By the end of this chapter, students should be able to:
- Be familiar with the researcher who was the “Father of Adolescent Psychology”, and know what he meant by “sturm und drang”.
- Describe Arnold Gesell’s views on the causes of adolescent behavior.
- Explain Sigmund Freud’s stages of psychosexual development.
- Understand why Sigmund Freud believed that gender differences in behavior were inevitable.
- Be able to discuss the role of defense mechanisms in adolescent personality development.
- Outline Erik Erikson’s psychosocial view of personality development. Know his eight-stage theory.
- Be familiar with Piaget’s theory of cognitive development. This includes both knowing his stages and being able to describe the ways that children and adolescents learn.
- Describe how adolescent perspective-taking is superior to that of children using Robert Selman’s model of social role taking.
- Explain how Lev Vygotsky’s views of cognitive development differed from Piaget’s.
- Give examples of the roles of reward, punishment, and modeling in shaping adolescent behavior.
- Be familiar with Havighurst’s life tasks of adolescence.
- Describe how “field theory” explains why American adolescents are often confused and uncertain.
- Contrast the micro-, meso-, exo-, and macrosystems that comprise and adolescent’s world.
- Know how Ruth Benedict and Margaret Mead changed scientists’ views about adolescent development.
