Lifespan Development and Personality Paper Essay

Adolescence, similarly known as teenage years is a duration of dramatic change. This chassis of life marks a tuitional period that follows childhood and comes before adulthood. Adolescence is dummy uply associated with puberty, which is also considered as a climbmental milest one and lone(prenominal)(a), particularly in the western countries. Puberty refers to the period of adolescence when a person becomes capable of reproduction (Carpenter, S. & Huffman, K., 2008). In this paper, I will reason the various factors that affect the physical, cognitive, social, moral, and personality study of girlishs.Adolescence is a time of quick physical growth which is illustrated by the drastic growth spurt in the height, weight and pointless muscles. In this phase, rapid development of tests, scrotim and penis develops in adolescent boys whereas development of ovaries, uterus, and vagina occurs in adolescent girls. I believe around of the factors that lead to this rapid physical deve lopment brush aside be held credi twainrthy to both(prenominal) hereditary and environsal sees. Hereditary influences ar also referred to as inherited qualities which are passed on from the parents to the offspring. Therefore, these are also known as nature influences. On the contrary, environmental influences are those experiences that one gets from their surrounding environment as one grows and progresss. Such influences are also referred to as cite.Genetics play an important role in the physical development of an adolescent. For instance, if the parents of a child are extremely downy, then there is a high prob great power that the child will also become hairy earlier in life. Also, if both the parents are tall, then there is a high probability that the child will also become taller in their puberty years. Moreover, environment also plays a major role in ones physical development. Environment encompasses family surroundings, media influences, culture and so on. For instanc e, one of the Asian countries requires girls to wear metal bands around their necks from early age so that when they get into the puberty years, they git develop long and slender necks. This is so because it is considered beautiful in their culture for girls to have long and slender necks it is a part of their culture. In addition, environmental and cultural factors such as television, internet, and media amongst others can play a major role to influence development in adolescence.Adolescence is also a time of changes occurring in the development of cognition. Piaget veritable a possibility of cognitive development which emphasize on the four wooden legs that children mustiness go through. The four stages of Piagets stages of cognitive development are as follows sensorimotor, pre operative, concrete useable, and formal operational stage. Since the focus of this paper is adolescence, I would treat the formal operational stage in depth as it is developed in ages of 11 and up. F ormal Operational stage can be characterized by abstract thinking, logical thought and theoretical reasoning. In Piagets Formal operational stage, the children acquire the ability to think abstractly and hypothetically. In other words, children can ask themselves what if type of hypothetical questions, which further illustrates their ability to create and test concepts. In addition, Formal operational thinking also allows the adolescent to construct a well-reasoned argument based on hypothetical concepts and logical processes (Carpenter & Huffman, 2008).In addition to attaining the ability to think abstractly, children in this phase have very egocentric way of thinking. In other words, they cannot name between what they are thinking and what others are thinking. This egocentric thought whitethorn be characterized into two ways personal fable and imaginative audience. The factors that influence cognitive development in adolescents can be held responsible to both genetics and enviro nmental influences. In impairment of hereditary influences, if either of the two parents (biological) of the child is suffering from mental health disorder such as schizophrenia, then it is very likely that the offspring will also develop this disorder. Hence, this will in turn disrupt the development of cognitive processes such as formal operational stage in the child.Moreover, environment can also play a vital role in the cognitive development of an adolescent. For instance, if a child has grown up in a happy and a healthy environment where parents practice an authoritative parenting title then the child is more likely to reach the formal operational stage earlier and successfully in the adolescence years. Also, such an authoritative agency of parenting facilitates good decision making in children. In other words, when prone a choice between healthy and unhealthy behaviors such as having unprotected sex, driving experimenting with drugs and alcohol these children are less like ly to reside such decisions and act on it. This is because they haveattained the formal operational stage and hence, gained the ability to think abstractly, hypothetically and logically about their decisions. loving development is studied by reflecting on the significance of attachment in ones life. Adolescents tend to develop strong attachments with people who are not their primary caregivers, particularly peers, teachers, social clubs, sports clubs and so on. Adolescence is a time when individuals tend to spend more time with peers than the primary caregivers. Not only that, adolescence is also a time when children group together to form cliques, inner(a) relationships and experiment with sexuality. The factor that affects social development is attachment. Vast amount of enquiry has been done on the relationship between the type of attachment sprint formed in the younger years and the relationships formed later in the adolescent and adult life.Researchers found that an average, adolescents perceptions of the quality of the parent-child relationship declined consistently and passably between age 11 and age 14. Furthermore, conflicts with parents join ond and this was particularly professedly for girls than boys (McGue et. al, 2005).Morality can be explained as the ability to differentiate between right and wrong. Moral development also begins to develop in the adolescent years. Kohlberg, one of the most influential researchers in psychology has developed a model of moral development. His stages of development include Pre- effected level, stuffy level and Post- unoriginal level. Since the focus of our paper is on adolescence, I will investigate conventional level in detail as it is developed in this age. Conventional level consist of stage 3 (good child orientation) and 4(law-and-order orientation).In head 3, the primary moral concern is with being nice and gaining approval. In stage 4, the individual takes into account a larger perspective-societal l aws. exhibit 4 individuals show that if everyone violated laws, even with good intentions, there would be chaos. Thus, insideng ones duty and respecting law and order are highly valued (Carpenter, S. &Huffman, K., 2008). spirit development is studied mainly with Eriksons Psychosocial Theory of development. Eriksons system consists of eight stages of psychosocial development these theories are in the following orderStage 1 Trust vs. MistrustStage 2 Autonomy vs. Shame and DoubtStage 3 maiden vs. GuiltStage 4 Industry vs. InferiorityStage 5 Identity vs. Confusion (Adolescence ages 12-20)Stage 6 conversance vs. IsolationStage 7 Generativity vs. StagnationStage 8 Integrity vs. DespairThe stage 5 of Eriksons theory reflects the adolescence period. Erikson claims that during this period, the individual questions and searches for their own identity and their role in society. Furthermore, he mentioned that those individuals who do not overcome the identity crisis do not form a st able identity, indulge into delinquent acts and behaviors, and have difficulty in forming and maintaining close relationships in life.Klimstra et. al (2009) examined adolescent personality maturation on the overlarge Five personality trait model and found that agreeableness and worked up Stability increased during adolescence. In addition, mixed evidence was found for the increase in traits such as Extraversion and Openness. Furthermore, it was found that in terms of gender differences in the timing of adolescent personality maturation, girls tend to mature earlier than boys.Adolescence is a stage of development which occurs before adulthood and by and by childhood. In this stage of development, a drastic growth spurts in height, weight, and skeletal muscles. This paper mainly focused on the various aspects of the human development in adolescence. The various factors affecting physical, cognitive, social, moral, and personality development of adolescents were also discussed in thi s paper.ReferencesCarpenter, S. & Huffman, K. (2008). Visualizing Psychology. Hoboken, NJ Wiley.Klimstra, T., Hale, W., Raaijmakers, Q., Branje, S., & Meeus, W. (2009, April). Maturation of personality in adolescence.Journal of Personality andSocial Psychology, 96(4), 898-912. Retrieved April 19, 2009, doi10.1037/a0014746McGue, M., Elkins, I., Walden, B., & Iacono, W. (2005, November). Perceptions of the Parent-Adolescent Relationship A Longitudinal Investigation. Developmental Psychology, 41(6), 971-984. Retrieved April 19, 2009, doi10.1037/0012-1649.41.6.971