PSY 6

Adolescence and Consciousness

Adolescence is the stage in which boys and girls reach sexual maturity. Advances in nutrition have led to increasingly younger sexual maturity for both boys and girls. Presently, the average age for this is about 13. Boys who mature early tend to be more popular and confident and better adjusted. Girls who mature early may not receive such a boost. Children who are obese—something that is increasingly common in the United States today—face additional threats to self-esteem. It is during adolescence that eating disorders typically begin to show up. Anorexia is caused by many factors, including a culture that prizes being thin, a need for independence within an autocratic family, and genetic inheritance.

The greatest threat to an adolescent's physical well-being is an accident. Adolescents are known to, at times, engage in risk-taking behaviors that older adults would not normally engage in, which causes many preventable deaths in adolescents.  The death rate for adolescents is about 1 in every 10,000.  (Kali & Cavanaugh, 2007)

With the sex drive developing at younger ages, parents have an added challenge of trying to develop the adolescent's cognitive abilities and morals to keep the adolescent out of many of the dangers of adolescence. Both parents and adolescents are facing an uphill battle. It is true that during adolescence, individuals can acquire levels of understanding similar to adults. However, they still can be plagued with thinking habits of younger children.

Adolescence corresponds to Piaget's formal operations stage. This means they now have the ability to deal with the hypothetical, but an intense new idealism often comes into being. Adolescents have a sense of invulnerability and are also in a stage of egocentrism. While there is a tendency for self-absorption in adolescence, they may come to question the meaning of life. Among the most typical adolescent concerns are how they look, money, free time, what they will do after high school, and dating.

The greater cognitive abilities can facilitate increasingly higher levels of morality, but they can be used in hedonistic pursuits as well. Parents who wish to promote higher levels of moral reasoning in their adolescent are encouraged to discuss moral issues with them. Discussing moral issues with an adolescent who has a higher level of reasoning can be worthwhile, because the adolescent will tend to improve after such a discussion.

There are many stereotypes of adolescence, but are they true? Teenagers may have their differences with their parents, but it is not a forgone conclusion that the teenage years are a period of overt rebellion. Sexual behavior does occur (most teenagers have had sexual intercourse by age 19), but it may not be the frequency parents fear (or teenagers brag about).