PSYC 2314 Lifespan Development

1
PSYC 2314Lifespan Development

• Chapter 15
• Adolescence
• Cognitive Development

2
Adolescent Thought

• Advances in selective attention
• Growing knowledge base and memory skills
• Strengthened metacognition

3
Piagets Cognitive Development

• Formal Operational Thought
• Hypothetical thought
• Inductive reasoning
• Deductive reasoning

4
Thinking About Oneself

• Adolescent Egocentrism a stage of development
  in which young people typically regard themselves
  as much more socially significant than they
  actually are.
• Invincibility Fable adolescents are somehow
  immune to common dangers
• Personable Fable their lives are unique and
  heroic
• Imaginary Audience allows them to fantasize
  about how others will react to their appearance
  and behavior.

5
Schools, Learning, and the Adolescent Mind

• Person-environment fit the degree to which a
  particular environment is conducive to the growth
  of a particular individual.
• Volatile mismatch the potentially explosive
  situation that arises when teenagers individual
  needsintellectual, emotional, and socialdo not
  match the size, routine, and structure of their
  schools.

6
Schools, Learning, and the Adolescent Mind

• Competitive Learning
• Grades are based solely on individual test
  performance and students are ranked against each
  other
• Cooperative Learning
• Accomplishing the learning task requires that
  students assist rather than surpass their peers

7
Adolescent Decision Making

• Until adulthood, most people do not make major
  decisions on their own. They are more likely to
  be moved along by parents, teachers, cultural
  values, or stuck by inertia. However, when it
  comes to matters of personal lifestyle, decisions
  are made.

8
Youth and Employment

• Consequences
• Studying and grades suffer
• Adults, who worked extensively as teens, may be
  more likely to use drugs and less likely to feel
  connected to their families than those who did
  not work as much during adolescence.

9
Choosing Risky Sex

• Sexually active teenagers have higher rates of
  gonorrhea, genital herpes, syphilis, and
  chlamydiathe most common STDsthan any other age
  group.
• Teenage pregnancy
• Consequences
• Risks

10
The Need for Better Sex Education

• Many school systems are revising sex education
  programs to make them more practical, focused on
  social interaction.
• Parents as educators.