Lifespan Development and Personality Paper Essay

Adolescence, besides cognize as teenage years is a time of dramatic change. This microscope dot of life marks a evolutional period that follows fryhood and comes forwards adulthood. Adolescence is wetly associated with puberty, which is also considered as a trainingal milest wizard, particularly in the western countries. Puberty refers to the period of adolescence when a person becomes capable of echo (Carpenter, S. & group A Huffman, K., 2008). In this paper, I exit discuss the various factors that run into the physical, cognitive, social, moral, and personality victimization of teenagers.Adolescence is a time of quick physical harvest-festival which is illustrated by the drastic growth spurt in the height, weight and impecunious muscles. In this phase, rapid development of try outs, scrotim and penis develops in adolescent boys whereas development of ovaries, uterus, and vagina occurs in adolescent girls. I believe some of the factors that lead to this rapid phy sical development give the gate be held responsible to both communicable and environsal influences. Hereditary influences be 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 jump ons. Such influences are also referred to as nurture.Genetics hearten an important role in the physical development of an adolescent. For instance, if the parents of a minor are extremely hairy, because there is a high fortune that the child will also become hairy earlier in life. Also, if both the parents are tall, past 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 instance, one of the Asian countries requires girls to intermit metal bands around their necks from early age so that when they get into the puberty years, they can develop long and slender necks. This is so because it is considered beautiful in their culture for girls to mother 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 developed a scheme of cognitive development which emphasize on the quadruple poses that children must go through. The four stages of Piagets stages of cognitive development are as follows sensorimotor, preoperating(a), concrete usable, and ceremonious operational stage. Since the concentre of this paper is adolescence, I would discuss the formal operational stage in depth as it is developed in age s of 11 and up. Formal Operational stage can be characterized by kidnap thinking, logical thought and hypothetical 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 force 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 differentiate amongst what they are thinking and what others are thinking. This egocentric thought may 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 environmental influences. In monetary value 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 elated and a healthy environment where parents practice an authoritative parenting style then the child is more likely to reach the formal operational stage earlier and successfully in the adolescence years. Also, such an authoritative style of parenting facilitates serious decision making in children. In other words, when given a choice among healthy and unhealthy behaviors such as having unsafe sex, driving trying with drugs and alcohol these children are less likely to take such decisions and act on it. This is because they have attained the formal operational stage and hence, gained the ability to think abstractly, hypothetically and logically about their decisions.Social development is studied by reflecting on the significance of attachment in ones life. striplings function to develop strong attachments with people who are not their primeval caregivers, particularly peers, teachers, social clubs, sports clubs and so on. Adolescence is a time when individualistics 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, intimate relationships and experiment with sexuality. The factor that affects social development is attachment. Vast amount of research has been through with(p) on the relationship between the type of attachment style form in the younger years and the relationships formed later in the adolescent and adult lif e.Researchers found that an average, adolescents perceptions of the quality of the parent-child relationship declined consistently and moderately between age 11 and age 14. Furthermore, conflicts with parents profitd and this was particularly true for girls than boys (McGue et. al, 2005). morality can be explained as the ability to differentiate between ripe and wrong. Moral development also begins to develop in the adolescent years. Kohlberg, one of the most influential researchers in psychology has developed a dumbfound of moral development. His stages of development include Pre-conventional train, Conventional take and Post- conventional 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 salute 3, the primary moral concern is with being nice and gaining approval. In stage 4, the individual take s into account a larger perspective-societal laws. Stage 4 individuals understand that if everyone violate laws, even with good intentions, there would be chaos. Thus, doing ones affair 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 theory 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 inter-group communication 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 thos e individuals who do not overcome the identity crisis do not form a stable 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 stupendous Five personality trait model and found that agreeableness and horny 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 subsequently childhood. In this stage of development, a drastic growth spurts in height, weight, and drawn 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 this 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 genius 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