Adolescent and Adult Development Theories

Question 1: The relationship between parents and their adolescent children changes during the period of adolescence. Describe some aspects of adolescent physical, cognitive, and social development that parents might benefit from knowing about. Explain also how you think parents could put this knowledge to use in dealing with their children.

In response to the physical changes occurring in their bodies, adolescents often develop a preoccupation with physical attractiveness marked by concern and worry that they aren't meeting cultural standards of masculine or feminine beauty. Parents tend to dismiss this preoccupation, but they would benefit by understanding that the judgments their teens make about their physical image can have long-lasting effects on their self-esteem, effects that may not disappear until the mid-forties.

Parents could put this knowledge to work by discussing physical changes and their teens' reactions to these changes, using the discussions as a means to boost adolescents' self-esteem. Both physical changes and experience with the world (inner and outer agents) operate to bring about cognitive maturity.

If one of these agents is deficient in some way, levels of reasoning marked by abstract thought, and problem-solving skills may never develop. However, even when the highest levels of cognitive functioning are reached by teens, their actual thoughts themselves can remain immature due to the egocentrism that is characteristic of this period in the

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I would give to a person of 60 who is concerned with "not falling behind," would be to maintain (and perhaps even improve) his intellectual functioning by engaging in activities that exercise his mental faculties. These activities might include reading, discussing interesting and timely topics, playing complex board games, going back to school, and so forth. Question 3: Evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of at least two current theories of adult development and describe how each could be improved. Two theories of adult development are: (1) Activity Theory and (2) Disengagement Theory. Activity theory states that the more people are actively involved and engaged in life, the more successfully they age. A problem with the Activity Theory view is the assumption that life's major satisfaction comes from an individual's various roles when there are clearly several other sources of satisfaction that the theory does not address. For example, internal qualities such as self-esteem, love of others, spirituality, etc. can serve as genuine sources of satisfaction. Also, empirical studies have not shown there to be much of a relationship between activities and satisfaction. Disengagement theory holds that aging is a normal and n

Category: Psychology - A