Social Development

1. Social Development Adolescence

2. SELF-DEVELOPMENT Changes in Self-Concept • In early adolescence, self-statements often include contradictory descriptions (“but”). • Compared to school-age children, teens also place more emphasis on social virtues, such as being friendly, considerate, kind, and cooperative.

3. Changes in Self-Esteem • Several new dimensions are added to self-esteem including close friendship, romantic appeal, and job competence. • Except for temporary declines associated with school transition, self-esteem is on the rise for most adolescents.

4. Personality Development • Erikson • Identity versus Identity Confusion • “Who am I?” • Identity crisis • Temporary period of confusion and distress as adolescents experiment with alternatives before settling on values and goals. Common in complex societies.

5. ERIKSON’S THEORY • Identity versus Identity Confusion • Positive resolution: satisfaction with personal identity • Identity • Well-organized conception of self made up of values, beliefs, and goals • Negative resolution: confusion about adult roles • Identity confusion • State in which adolescents appear shallow and directionless

6. Paths to Identity • Identity status: Crisis vs. Commitment • Identity achievement • Commitment to self-chosen values and occupational goals • Moratorium • Exploring alternative values and goals • Identity foreclosure • Acceptance of values and goals from authority figures • Identity diffusion • No firm commitments to values and goals • Adolescents shift statuses. • Gender differences?

7. Influences on Identity Development • Personality • A flexible, open-minded approach to grappling with competing beliefs and values is important. • Family • When the family serves as a “secure base” from which teenagers can confidently move out into the wider world, identity development is enhanced. • Foreclosed teenagers have bonds with parents, but lack opportunities for healthy separation. • Diffused adolescents report the lowest levels of warm, open communication at home.

8. Influences on Identity Development • Peers • Close friends help young people explore options by providing emotional support, assistance, and role models of identity development. • School and Community • Classrooms that promote high-level thinking, extracurricular and community activities, and vocational training programs foster identity achievement.

9. Identity Status and Psychological Well-Being • Identity achieved or still exploring • High self-esteem, more abstract and critical thinking, greater similarity between ideal and real self, advanced in moral reasoning • Foreclosed individuals • Dogmatic, inflexible, and intolerant • Long-term diffused • Fatalistic, passive, likely to use and abuse drugs

10. Family Relationships • Parent-Child Relationships • Teenagers no longer bend as easily to parental authority. • Disagreements are harder to settle. • Parents give greater autonomy if • they are financially secure, invested in work, and content with marriage. • Less than 10 percent of families with adolescents have serious trouble.

11. PEER RELATIONS • Teens average 18 nonschool hours per week with peers. • Adolescent Friendships • Psychological intimacy and loyalty • Usually alike in age, sex, ethnicity, social class, attitudes, values but less homogeneous than before

12. Cliques and Crowds • Peer groups increasingly common during adolescence • Clique • 5 to 7 adolescents who are close friends • Crowd • Large, loosely organized group of several cliques with similar norms – A crowd grants identity in larger social structure.

13. Cliques and Crowds • As dating increases, boy and girl cliques come together • influence of clique declines • Dating relationships allow for intimate relationship practise at first • Clique allows for acquisition of new social skills and experimenting with values and roles. • Can require conformity and lead to lowered self-esteem

14. Attachment research: Focus has been on infant development, child peer relationships, adult intimacy, and parenting commitment Research has not focused on teens, nor the sexualitycomponent of relationships

15. Attachment Measurement in Teens • Adolescent AAI (Interview Narrative): How child parental experiences are organized: autonomous, preoccupied, dismissing, and fearful (Corresponds to B, C, A, & D in infants) • Romantic Relationship Self Reports • Experiences in Close Relationships – R • Two subscales: Anxiety and Avoidance in Romantic Relationships • Attachment Behavior in Sexual Relationships • Security, Ambivalent, and Avoidant Subscales

16. Intercorrelation of sexual relationship measures Szielasko, Symons, & Price, 2007 Ambivalent r= -.67 Secure r=.51 r= -.82 Avoidant r= -.84 Insecure (Amb + Avoid) Secure

17. Sexual relationship subscales: Concurrent validation Secure Styles: *Prefer secure sexual partners (.28) *Do not prefer ambivalent (-.24) nor avoidant (-.27) partners *Are neither romantically anxious (-.31) nor avoidant (-.31) Ambivalent Styles: *Prefer avoidant sexual partners (.40) *Do not prefer ambivalent (-.39) nor secure (-.31) partners *Are both romantically anxious (.54) and avoidant (.37) Avoidant Styles: *Prefer ambivalent (.24) and avoidant (.30) sexual partners *Do not prefer secure (-.28) partners *Are romantically avoidant (.38)

18. Sexual relationship styles and sexual approaches - M + F Secure Ambivalent Avoidant Condom Use # Sexual Partners Exp. Unwanted Sex Exp. Verbal Coercion Exp. Sexual Assault Use Unwanted Sex Use Verbal Coercion

19. Anti-Social Behaviour: Delinquency • Juvenile delinquents are minors who commit crimes or acts only illegal for minors. • These crimes account for 30 percent of police arrests. • Delinquency rises in early teenage years, remains high during middle adolescence, and declines into young adulthood. • Adolescents commit 27 percent of violent crimes and 42 percent of property crimes.

20. Factors Related to Delinquency • Much more common for boys than girls • Low-SES and minority youths more aggressively arrested, charged, and punished • Correlates • Difficult temperament • Low intelligence • Poor school performance • Peer rejection in childhood • Entry into antisocial peer groups

21. Developmental Path to Delinquency