NOBA

Adolescent Development
Jennifer Lansford

Adolescence is a period that begins with puberty and ends with the transition to adulthood
(approximately ages 10–20). Physical changes associated with puberty are triggered by
hormones. Cognitive changes include improvements in complex and abstract thought, as well
as development that happens at different rates in distinct parts of the brain and increases
adolescents’ propensity for risky behavior because increases in sensation-seeking and reward
motivation precede increases in cognitive control. Adolescents’ relationships with parents go
through a period of redefinition in which adolescents become more autonomous, and aspects
of parenting, such as distal monitoring and psychological control, become more salient. Peer
relationships are important sources of support and companionship during adolescence yet
can also promote problem behaviors. Same-sex peer groups evolve into mixed-sex peer
groups, and adolescents’ romantic relationships tend to emerge from these groups. Identity
formation occurs as adolescents explore and commit to different roles and ideological
positions. Nationality, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, religious background, sexual
orientation, and genetic factors shape how adolescents behave and how others respond to
them, and are sources of diversity in adolescence

Learning Objectives

• Describe major features of physical, cognitive, and social development during adolescence.

• Understand why adolescence is a period of heightened risk taking.

• Be able to explain sources of diversity in adolescent development.

Adolescent Development 2

Adolescence Defined

Adolescence is a developmental stage that

has been defined as starting with puberty
and ending with the transition to
adulthood (approximately ages 10–20).
Adolescence has evolved historically, with
evidence indicating that this stage is
lengthening as individuals start puberty
earlier and transition to adulthood later
than in the past. Puberty today begins, on
average, at age 10–11 years for girls and
11–12 years for boys. This average age of
onset has decreased gradually over time
since the 19th century by 3–4 months per
decade, which has been attributed to a
range of factors including better nutrition,
obesity, increased father absence, and
Adolescence is often characterized as a period of transformation, other environmental factors (Steinberg,
primarily, in terms of physical, cognitive, and social-relational 2013). Completion of formal education,
change. [Image: Alex Proimos, https://goo.gl/1jqpnl, CC BY-NC 2.0, financial independence from parents,
https://goo.gl/VnKlK8] marriage, and parenthood have all been
markers of the end of adolescence and
beginning of adulthood, and all of these transitions happen, on average, later now than in the
past. In fact, the prolonging of adolescence has prompted the introduction of a new
developmental period called emerging adulthood that captures these developmental changes
out of adolescence and into adulthood, occurring from approximately ages 18 to 29 (Arnett,
2000).

This module will outline changes that occur during adolescence in three domains: physical,
cognitive, and social. Within the social domain, changes in relationships with parents, peers,
and romantic partners will be considered. Next, the module turns to adolescents’ psychological
and behavioral adjustment, including identity formation, aggression and antisocial behavior,
anxiety and depression, and academic achievement. Finally, the module summarizes sources
of diversity in adolescents’ experiences and development.

Physical Changes
Adolescent Development 3

Physical changes of puberty mark the onset of adolescence (Lerner & Steinberg, 2009). For
both boys and girls, these changes include a growth spurt in height, growth of pubic and
underarm hair, and skin changes (e.g., pimples). Boys also experience growth in facial hair
and a deepening of their voice. Girls experience breast development and begin menstruating.
These pubertal changes are driven by hormones, particularly an increase in testosterone for
boys and estrogen for girls.

Cognitive Changes

Major changes in the structure and

functioning of the brain occur during
adolescence and result in cognitive and
behavioral developments (Steinberg, 2008).
Cognitive changes during adolescence
include a shift from concrete to more
abstract and complex thinking. Such
changes are fostered by improvements
during early adolescence in attention,
memory, processing speed, and metacognition
(ability to think about thinking and
therefore make better use of strategies like
mnemonic devices that can improve
thinking). Early in adolescence, changes in
the brain’s dopaminergic system contribute
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain that produces
to increases in adolescents’ sensation-
feelings of pleasure. During adolescence, people tend to do
seeking and reward motivation. Later in whatever activities produce the most dopamine, without fully
adolescence, the brain’s cognitive control considering the consequences of such actions. [Image: CC0

centers in the prefrontal cortex develop, Public Domain, https://goo.gl/m25gce]

increasing adolescents’ self-regulation and

future orientation. The difference in timing of the development of these different regions of
the brain contributes to more risk taking during middle adolescence because adolescents are
motivated to seek thrills that sometimes come from risky behavior, such as reckless driving,
smoking, or drinking, and have not yet developed the cognitive control to resist impulses or
focus equally on the potential risks (Steinberg, 2008). One of the world’s leading experts on
adolescent development, Laurence Steinberg, likens this to engaging a powerful engine before
the braking system is in place. The result is that adolescents are more prone to risky behaviors
than are children or adults.
Adolescent Development 4

Social Changes

Parents

Although peers take on greater importance during adolescence, family relationships remain
important too. One of the key changes during adolescence involves a renegotiation of parent–
child relationships. As adolescents strive for more independence and autonomy during this
time, different aspects of parenting become more salient. For example, parents’ distal
supervision and monitoring become more important as adolescents spend more time away
from parents and in the presence of peers. Parental monitoring encompasses a wide range
of behaviors such as parents’ attempts to set rules and know their adolescents’ friends,
activities, and whereabouts, in addition to adolescents’ willingness to disclose information to
their parents (Stattin & Kerr, 2000). Psychological control, which involves manipulation and
intrusion into adolescents’ emotional and cognitive world through invalidating adolescents’
feelings and pressuring them to think in particular ways (Barber, 1996), is another aspect of
parenting that becomes more salient during adolescence and is related to more problematic
adolescent adjustment.

Peers

As children become adolescents, they

usually begin spending more time with
their peers and less time with their families,
and these peer interactions are increasingly
unsupervised by adults. Children’s notions
of friendship often focus on shared
activities, whereas adolescents’ notions of
friendship increasingly focus on intimate
exchanges of thoughts and feelings. During
adolescence, peer groups evolve from
primarily single-sex to mixed-sex. Adolescents
within a peer group tend to be similar to
Peer relationships are a big part of adolescent development. The one another in behavior and attitudes,
influence of peers can be both positive and negative as which has been explained as being a
adolescents experiment together with identity formation and function of homophily (adolescents who
new experiences. [Image: CC0 Public Domain, https://goo.gl/
are similar to one another choose to spend
m25gce]
time together in a “birds of a feather flock
Adolescent Development 5

together” way) and influence (adolescents who spend time together shape each other’s
behavior and attitudes). One of the most widely studied aspects of adolescent peer influence
is known as deviant peer contagion (Dishion & Tipsord, 2011), which is the process by which
peers reinforce problem behavior by laughing or showing other signs of approval that then
increase the likelihood of future problem behavior.

Peers can serve both positive and negative functions during adolescence. Negative peer
pressure can lead adolescents to make riskier decisions or engage in more problematic
behavior than they would alone or in the presence of their family. For example, adolescents
are much more likely to drink alcohol, use drugs, and commit crimes when they are with their
friends than when they are alone or with their family. However, peers also serve as an
important source of social support and companionship during adolescence, and adolescents
with positive peer relationships are happier and better adjusted than those who are socially
isolated or have conflictual peer relationships.

Crowds are an emerging level of peer relationships in adolescence. In contrast to friendships

(which are reciprocal dyadic relationships) and cliques (which refer to groups of individuals
who interact frequently), crowds are characterized more by shared reputations or images
than actual interactions (Brown & Larson, 2009). These crowds reflect different prototypic
identities (such as jocks or brains) and are often linked with adolescents’ social status and
peers’ perceptions of their values or behaviors.

Romantic relationships

Adolescence is the developmental period during which romantic relationships typically first
emerge. Initially, same-sex peer groups that were common during childhood expand into
mixed-sex peer groups that are more characteristic of adolescence. Romantic relationships
often form in the context of these mixed-sex peer groups (Connolly, Furman, & Konarski,
2000). Although romantic relationships during adolescence are often short-lived rather than
long-term committed partnerships, their importance should not be minimized. Adolescents
spend a great deal of time focused on romantic relationships, and their positive and negative
emotions are more tied to romantic relationships (or lack thereof) than to friendships, family
relationships, or school (Furman & Shaffer, 2003). Romantic relationships contribute to
adolescents’ identity formation, changes in family and peer relationships, and adolescents’
emotional and behavioral adjustment.

Furthermore, romantic relationships are centrally connected to adolescents’ emerging

sexuality. Parents, policymakers, and researchers have devoted a great deal of attention to
Adolescent Development 6

adolescents’ sexuality, in large part because of concerns related to sexual intercourse,

contraception, and preventing teen pregnancies. However, sexuality involves more than this
narrow focus. For example, adolescence is often when individuals who are lesbian, gay,
bisexual, or transgender come to perceive themselves as such (Russell, Clarke, & Clary, 2009).
Thus, romantic relationships are a domain in which adolescents experiment with new
behaviors and identities.

Behavioral and Psychological Adjustment

Identity formation

Theories of adolescent development often focus on identity formation as a central issue. For
example, in Erikson’s (1968) classic theory of developmental stages, identity formation was
highlighted as the primary indicator of successful development during adolescence (in
contrast to role confusion, which would be an indicator of not successfully meeting the task
of adolescence). Marcia (1966) described identify formation during adolescence as involving
both decision points and commitments with respect to ideologies (e.g., religion, politics) and
occupations. He described four identity
statuses: foreclosure, identity diffusion,
moratorium, and identity achievement.
Foreclosure occurs when an individual
commits to an identity without exploring
options. Identity diffusion occurs when
adolescents neither explore nor commit to
any identities. Moratorium is a state in
which adolescents are actively exploring
options but have not yet made commitments.
Identity achievement occurs when individuals
have explored different options and then
made identity commitments. Building on
this work, other researchers have
investigated more specific aspects of
identity. For example, Phinney (1989)
Early, antisocial behavior leads to befriending others who also
proposed a model of ethnic identity
engage in antisocial behavior, which only perpetuates the
development that included stages of downward cycle of aggression and wrongful acts. [Image:
unexplored ethnic identity, ethnic identity Philippe Put, https://goo.gl/14H7HL, CC BY 2.0, https://goo.gl/

search, and achieved ethnic identity. BRvSA7]

Adolescent Development 7

Aggression and antisocial behavior

Several major theories of the development of antisocial behavior treat adolescence as an

important period. Patterson’s (1982) early versus late starter model of the development of
aggressive and antisocial behavior distinguishes youths whose antisocial behavior begins
during childhood (early starters) versus adolescence (late starters). According to the theory,
early starters are at greater risk for long-term antisocial behavior that extends into adulthood
than are late starters. Late starters who become antisocial during adolescence are theorized
to experience poor parental monitoring and supervision, aspects of parenting that become
more salient during adolescence. Poor monitoring and lack of supervision contribute to
increasing involvement with deviant peers, which in turn promotes adolescents’ own antisocial
behavior. Late starters desist from antisocial behavior when changes in the environment make
other options more appealing. Similarly, Moffitt’s (1993) life-course persistent versus
adolescent-limited model distinguishes between antisocial behavior that begins in childhood
versus adolescence. Moffitt regards adolescent-limited antisocial behavior as resulting from
a “maturity gap” between adolescents’ dependence on and control by adults and their desire
to demonstrate their freedom from adult constraint. However, as they continue to develop,
and legitimate adult roles and privileges become available to them, there are fewer incentives
to engage in antisocial behavior, leading to desistance in these antisocial behaviors.

Anxiety and depression

Developmental models of anxiety and depression also treat adolescence as an important

period, especially in terms of the emergence of gender differences in prevalence rates that
persist through adulthood (Rudolph, 2009). Starting in early adolescence, compared with
males, females have rates of anxiety that are about twice as high and rates of depression that
are 1.5 to 3 times as high (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Although the rates vary
across specific anxiety and depression diagnoses, rates for some disorders are markedly
higher in adolescence than in childhood or adulthood. For example, prevalence rates for
specific phobias are about 5% in children and 3%–5% in adults but 16% in adolescents. Anxiety
and depression are particularly concerning because suicide is one of the leading causes of
death during adolescence. Developmental models focus on interpersonal contexts in both
childhood and adolescence that foster depression and anxiety (e.g., Rudolph, 2009). Family
adversity, such as abuse and parental psychopathology, during childhood sets the stage for
social and behavioral problems during adolescence. Adolescents with such problems generate
stress in their relationships (e.g., by resolving conflict poorly and excessively seeking
reassurance) and select into more maladaptive social contexts (e.g., “misery loves company”
scenarios in which depressed youths select other depressed youths as friends and then
Adolescent Development 8

frequently co-ruminate as they discuss their problems, exacerbating negative affect and
stress). These processes are intensified for girls compared with boys because girls have more
relationship-oriented goals related to intimacy and social approval, leaving them more
vulnerable to disruption in these relationships. Anxiety and depression then exacerbate
problems in social relationships, which in turn contribute to the stability of anxiety and
depression over time.

Academic achievement

Adolescents spend more waking time in school than in any other context (Eccles & Roeser,
2011). Academic achievement during adolescence is predicted by interpersonal (e.g., parental
engagement in adolescents’ education), intrapersonal (e.g., intrinsic motivation), and
institutional (e.g., school quality) factors. Academic achievement is important in its own right
as a marker of positive adjustment during adolescence but also because academic
achievement sets the stage for future educational and occupational opportunities. The most
serious consequence of school failure, particularly dropping out of school, is the high risk of
unemployment or underemployment in adulthood that follows. High achievement can set
the stage for college or future vocational training and opportunities.

Diversity

Adolescent development does not necessarily

follow the same pathway for all individuals.
Certain features of adolescence, particularly
with respect to biological changes
associated with puberty and cognitive
changes associated with brain development,
are relatively universal. But other features
of adolescence depend largely on
circumstances that are more environmentally
variable. For example, adolescents growing
up in one country might have different
opportunities for risk taking than
adolescents in a different country, and
Although similar biological changes occur for all adolescents as
supports and sanctions for different
they enter puberty, these changes can differ significantly behaviors in adolescence depend on laws
depending on one’s cultural, ethnic, and societal factors. [Image: and values that might be specific to where
CC0 Public Domain, https://goo.gl/m25gce] adolescents live. Likewise, different cultural
Adolescent Development 9

norms regarding family and peer relationships shape adolescents’ experiences in these
domains. For example, in some countries, adolescents’ parents are expected to retain control
over major decisions, whereas in other countries, adolescents are expected to begin sharing
in or taking control of decision making.

Even within the same country, adolescents’ gender, ethnicity, immigrant status, religion, sexual
orientation, socioeconomic status, and personality can shape both how adolescents behave
and how others respond to them, creating diverse developmental contexts for different
adolescents. For example, early puberty (that occurs before most other peers have
experienced puberty) appears to be associated with worse outcomes for girls than boys, likely
in part because girls who enter puberty early tend to associate with older boys, which in turn
is associated with early sexual behavior and substance use. For adolescents who are ethnic
or sexual minorities, discrimination sometimes presents a set of challenges that nonminorities
do not face.

Finally, genetic variations contribute an additional source of diversity in adolescence. Current

approaches emphasize gene X environment interactions, which often follow a differential
susceptibility model (Belsky & Pluess, 2009). That is, particular genetic variations are
considered riskier than others, but genetic variations also can make adolescents more or less
susceptible to environmental factors. For example, the association between the
CHRM2genotype and adolescent externalizing behavior (aggression and delinquency)has
been found in adolescents whose parents are low in monitoring behaviors (Dick et al., 2011).
Thus, it is important to bear in mind that individual differences play an important role in
adolescent development.

Conclusions

Adolescent development is characterized by biological, cognitive, and social changes. Social

changes are particularly notable as adolescents become more autonomous from their
parents, spend more time with peers, and begin exploring romantic relationships and
sexuality. Adjustment during adolescence is reflected in identity formation, which often
involves a period of exploration followed by commitments to particular identities. Adolescence
is characterized by risky behavior, which is made more likely by changes in the brain in which
reward-processing centers develop more rapidly than cognitive control systems, making
adolescents more sensitive to rewards than to possible negative consequences. Despite these
generalizations, factors such as country of residence, gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation
shape development in ways that lead to diversity of experiences across adolescence.
Adolescent Development 10
Adolescent Development 11

Outside Resources

Podcasts: Society for Research on Adolescence website with links to podcasts on a variety
of topics, from autonomy-relatedness in adolescence, to the health ramifications of
growing up in the United States.
http://www.s-r-a.org/sra-news/podcasts

Study: The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) is a
longitudinal study of a nationally representative sample of adolescents in grades 7-12 in
the United States during the 1994-95 school year. Add Health combines data on
respondents’ social, economic, psychological and physical well-being with contextual data
on the family, neighborhood, community, school, friendships, peer groups, and romantic
relationships.
http://www.cpc.unc.edu/projects/addhealth

Video: This is a series of TED talks on topics from the mysterious workings of the adolescent
brain, to videos about surviving anxiety in adolescence.
http://tinyurl.com/lku4a3k

Web: UNICEF website on adolescents around the world. UNICEF provides videos and other
resources as part of an initiative to challenge common preconceptions about adolescence.
http://www.unicef.org/adolescence/index.html

Discussion Questions

1. What can parents do to promote their adolescents’ positive adjustment?

2. In what ways do changes in brain development and cognition make adolescents particularly
susceptible to peer influence?

3. How could interventions designed to prevent or reduce adolescents’ problem behavior be

developed to take advantage of what we know about adolescent development?

4. Reflecting on your own adolescence, provide examples of times when you think your
experience was different from those of your peers as a function of something unique about
you.

5. In what ways was your experience of adolescence different from your parents’ experience
of adolescence? How do you think adolescence may be different 20 years from now?
Adolescent Development 12

Vocabulary

Crowds
Adolescent peer groups characterized by shared reputations or images.

Deviant peer contagion

The spread of problem behaviors within groups of adolescents.

Differential susceptibility
Genetic factors that make individuals more or less responsive to environmental experiences.

Foreclosure
Individuals commit to an identity without exploration of options.

Homophily
Adolescents tend to associate with peers who are similar to themselves.

Identity achievement
Individuals have explored different options and then made commitments.

Identity diffusion
Adolescents neither explore nor commit to any roles or ideologies.

Moratorium
State in which adolescents are actively exploring options but have not yet made identity
commitments.

Psychological control
Parents’ manipulation of and intrusion into adolescents’ emotional and cognitive world
through invalidating adolescents’ feelings and pressuring them to think in particular ways.
Adolescent Development 13

References

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Barber, B. K. (1996). Parental psychological control: Revisiting a neglected construct. Child

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Belsky, J., & Pluess, M. (2009). Beyond diathesis-stress: Differential susceptibility to

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Brown, B. B., & Larson, J. (2009). Peer relationships in adolescence. In R. M. Lerner & L. Steinberg
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Connolly, J., Furman, W., & Konarski, R. (2000). The role of peers in the emergence of
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