Human Growth and Development - Adolescence age 12-18
Details of observation and stages of subject
Place:
Age: 13 years
Gender: Female
Developmental stage- Adolescent
Karen is moody, she strives to please her peers more than she desires to be with her mother and she is awakened to her sexuality.
Developmental stage description
The observed person (Karen) falls under the Fidelity stage based on Erikson’s Theory of Social Development. According to Erikson’s Theory, this is the identity versus role confusion stage that applies to adolescents aged 13 to 19 years (Grusec & Lytton, 2012). The existential question for this stage (adolescent stage) is mainly “Who Am I and What Can I be” (Modgil, et al., 2013). According to Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development on the other hand, the adolescent under observation falls under the formal operational stage, which according to Piaget, is the period between ages 11 to 20 years. This stage is characterized by the ability of a person to have deductive and hypothetical reasoning.
Observed behaviors
Karen was observed in the afternoon just before lunch time at 1400hrs for 35 minutes. Upon being called to eat from her room, where she was busy on her phone, she refuses to eat the laid out food and instead rushes outside. She yells at her mother in the process as she throws her hands in the air. Her peers are outside playing and she quickly ‘adjusts’ her jumpy emotions and makes sure her forlorn and bad moods are not to be noticed by the peers. She talks to her friends nicely despite the fact that she was evidently mad and livid with her mom minutes ago. Nothing major seems to have caused her huge upsets despite the fact that she was told to eat her lunch of whole grains. Among the peers outside are two boys who steal glances at her. This makes her edgy, and she looks down often.
Explanations of behavior and citations
Karen observed behaviors are in tandem with common documented adolescent behavior by behaviorists and psychologists. According to Erikson for instance, adolescence is characterized by an identity crisis as one transits from childhood to adulthood. This explains why Karen yells to her mom by merely being called for lunch. According to Ghimire & Pimbert, (2013) also, this behavior by Karen can be explained by the desire in adolescents to make their decisions as they discover themselves. The adolescent life is equally characterized by a desire to please peers’ as Brooks-Gunn & Peterson, (2013) opines. This explains Karen’s behavior as she storms outside livid, only to readjust herself to become acceptable to her peers. Her behavior with her peers is equally archetypical of adolescents since she is seen often staring down and shy as the boys glance at her. According to Grusec & Lytton, (2012) as adolescents experience morphological, hormonal and cognitive changes, they increasingly become sexually aware of themselves also and are often sensitive in this regard.
Discussion
References
Brooks-Gunn, J., & Peterson, A. C. (Eds.). (2013). Girls at puberty: Biological and psychosocial perspectives. Springer Science & Business Media.
Eichas, K., Meca, A., Montgomery, M. J., & Kurtines, W. M. (2014). 21 Identity and Positive Youth Development: Advances in Developmental Intervention Science. The Oxford handbook of identity development, 337.
Ghimire, K. B., & Pimbert, M. P. (2013). Social change and conservation (Vol. 16). Routledge.
Grusec, J. E., & Lytton, H. (2012). Social development: History, theory, and research. Springer Science & Business Media.
Modgil, S., Modgil, C., & Brown, G. (Eds.). (2013). Jean Piaget. Routledge.
