-
98 Socialization and Self-Development
lescents become increasingly interested in these topics with age may reflect the fact
that as the transitions come closer, they increasingly motivate adolescents’ thinking
(Nurmi, 1989a).
Young people not only construct goals that are in accordance with age-graded developmental
tasks and role transitions, but they also continuously reconstruct their
personal goals to match the specific stages of a particular transition they are experiencing.
For example, Salmela-Aro et al. (2000) showed that women who were facing a
transition to parenthood not only had goals that reflected this particular transition
overall but also reconstructed their goals to match with the specific stages of this transition:
Womens’ personal goals changed from achievement-related topics to pregnancy,
then to the birth of a child, and finally to taking care of the child and motherhood.
Moreover, Heckhausen and Tomasik (2002) found that vocational goals become more
sober and less glorious when the actual vocational transition moves closer.
A variety of institutional transitions and tracks also provide a basis for adolescents’
future-oriented goals. For instance, Klaczynski and Reese (1991) found that collegepreparatory
high school students held more career-oriented values and educational
goals, and projected their future goals further in the future, compared with vocational
school students. By contrast, vocational school students’ goals focused more on preparation
for adulthood and attainment of adult status than did those of college-preparatory
high school students. Similar results have been found for the interpersonal domain of
life. Salmela-Aro and Nurmi (1997) found that young adults’ life situation, such as being
married and having children, predicted their subsequent family-related goals. By
contrast, being single predicted turning to self-focused, existential goals.
Consequences Individual motivation and personal goals were assumed to play an important
role in the ways in which adolescents select their future environments and direct
their lives. Along this assumption, Schoon and Parsons (2002) found that adolescents’
aspirations at the age of 16 predicted their occupational aspirations during
young adulthood. Moreover, Nurmi et al. (2002) found that the more young adults emphasized
the importance of work-related goals and the more they thought they progressed
in the achievement of such goals, the more likely they were to find work that was
commensurate with their education and the less likely they were to be unemployed after
graduation. Furthermore, concrete college goals have also been found to predict
subsequent college attendance (Pimentel, 1996). Similarly, young adults’ family-related
goals predict their subsequent moving toward marriage or living in cohabitation relationships
(Salmela-Aro & Nurmi, 1997), as well as the actual age of cohabitation and
marriage (Pimentel, 1996). By contrast, young adults’ self-focused, existential types of
goals have been shown to predict subsequent negative life events, such as breaking up
of an intimate relationship.
Optimism and Control Beliefs In order to be active agents in the selection of their future
developmental trajectories, adolescents’ personal goals need to be evidenced in
their positive thinking about the future and belief in personal control. The research suggests
not only that a majority of adolescents show much interest in their future but also
that they are relatively optimistic about it and believe in their personal control (e.g.,
Research On Socialization into Adulthood 99
Brown & Larson, 2002; Nurmi, 1989a). Moreover, adolescents construct the view of
their personal future in ways that support their optimism. For example, they do consider
negative life events, such as divorce (Blinn & Pike, 1989), alcoholism, and unemployment
(Malmberg & Norrgård, 1999), to be less likely in their own future life than
in that of other people.
In addition, adolescents’ beliefs concerning the future become more internal and
optimistic with age (Nurmi, 1989a). However, present institutional environments are
associated with the ways in which adolescents attribute causes for their behavioral outcomes.
For example, Klaczynski and Reese (1991) found that college-preparatory high
school students made more internal attributions for positive educational outcomes
than did vocational school students. Moreover, Malmberg and Trempala (1998) showed
that vocational school students were less optimistic about their success in the future
than were secondary school students.
Adolescents’ Fears Adolescents also have fears and worries about their future that are
typically concerned with three major topics (Nurmi, 1991). First, young people typically
report concerns related to dealing with normative developmental tasks, such as
becoming unemployed, failing at school, and facing a divorce (Solantaus, 1987). Second,
some adolescents are concerned about possible negative life events that may
happen to their parents and family members, such as health problems and divorce.
The third class of adolescents’ fears concern society-level events, such as nuclear war
(Solantaus, 1987) or environmental problems (Poole & Cooney, 1987). These differences
in adolescents’ fears and concerns reflect the historical time and topics that are
discussed in the mass media and in public during a particular era (Nurmi, 1991). For
example, the high rates of concerns related to nuclear war were typical in Western Europe
in the early 1980s, whereas concerns about global issues such as pollution have
been reported in subsequent decades (Nurmi, Salmela-Aro, & Ruotsalainen, 1994).
Personal Goals as Interpersonal Negotiation The construction of personal goals is not
solely the outcome of individual cognitive processing but is shared by other people, such
as parents, friends, and peers (Nurmi, 2001). For example, Meegan and Berg (2001)
found that college students appraised the majority of their goals as either directly or indirectly
shared, whereas only a minority of their goals were considered purely as their
own. When Malmberg (1996) asked adolescents about the key sources of information
concerning future education, occupation, and family life, parents were reported as the
most used sources followed by peers, school friends, the mass media, and schools.
The Role of the Family The kinds of goals adolescents have for their own future and
the kinds of goals parents overall have for their adolescent child’s future are closely similar:
Both adolescents’ and parents’ goals concerning adolescents’ future lives typically
concern education, occupation, family, and leisure activities, whereas the fears of both
groups concern health-related issues, education, and work (Lanz, Rosnati, Marta, &
Scabini, 2001). Similarly, parents and their adolescent child share similar kinds of educational
goals (Trusty & Pirtle, 1998), educational aspirations (Bandura, Barbaranelli,
Caprara, & Pastorelli, 2001), occupational aspirations (Jodl, Michael, Malanchuk, Eccles,
& Sameroff, 2001), and values overall (Kasser, Ryan, Zax, & Sameroff, 1995). In
100 Socialization and Self-Development
addition, mothers and fathers play a similar role in adolescents’ future-oriented goals
(Trusty & Pirtle, 1998).
Research has also shown that parental characteristics, beliefs, and parenting practices
are associated with the kinds of goals adolescents have. High level of education
among parents, involvement in adolescents’ school programs (Wilson & Wilson, 1992),
high levels of parental advice (Jenkins Tucker et al., 2001), close identification with the
parent (Jodl et al., 2001), low levels of parental control and positive family interaction
(Glasgow et al., 1997), and nurturance (Kasser et al., 1995) are associated in adolescence
with high educational aspirations, interest in future education and occupation,
and internality and optimism concerning the future.
Unfortunately, the vast majority of this research is based on cross-sectional data.
Consequently, we cannot be sure that it is parents who contribute to the kinds of goals
their adolescent children have. Although parents’ goals and values may provide a basis
for those of adolescents by means of modeling, advice, and negotiating (Nurmi, 2001),
there are several alternative explanations. First, both parents’ and adolescents’ goals
may be influenced by the same sources, such as socioeconomic background and related
cultural values. Second, it is possible that adolescents’ aspirations, such as emphasizing
the importance of education and subsequent high achievement, are reflected also in
parents’ aspirations concerning their children. Third, it is possible that the kinds of aspiration
and goals adolescents have concerning education, for instance, influence their
parents’ child-rearing patterns. In addition, siblings also play a role in the ways in which
adolescents think about their future (Jenkins Tucker, Barber, & Eccles, 1996).

SOCIALIZATION AND SELF DEVELOPMENT

2007-06-23T08:42:00.000-07:00

INTRODUCTION
Adolescence is a crossroads from childhood to adulthood. Childhood experiences and
biological characteristics are transformed into interests, competencies, and self-beliefs
and begin to play an increasingly important role as the adolescent starts to make his or
her way toward adult life. This development is channeled by a variety of opportunities
and constraints in the adolescent’s social and institutional environments: Not all is possible,
but many things are. Out of these alternative pathways the adolescent has to select
the ones that appeal to him or her, or, in some cases, to significant others. Not
everything is attained, and surprises are part of the game. Therefore, ways to deal with
problems and unexpected events are developed. Along with these efforts and adventures,
adolescents begin to know themselves and to make reflections about who they
are. Young people are not alone in their efforts. Most of them live with their parents but
spend increasing amounts of time with their peers and friends. In these relations, advice
is given, interests raised, goals negotiated, solutions compared, and outcomes evaluated.
The aim of this chapter is to review what is currently known about the ways in
which adolescents make their ways into adulthood.
Adolescents face two broad challenges during the transition from childhood to adult
life: the entrance into production and reproduction fields of the culture and society. Entrance
into production includes becoming an economically independent individual who
is able to make his or her living in the society and economic system. This developmental
trajectory consists typically of a complex set of decisions concerning schooling, education,
and career. In turn, entrance into the reproduction domain includes a pattern of sequential
commitments to romantic relationships, building up intimate relations, founding
a family, and taking care of children. Although there is a lot of variation in how these
two broad challenges are approached, dealt with, and solved, these seem to be the key
challenges in all cultures and societies. The reasons for this are simple. When adolescents
85
The author would like to thank Kaisa Aunola, Terry Honess, and Katariina Salmela-Aro for their valuable
comments on the earlier versions of the manuscript and Rakel Nurmi, Maura Nurmi, and Katriina Aho-
Nurmi for secretarial assistance.
participate in these two processes, they become the agents in the reproduction of the society,
its economy, and its way of life (Nurmi, 1993). Moreover, working through these
two general challenges builds up a basis for the adolescent’s individuation from his or
her childhood family, as well as for his or her entrance into adult life and identity.
An increasing amount of research has been carried out on adolescence during the
past two decades. The majority of the studies has focused on examining adolescents’
behavioral characteristics, parental behaviors, or some other seemingly objective features
of adolescence. This research has provided important information about how
adolescents behave in many environments and about how this behavior changes with
age. Much less research has been carried out on how the adolescent’s mind works and
the kinds of consequences this adolescent psychology has for young people’s further
development. There are, however, a few relevant topics examined in the field of adolescent
research, such as self-concept, aspirations, coping, and identity. Some more recent
topics that are becoming popular in personality and social psychology are personal
goals, social strategies, problem solving, causal attributions, and identity narratives.
These topics have also begun to gain increasing attention in adolescent research.
In this chapter I review research on how adolescents’ minds work as they move to
adulthood, that is, what they think and feel about their lives as adolescents, what kinds
of interests they have, the kinds of tools they develop to deal with the challenges of adolescence,
and the ways in which they make stories about themselves later on. When reviewing
this research I used a few principles to make scientific generalizations of the
empirical research. The first principle is that before we make any generalization about
the findings, they should be replicated. Second, the source of the information on which
the results are based is considered. In some cases, such as parenting, information from
both parents and adolescents is a valid source of information. However, when the interest
is in a particular person’s thinking, such as the mother’s educational goals for
their child, the ways in which the adolescent perceives his or her mother’s goals is a secondary
type of information. Finally, the direction of influence is the key issue in developmental
psychology. However, it is difficult to deal with because experimental research
and intervention studies are rare. The major way to get evidence for the causality
in developmental processes is to use cross-lagged longitudinal data, which makes it possible
to control the previous level of the dependent variable before examining the later
impacts of the independent variables on the dependent variable.
A typical approach in review chapters such as this is to focus on one particular welldefined
research area and to exclude other topics. This approach may be problematic
for two reasons. The first is that researchers typically develop different kinds of conceptualizations
to deal with more or less the same phenomenon. Focusing on one conceptualization
only would mean, in fact, that not all important findings for a particular
phenomenon will be reviewed. Consequently, the aim of this chapter is to search for
the similarities across a variety of conceptualizations rather than to concentrate on analyzing
differences. Second, when focusing on one relatively narrow phenomenon and
a related research paradigm, there is a danger of losing sight of adolescent development
as a whole. In this chapter I make an effort to integrate research on adolescence under
a few umbrella concepts in order to provide a more holistic view of the young person.
In order to attain this goal, I first present a view in which adolescents’ socialization
is described in terms of four mechanisms: channeling, selection, adjustment, and re-
86 Socialization and Self-Development
flection. Then, research on a variety of more traditional concepts, such as futureorientation,
occupational aspirations, identity exploration, coping, causal attribution,
self-concept, and identity formation, are reviewed under these four headings. A few
topics, however, are excluded, such as academic motivation and achievement goals because
other chapters in this Handbook focus on them. The role of family and peers as
the interpersonal context for adolescent development is also considered. Finally, a few
future research directions and methodological issues are discussed.
CHANNELING, SELECTION, ADJUSTMENT, AND REFLECTION
During the adolescent years, an individual moves from being a member of the parents’
family to a full member of society. This development is characterized by four key mechanisms
(Figure 4.1): First, adolescents grow up in changing environments that channel
their developmental trajectories. A variety of sociocultural factors like cultural beliefs,
institutional structures, and historical events form such environments, which also
change rapidly from one age period to another (Nurmi, 1991). Such sociocultural and
institutional structures define an opportunity space for the adolescent that channels his
or her future-oriented motivation, thinking, and behavior. Second, as suggested by life
span theorists (Brandstädter, 1984; Lerner, 1983), adolescents are not passive targets of
environmental influences; rather, they select their developmental environments and future
life paths. Many psychological mechanisms are responsible for this selection: Motives,
interests, and personal goals direct adolescents’ exploration, planning, decision
making, and commitments and lead them to specific educational tracks, peers groups,
and leisure activities. Third, as a consequence of their efforts to select the direction of
their lives, adolescents end up having specific outcomes and receive feedback about
their successes and failures. Feedback about developmental outcomes, particularly
about failures and negative events, requires that young people adjust their goals, plans,
and thinking in order to cope successfully with the future challenges of their developmental
trajectories. Many psychological mechanisms, such as reconstruction of goals,
coping, and causal attributions, are responsible for this adjustment. Finally, after receiving
information about the outcomes of their efforts and ending up in a particular
life situation and social position, adolescents typically reflect about a variety of issues
concerning themselves and their lives: They construct conceptualizations about themselves
and tell stories to their parents and peers aimed at building up a coherent personal
identity

COGNITIVE AND BRAIN DEVELOPMENT

2007-06-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

THE ADOLESCENT MIND: BUILDING AN INTEGRATED MODEL
The 1958 publication in North America of Inhelder and Piaget’s classic work, The
Growth of Logical Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence (following its 1955 publication
in France as “De la logique de l’enfant à la logique de l’adolescent: Essai sur la
construction des structures opératoires formelles”) is widely recognized as having
launched the systematic study of adolescent cognitive development. The introduction
to an English-language audience of a comprehensive model for understanding the cognitive
transition from childhood to adolescence inspired a generation of researchers to
undertake intensive investigations. The echoes reverberate still, even though direct assessment
of Piaget’s theoretical claims regarding formal operations has become less frequent
(Bond, 1998; Keating, 1990a; Moshman, 1998).
Some appreciation of the impact can be gleaned from a simple count of publications
on the topic before and after this watershed event. Using a comprehensive search engine
(PsychInfo, Cambridge Scientific Abstracts) and crossing the terms adolescent or
adolescence with cognition, cognitive development, or thinking, fewer than a dozen empirical
articles from 1872 (the earliest date for indexing) to 1960 were identified. In succeeding
decades, an exponential growth pattern in such publications is apparent, from
the low hundreds in the 1960s up to the low thousands in the 1990s. In contrast, this
new emphasis virtually displaced publications on psychometric research specific to
adolescence, a trend astutely noted at its cusp by Ausubel and Ausubel (1966). Crossing
adolescent or adolescence with intelligence or mental ability yielded over 1,000 titles
in the earliest period, but fewer than 100 in the 1990s.
The shift from a psychometric focus on intelligence and mental ability toward underlying
cognitive structure and process reflected larger trends in psychology generally and
cognitive science in particular from the early 1960s onward. In addition to the primary
goal of rescuing cognitive activity as a legitimate area of inquiry from the behaviorist
hegemony of the earlier period, a major scientific goal of the cognitive revolution
(Gardner, 1985; Johnson & Erneling, 1997; Pribram, 1986) has been to understand the
underpinnings of complex cognitive performance in the most elementary terms possible.
The study of cognitive development in adolescence fit comfortably within this larger
trend. The search for the essential elements of cognitive activity in adolescents yielded
several prime candidates, each of which spawned a substantial line of research. There
45
were several commonalities among these models. Each sought to identify the driver of
adolescent cognitive activity, producing what can be viewed as single-device accounts
(Keating, 2001a). In so doing, each also sought to answer the perennial question, “What
develops?” (Siegler, 1978). Each also sought to demonstrate that there were specifically
adolescent features of cognitive development.
Three major theoretical approaches to the core of adolescent cognitive development
during this initial efflorescence can be identified: cognition as reasoning, cognition as
processing, and cognition as expertise. These major accounts were not unrelated and
indeed arose sequentially in response to each other (Keating, 1980, 1990a). In computational
terms, one can view these as focusing, respectively, on developments in the design
of the operating system, on additions to the speed and/or capacity of the system,
or on changes in the size or structure of the database that the system has available.
A major theme of this review is that claims for independent developments in these
various aspects of adolescent cognition have not been supported by the weight of evidence,
even though important developments are clearly evident in each aspect of the
overall cognitive system. For example, Demetriou, Christou, Spanoudis, and Platsidou
(2002), using individual growth curve modeling from late childhood to adolescence,
found that more advanced levels of reasoning arise in part from bottom-up changes in
processing efficiency and working memory, but they also found that these lower order
elements are reciprocally affected from the top down. This interdependence has complicated
the search for the core of what develops—that is, identifying the fundamental
driver of adolescent cognitive development independent of other potentially confounding
cognitive shifts.
A Central Paradox
The inability to identify a single dominant source that explains what develops in adolescent
cognition has contributed to a central paradox. Despite the absolute growth in
the number of studies dealing with adolescent cognitive development just noted, and
despite the centrality of the questions that animated the major approaches, there is a
paradoxical (but widespread) view that there has been relatively little progress on these
central themes: “The study of cognitive development in adolescence has been moribund
for some time now, replaced by studies of adolescent decision making and judgment”
(Steinberg & Morris, 2001, p. 101). Compounding the paradox is an equally
widespread view that there are fundamental shifts in adolescent cognition and that
these changes are readily observable in important, broadly defined aspects of adolescent
thinking (Keating, 1990a; Moshman, 1998). The power of this paradox is further
reinforced by the emerging understanding of the dramatic nature and long reach of
pubertal events (Angold, Costello, Erkanli, & Worthman, 1999; Angold, Costello, &
Worthman, 1998; Susman & Rogol, this volume), which sustains the belief that there
should be large and readily identifiable shifts in both cognitive and brain development.
Can this paradox be resolved? To begin to answer this difficult challenge, we need to
attend to the subsequent trajectories of research that originated in the different theoretical
perspectives noted earlier (Keating, 2001a). This is of more than historical interest.
As these approaches have pursued their largely separate paths, they have en-
46 Cognitive and Brain Development
countered highly similar dilemmas. Indeed, they are similar not only by analogy, but
also as homology. Each has confronted, I argue, the core problem of all single-device
accounts. The greater the refinement of parameters to measure the theoretically targeted
developmental mechanism, the less these parameters are able to account for
broad changes that the theories were designed to explain (Keating, 1996b; Keating,
List, & Merriman, 1985).
In short, researchers have long sought to explain the readily apparent and broad
changes in adolescent thinking by identifying the underlying mechanism of “what develops”
(Siegler, 1978). In pursuing this agenda, it is logical to identify and measure parameters
of the targeted mechanism as precisely as possible: pure logic, pure processing
efficiency, pure capacity, and so on. As the evidence reviewed in this chapter demonstrates,
this research agenda has yielded much new knowledge about adolescent cognition
but has encountered significant problems in answering the original question.
To the extent that the strategy has succeeded in purifying the parameters of specific
underlying mechanisms, it has been at the cost of explaining variance in the broader
cognitive shifts. Moreover, in studies where multiple mechanisms have been examined,
especially in longitudinal designs (e.g., Demetriou et al., 2002), there is strong evidence
for interdependence among them. It seems increasingly unlikely that any single-device
explanation of the major shifts in adolescent cognition will suffice. Confronting these
recurring limitations, lines of research have bifurcated and branched, yielding a burgeoning
complexity of questions and paradigms that focus on adolescent cognition.
As Steinberg and Morris (2001) accurately noted, this has redirected much of the research
attention away from the original questions about the core of adolescent cognitive
development toward a search for answers to specific practical questions. These have
been more typically addressed by an applied cognitive science with a more contextspecific
focus on pathways to expertise, on the role of teaching and learning in the acquisition
of expertise, and on the development of judgment and decision making (e.g.,
Keating, 1990b; Klaczynski, Byrnes, & Jacobs, 2001; Kokis, Macpherson, Toplak, West,
& Stanovich, 2002; Kuhn, Garcia-Mila, Zohar, & Andersen, 1995; Kuhn & Pearsall,
2000; Kwon & Lawson, 2000; Kwon, Lawson, Chung, & Kim, 2000; Lawson et al., 2000).
In pursuing these more applied questions, the dilemmas of interdependence and insufficiency
of single-device accounts reemerge for the same reasons and in the same way.
More provocatively, this paradox—of major shifts that are not explained by any
single developmental mechanism—can be viewed as a strong indication that a more integrative
theoretical account is needed. If one adopts this position, as this review does,
we then need to ask what shape such an integrative account might take, what evidence
may be available to support such an account, and what would constitute an effective research
agenda to probe an integrated model. The prospects for an integrative account
have been substantially enhanced by recent major advances in the neurosciences (e.g.,
Casey, Giedd, & Thomas, 2000; Giedd et al., 1999; Johnson, 2001; Luna et al., 2001;
Nelson, 1999; Paus et al., 1999; Sowell, Delis, Stiles, & Jernigan, 2001; Sowell, Trauner,
Gamst, & Jernigan, 2002; Steingard et al., 2002), in comparative neuroanatomy across
closely related primate species that illuminate core issues of human cognitive evolution
(Donald, 2001; Rilling & Insel, 1999), in the increasing sophistication of analyses of longitudinal
data and individual growth curves (Demetriou et al., 2002; McArdle, Ferrer-
The Adolescent Mind: Building an Integrated Model 47
Caja, Hamagami, & Woodcock, 2002), and in a deepened understanding of the critical
role of culture and context in the shaping of cognitive and brain development (Donald,
2001; Francis, Diorio, Plotsky, & Meaney, 2002).
An Emergent Resolution
Drawing on these various sources, the nature of an integrated account has begun to
emerge. It is sketched in this introductory section and elaborated in subsequent sections.
What lies at the core of adolescent cognitive development is not likely to be any
single device that drives it. Rather, it is the attainment of a more fully conscious, selfdirected,
and self-regulating mind that characterizes the adolescent transition. This is
achieved principally through the assembly of an advanced executive suite of capabilities
(Donald, 2001), rather than through specific advancement in any one of the constituent
elements. This represents a major shift in prevailing views of cognition, going
beyond the search for underlying elements (or hidden “demons”; Dennett, 1991) that
are formed and operate largely outside awareness. Such coordination of cognitive elements
resonates with contemporary work on metacognitive and metastrategic development.
In describing the core difference between young and mature scientists, for
example, Kuhn and Pearsall (2000) noted that both seek to coordinate theory and evidence,
but that in the latter, “the coordination of theory and evidence is carried out under
a high degree of conscious control” (p. 115).
Recent advances in developmental neuroscience, propelled by dramatic advances in
imaging technologies, point toward a similar resolution. A broad outline of the most
significant and cognitively relevant developments in the adolescent brain has begun to
coalesce very recently (Casey et al., 2000; Johnson, 2001). Much of the underlying action
is focused on specific developments in the prefrontal cortex, but with an equally
significant role for rapidly expanding linkages to the whole brain (Donald, 2001; Luna
et al., 2001; Newman & Grace, 1999). This complex process of assembly is supported
by increasingly rapid connectivity (through continued myelination of nerve fibers), particularly
in communication among different brain regions, and by significant and localized
synaptic pruning, especially in frontal areas that are crucial to executive functioning
(Giedd et al., 1999; Sowell et al., 2001, 2002; Steingard et al., 2002).
It is noteworthy that the most marked differences between adult humans and nonhuman
primates (Rilling & Insell, 1999) occur precisely in those features of brain development
that emerge most strikingly during adolescence: differentially greater increases
in neocortical volume (beyond the expected increase owing to larger brain volume overall);
differentially greater gyrification of the prefrontal cortex, indicating a more convoluted
design that affords both more capacity for central coordination and more rapid
communication; and a greater relative increase in cerebral white matter relative to neocortical
gray matter, “suggesting that axonal connections between neocortical neurons
may increase faster than the number of neurons as brain size increases” (p. 222). The
prefrontal cortex is thus among the latest brain systems to develop, both phylogenetically
and ontogenetically, especially the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Fuster, 2000).
Its importance for adolescent cognitive development can be inferred from this convergence
but is more directly evident from its integrative functions.
The prefrontal lobes have long been seen as central to the coordination of cognitive
48 Cognitive and Brain Development
activity (Case, 1992; Stuss, 1992), whose function is to sustain “many high-level metacognitive
operations, such as self-evaluation, long-term planning, prioritizing values,
maintaining fluency, and the production of appropriate social behavior” (Donald,
2001, p. 198). The reach and complexity of the prefrontal cortex has been further emphasized
in recent work identifying important details of its structure and function (Barbas
& Hilgetag, 2002; Fuster, 2000; Fuster, Van Hoesen, Morecraft, & Semendeferi,
2000; Watanabe, 2002). In particular, the temporal integration of retrospective memory
and preparatory set in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (Fuster, 2000) creates the
conditions for a broader, more fully conscious control of cognition and behavior. In
other words, the narrow window of active awareness that is the focus of much of experimental
cognitive science, which seems to undermine assertions of a broader consciousness
with significant agency in decision making and planning, captures too little
of the important cognitive action (Donald, 2001). In addition, the close connection and
communication among regions of the prefrontal cortex that are more cognitive with
those that have important linkages with emotional processing, especially the orbitofrontal
cortex (Barbas & Hilgetag, 2002), support the view of the prefrontal cortex as a
more general synthesizer of experience and governor of action. Thus the role of the prefrontal
cortex as not only an integrator of cognitive functions, but also a governing regulator
of emotion, attention, and behavior, takes on special importance during adolescence
in three ways.
First, patterns of individual differences in how cognition, emotion, and behavior become
integrated during adolescence may well have a long reach with respect to the development
of psychopathology (Steinberg et al., in press) and to normative habits of
mind (Keating, 1996b, 1996c) that influence trajectories of competence and coping.
Second, the pubertal influences on many hormonal and neuroendocrine systems are
dramatic (Angold et al., 1998, 1999; Susman & Rogol, this volume), entailing the cascading
reorganization of body and brain systems. Third, recent evidence from animal
models demonstrated the partial reversibility of damage acquired during early development,
at both the behavioral and the physiological levels, as a function of enriched
environments during puberty (Francis et al., 2002). In combination, this evidence
points strongly toward both enduring (but not limitless) neural plasticity and the critical
role of developmental experience in shaping future developmental trajectories in
cognition and behavior (Nelson, 1999; Nelson, Bloom, Cameron, Amaral, Dahl, &
Pine, 2002).
Recent research directions thus point toward the distinct possibility that adolescence
may be a sensitive or critical developmental period, much like early development
in its ability to shape future trajectories and in the biological embedding of developmental
experiences as the principal method through which this occurs (Boyce & Keating,
in press; Keating & Hertzman, 1999; Meaney, 2001). The major changes during
adolescence just outlined form the essential substrate for adolescence to function as a
critical developmental period: the interdependence and developmental coordination of
numerous cognitive elements, and of cognition with emotion and behavior; the role of
puberty in a fundamental restructuring of many body systems; the apparent concentration
of changes in the adolescent brain in the prefrontal cortex (which serves as a
governor of cognition and action) together with the enhanced interregional communication
between the prefrontal cortex and other brain regions; and in the evidence for
The Adolescent Mind: Building an Integrated Model 49
substantial synaptic pruning and for nontrivial physiological reversibility of behavioral
and neuroendocrine patterns arising from early developmental experiences.
Brain, Culture, and the Centrality of Consciousness
The reemergence of consciousness and its development as a legitimate area of scientific
inquiry (Chalmers, 1996; Dennett, 1996; Donald, 2001; Ferrari, Pinard, & Runions,
2001; Searle, 1997) has increased the probability that adolescence may be a critical developmental
period for cognitive development and for the myriad ways that cognition
plays a role in emotion and action. The late development of the prefrontal cortex in phylogeny
and ontogeny, as well as its central integrative function, provides a crucial starting
point for understanding the distinctive features of human cognition generally and
adolescent cognition specifically.
As McGinn (1999) noted, “Consciousness is hard to miss but easy to avoid, theoretically
speaking” (p. 44). The classic subject-object and mind-body problems in
epistemology (and philosophy more generally) drove consciousness out of scientific
scrutiny in two directions, either by explaining it away through reductionist accounts
that allowed it to exist only as an epiphenomenon resting on the actions of more fundamental
cognitive automata (Dennett, 1991), or, alternately, by awarding it a privileged
position beyond objectifying scientific inquiry, to be understood by largely phenomenological
methods. But as McGinn (1999) observed, consciousness just won’t go
away, posing again the question: “How does consciousness fit into the scientific world
picture. . . ?” (p. 44).
Ferrari et al. (2001) argued that Piaget (for whom, they noted, the scientific study of
consciousness never became unrespectable) proposed a solution that should be revisited.
Specifically, the physiological “rules” that enable cognitive activity and the (psycho)
logical “rules” that govern conscious awareness coevolved in a “sophisticated form
of parallelism” (p. 195) that exhibits substantial isomorphism and leads toward an “integrative
monism” (p. 195) that may never actually arrive.
A Piagetian anecdote about his encounter with Soviet psychologists (in a new translation
by Ferrari et al., 2001, p. 199), while revealing heavy ideological baggage, emphasizes
the convoluted epistemological and philosophical argumentation that the scientific
study of consciousness confronts. In the anecdote, Piaget is cleared of the charge
of being an idealist on the grounds that he grants primacy to the preexistence of objects
before a knower, even though he maintains a strong stance that the origin of knowing
lies in the first actions upon objects. What the Soviets were probing is the essential (but
creative) tension at the heart of the Piagetian project (Keating, 1990d, pp. 312–315), between
the specification of closed structures with the definable end point of formal reasoning
(an idealist position despite the Soviet acquittal), and the identification of an
open-system, constructivist process that codevelops iteratively through action on the
world (sufficiently objectivist to satisfy his interlocutors on that occasion). As I have
previously argued (Keating, 1990d), it is the former position, the closed structure with
defined end points, that was initially more amenable to cognitive developmental investigation,
and hence defined the limits of much of the research on adolescent cognition.
The open systems view, more compatible with much intervening theoretical work, sup-
50 Cognitive and Brain Development
ports the identification of Piaget as a root theorist of the development of consciousness
(Ferrari et al., 2001).
Relying more heavily on recent evidence in human evolution and neuroscience, and
thus eschewing many of the ideological issues, Donald (2001) proposed a framework
that is compatible with these Piagetian arguments that are based in the method of genetic
epistemology. Donald’s (2001) core argument is that the evolution of the human
brain, especially as it branched from the broader primate lineage, was quintessentially
social: “The key to understanding the human intellect is not so much the design of the
individual brain as the synergy of many brains. We have evolved an adaptation for living
in culture, and our exceptional powers as a species derive from the curious fact that
we have broken out of one of the most critical limitations of traditional nervous systems—
their loneliness, or solipsism” (p. xiii).
It is important to distinguish this notion of the fundamentally social nature of human
mind from the line of research in organizational behavior launched by Janis’s
(1972) seminal work on groupthink. That theoretical construct has focused on the
mechanisms by which ineffective or poor decision making can occur in the context of
(usually small) group dynamics (Flippen, 1999; Jones & Roelofsma, 2000; Park, 2000;
Turner & Pratkanis, 1998), such as failure of monitoring, premature concurrence, failure
to consider unconventional options, or perceived risk of excluding oneself from the
group through disagreement (Baumeister & Leary, 1995). The fundamentally social nature
of cognition and consciousness may be a necessary condition for groupthink, but
the multifaceted nature of social or collective mind cannot be accurately characterized
as groupthink. It is interesting to note, however, that despite a substantial line of research
on how peers may influence individual decision making during adolescence
(Ormond, Luszcz, Mann, & Beswick, 1991; Payne, 2002; Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986),
there is little research on groupthink among adolescents. This is somewhat surprising
given the group context that often underlies immaturity of decisions (Cauffman &
Steinberg, 1995; Dishion, Eddy, Haas, Li, & Spracklen, 1997) and the salience of the
sense of belonging that is an important aspect of the adolescent self (Marshall, 2001).
There is a real tension between the formative role of society in essential cognitive development
and the need to develop an autonomously critical habit of mind (Keating,
1996c), and clearly this tension is a key dynamic in adolescent cognition.
Donald (2001) proposed three major transitions as levels of consciousness beyond
the episodic awareness that we share with our nonhuman primate cousins. Each rests
on continuing development and refinement of the “executive suite” that is concentrated
in the prefrontal cortex (including its interregional connectivity): “(1) more precise and
self-conscious control of action in mimesis; (2) richer and faster accumulation of cultural
knowledge, in speech; and (3) much more powerful and reflective cultures, driven
by symbolic technology” (p. 262). Note that each of these proceeds as a coevolution of
brain and culture; indeed, the signal species characteristic of Homo sapiens can be
thought of as cultural mind sharing that activates individual minds (whose brains have
been designed, as it were, by evolution to participate in just such activity). In this light,
there is an essential concordance on the centrality of interactive constructionism between
Vygotsky’s (1979) cognitive socialization and Piaget’s (1965) “internal interactionism”
(Ferrari et al., 2001, p. 198).
The Adolescent Mind: Building an Integrated Model 51
The implication of these convergences is that there exist potentially homologous
qualitative transitions in the evolution of the human brain, the nature of primate group
interaction (episodic, mimetic, mythic, and theoretic; Donald, 2001), and adolescent
cognitive and brain development. The essence of the homology lies in the nature of human
consciousness, including its phylogeny, ontogeny, and inseparability from culture
and context. Fully attained human consciousness is thus potentiated by key developments
in the brain that are late arrivals in evolutionary history and become fully available
for assembly in individual ontogeny only during the adolescent transition. But this
potential assembly becomes actual only in close interplay with the surrounding cultural
and cognitive web, in which the individual adolescent experiences culture not passively
as an external entity, but rather as an active force (Swidler, 1986) that can be used to
both define and achieve goals, and serves simultaneously as a fundamental coconstructor
of cognition and consciousness.
Understanding how adolescence may function as a critical developmental period
will be a major challenge. The necessity of incorporating the multiple interactions of
brain-biology, behavior-cognition, and culture-context implies a level of complexity
that is daunting. This poses two risks to a productive research agenda that can advance
our understanding. First, the complexity may be overwhelming, leading instead toward
continued fragmentation and inattention to core questions—the central paradox described
earlier. Second, the need for coherence may lead to an overly facile acceptance
that the mere proposal of a global homology centered on the emergence of consciousness
fully resolves the paradox. It does not, because consciousness emerges (phylogenetically,
historically, and ontogenetically) not as one thing, but as the assembly of
many things (Donald, 2001). Each of its many subsystems retains some degree of ongoing
modular independence in the context of increasing systemic interdependence.
Their coordination into a more centrally governed metasystem is unlikely to be smooth
developmentally or uniform in execution. Indeed, the individual and developmental
anomalies of assembly are readily apparent as performance or procedural intrusions
that muddy the waters of what might otherwise be observed as a clear progression to
fundamental logical competence (Overton, 1990).
To summarize, the initial stages of research on adolescent cognitive development focused
logically and necessarily on isolating key cognitive components. The recent emergence
(or reemergence) of consciousness as a legitimate and necessary focus of cognitive
research (Donald, 2001) has been driven by a need to understand how those components
get assembled into a complex, coordinated cognitive system. The accumulating
evidence is particularly relevant to adolescent cognitive development, reflecting the
broader movement in cognitive science as it comes to terms with cognitive, cognitiveaffective,
and developmental neuroscience. In this light, understanding adolescent cognitive
development will have to play a central role in understanding human consciousness
more generally, as research in a number of related fields points with increasing
specificity to this period of development as the one in which the processes of assembly
are at their peak.
Contemporary evidence also supports the view that adolescents are biologically susceptible
to the embedding of experience in brain and body systems. Thus, a comprehensive
research agenda will require a much more detailed understanding of the ways
in which context organizes the salient experiences of adolescents (see chapters in Part
52 Cognitive and Brain Development
II of this volume, especially that by Larson & Wilson). If the adolescent mind is coconstructed
by the potentiation of developing cognitive capacities through active engagement
with culturally embedded knowledge and meaning systems, then the specific
ways in which adolescents engage their cognitive universe become crucial. In contrast,
identifying the most salient aspects of early development in order to understand how
they may become biologically embedded in the infant and young child may be relatively
easier than in the adolescent, with the increased complexity of the relevant contexts and
the increased ability for individual choice in the selection of contexts.
The principal goal of this review is thus to examine closely (but not exhaustively,
given the breadth of the extant literatures) the major research efforts on adolescent cognitive
and brain development, to identify common themes and findings that cut across
the disparate research agendas, and to situate those themes with respect to an emergent
theoretical perspective that integrates them. To move this research agenda forward productively,
emerging methodologies that support interdisciplinary cross-fertilization
will be essential. Wilson (1998) argued for an innovative methodological approach that
seeks consilience of evidence among biological, social, and human sciences. Although
hard to achieve, the understanding of adolescent cognitive development requires such
an integration, and the evidence reviewed in this chapter suggests that the prospects are
promising.
Following this first section, in which the overall argument has been outlined, the balance
of the review is organized as follows. In the second part, a more detailed consideration
of the major lines of research on adolescent cognitive development is provided,
and their theoretical and empirical implications for an integrated model are identified.
In the third part, the prospects for grounding adolescent cognitive development in
underlying biological and brain development are discussed further, with a particular focus
on emerging evidence from the neurosciences that supports (or even requires) an integrated
model. In the fourth and final part, the role of context in adolescent cognitive
development is addressed in light of these newly emerging perspectives. In contrast to
conventional approaches that sought to partial out or control for context in order to
identify purely cognitive parameters, arguments for the role of enculturation as an active,
integral, and endogenous feature of adolescent thinking are reviewed (Donald,
2001; Keating, 1996b, 1996c; Keating & Sasse, 1996).

PUBERTY AND BEHAVIOR, EMOTIONS, AND COGNITION

2007-06-23T08:38:00.000-07:00

Until the last two decades, studies of pubertal processes considered primarily physical
morphological characteristics or menarche in assessing the relationship between biological
changes and psychological development. These studies now are enriched by assessment
of biological substances—specifically, hormones—that are essential for pubertal
development.
Pubertal Status and Pubertal Timing
The literature linking puberty and psychological development includes assessment that
considers both pubertal status and timing of puberty. Pubertal status refers to the degree
of physical maturation on indicators that include breast, genital, and pubic hair
Puberty and Behavior, Emotions, and Cognition 23
development and hormone levels. Timing of puberty refers to pubertal status relative to
same-age peers.
Pubertal Status: Hormones
The use of hormones to assess degree of pubertal development is a relatively new undertaking.
In the following section, hormone levels are examined in relation to their
contribution to behavior, emotions and cognition.
Testosterone and Estrogen: Antisocial Behavior “A focus on either social or biological
factors can yield only part of the story of aggressive and violent behaviors: integrative
investigations are essential to complete the picture” (Cairns & Stoff, 1996, p. 338). Relative
to other domains, the integration of biological and psychological processes in
relation to antisocial behavior has been evident for some time. Increases in antisocial
behavior (physical aggression, relational aggression, conduct disorder symptoms, behavior
problems, delinquent and violent behavior, and early and risky sexual activity
and arrests) have been attributed to changes in hormones, physical maturation, altered
reactivity to life stressors, and, most recently, brain changes during puberty. An unresolved
issue is whether antisocial behavior existed prior to puberty but became transformed
to more annoying or more serious problems at puberty or whether problems
emerge de novo at puberty.
The links between the biology of puberty and problem behavior have been extensively
reviewed elsewhere (Brain & Susman, 1997; Buchanan, Eccles, & Becker, 1992).
Major advances in relating pubertal status and psychological parameters partially result
from advances in hormone assay technologies, whereby hormones can reliably and
sensitively be measured in small quantities of blood and saliva.
The steroid hormone testosterone (T) is implicated in physical aggression in animals
and antisocial behavior in humans (Brain & Susman, 1997; Mazur & Booth, 1998). The
relationship between T and problem behavior is hypothesized to derive from pre- and
early postnatal organizational effects of hormones on brain development and later activational
influences when T begins to rise at puberty. The argument is that because
males are exposed to higher concentrations of androgens than females during pre- and
postnatal development and onward, and because males tend to express more physical
aggression than females, androgens must be implicated in aggressive behavior and
dominance in males (Mazur & Booth, 1998). Because T rises at puberty and externalizing
behavior problems also rise at puberty, it follows that T is hypothesized to influence
antisocial behavior.
Evidence for the relationship between T and aggressive behavior is derived from a
few correlational and experimental studies. In boys in the later stages of pubertal development,
Olweus, Mattson, Schalling, and Low (1988) examined the causal pathway
between T and provoked and unprovoked aggression and reported that T exerted a direct
causal path on provoked aggressive behavior. T appeared to lower the boys’ frustration
tolerance. For unprovoked aggressive behavior (starting fights and verbal aggression),
the findings were somewhat different. T had no direct effects on unprovoked
aggressive behavior, but there was an indirect effect of T with low frustration tolerance
as a mediator of aggressive behavior. The authors concluded that higher levels of T
24 Puberty and Psychological Development
made the boys more impatient and irritable, in turn increasing readiness to engage in
unprovoked aggressive behavior.
Higher levels of T appear to affect observable behavior in subtle ways. Adolescent
boys’ perceptions of dominance were reflected in peers’ T concentrations (Schaal,
Tremblay, Soussignan, & Susman, 1996). T was significantly higher in peer-perceived
leaders than in nonleaders. In addition, T levels and body mass additively predicted social
dominance (Tremblay et al., 1998). It is not yet evident whether social dominance
leads to higher T levels or whether higher T and greater body mass lead to higher social
dominance.
The relationship between T and antisocial behavior is far from consistent across
studies. T was positively related to substance use (Bauman, Foshee, Koch, Haley, &
Downton, 1989; Martin et al., 2001), coitus in females (Halpern, Udry, & Suchindran,
1997), and sexual activity in males (Halpern, Udry, & Suchindran, 1998), but there was
a negative relationship between T and behavior problems in healthy young boys (Susman
et al., 1987). Similarly, there was no relationship between a diagnosis of conduct
disorder problems and T in 4- to 10-year-old children (Constantino et al., 1993). In
girls, T was not related to aggressive or dominance behaviors in three studies that included
early-puberty girls (Brooks-Gunn & Warren, 1989; Inoff-Germain et al., 1988;
Susman et al., 1987). It is noteworthy that the associations between antisocial behavior
and T are less apparent in girls and in male children and younger adolescents (Brooks-
Gunn & Warren, 1989; Constantino et al., 1993; Nottelmann et al., 1987; Susman et al.,
1987) than in older adolescents (Olweus et al., 1988) and adults (Mazur & Booth, 1998).
These developmental inconsistencies should be expected given the different constructs
assessed across studies. Questionnaires that assess the molar aspects of aggressive behavior
may not have adequate sensitivity for capturing subtle differences in the behavior
of adolescents that covary with T levels. The relatively inconsistent links between T
and antisocial behavior in adolescents compared to adults indicates that elevated T and
antisocial behavior may be a consequence of aggressive behavior (Constantino et al.,
1993). However, a causal influence for T in behavior should be considered. Boys who
consistently displayed disruptive behavior problems and were anxious across six years
were significantly lower on T than were boys who were not disruptive and anxious
(Schaal et al., 1996). These disruptive and anxious boys were also later in their pubertal
development. The effect of antisocial behavior on suppression of gonadal steroids
may be mediated by stressors and related hormones.
Experimental studies are the preferred approach for establishing the cause-effect relationship
between hormones and antisocial behavior. To examine this cause-effect relationship,
T or estrogen was administered to delayed-puberty boys and girls in a
placebo-controlled, randomized, double-blind, crossover design study. The boys and
girls were being treated with physiological doses of T (boys) or conjugated estrogens
(girls) (Finkelstein et al., 1997; Liben et al., 2002; Schwab et al., 2001; Susman et al.,
1998). Each 3-month treatment period was preceded and followed by a 3-month placebo
period. The doses of gonadal steroids were calculated to simulate concentrations in
blood in normal early (low dose), middle (middle dose), and late (high dose) pubertal
adolescents. Significant increases in aggressive impulses and physical aggression against
peers and adults were seen in boys but only at the middle dose. In contrast, significant
Puberty and Behavior, Emotions, and Cognition 25
increases in self-reported aggressive impulses and in physical aggression against both
peers and adults were seen in girls at the low and middle dose but not at the high dose of
estrogen (Finkelstein et al., 1997). In brief, experimental treatment with T and estradiol
resulted in changes in aggressive behavior, suggesting a causal role for these hormones.
The effects of estrogen are less frequently examined in relation to antisocial behavior
than are those of T. In the few studies that have examined estrogen, the relationship
between T and aggressive behavior in girls mimics the relationship between T and aggressive
behavior in boys (Inoff-Germain et al., 1988). The lack of progression of research
on estrogen and antisocial behavior reflects two issues. First, only males were included
in the majority of studies on hormones and antisocial behavior, as physically
aggressive behavior and violence occur more frequently in men and aggressive and violent
behavior in girls rarely comes to the attention of the judicial system. Second, the
logic of the arguments regarding T, aggressive behavior, and brain development does
not take into account the empirical findings on the different forms of aggressive behavior
in males and females. Females tend to show higher levels of relational aggression
than do boys. Therefore, the relationship between female phenotypic aggressive
behavior and hormones requires reconsideration. In human adolescents, dominance
may be a productive area to consider for establishing the dynamic integration between
hormones and social hierarchies as these hierarchies are established and dissolve rapidly
in adolescent peer groups.
Emotions The role of pubertal status in emotions is of sustained interest given that
depression symptoms begin to rise during the middle to late pubertal years (Lewinsohn,
Clarke, Seeley, & Rohde, 1994; Nolen-Hoeksema & Girgus, 1994). The stressful
change hypothesis suggests that girls experiencing the pubertal transition will manifest
higher levels of distress than will pre- or postpubertal girls (Ge, Conger, & Elder,
2001b). This hypothesis is based on the assumption that puberty is a stressful transition
that requires reorganization of adaptive coping strategies (Caspi & Moffitt, 1991).
Some researchers have argued that it is the novelty of a situation, rather than the magnitude
of the stressor, that leads to emotional distress in adolescents (Susman, Dorn,
Inoff-Germain, Nottelmann, & Chrousos, 1997). This perspective leads to the prediction
that given the novel nature of the hormonal and physical growth changes, puberty
constitutes a stressful adolescent transition.
In those studies that examine hormones and emotion, there are group differences for
depression in girls at different stages of puberty but a larger effect for T than for stage
of pubertal development (Angold, Costello, Erkanli, & Worthman, 1999). When Tanner
stage and hormones were entered simultaneously into a statistical model, the effect
for Tanner stage became nonsignificant, but the effect for T and estradiol remained unchanged.
In a parallel study, girls were grouped by pubertal breast stages and four stages
of estradiol secretion (Warren & Brooks-Gunn, 1989). The hormonal stages revealed a
significant curvilinear trend for depressive affect (increase, then decrease), impulse control
(decrease, then increase), and psychopathology (increase, then decrease), indicating
significant differences in these indexes during times of rapid increases in hormone
levels. In the clinical trial study just described, adolescents with delayed puberty treated
with physiological doses of T or estrogen showed few changes in emotions as a result
of treatment, with the exception of increased withdrawn behavior in girls (Susman et al.,
26 Puberty and Psychological Development
1998). Collectively, the studies with adolescents who are progressing normally through
puberty demonstrate an association between pubertal status and depression.
Adrenal Androgens and Cognition The role of hormones in cognition has not received
much attention in the last decade. In a recent study, maturational status as indexed by
T was related to better spatial abilities (Davison & Susman, 2001). As T increased, there
was a corresponding increase in spatial ability in boys, and to a lesser extent in girls. In
an experimental sex hormone treatment study, spatial performance showed traditional
sex differences but did not vary with levels of actively circulating sex steroids (Liben et
al., 2002). Further longitudinal research is required to resolve the question of how pubertal
hormones and cognition change in an integrated fashion.
Adrenal Androgens
Adrenal androgens represent a class of hormones that traditionally received little attention
in relation to behavior. The adrenal androgens DHEA, DHEAS, and Δ4-A are
secreted by the adrenal glands and begin to rise during adrenarche.
Adrenal Androgens and Problem Behavior In the last two decades reports began to appear
showing relationships between adrenal androgens and antisocial behavior in adolescents.
In healthy pubertal-age girls, DHEAS correlated negatively with aggressive
affect (Brooks-Gunn & Warren, 1989), and the interaction between negative life events
and DHEAS and aggressive affect also was significant. Girls with lower concentrations
of DHEAS who experienced negative life events had more aggressive affect than did
girls with fewer negative life events. In a study that included healthy 9- to 14-year-old
boys and girls, there was a relatively consistent pattern of higher DHEA and Δ4-A and
lower DHEAS and problem behaviors (Nottelmann et al., 1987; Nottelmann, Inoff-
Germain, Susman, & Chrousos, 1990; Susman, Dorn, & Chrousos, 1991; Susman et al.,
1987). Adrenal androgens also were correlated with dominance in girls while interacting
with their parents (Inoff-Germain et al., 1988). The links between adrenal androgens
and problem behavior extended to sexual behavior as well. Higher levels of adrenal
androgens were related to sexual behavior and activities during adolescence (Udry
et al., 1985; Udry & Talbert, 1988). In addition, youth with conduct disorder (CD) had
significantly higher levels of DHEA and DHEAS than did non-CD youth and reported
higher intensity of aggression and delinquency (van Goozen, Matthys, Cohen-Kettenis,
Thijssen, & van Engeland, 1998). Support for the links between adrenal androgens and
behavior problems was reported in girls with early adrenarche. These girls had higher
levels of adrenal androgens and more behavior problems than did the on-time girls
(Dorn, Susman, Nottelmann, Inoff-Germain, & Chrousos, 1999). Higher levels of adrenal
androgens may be an etiological process in the higher incidence of behavior problems
in premature-adrenarche girls.
Adrenal Androgens and Emotions There is a relatively consistent pattern of high adrenal
androgens associated with negative affect (Nottelmann et al., 1990; Nottelmann et
al., 1987; Susman et al., 1991; Susman et al., 1987). DHEAS levels interact with timing
of puberty and depression in girls. Girls with high levels of DHEAS and early maturation
had the highest emotional arousal and depressive affect scores (Graber, Brooks-
Puberty and Behavior, Emotions, and Cognition 27
Gunn, & Warren, in press). Girls with premature adrenarche, who also have higher
levels of adrenal androgens, were more anxious than were their peers with on-time
adrenarche (Dorn et al., 1999). In addition, higher levels of DHEA predicted the onset
of the first episode of major depression during adolescence (Goodyer, Herbert, Tamplin,
& Altham, 2000). As is the case for sex steroids, the described associations do not
imply causality. Variations in levels of hormones may arise from more distal genetic or
experiential origins than recent life events and behavior.
Pubertal Status: Physical Maturation
The relationship between pubertal status (i.e., degree of physical development) and
psychological development is hypothesized to result from changing social roles, including
increasing family and peer pressures, and cultural expectations for mature behavior.
The assumption is that problem behavior and negative emotions will increase
with advancing physical development independent of age.
Antisocial Behavior Indeed, more advanced pubertal status contributed significantly to
predicting female delinquency (Flannery, Rowe, & Gulley, 1993), symptoms of attentiondeficit/
hyperactive disorder (ADHD), oppositional disorder (ODD), and conduct disorder
(CD; Ge, Brody, Conger, Simons, & Murry, 2002). More advanced pubertal development
provides adolescents with opportunities to become involved with older and
deviant peers.
Emotions Tanner stage had a larger effect on depression than did age, suggesting that
biological change rather than a specific age is related to depression in both boys and
girls (Angold, Costello, & Worthman, 1998; Ge et al., 2001b; Ge et al., 2002). Additionally,
the association between pubertal status and internalizing distress is stable over
time. Pubertal status in 7th grade was significantly related to both internalized distress
and hostility assessed at Grades 8 and 10, respectively, and to externalized hostility at
Grade 9 (Ge, Conger, & Elder, 2001a). Overall, more advanced stages of physical development
favored more negative emotions.
Family The classic study by Steinberg and Hill (1978) showed that family-adolescent
interactions are moderated by pubertal development. Conflict between mothers and
sons was highest during midpuberty. The same findings emerged in African American
adolescents whose parents reported having more verbal aggression with sons during
midpuberty than during early or late puberty (Sagrestano, McCormick, Paikoff, &
Holmbeck, 1999). The sons reported more “hot” issues and having hot discussions
when they were more physically developed. However, the importance of midpubertal
status in family conflict is not consistent across studies. Later as opposed to midpubertal
status also was associated with more conflict and diminished closeness with parents
(Crockett & Petersen, 1987; Savin-Williams & Small, 1986). The lack of consensus regarding
pubertal status, conflict, and family interactions is not surprising given the
variation in methods for assessing family interaction.
Cognition Cognitive maturation normatively advances with chronological age rather
than pubertal maturation. For instance, spatial ability was associated with chronolog-
28 Puberty and Psychological Development
ical age but not with pubertal stage in a sample of healthy young adolescents (Davison
& Susman, 2001). As discussed earlier, pubertal status in delayed-puberty adolescents
was not associated with spatial ability (Liben et al., 2002) and thus denotes consistency
across studies.
Psychopathology Pubertal status was associated with a sharp increase in rates of
unipolar depression (Angold & Worthman, 1993). Girls begin to have higher rates of
both diagnosed depressive disorders and subclinical levels of depressive symptoms
than do boys in early to middle adolescence (Angold et al., 1998; Ge, Conger, Lorenz,
& Simons, 1994; Laitinen-Krispijn, van der Ende, & Verhulst, 1999). In prepubertal
children (Tanner stage 1) disorders with hypomanic-manic symptomatology (Schraufnagel,
Brumback, Harper, & Weinberg, 2001) and seasonal affective disorders (Swedo
et al., 1995) were more common, whereas in pubertal-age adolescents (Tanner stages
3-5) there was a predominance of depressive symptomatology. Other studies found no
association between prepubertal and early-adolescent bipolar disorder (Geller et al.,
2000). Overall, results are inconclusive regarding the connections between puberty and
psychopathology. A major deficit in the literature is that few longitudinal studies of
adolescent psychopathology employ state-of-the-art indexes of pubertal development,
such as Tanner stage and hormone concentrations.

Hormonal Control of Puberty

2007-06-23T08:37:00.000-07:00

The hormonal regulation of growth becomes increasingly complex just before and with
the onset of puberty. Adequate levels of thyroid hormone and cortisol continue to be
prerequisites for normal growth, but the gonadal steroid hormones now play an increasingly
major role. There is also a dramatic activation of the GH/IGF-I axis. During
adolescence the gonadal steroid hormones and the GH/IGF-I axis continue to
exert independent effects on growth, but the interaction between them underlies the
dramatic alterations in linear growth velocity and body composition, including the regional
distribution of body fat.
Pulsatile gonadotropin secretion occurs at all ages, but puberty is heralded by an increase
in the amplitude of luteinizing hormone (LH) and follicle-stimulating hormone
(FSH) secretion, detectable even before the first external signs of pubertal development
are evident. This stage represents a reawakening of the state of the gonadal axis operative
during the late fetal and very early neonatal stages. Initially, biologically relevant
surges of LH occur predominantly at night, resulting in elevations of gonadal steroid
hormone concentration early in the morning. These then wane during the day as these
small but relevant levels of gonadal steroids reduce the levels of the gonadotropins because
the negative feedback remains operative at the very sensitive prepubertal stage.
With continuing maturation of the HPG axis (i.e., becoming relatively less sensitive to
the negative feedback of the gonadal steroid hormones), enhanced pulsatile LH release
occurs throughout the waking hours as well, resulting in more stable elevations of the
gonadal steroid hormones. The rising levels of these hormones promote the development
of secondary sex characteristics and the changes in body composition and the regional
distribution of body fat noted during pubertal development. Gonadal steroid
Biology of Puberty 21
hormones, primarily estradiol in both genders, also enhance bone mineral accrual and
affect adult height by promoting epiphyseal fusion.
A dramatic activation of the GH/IGF-I axis occurs during early- to midpuberty. The
rise in the mean 24-hour GH levels results from an increase in the maximal GH secretory
rate (pulse amplitude) and in the mass of GH secreted per secretory burst (Veldhuis
et al., 2000). The differential increase in GH secretion between boys and girls at
puberty follows the pattern of change in growth velocity. Girls show a significant rise in
circulating GH levels beginning at Tanner breast stage 2, with the highest levels found
at Tanner breast stage 3–4. An increase occurs later in boys, peaking at Tanner genital
stage 4 (Martha, Gorman, Blizzard, Rogol, & Veldhuis, 1992). During midpuberty the
day-night rhythm is obscured because of a greater rate of rise in secretory amplitude
during the day than the night (Martha et al., 1992). By the time adolescent development
is complete, the levels of GH and IGF-I decrease to nearly prepubertal levels in both
genders.
Clinical observations have shown that both GH and sex steroid hormones must be
present for normal pubertal growth. Individuals with a selective deficiency of either
hormone (e.g., hypogonadotropic hypogonadism or isolated GH deficiency) have an
attenuated pubertal growth spurt (Aynsley-Green, Zachmann, & Prader, 1976; Liu,
Merriam, & Sherins, 1987). Many of the growth-promoting actions of the gonadal
steroid hormones are mediated through the estrogen rather than androgen receptor, either
by direct secretion of estrogen or conversion of androgens to estrogens by peripherally
located aromatase. Individuals with complete androgen insensitivity demonstrate
that androgens are not necessary to support normal adolescent growth or to
achieve pubertal levels of GH and IGF-I if sufficient levels of estrogen are present
(Zachmann et al., 1986). Estrogens are responsible for skeletal maturation and fusion
of the epiphyseal plates.
Adrenarche
Adrenarche refers to the activation of adrenal androgen production from the zona
reticularis. These androgens produce pubic and axillary hair (pubarche) as well as body
odor, oily skin, and acne. Adrenarche stems from a poorly understood activation of the
HPA axis for androgen production, separate and distinct from the usual activation of
the HPA axis for cortisol production. There is a progressive increase in circulating levels
of dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA) and its sulfated form (DHEAS) in both boys
and girls beginning by age 7 or 8 years and continuing throughout early adulthood before
declining with advancing age.
The exact mechanism responsible for the onset of adrenarche is controversial, although
recent evidence suggests that adrenocorticotropic hormone (ACTH; Weber,
Clark, Perry, Honour, & Savage, 1997) and/or 3-hydroxysteroid dehydrogenase play a
significant role in the regulation of adrenarche (Gell et al., 1998). Adrenarche only recently
began to be studied in relation to psychological development (Dorn, Hitt, &
Rotenstein, 1999), as discussed later.
Leptin and Puberty
Discovery of the hormone leptin led to the theory that it may be a signal allowing for
the initiation of and progression toward puberty (Mantzoros, Flier, & Rogol, 1997). An
22 Puberty and Psychological Development
alternative perspective is that leptin is implicated in the onset of puberty but may not
be the cause of the onset. Leptin is 16-kDa adipocyte-secreted protein, a product of the
obesity (ob) gene. Serum leptin levels reflect mainly the amount of energy stores but are
also influenced by short-term energy imbalance as well as several cytokines (indices of
immune system function) and hormones. Leptin is implicated in the initiation of puberty,
energy expenditure, normal menstrual cycles, fertility, maintenance of pregnancy,
and nutrition. Specifically, leptin may well be one of the messenger molecules signaling
the adequacy of the fat stores at puberty for reproduction and maintenance of pregnancy
(Kiess et al., 1999). The possible mechanism involves leptin as a hormone that
serves to signal the brain with information on the critical amount of fat stores that are
necessary for luteinizing hormone-releasing hormone (LHRH) secretion and activation
of the HPA axis. Moreover, circadian and ultradian variations of leptin levels are
also associated with minute-to-minute variations of LH and estradiol in normal women
(Mantzoros, 2000). The mechanisms by which leptin regulates body weight, adiposity,
and the hormones that increase at puberty (e.g., testosterone and estrogen) are not yet
known.
Leptin is higher in girls than in boys controlling for adiposity (Blum et al., 1997). At
the initiation of puberty, circulating leptin concentrations diverge in boys and girls. In
boys, leptin concentrations increase and then markedly decrease to prepubertal concentration
levels in late puberty. In contrast, in girls there are increasing concentrations
at puberty (Roemmich & Rogol, 1999). The increase in leptin is believed to result from
different alterations in the regional distribution of body fat in boys and girls at puberty.
Overall, sex differences in leptin concentrations are accountable to differences in the
amounts of subcutaneous fat in girls and greater androgen concentrations in boys
(Roemmich, Clark, Berr, et al., 1998). The biological effects of leptin in adult humans
are still to be determined, but reports show that congenital leptin deficiency leads to hyperphagia
and excessive weight gain from early infancy onward as well as failure of pubertal
onset in adolescence (Ong, Ahmed, & Dunger, 1999). Leptin concentrations
have not yet been examined in relation to behavior changes at puberty, but leptin provides
a promising biological probe for understanding pubertal processes and problems
of body image.

PUBERTY: AN INTEGRATED BIOSOCIAL PERSPECTIVE

2007-06-23T08:36:00.000-07:00

The myriad molecular-biological, molar-psychological, and social changes that characterize
puberty engender scientific interests that span the biomedical, behavioral, and
social sciences. Hence, interdisciplinary perspectives necessarily are required to characterize
adolescent development (Lerner, 1998; Magnusson, 1999; Susman, 1997). Research
foci on pubertal development now include genetic and neuroendocrine mechanisms
that initiate puberty; influences from the molecular to the social contextual; the
significance of timing of puberty; and the dynamic interactive processes among physical
growth changes, emotions, problem behavior, cognition, and risky sexual activity
(but these latter studies remain relatively rare). Given the diversity and magnitude of pubertal
changes, an integrative theory is essential for understanding the fragmented findings
regarding pubertal development. This chapter presents a review of puberty as a
biopsychosocial transition that initiates psychological changes and that simultaneously
initiates changes in the social contexts in which adolescents find themselves. This theoretical
approach is referred to as dynamic integration and refers to the essential fusion
of processes across psychological, biological, and contextual levels of functioning.
The absence of an integrated biosocial perspective on puberty has historically been
problematic. Puberty as a biological event that deterministically modifies behavior was
derived from evolutionary (Parker, 2000) and psychodynamic (Freud, 1958; Hall, 1904)
theories that dominated the early 20th century. The perceptual salience of sexual maturation
was considered to heighten the psychological significance of biological pubertal
changes (Brooks-Gunn & Petersen, 1984). In the last three decades, behaviorism, contextualism,
and learning theory supplanted theories of development and evolution. Empirical
research came to reflect a dominant interest in contextual influences (e.g., peers
and schools) on development (e.g., Simmons & Blyth, 1987). Social contextualism gave
rise to the social constructionist viewpoint that the psychological significance of puberty
is derived from how others view puberty-related changes. Pubertal changes were
considered more graphic to others than to the adolescents themselves. The biologicaldeterministic
and social constructionist views of adolescence disregarded the dynamic
integration of biological, psychological, and contextual levels of analysis.
16 Puberty and Psychological Development
The integration of biological and psychological processes experienced a renaissance
with the publication of Petersen’s perspective on puberty and psychological development
(Petersen & Taylor, 1980). Shortly thereafter, the publication of Girls at Puberty
(Brooks-Gunn & Petersen, 1983) and a special issue of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence
on timing of puberty (Brooks-Gunn, Petersen, & Eichorn, 1985) brought to
scientific consciousness an integrated perspective that considered the multiple levels of
development. This emerging biopsychosocial perspective simultaneously began to be
articulated in theoretical models that focused on the centrality of interactions between
biological, psychological, and contextual processes (Lerner, 1987). Coincident with the
articulation of these biopsychosocial theories, empirical studies assessing the relationships
between physical growth and pubertal hormone levels and psychological development
began to appear in the literature. These studies addressed issues of family interaction
(Steinberg & Hill, 1978), adjustment (Nottelmann et al., 1987), aggressive behavior
(Susman et al., 1987), emotions (Brooks-Gunn & Warren, 1989) and sexuality (Udry,
Billy, & Morris, 1986; Udry, Billy, Morris, Groff, & Raj, 1985; Udry & Talbert, 1988).
The theoretical constructs inherent in the new theoretical perspectives include developmental
contextualism (Lerner, 1998), reciprocal interaction and bidirectionality
(Cairns, 1997), and holistic interactionism (Magnusson, 1999). We refer to these concepts
collectively as within a model of dynamic integration. This concept is evoked to replace
the concept of interaction, which connotes a specific statistical approach.
Contextualism
The interest in the influence of contexts (as conceptualized in peer, family, and neighborhood)—
developmental contextualism (Lerner, 1998)—parallels life span developmental
theory. The life span perspective consists of a composition of ideas about the
nature of human development from birth to death. It is concerned with the embeddedness
of evolution and ontogeny, of consistency and change, of human plasticity, and of
the role that developing persons play in their own development (Lerner, 1987). Thus, a
life span perspective played a formative role in the genesis of contextualism, a concept
that integrates biological and psychological levels with the contextual levels of analysis.
Reciprocal Interaction and Bidirectionality
The systems, or configural and bidirectional, perspective views processes from different
levels as having equal potencies in development (Cairns, 1997; Lerner, 1998; Magnusson,
1999; Susman, 1997, 1998). The biological changes that transpire both influence
and reciprocally are influenced by psychological, behavioral, and social influences.
Plasticity
Plasticity is inherent to the concept of dynamic integration, as plasticity evolves from
the notion that the potential for change exists in the multiple levels of organization that
characterize the developing human (Lerner, 1998). Developmental plasticity at puberty
has constraints imposed from both endogenous (e.g., genetic) and exogenous (e.g., nutrition)
sources. The degree of plasticity in pubertal processes is influenced by genes,
Puberty: An Integrated Biosocial Perspective 17
neuroendocrine systems, experiential history, and the multiple contexts of development.
However, plasticity is relative because all developmental modifications are neither desirable
nor possible and the normative age of onset of puberty is narrow.
Interactionism
Magnusson (1999) brought together the concepts of contextualism, reciprocal interaction,
and bidirectionality in his metamodel of holistic interactionism. A basic proposition
of an interactionism framework is that the individual is an active, intentional
part of an integrated, complex, continuous, dynamic, reciprocal, and adaptive personenvironment
system from the fetal period until death (Magnusson, 1999; Magnusson &
Cairns, 1996). Novel patterns of functioning arise during ontogeny, and differences in
the rates of development, like differences in timing of puberty, may produce unique organization
and configuration of psychological functions that are extremely sensitive to
the environmental circumstances in which they are formed (Magnusson & Cairns,
1996). Until the last few decades the role of the environment on modulating pubertyrelated
neuroendocrine processes at puberty was rarely considered.
Dynamic Integration
Dynamic integration embodies the notion that biological processes depend on and simultaneously
are dependent on the psychological and social contextual levels of functioning.
Consistent with the holistic interactionism perspective, the developmental integration
model views development at puberty as the merging of levels of functioning.
A fundamental premise is that development proceeds through integration rather than
compartmentalization of psychological, biological, and contextual processes. For instance,
genes no longer are considered deterministic influences on development. Rather,
genes are viewed as requiring a specific environment in which to be expressed. Furthermore,
genetic influences are not static but change expression across development.
Genes responsible for pubertal development, such as gonadotropin releasing hormone
(GnRH) genes, begin to stimulate mRNA in late childhood, leading to a cascade of hormonal
and physical growth changes. Thus, the physical and hormonal manifestations
of puberty are a product of a species genotype. Nonetheless, genetic expression is proposed
to be integrated with the experiential history of adolescents and the contexts for
social interactions to change behavior at puberty. The physical changes are integrated
with the adolescent’s psychological attributes, experiences, the timing of the change relative
to peers, and the social context in which puberty occurs, which give meaning to
puberty. Thus, a dynamic integration perspective focuses on the simultaneous integration
among these levels of analysis, such as the integration of hypothalamic, pituitary,
and gonadal hormones to bring about physical change, as well as the integration of psychological
processes and social contexts to produce psychological development.
An integrated model does not imply that all aspects of puberty are considered simultaneously.
Rather, the developmental integration model, as is the case for the developmental
contextual and holistic interaction models, acts as a guide for selecting
constructs and measures. Within this perspective, developmental processes are accessible
to systematic scientific inquiry because they occur in a specific way within organ-
18 Puberty and Psychological Development
ized structures and are guided by specific principles. Critical to integration models is
the interpretation of findings at one level of functioning in relation to levels above and
below the level of empirical verification.
BIOLOGY OF PUBERTY
Puberty (Latin, pubertas, from pubes, puber, of ripe age, adult) can be defined as “the
state of physical development at which persons are first capable of begetting or bearing
children” (Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 1979). This strictly eventdriven
definition is clearly the culmination of a process that began much earlier and encompasses
many parallel processes (as discussed later). Puberty in the human is a unique
and integrated transition from childhood to young adulthood that culminates in the attainment
of fertility. It marks the time of greatest growth and sexual development since
the fetal stages, and it is marked by development of the secondary sexual characteristics
for each gender as well as major alterations in linear growth, body composition,
and the regional distribution of body fat. All are subserved by qualitative and quantitative
alterations in multiple hypothalamic-pituitary end organ axes, especially those
for the gonad and the growth hormone (GH)/insulin-like growth factors-1 (IGF-I) axis.
Puberty is the process of physical maturation manifested by an impressive acceleration
of linear growth in middle to late childhood and the appearance of secondary sexual
characteristics. The secondary sexual characteristics are a result of androgen production
from the adrenals in both sexes (adrenarche or pubarche), testosterone (T)
from the testes in the male, and estrogens from the ovaries in females (gonadarche).
These processes are separate and distinct in origin and timing. Although the rapid
growth spurt had previously been attributed to the rising concentrations of gonadal
steroid hormones, it is an indirect effect that is mediated through altered growth hormone
release and in which insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) predominates (Veldhuis,
Roemmich, & Rogol, 2000).
The traditional ages of the beginning of normal pubertal development have been 8
years for girls and 9 years for boys. The external manifestations of this onset have been
considered the development of breast tissue in the girls and testicular enlargement in
boys. The processes leading to these physical signs begin several years earlier, and recent
advances in the ability to measure gonadal and adrenal steroid hormones show
that several years before the physical signs there is evidence for the reawakening of the
hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) and hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA)
axes. More recent data in girls suggest that breast development (thelarche) and pubic hair
development (adrenarche) are being noted even earlier, and thus the definition of precocious
development likely should be considered a year or more earlier (Herman-Giddens
et al., 1997; Kaplowitz, Oberfield, et al., 1999). The more recent data for boys has not
shown any trend toward earlier maturation (Biro, Lucky, Huster, & Morrison, 1995).
Secondary Sexual Characteristics
The method of Tanner (stages 1–5) is the most commonly used throughout the world to
assess sexual maturation (Tanner, 1962). A similar rating scale is utilized for pubic hair.
Biology of Puberty 19
Although pubic hair may be the first external sign of puberty in some boys, reddening
and thinning of the scrotum and increased testicular size are the first physical findings
of gonadarche (puberty). During puberty in the male the larynx, cricothyroid cartilage,
and laryngeal muscles enlarge; the voice breaks at approximately 13.9 years, and the
adult voice is attained by approximately 15 years (Karlberg & Taranger, 1976), a welcome
relief for boys.
The appearance of breast buds is normally the first external sign of pubertal development
(gonadarche) in girls. The growth spurt (discussed later) occurs earlier in the
sequence of puberty in girls than in boys and often occurs with minimal breast development.
The pace of pubertal development correlates with the levels of sex steroid hormones
during early puberty (DeRidder et al., 1992). In girls the duration of puberty is
usually 3 to 3.5 years, but puberty may be completed within 2 years or take up to 5 to 6
years to complete (Zacharias, Wurtman, & Shatzoff, 1970). Menarche is a late sign of
pubertal development and occurs approximately 2.5 years after thelarche.
Growth
One of the hallmarks of pubertal development is an acceleration in linear growth velocity,
or the adolescent growth spurt. As puberty approaches, the growth velocity reaches
a minimum (the preadolescent dip) before it accelerates during midpuberty. The timing
of the pubertal growth spurt occurs earlier in girls (typically at Tanner breast stage 3)
and does not reach the magnitude that it does in boys. Girls average a peak height velocity
of 9 cm/yr at age 12 and a total gain in height of 25 cm during pubertal growth
(Marshall & Tanner, 1969). Boys attain a mean peak height velocity of 10.3 cm/yr, on
average 2 years later than the girls, during Tanner genital stage 4, and gain 28 cm in
height (Marshall & Tanner, 1970). The longer duration of pubertal growth in combination
with a greater peak height velocity results in the average adult height difference
of 13 cm between men and women (Tanner, 1989). Following a period of decelerating
height velocity, growth virtually ceases due to epiphyseal fusion, typically at a skeletal
age of 15 years in girls and 17 years in boys.
Puberty is also a time of significant weight gain: 50% of adult body weight is gained
during adolescence. In boys, peak weight velocity occurs at about the same time or
slightly later than peak height velocity (age 14 years) and averages 9 kg/year. In girls,
the peak weight velocity lags behind the peak height velocity by approximately 6
months and reaches 8.3 kg/yr at about age 12.5 years (Barnes, 1975; Tanner, 1965). The
rate of weight gain decelerates in a fashion similar to height velocity during the latter
stages of pubertal development.
Marked changes in body composition, including changes in the relative proportions
of water, muscle, fat, and bone, occur during pubertal development and result in the
typical male-female physiques. Under the influence of the gonadal steroid hormones
and the hormones of the growth hormone IGF-I axis, increases in bone mineral content
and muscle mass occur, and the deposition of fat is maximally sexually dimorphic.
The changes in the distribution of body fat (central vs. peripheral, subcutaneous vs. visceral,
and upper vs. lower body) result in the typical android and gynecoid patterns of
the older adolescent and adult (van Lenthe, van Mechelen, Kemper, & Twisk, 1998).
20 Puberty and Psychological Development
Differential growth of the shoulders and the pelvis and differences in lean tissue accrual
between males and females are also prominent.
Under the influence of T, boys have a significant increase in bone and muscle growth
with a simultaneous loss of fat in the limbs (Malina & Bouchard, 1991). The maximal
loss of fat and increase in muscle mass in the upper arms correspond to the time of peak
height velocity. The significant increase in lean body tissue exceeds the total weight gain
due to the simultaneous loss of body fat. As height velocity slows, fat accumulation resumes
in both genders but is twice as rapid in girls than in boys (Malina & Bouchard,
1991). Adult men have 1.5 times the lean body mass as the average female and twice the
number of muscle cells. The increases in the skeleton and in muscle mass underlie the
increased strength of the male. Both androgens and estrogens promote deposition of
bone mineral, and more than 90% of the peak skeletal mass is present by age 18 years
in adolescents who have progressed through pubertal development at the usual ages. In
girls, nearly one third of the total skeletal mineral is deposited in bone during the 3- to
4-year period immediately after the onset of pubertal development (Bonjour, Theintz,
Buchs, Slosman, & Rizzoli, 1991; Slemenda et al., 1994). Adolescents with delayed puberty
or secondary amenorrhea may fail to accrue bone mineral density normally and
take a reduced peak bone mineral content into the rest of their life span, with obvious
implications for osteoporosis and bony fractures later in development.

PUBERTY AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT

2007-06-23T08:35:00.000-07:00

INTRODUCTION
Puberty is one of the most profound biological and social transitions in the life span. It
begins with subtle changes in brain-neuroendocrine processes, hormone concentrations,
and physical morphological characteristics and culminates in reproductive maturity.
The onset and trajectory of the hormone and physical changes that characterize
puberty are well documented. Puberty as a social construction is a more complicated
concept and entails definitional ambiguity regarding the onset and offset of puberty;
social-role passages into new reference groups; perceptions of body, self, and sexual image;
and expectations for independent and mature behavior (Alsaker, 1995). Puberty as
an integrated biological and social construction has intrigued scholars, artists, parents,
and adolescents alike for centuries, and cultures have ritualized puberty to varying degrees.
The biological changes of puberty are universal, but the timing and social significance
of these changes to adolescents themselves, societies, and scientific inquiry vary
across historical time and cultures. Nonetheless, there is widespread agreement on the
profound biosocial complexity of puberty and its essential role as a period beginning
with reproductive-function awakening and culminating in sexual maturity.
The evolution of puberty occurred in such a way as to maximize the probability for
successful procreation. Puberty-related mutations across generations have favored biological
qualities that foster survival in particular geographic and cultural settings. One
perspective is that individuals have evolved to be sensitive to features of their early childhood
environment (Draper & Harpending, 1982). Therefore, changes in pubertal processes
are considered a response to shifting environmental demands. Shifting environmental
circumstances are conjectured to be a factor in the downward trend in the age
of onset of puberty. This shift reflects secular environmental trends rather than an evolutionary
process. Nonetheless, genes that become expressed as a function of environmental
demands may favor earlier or later timing of puberty in subsequent generations.
In contrast to the evolutionary and physical-developmental adaptive properties of
puberty, the social component of puberty historically was perceived as a major transition
contributing to the turbulence and stress experienced by some adolescents. Adolescence
as a period of storm and stress is an early- to mid-20th century conception of
adolescence (Blos, 1962; Freud, 1958; Hall, 1904) that was viewed as universal and bi-
15
ological in origin. Contemporary empirical-based findings support the view that storm
and stress are neither a universal phenomenon nor a biologically based aspect of development.
The majority of adolescents enjoy at least some aspects of pubertal development,
principally, increased height. Accordingly, the storm and stress perspective
has been revised to represent a more balanced view of adolescence as a period of development
characterized by biological, cognitive, emotional, and social reorganization with
the aim of adapting to cultural expectations of becoming an adult. This revisionist perspective
suggests that adolescence is a period when specific types of problems are more
likely to arise than in other periods of development (Arnett, 1999) yet that these problems
are not universal. Behavioral reorganization occurs in the service of accommodating
to changing social roles, and it is important to note that adolescents change social
roles, thereby influencing their social environment. It also implies that the majority
of adolescents experience neither maladjustment nor notable undesirable behaviors.

Defining Features of the Study of Adolescence During Its Second Phase

2007-06-23T08:33:00.000-07:00

Four defining features of the second phase of the science of adolescent development are
worth noting. First, during its second phase of life, the empirical study of adolescence
emerged as a relational field of inquiry. That is, it became an area of scholarship in
which implicitly (e.g., Block, 1971; Mussen & Bouterline-Young, 1964) or, at times, explicitly
(e.g., Nesselroade & Baltes, 1974) the key unit of analysis in understanding the
development of the person was his or her relation with both more molecular (e.g., biological)
and more molar (social group, cultural, and historical) levels of organization
(Overton, 1998). In such a relational frame, no one level of organization was seen as the
prime mover of development.
A second distinctive feature of the field of adolescence within this second phase derived
from its relational character. The confluence of the multiple levels of organization
involved in the developmental system provides the structural and functional bases of
plasticity and of the inevitable and substantively significant emergence of systematic individual
differences; that is, such individuality serves as a key basis of the person’s ability
to act as an agent in his or her own development (Brandtstädter, 1998; Lerner, 2002).
Accordingly, the field of adolescence has become the exemplar within the broader study
of human development for the substantive study of diversity and for the person-centered
approach to research on human development (Magnusson, 1999a, 1999b; Magnusson
& Stattin, 1998).
Third, although there remains a focus within the contemporary adolescent literature
on problems of this developmental period (Steinberg & Morris, 2001), the focus on
plasticity, diversity of development and people, and individual agency—and thus the
strength or capacity of an adolescent to influence his or her development for better or
for worse—means that problematic outcomes of adolescent development are now just
one of a larger array of outcomes that may characterize the relatively plastic relations
between adolescents and their contexts (e.g., B. Hamburg, 1974; D. A. Hamburg, 1992).
8 The Scientific Study of Adolescent Development
Indeed, this plasticity provides the theoretical basis of the view that all young people
possess strengths, or, more simply, the potential for positive development (Damon,
1997; Damon & Gregory, 2003).
The idea that the adolescent period provides the ideal time within life to study the
bases of positive human development frames what has become a fourth defining feature
of the field. The study of adolescent development is now characterized by a synthetic
interest in basic and applied concerns about youth development. One’s basic understanding
of how relational processes within the developmental system provide a
basis for diverse developmental trajectories across adolescence can be tested by assessing
whether changes in individual and ecological variables within the system combine
to actualize the strengths of youth. Benson (1990, 1997; Benson, Mannes, Pittman, &
Ferber, this volume) termed these individual and ecological variables developmental assets.
Such tests of developmental theory, when implemented within the actual ecology
of human development, are interventions into the course of adolescent development.
Depending on their target level of organization, these actions constitute policies or programs,
and in this context basic research in adolescence is also applied developmental
science (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 1998; Lerner, 2002). As a consequence of this trend,
the field has come to place a premium on community-based, change-oriented methods,
both to study development and to evaluate the efficacy of programs and policies designed
to alter the course of adolescent life for the better.
CONCLUSIONS: ADOLESCENCE AS A FIELD OF SCIENTIST–
PRACTITIONER–POLICY MAKER COLLABORATION
The chapters in this Handbook both reflect and extend the emphases on individualcontext
relations, developmental systems, plasticity, diversity, longitudinal methodology,
and application that were crystallized and integrated within the second phase of
the development of the scientific study of adolescence. As evident within each of the
chapters in this Handbook, and as underscored in both the foreword and the afterword
to the volume, the study of adolescence today represents the exemplar within developmental
science wherein excellent conceptual and empirical work is undertaken with a
collaborative orientation to making a contribution both to scholarship and to society.
Arguably more so than in scholarship pertinent to other periods across the life span,
within the study of adolescence the vision of Bronfenbrenner (1974) and D. A. Hamburg
(1992; D. A. Hamburg & Takanishi, 1996) of a developmental science involving
reciprocal collaborations among researchers, practitioners, and policy makers is being
actively pursued, if not yet completely realized.
The future of civil society in the world rests on the young. Adolescents represent at
any point in history the generational cohort that must next be prepared to assume the
quality of leadership of self, family, community, and society that will maintain and improve
human life. Scientists have a vital role to play to make in enhancing, through the
generation of basic and applied knowledge, the probability that adolescents will become
fully engaged citizens who are capable of, and committed to, making these contributions.
The chapters in this Handbook demonstrate that high-quality scientific
work on adolescence is in fact being generated at levels of study ranging from the bio-
Conclusions: Adolescence as a Field of Scientist–Practitioner–Policy Maker Collaboration 9
logical through the historical and sociocultural. Above all, this volume demonstrates
that the study of adolescent development at its best both informs and is informed by the
concerns of communities, practitioners, and policy makers. It is our hope that we have
assembled the best information possible to be used to promote and advocate for the
healthy and positive development of young people everywhere.

THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT

2007-06-23T08:30:00.000-07:00

In the opening sentence of the preface to the first edition of his classic A History of Experimental
Psychology, Edwin G. Boring (1929) reminded readers that “psychology has
a long past, but only a short history” (p. ix), a remark he attributed to the pioneer of
memory research, Hermann Ebbinghaus. A similar statement may be made about the
study of adolescents and their development.
The first use of the term adolescence appeared in the 15th century. The term was a
derivative of the Latin word adolescere, which means to grow up or to grow into maturity
(Muuss, 1990). However, more than 1,500 years before this first explicit use of the
term both Plato and Aristotle proposed sequential demarcations of the life span, and
Aristotle in particular proposed stages of life that are not too dissimilar from sequences
that might be included in contemporary models of youth development. He described
three successive, 7-year periods (infancy, boyhood, and young manhood) prior to the
person’s attainment of full, adult maturity. About 2,000 years elapsed between these initial
philosophical discussions of adolescence and the emergence, within the 20th century,
of the scientific study of the second decade of life.
The history of the scientific study of adolescence has had two overlapping phases
and is, we believe, on the cusp of a third. The first phase, which lasted about 70 years,
was characterized by three sorts of Cartesian splits (see Overton, 1998) that created
false dichotomies that in turn limited the intellectual development of the field. With respect
to the first of these polarizations, “grand” models of adolescence that purportedly
pertained to all facets of behavior and development predominated (e.g., Erikson,
1959, 1968; Hall, 1904), but these theories were limited because they were either largely
all nature (e.g., genetic or maturational; e.g., Freud, 1969; Hall, 1904) or all nurture
(e.g., McCandless, 1961). Second, the major empirical studies of adolescence during
this period were not primarily theory-driven, hypothesis-testing investigations but were
atheoretical, descriptive studies; as such, theory and research were split into separate
enterprises (McCandless, 1970). Third, there was a split between scholars whose work
was focused on basic developmental processes and practitioners whose focus was on
community-based efforts to facilitate the healthy development of adolescents.
The second phase in the scientific study of adolescence arose in the early- to mid-
1970s as developmental scientists began to make use of research on adolescents in elucidating
developmental issues of interest across the entire life span (Petersen, 1988). At
the beginning of the 1970s, the study of adolescence, like the comedian Rodney Dangerfield,
“got no respect.” Gradually, however, research on adolescent development began
to emerge as a dominant force in developmental science. By the end of the 1970s
the study of adolescence had finally come of age.
To help place this turning point in the context of the actual lives of the scientists involved
in these events, it may be useful to note that the professional careers of the editors
of this Handbook began just as this transition was beginning to take place. Across
our own professional lifetimes, then, the editors of this volume have witnessed a sea
change in scholarly regard for the study of adolescent development. Among those
scholars whose own careers have begun more recently, the magnitude of this transformation
is probably hard to grasp. To those of us with gray hair, however, the change has
been nothing short of astounding. At the beginning of our careers, adolescent development
was a minor topic within developmental science, one that was of a level of importance
to merit only the publication of an occasional research article within prime
developmental journals or minimal representation on the program of major scientific
meetings. Now, three decades later, the study of adolescent development is a distinct
and major field within developmental science, one that plays a central role in informing,
and, through vibrant collaborations with scholars having other scientific specialties,
being informed by, other areas of focus.
The emergence of this second phase of the study of adolescence was predicated in
part on theoretical interest in healing the Cartesian splits (Overton, 1998) characteristic
of the first phase and, as such, in exploring and elaborating developmental models
that reject reductionist biological or environmental accounts of development and instead
focus on the fused levels of organization constituting the developmental system
and its multilayered context (e.g., Sameroff, 1983; Thelen & Smith, 1998). These developmental
systems models have provided a metatheory for adolescent developmental
research and have been associated with more midlevel (as opposed to grand) theories—
models that have been generated to account for person-environment relations within
selected domains of development.
Instances of such midlevel developmental systems theories are the stage-environment
fit model used to understand achievement in classroom settings (Eccles, Wigfield, &
Byrnes, 2003), the goodness of fit model used to understand the relation of temperamental
individuality in peer and family relations (Lerner, Anderson, Balsano, Dowling,
& Bobek, 2003), and models linking the developmental assets of youth and communities
in order to understand positive youth development (Benson, 1997; Damon, 1997).
For instance, Damon (1997; Damon & Gregory, 2003) forwarded a new vision and vocabulary
about adolescents that was based on their strengths and potential for positive
development. Damon explained that such potential could be instantiated by building
new youth-community relationships predicated on the creation of youth charters, agreements
that codified community-specific visions and action agendas for promoting positive
life experiences for adolescents.
Generally speaking, the study of adolescence in its second phase was characterized
by an interest in developmental plasticity, in diversity, and in the application of science
to real-world problems. This phase also was marked by the development and use of
2 The Scientific Study of Adolescent Development
more nuanced and powerful developmental methods aimed at providing sensitivity to
the collection and analysis of longitudinal data pertinent to the multiple levels.
More than a quarter century ago, Bronfenbrenner (1974) explained the importance
of a science of development that involved the full and bidirectional collaboration between
the producers and consumers of scientific knowledge. In turn, D. A. Hamburg
(1992; D. A. Hamburg & Takanishi, 1996) proposed that the quality of life of adolescents,
and their future contributions to civil society, could be enhanced through collaboration
among scholars, policy makers, and key social institutions, for instance,
community-based youth-serving organizations (e.g., 4-H, Boys and Girls Clubs, scouting),
schools, and the media. In our view, D. A. Hamburg’s (1992; D. A. Hamburg &
Takanishi, 1996) vision has been actualized. We are now at the cusp of the emergence
of a third phase in the history of the scientific study of adolescence, one that we hope
will be marked by the publication of this Handbook. This phase involves the emergence
of the field of adolescent development as an exemplar of the sort of developmental science
that can be used by policy makers and practitioners in order to advance civil society
and promote positive development (Lerner, Fisher, & Weinberg, 2000). The contributors
to this volume provide much evidence that the field of adolescence may be
entering a phase of its development wherein such a scientist–policy maker–practitioner
collaboration may be a central, organizing frame.
THE FIRST PHASE OF THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF ADOLESCENCE
In 1904 G. Stanley Hall, with the publication of his two-volume work Adolescence, initiated
the scientific study of adolescence. He launched the field as one steeped in a split
and nativist view of development, one that was and linked to a biologically based,
deficit view of adolescence.
Fancying himself as the “Darwin of the mind” (White, 1968), Hall sought to translate
the ideas of Ernst Haeckel (e.g., 1868, 1891), an early contributor to embryology,
into a theory of life span human development. Haeckel advanced the idea of recapitulation:
The adult stages of the ancestors comprising a species’ evolutionary (phylogenetic)
history were repeated in compressed form as the embryonic stages of the organism’s
ontogeny. Hall extended Haeckel’s idea of recapitulation beyond the prenatal
period in order to fashion a theory of human behavioral development. To Hall, adolescence
represented a phylogenetic period when human ancestors went from being
beastlike to being civilized. Hall (1904) saw adolescence as a period of storm and stress,
as a time of universal and inevitable upheaval.
Although other scholars of this period (e.g., Thorndike, 1904) quickly rejected Hall’s
recapitulationism on both empirical and methodological grounds (e.g., see Lerner,
2002, for a discussion), other theorists of adolescent development used a conceptual
lens comparable to Hall’s, at least insofar as his biological reductionism and his deficit
view of adolescence were concerned. Anna Freud (1969), for instance, saw adolescence
as a biologically based and universal developmental disturbance. Erik Erikson (1950,
1959) viewed the period as one in which an inherited maturational ground plan resulted
in the inescapable psychosocial crisis of identity versus role confusion. Even when the-
The First Phase of the Scientific Study of Adolescence 3
orists rejected the nature-based ideas of psychoanalysts or neopsychoanalysts, they
proposed nurture-oriented ideas to explain the same problems of developmental disturbance
and crisis. For example, McCandless (1961, 1970) presented a social-learning,
drive-reduction theory to account for the developmental phenomena of adolescence
(e.g., regarding sex differences in identity development) that Erikson (1959) interpreted
as being associated with maturation (see Lerner & Spanier, 1980, for a discussion).
Although the developmental theory of cognition proposed by Piaget (1960, 1969,
1970, 1972) involved a more integrative view of nature and nurture than did these other
models, the predominant focus of his ideas was on the emergence of formal logical
structures and not on the adolescent period per se. The absence of concern in Piaget’s
theory with the broader array of biological, emotional, personality, social, and societal
concerns that had engaged other theorists’ discussions of adolescence did not stop a
relatively minor and historically transitory interest in Piaget’s ideas as a frame for empirical
understanding of the adolescent period (Steinberg & Morris, 2001). However, as
Steinberg and Morris explained, only a short while after this period of heightened interest
in using the onset of formal operations as an explanation for everything adolescent,
the influence of Piaget’s theory on mainstream empirical work in the study of adolescence
would become as modest as that associated with the other grand theories of
the period, such as those authored by Erikson or McCandless.
The divergence between the so-called grand theories of the adolescent period and
the range of research about adolescence that would come to characterize the field at the
end of the 20th century actually existed for much of the first phase of the field’s development.
The classic studies of adolescence conducted between 1950 and 1980 were not
investigations derived from the theories of Hall, Anna Freud, McCandless, Piaget, or
even Erikson (work associated with the ideas of Marcia, 1980, notwithstanding). Instead,
this research was directed to describing (note, not explaining; McCandless, 1970;
Petersen, 1988) patterns of covariation among pubertal timing, personal adjustment,
and relationships with peers and parents (e.g., Jones & Bayley, 1950; Mussen & Jones,
1957), both within and across cultural settings (e.g., Mussen & Bouterline Young, 1964);
the diversity in trajectories of psychological development across adolescence (e.g.,
Bandura, 1964; Block, 1971; Douvan & Adelson, 1966; Offer, 1969); and the influence
of history or temporality (i.e., as operationalized by time of testing- or cohort-related
variation) on personality development, achievement, and family relations (e.g., Elder,
1974; Nesselroade & Baltes, 1974). Petersen (1988, p. 584) described the quality of the
classic empirical work on adolescence by noting that most “research fell into one of two
categories: (a) studies on behavioral or psychological processes that happened to use
adolescent subjects, or (b) descriptive accounts of particular groups of adolescents,
such as high school students or delinquents.”
Despite its separation from the grand theories of adolescence that dominated the
field during its first phase of scientific development, this body of early research, as well
as the subsequent scholarship it elicited (e.g., see reviews by Lerner & Galambos,
1998; Petersen, 1988; Steinberg & Morris, 2001), made several important contributions
to shaping the specific character of the scientific study of adolescence between the
early-1980s and late-1990s. As elaborated later, this character involved the longitudinal
study of individual-context relations among diverse groups of youth and the use of such
scholarship for purposes of both elucidating basic developmental processes and apply-
4 The Scientific Study of Adolescent Development
ing developmental science to promote positive youth development (B. Hamburg, 1974;
Lerner, 2002).
These contributions also advanced the study of adolescence because scholarship
about the second decade of life acted synergistically with broader scholarly activity
within developmental science pertinent to the theoretical, methodological, and applied
features of the study of human development across the life span. For instance, a classic
paper by B. Hamburg (1974) did much to provide the foundation for this integration,
in that it made a compelling case for viewing the early adolescent period as a distinct
period of the life course and one that provided an exemplary ontogenetic window for
understanding key person-context processes involved in coping and adaptation. Based
on such evidence, Petersen (1988, p. 584) noted,
Basic theoretical and empirical advances in several areas have permitted the advance of research
on adolescence. Some areas of behavioral science from which adolescence researchers
have drawn are life-span developmental psychology, life-course sociology, social
support, stress and coping, and cognitive development; important contributing areas in
the biomedical sciences include endocrinology and adolescent medicine. The recent maturation
to adolescence of subjects in major longitudinal studies . . . has also contributed
to the topic’s empirical knowledge base.
The emergence of the relationship between the specific study of adolescence and more
general scholarship about the overall course of human development provided the bridge
to the second phase in the study of adolescent development. Indeed, about a decade after
this second phase had begun, Petersen (1988, p. 601) predicted, “Current research
on adolescence will not only aid scientific understanding of this particular phase of life,
it also may illuminate development more generally.” Future events were consistent with
Petersen’s prognostication.
THE SECOND PHASE OF THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF ADOLESCENCE
From the late 1970s through this writing the adolescent period has come to be regarded
as an ideal natural ontogenetic laboratory for studying key theoretical and methodological
issues in developmental science (Lerner, 2002; Steinberg & Morris, 2001). There are
several reasons for the special salience of the study of adolescent development to understanding
the broader course of life span development. First, although the prenatal
and infant period exceeds adolescence as an ontogenetic stage of rapid physical and
physiological growth, the years from approximately 10 to 20 not only include the considerable
physical and physiological changes associated with puberty but also mark a
time when the interdependency of biology and context in human development is readily
apparent (Susman & Rogol, this volume). Second, as compared to infants, the cognizing,
goal-setting, and relatively autonomous adolescent can, through reciprocal relations
with his or her ecology, serve as an active influence on his or her own development,
and the study of adolescence can inform these sorts of processes more generally
(Lerner, 2002). Third, the multiple individual and contextual transitions into, throughout,
and out of this period, involving the major institutions of society (family, peers,
The Second Phase of the Scientific Study of Adolescence 5
schools, and the workplace), engage scholars interested in broader as well as individual
levels of organization and also provide a rich opportunity for understanding the nature
of multilevel systemic change. Finally, there was also a practical reason for the growing
importance of adolescence in the broader field of developmental science: As noted by
Steinberg and Morris (2001), the longitudinal samples of many developmental scientists
who had been studying infancy or childhood had aged into adolescence. Applied
developmental scientists were also drawn to the study of adolescents, not just because
of the historically unprecedented sets of challenges to the healthy development of adolescents
that arose during the latter decades of the 20th century (Dryfoos, 1990; Lerner,
1995) but also because interest in age groups other than adolescents nevertheless frequently
involved this age group (e.g., interest in infants often entailed the study of
teenage mothers, and interest in middle and old age frequently entailed the study of the
“middle generation squeeze,” wherein the adult children of aged parents cared for their
own parents while simultaneously raising their own adolescent children).
The Emerging Structure of the Field of Adolescent Development
This scholarly activity at the close of the 1970s was both a product and a producer of a
burgeoning network of scholars from multiple disciplines. In 1981 the late Herschel
Thornburg launched a series of biennial meetings (called the Conference on Adolescent
Research) at the University of Arizona. During these meetings (which occurred
also in 1983 and 1985), the idea for a new scholarly society, the Society for Research on
Adolescence (SRA), was born. The first meeting of SRA was held in Madison, Wisconsin,
in 1986, and Thornburg was elected the first president of the organization. Across
the next two decades, with biennial conventions in Alexandria, Virginia (1988), Atlanta
(1990), Washington (1992), San Diego (1994), Boston (1996), again in San Diego (1998),
Chicago (2000), New Orleans (2002), and Baltimore (2004), and through the leadership
of the SRA presidents who succeeded Thornburg—John P. Hill, Anne C. Petersen,
E.Mavis Hetherington, Sanford M. Dornbusch, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Stuart T. Hauser,
Laurence Steinberg, W. Andrew Collins, Jacquelynne Eccles, and Elizabeth Susman—
the organization and the field it represented flourished. Between 1986 and 2002, attendance
at SRA biennial meetings more than quadrupled. The SRA launched its own
scholarly journal in 1991, the Journal of Research on Adolescence (Lerner, 1991); grew
from approximately 400 members in 1986 to more than 1,200 members in 2002; and
attracted disciplinary representation from scholars and practitioners with expertise
in psychology, sociology, education, family studies, social work, medicine, psychiatry,
criminology, and nursing.
Impetus to this growth in scholarly interest in the study of adolescence also was stimulated
by the publication in 1980 of the first handbook for the field. Edited by Joseph
Adelson (1980), the Handbook of Adolescent Psychology was published as part of the
Wiley series on personality processes. The volume reflected the emerging multidisciplinary
interest in the field (with chapters discussing levels of organization ranging from
biology through history, including an interesting historical chapter on youth movements),
the growing interest in systems models of adolescent development (e.g., in the
chapters by Elder, 1980, and by Petersen & Taylor, 1980), the importance of longitudi-
6 The Scientific Study of Adolescent Development
nal methodology (Livson & Peskin, 1980), and the increasing interest in diversity (i.e.,
there was a five-chapter section titled “Variations in Adolescence”). It is important to
note that through several chapters pertinent to the problems of adolescence there was
still ample representation in the volume of the deficit view of adolescence. Nevertheless,
the 1980 Handbook included information pertinent to normative development and developmental
plasticity, and several chapters discussed the positive individual and social
features of youth development.
The publication of a handbook, the organization of a successful scholarly society,
and the initiation of that society’s scholarly journal all underscored the growing interest
in and the scientific maturity of research on adolescent development. This intellectual
milieu and the scholarly opportunities it provided attracted a broad range of
scholars to the field, some for reasons that had little to do with adolescence per se, but
others because they came to see themselves as experts on the second decade of life. By
the mid-1980s a growing cadre of scientists would identify themselves as adolescent
developmentalists.
The Study of Adolescence as a Sample Case for Understanding Plasticity and
Diversity in Development
Scholars interested primarily in the instantiation of developmental processes within
other periods of the life span (e.g., infancy, Easterbrooks & Graham, 1999; adult development
and aging, Brim, 1966; Nesselroade & Baltes, 1974) or in disciplines other
than developmental psychology (e.g., life course sociology; Burton, 1990; Elder, 1974,
1980) became adolescent developmentalists as well. This attraction inheres in the
window that the period provides to understanding how development at any point
across the life span involves the relations of diverse and active individuals and diverse,
active, and multitiered ecologies (Bronfenbrenner, 1979; Bronfenbrenner & Morris,
1998; Lerner, 2002).
As suggested by Steinberg and Morris (2001), the scientific concern that arguably
was most significant in transforming the field of adolescent development beyond a focus
on this single developmental period into an exemplar for understanding the breadth
of the human life span was the emerging focus within developmental science on the
ecology of human development (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1979, 2001; Bronfenbrenner &
Morris, 1998). The integrated designed and natural ecology was of interest because its
study was regarded as holding the key to (a) understanding the system of relations between
individuals and contexts that is at the core of the study of human development and
(b) providing evidence that theories about the character of interacting developmental
system (e.g., Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg, Hetherington, & Bornstein, 2000; Gottlieb,
1997, 1998; Horowitz, 2000; Thelen & Smith, 1998) are more useful in accounting for
the variance in human ontogeny than are theories whose grounding is either exclusively
in nature (e.g., behavioral genetic or sociobiological; e.g., Plomin, 2000; Rowe, 1994;
Rushton, 2000) or exclusively in nurture (e.g., social learning or functional analysis;
Gewirtz & Stingle, 1968; McCandless, 1970).
A second set of broader issues that engaged developmental science in the study of
adolescence pertained to understanding the bases, parameters, and limits of the plas-
The Second Phase of the Scientific Study of Adolescence 7
ticity of human development. As implied earlier, this plasticity legitimated an optimistic
view about the potential for interventions into the course of life to enhance human development,
encouraged growth in scientific activity in the application of developmental
science to improve life outcomes, and gave impetus to the idea that positive development
could be promoted among all people (Lerner, Fisher, & Weinberg, 2000). Moreover,
plasticity meant that the particular instances of human development found within
a given sample or period of time were not necessarily representative of the diversity of
development that might potentially be observed under different conditions.
Third, developmentalists pursuing an interest in the developmental system and the
plasticity in ontogenetic change that it promoted recognized the need to develop and
deploy methods that could simultaneously study changes in (at least a subset of ) the
multiple levels of organization involved in the development of diverse individuals and
contexts. Accordingly, multivariate longitudinal designs were promoted as key to the
study of the relatively plastic developmental system, as were the development of empirical
tools, such as change-sensitive measures, sophisticated data analysis techniques,
and strategies such as triangulation of observations within and across both quantitative
and qualitative domains of inquiry.

Introduction to Adolescent Psychology

2007-06-23T08:28:00.000-07:00

According to most social scientists, a generation is about 25 years in length. By that
measure, this second edition of the Handbook of Adolescent Psychology represents a
generational shift, for it was fully 25 years ago that the first edition of this volume was
published. A cursory glance at this edition’s table of contents will show just how broadly
the field has grown in that period of time, and a careful reading of the volume’s chapters
will reveal that the generational shift has been as deep as it has been broad.
When the first edition of the Handbook was published in 1980, the empirical study
of adolescence, by our calculation, was barely 5 years old. Much of what was prepared
for that Handbook was, of necessity, theoretical because there was very little empirical
work on which contributors could draw. In addition, much of the theorizing was psychoanalytic
in nature, because through the mid-1970s that had been the dominant
worldview among those who thought about adolescence. Now, it is fair to say that the
field has reached full maturity, or at least a level of maturity comparable to that found
in the study of any other period of development. Indeed, as we note in the first chapter
of the volume, in which we review and reflect on the development of the scientific study
of adolescence, research on the second decade of life often serves as a model for research
on other stages of development. As the contributions to this volume clearly illustrate,
the science of adolescent psychology is sophisticated, interdisciplinary, and
empirically rigorous. Interestingly enough, grand theories of adolescence, whether
psychoanalytic or not, have waned considerably in their influence.
Other generational changes can also be discerned by comparing the second and first
editions of the Handbook. First, the study of adolescent difficulty and disturbance has
taken a backseat to the study of processes of normative development. Accordingly, although
the current edition includes several chapters on the development of psychological
problems in adolescence, they by no means dominate the volume’s contents. Second,
our knowledge about the ways in which processes of adolescent development are
shaped by interacting and embedded systems of proximal and distal contextual forces
has made the study of adolescence less purely psychological in nature and far more interdisciplinary.
While psychology continues to be the primary discipline reflected in the
contents (and, of course, the title) of this Handbook, it is not the only one. Contributors
to the volume have drawn on a wide array of disciplines, including sociology, biology,
education, neuroscience, and law. Third, the growth in applied developmental
science over the past decade has led to a more explicit focus on the ways in which empirically
based knowledge about adolescence can be used to promote positive youth development.
Several contributions to this volume reflect this emphasis.
This edition of the Handbook of Adolescent Psychology is concerned with all aspects
ix
of development during the second decade of life, with all the contexts in which this development
takes place and with a wide array of social implications and applications of
the scientific knowledge gained through empirical research. This edition is divided into
three broad sections: foundations of adolescent development, the contexts of adolescent
development, and special challenges and opportunities that arise at adolescence.
These sections are preceded by a foreword (by William Damon) and followed by an afterword
(by Beatrix and David Hamburg), which locate the Handbook’s contribution
within the history of the field of adolescent development.
The first section of the Handbook examines the foundations of the scientific study
of individual development in adolescence. Following an introductory chapter that
overviews the past history and future prospects of adolescent psychology as a scientific
enterprise (Lerner and Steinberg), contributions in this section examine puberty and its
impact on psychological development (Susman and Rogol), cognitive and brain development
(Keating), the development of the self (Nurmi), academic motivation and
achievement in school settings (Eccles), morality and prosocial development (Eisenberg
and Morris), sexuality and sexual relationships (Savin-Williams and Diamond), gender
and gender role development (Galambos), and processes of risk and resilience (Compas).
Taken together, these chapters illustrate the ways in which biological, intellectual,
emotional, and social development unfold and interact during the second decade of the
life span.
The second section focuses on the immediate and broader contexts in which adolescent
development takes place. The chapters in this section situate adolescent development
across history, cultures, and regions of the world (Larson and Wilson); within
the family, and especially in the context of the parent-child relationship (Collins and
Laursen); within the interconnected and nested contexts of peer relationships, including
friendships, romantic relationships, adversarial relationships, cliques, and crowds
(Brown); in relationships with adult mentors at work and in the community (Hamilton
and Hamilton); in the settings of work and leisure (Staff, Mortimer, and Uggen); in neighborhood
contexts (Leventhal and Brooks-Gunn); within the contexts defined by mass
media and technology (Roberts, Henriksen, and Foehr); and within the law (Scott and
Woolard). Consistent with the ecological perspective on human development that has
dominated research on adolescence for the past two decades, these contributions show
how variations in proximal, community, and distal contexts profoundly shape and alter
the developmental processes, trajectories, and outcomes associated with adolescence.
The final section of the Handbook examines a variety of challenges and opportunities
that can threaten or facilitate healthy development in adolescence and explores the
ways in which maladaptive as well as positive trajectories of youth development unfold.
The first set of contributions in this section considers threats to the well-being of adolescents,
including physical illness, examined from an international perspective (Blum
and Nelson-Mmari); internalizing problems, including depression, anxiety, and disordered
eating (Graber); externalizing problems, including conduct disorder, aggression,
and delinquency (Farrington); substance use and abuse, including the use and abuse of
tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs (Chassin, Hussong, Barrera, Molina, Trim, and Ritter);
and developmental disabilities, including autism, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, mental
retardation, and other neurological impairments (Hauser-Cram and Krauss). The second
set of contributions in this concluding section examines three sorts of opportunix
Preface
ties with the potential to promote health and well-being in adolescence: the promotion
of volunteerism and civic engagement among youth (Flanagan); the application of developmental
science to facilitate healthy adolescent development (Sherrod, Busch-
Rossnagel, and Fisher); and the development of policies and programs explicitly designed
to promote positive youth development (Benson, Mannes, Pittman, and Ferber).
There are numerous people to thank for their important contributions to the Handbook.
First and foremost, we owe our greatest debt of gratitude to the colleagues who
wrote the chapters, foreword, and afterword for the Handbook. Their scholarly excellence
and leadership and their commitment to the field are the key assets for any contributions
that this Handbook will make both to the scientific study of adolescence and
to the application of knowledge that is requisite for enhancing the lives of diverse young
people worldwide.
We appreciate as well the important support and guidance provided to us by the
members of the editorial board for the Handbook. We thank Peter L. Benson, Dale A.
Blyth, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, B. Bradford Brown, W. Andrew Collins, William Damon,
Jacquelynne Eccles, David Elkind, Nancy Galambos, Robert C. Granger, Beatrix
Hamburg, Stuart Hauser, E. Mavis Hetherington, Reed Larson, Jacqueline V. Lerner,
David Magnusson, Anne C. Petersen, Diane Scott-Jones, Lonnie R. Sherrod, Margaret
Beale Spencer, and Wendy Wheeler for their invaluable contributions.
We are very grateful to Karyn Lu, managing editor in the Applied Developmental
Science Institute in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development at Tufts University.
Her impressive ability to track and coordinate the myriad editorial tasks associated
with a project of this scope, her astute editorial skills and wisdom, and her neverdiminishing
good humor and positive attitude were invaluable resources throughout
our work.
We are also appreciative of our publishers and editors at John Wiley & Sons: Peggy
Alexander, Jennifer Simon, and Isabel Pratt. Their enthusiasm for our vision for the
Handbook, their unflagging support, and their collegial and collaborative approach to
the development of this project were vital bases for the successful completion of the
Handbook.
We also want to express our gratitude to the several organizations that supported
our scholarship during the time we worked on the Handbook. Tufts University and
Temple University provided the support and resources necessary to undertake and
complete a project like this. In addition, Richard M. Lerner thanks the National 4-H
Council, the William T. Grant Foundation, and the Jacobs Foundation, and Laurence
Steinberg thanks the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, for their generous
support.
Finally, we want to dedicate this Handbook to our greatest sources of inspiration,
both for our work on the Handbook and for our scholarship in the field of adolescence:
our children, Blair, Jarrett, Justin, and Ben. Now all in their young adulthood, they
have taught us our greatest lessons about the nature and potentials of adolescent development.