WEEK 7 Flashcards
Adolescence (40 cards)
Two classes of sex hormones…
Oestrogens (Oestradiol)
Androgens (Testosterone)
Difference in sex hormone production, male and female…
-Oestradiol and testosterone are produced in both males and females, and throughout childhood the levels of these hormones are about the same in boys and girls However, once puberty begins, the balance changes dramatically
-By the mid-teens, oestradiol production is about 8 times as high in females as it was before puberty, but only about twice as high in males
-In contrast, testosterone production in males is about 20 times as high by the mid-teens as it was before puberty, but in females it is only about 4 times as high
Primary sex characteristics…
directly related to reproduction: specifically, the production of ova (eggs) in females and sperm in males.
Secondary sex characteristics…
heother bodily changes resulting from the rise in sex hormones during puberty, not including the changes related directly to reproduction.
Menarche…
a female’s first menstrual period
-Once a girl reaches menarche and begins having menstrual cycles, one egg develops into a mature egg, or ovum, every 28 days or so. Females release about 400 ova in the course of their reproductive lives.
-evidence for the influence of technologies on pubertal timing comes from historical records showing a steady decrease in the average age of menarche in Western countries from the mid-19th to the late-20th century,
-This downwards pattern in the age of menarche, known as a secular trend, has occurred in every Western country for which records exist
-The average age of menarche is lowest in developed countries (currently about 12.5 years old), where adequacy of nutrition and medical care is highest
Spermarche…
-a male’s first ejaculation
-here are between 100 and 300 million sperm in the typical male ejaculation, which means that the average male produces millions of sperm every day
Overproduction in adolescence…
-a sharp increase in synaptic connections
-aka exuberance
-Earlier studies had shown that overproduction occurs during prenatal development and through the first 3 years of life, but now it turns out that overproduction occurs in early adolescence as well, and continues throughout the 20’s
-Overproduction of synaptic connections occurs in many parts of the brain during adolescence but is especially concentrated in the frontal lobes. The frontal lobes are involved in most of the higher functions of the brain, such as planning ahead, solving problems and making moral judgments.
Synaptic pruning in adolescence…
- Overproduction peaks at about age 11 or 12, but obviously that is not when our cognitive abilities peak. In the years that follow, a massive amount of synaptic pruning takes place in which the overproduction of synapses is whittled down considerably—synapses that are used remain, whereas those that are not used wither away
-between the ages of 12 and 20, the average brain loses 7–10% of its volume through synaptic pruning
- Synaptic pruning allows the brain to work more efficiently, as brain pathways become more specialised. However, as the brain specialises in this way it also becomes less flexible and less amenable to change.
Myelination in adolescence…
-Myelin is a blanket of fat wrapped around the main part of the neuron, and it serves the function of keeping the brain’s electrical signals on one path and increases their speed
-Like overproduction, myelination was previously thought to be finished prior to puberty but has now been found to continue through the teens
-this is another indication of how brain functioning is becoming faster and more efficient during adolescence. However, like synaptic pruning, myelination also makes brain functioning less flexible and changeable.
Cerebellum development in adolescence…
the cerebellum continues to grow through adolescence and well into emerging adulthood, suggesting that the potential for functions such as mathematics, music, decision making, and even social skills and understanding humour to grow
-it is the last structure of the brain to stop growing, not completing its phase of overproduction and pruning until the mid-20s
Fun development fact…
Higher birthweight= early development.
why Pacific Islanders develop early
-study found that household structure has an impact on pubertal timing, with those not living with their biological father developing earlier; this effect is possibly due to increased stress hormones that could initiate earlier development
Anorexia facts…
-10% chance of dying due to starvation or physical problems caused by weight loss- one of the highest mortality rates of any psychiatric disorder
Classify adolescent substance use into four categories…
-Experimental: try a substance once, or perhaps a few times, out of curiosity and then do not use it again
-Social: involves the use of substances during social activities with one or more friends
-Medicinal: undertaken to relieve an unpleasant emotional state such as sadness, anxiety, stress or loneliness. Young people who use substances for self-medication tend to use them more frequently than those whose purposes are mainly social or experimental
-Addictive: involves the most regular and frequent substance use of the four categories described here.
List the physical changes that begin puberty and summarise the surprising changes in brain development during adolescence.
-Increases in sex hormones lead to the development of primary and secondary sex characteristics.
-Recent findings in brain research show that the adolescent brain develops in some surprising ways, including a burst of overproduction (followed by synaptic pruning) and increased myelination.
Describe the normative timing of pubertal events, cultural variations and how being early or late influences emotional and social development…
The timing of pubertal events is determined partly by genes, but puberty generally begins earlier in cultures with adequate nutrition and medical care.
-Early-maturing girls are at risk for a wide variety of problems, in part because they draw the attention of older boys.
Formal operations (Piaget)…
-begins at about age 11 and reaches completion somewhere between ages 15 and 20
-Children in concrete operations can perform simple tasks that require logical and systematic thinking, but formal operations allows adolescents to reason about complex tasks and problems involving multiple variables.
-It also includes the development of abstract thinking, which allows adolescents to think about abstract ideas such as justice and time and gives them the ability to imagine a wide range of possible solutions to a problem, even if they have had no direct experience with the problem.
Hypothetical-deductive reasoning…
the ability to think scientifically and apply the rigor of the scientific method to cognitive tasks
Pendulum Problem
-In this task, children and adolescents are shown a pendulum children and asked to try to figure out what determines the speed at which the pendulum sways from side to side. Is it the heaviness of the weight? The length of the string? The height from which the weight is dropped? The force with which it is dropped?
-They are given various weights and various lengths of string to use in their deliberations
Pendulum problem (Concrete operations)…
-Children in concrete operations tend to approach the problem with random attempts, often changing more than one variable at a time. They may try the heaviest weight on the longest string dropped from medium height with medium force, then a medium weight on the smallest string dropped from medium height with less force.
-When the speed of the pendulum changes, it remains difficult for them to say what caused the change because they altered more than one variable at a time. If they happen to arrive at the right answer—it is the length of the string—they find it difficult to explain why.
-This is crucial, for Piaget. Cognitive advances at each stage are reflected not just in the answers children devise for problems, but also in their explanations for how they arrived at the solution.
Pendulum problem (Formal operations)…
-with formal operations we become able to find the right answer to a problem like this and to understand and explain why it is the right answer.
-The formal operational thinker approaches the pendulum problem by utilising the kind of hypothetical thinking involved in a scientific experiment. ‘Let’s see, it could be weight; let me try changing the weight while keeping everything else the same. No, that’s not it; same speed. Maybe it’s length; if I change the length while keeping everything else the same, that seems to make a difference; it goes faster with a shorter string. But let me try height too; no change; then force; no change there, either. So it’s length, and only length, that makes the difference.’
-Thus, the formal operational thinker changes one variable while holding the others constant and tests the different possibilities systematically. Through this process, the formal operational thinker arrives at an answer that not only is correct, but can also be defended and explained.
Metacognition…
the capacity to think about thinking. This advance includes the ability to think about not only your own thoughts, but also the thoughts of others. Adolescents are generally better at metacognition than younger children are
Personal fable…
belief in the uniqueness of their personal experiences and their personal destiny
Explain the features of hypothetical-deductive reasoning and identify critiques of Piaget’s theory of formal operations…
-Hypothetical-deductive reasoning entails the ability to test solutions to a problem systematically, altering one variable while holding the others constant
-Piaget proposed that when adolescents reach formal operations they use it for all cognitive activities; however, research has shown that both adolescents and adults use of formal operations is limited.
-Piaget also proposed that formal operations is a universal stage of cognitive development, but its prevalence and use vary considerably.
Summarise the major changes in attention and memory that take place from middle childhood to adolescence…
Information processing abilities improve in adolescence, with the notable additions of selective attention, divided attention and use of mnemonic devices.
