Lecture 1 

Part 1 

10 risk behaviors 

1. Alcohol 

2. Delinquency 

3. Gambling 

4. Internet 

5. “extreme sports” 

6. Smoking 

7. School 

8. Unsafe sex 

9. Softdrugs 

10. Traffic 

• When being different becomes the norm: how microaggressions affect Dutch lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth. 

Who are adolescents? 

• Beginning: 10/11 years old children > you see differences in size and how old they look.  

• The end: physique that is like the adult level. So huge change in physical appearance, but also from being relatively immature to much more mature. 

Defining adolescents 

• The period between the onset of sexual maturation and the attainment of adult roles and responsibilities. 

• The transition from: 

• “child” status (requires adult monitoring) 

• To “adult” status (self-responsibility for behavior) 

Adolescents in action 1 

• Video ‘tieners reageren op Nederland verwelkomt Trump’ 

• The adolescents understand this form of comedy and can reflect on it and can see what other countries think.  

Part 2 

The health paradox of adolescence 

• Adolescence is the healthiest and most resilient period of the lifespan 

• From childhood to adolescence:  

• Increase strength, speed, mental reasoning, immune function 

• Resistance to cold, heat, hunger, dehydration, and most types of injury 

• Yet: overall morbidity and rates increase 200-300% from childhood to late adolescence 

Sources of morbidity and mortality in adolescence: 

• Primary causes of death/disability are related to problems of control of behavior and emotion. 

• Increased rates of accidents, suicides, homicides, depression, alcohol & substance use, violence, reckless behaviors, eating disorders, health problems related to risky sexual behaviors 

• Increased risk-taking, sensation-seeking, and erratic (emotionally influenced) behavior 

Recognized for a long time 

• Youth are heated by Nature as drunken men by wine – Aristotle 

• I would that there were no age between ten and twenty-three …. for there is nothing in between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry, stealing, fighting... - Shakespeare 

Scientific questions (Ronald Dahl) 

• What is the empirical evidence that adolescents are heated by Nature? 

• Are these changes based in biology? 

• In the hormones of puberty? 

• In specific brain changes that underpin some behavioral and emotional tendencies & problems that emerge in adolescence? 

• What are the implications for interventions? Should we intervene? 

If we don't intervene 

• Onset of problems such as nicotine dependence, alcohol and drug use, poor health habits, etc. Will show up as mortality in adulthood. 

• Many adult onset problems such as depression can be traced to early episodes in adolescence. 

The father

Lecture 3  

Part 1 – adolescent cognitive development 

• Conditional reasoning/propositional logic: Classic Modus Ponens (MP) inference: if p then q 

What is cognition? 

• Cognition: aspects of mind related to the acquisition, modification, and manipulation of knowledge in particular contexts 

• Cognitive development: changes in how an individual thinks, solves problems, and changes in memory, attention and information processing 

• Two perspectives in text: Piagetian and Information Processing 

• Piagetian perspective: focuses on what are the changes that we see all people go to 

• Information processing perspective: how do we process information? How does this change across time? Based on individual differences.  

Textbook: adolescent thinking compared to children differ in (at least) 5 ways 

1. Better at thinking about what is possible 

1. Children: focus on here and now 

2. Better at thinking about what is abstract 

3. More often think about the process of thinking – able to think about how they think about things (metacognition) 

4. Thinking is multidimensional (what persons say, how they say it and what they mean) 

5. Able to see things as relative rather than absolute (not black - white) 

Cognitive development during adolescence: a Piagetian perspective 

• Jean Piaget (1896-1980) Swiss cognitive psychologist 

• Stage Theory of Cognitive Development (individuals in different stages think differently) 

• How thinking changes in varies stages of adolescence. Piaget believed that children were active instructors of their knowledge (not only teachers/parents).  

Cognitive development during adolescence: a Piagetian perspective 

• Formal operations – final stage of cognitive development 

• Concrete: discuss world as it is 

• Formal: as it might be/become 

• Increase in ability for abstraction/abstract thought, speculation about the future 

• --> Allows an individual to place their lives in a personal and societal perspective 

• Needed to: achieve identity, form goals, select an occupation 

Adolescent cognitive abilities 

• Understand impact of: past on present, present on future 

• How one thing relates to another 

• Greater capacity to evaluate immediate and long-range costs and benefits 

• World as might be, ought to be 

Formal operations: 4 overlapping

Lecture 5 Self and Identity 

Part 1 - Introduction  

Video: what kind of elements of identity do you recognize? 

• Everybody wears a mask 

• Insecurity, focus on others 

• Different faces > multiple identities 

• Showing her true face > search for autonomous identity: being yourself 

• Social/peer identities, peer groups 

Why is identity an adolescent issue? 

• Biological changes 

• Puberty 

• Appearance 

• Changes on the outside have an impact on how one perceives oneself.  

• Cognitive changes 

• More self-conscious 

• Develop a future orientation 

• Imagine themselves from the outside, different time, able to consider different types of identities that they may want to adopt. 

• Social changes 

• Norms and values 

• Social choices 

• Educational choices 

• What is important for them?  

Identity 

• Who am I? 

• Personal identity: who am I in terms of sense of self 

• Central is the process of figuring out who one is 

• Social identity: who am I in terms of group memberships 

• Identifying with social group 

• Central is one's sense of belonging to social groups 

• These identities may influence ones believes about oneself > self-concept 

• Mental image that one has about oneself 

• Views about oneself, including: 

• Values 

• Attributes 

• Goals 

• Self-esteem 

• Competence 

• Self-concept clarity (consistent self-concept) 

• Identity + self-concept > the self (the totality of me) 

Part 2 – personal identity 

Erikson's identity development 

• Adolescence = psychosocial moratorium 

• Time gap between childhood security and adult autonomy 

• Adolescents experiment with numerous roles and identities 

• Sense of insecurity: what is the future? What am I going to do? 

• Crisis in adolescence 

• Identity diffusion versus achievement 

• Identity diffusion: failure to form a stable and secure identity 

• Identity achievement: establishing a clear and definite sense of who you are and how you fit into the world around you 

• Erikson: achievement by end of adolescence 

• Characteristics that can help you to achieve identity achievement: 

• Mental and emotional capacity (so, not possible before end of adolescence) 

• Interactions with others (others serve as a mirror) 

• Exploration (trying out possibilities, only possible in environment that gives you the opportunity to explore) 

• Commitment (making choices among alternatives. Making decisions: who are you?) 

Marcia's 4 stages model (extension of Eriksons model) 

• 4 markers: commitment vs crisis/exploration 

• Absent/present  

Lecture 7 Peers 

Book ‘The nurture assumption’: peers play a big role in development of youth (instead of (only) the parents) 

Part 1 - Importance of peers across adolescence 

• Higher in needs fulfillment when you fulfilled the lower needs (survival needs) > belongingness and love needs and esteem needs. These are psychological needs.  

• Importance also visible in the brain: social relationships. Example: exclusion from playing a game: social pain when excluded (analogous in its neurocognitive function to physical pain).  

Peers become more central in adolescence 

• Time spent with family decreases 

• Time spent with peers increases 

Peers compared to parents in adolescence 

• Differences between the two relationships 

• Parents = vertical (parents are more powerful), peers = horizontal relationship 

• Being equal in experiences, characteristics etc. 

• Shift from parents to friends as main source of support and happiness 

• Discuss with friends for romantic issues, emotional issues; 

• Discuss with parents for career/education issues; 

• Thus: relationships are different and friends become more important 

Peers vs friends 

• Peers 

• Large network of same-age peers 

• Friends 

• People you know, like and with whom you develop a valued, mutual relationship (broad definition) 

• More specifically: 

• Mutual liking 

• Emotional closeness 

• Loyalty 

• Reciprocal validation of self-worth 

• General support 

• Time spent together 

• Childhood vs adolescence 

• From shared activities (childhood) to intimacy: trust, loyalty, self-disclosure > relying on each other 

• Why? It requires a certain role-play: perspective-taking, keep their own views and other's views in mind at the same time (that's complex to do) 

• Social competences therefore increasingly important (conflict management, perspective-taking etc.)  

• From same-sex to mixed-sex 

• And “friends with benefits” 

• From dyads (2) and small groups (3-4) to cliques (5-6) or larger crowds (these are larger to contain) 

• “Subcultures” used to form identity > understand who you are 

Selection vs influence 

• Friends are often similar to each other 

• Is this due to selection or influence? 

• Research:  

• On the one hand: due to selection. Principles of interpersonal attraction: 

• Proximity (being close by) 

• Homophily/similarity (in values, interests, characteristics) 

• Adolescents: orientation toward school, leisure activity, SES, ethnicity (perhaps due to attitudes/prejudice) 

• Reciprocity 

• So: selection plays a role > “birds of a feather flock together” 

• But, parents also play a role in this selection process 

• Expressing disapproval 

• Type of school 

• Neighborhood 

• Extra-curricular activities 

• Adolescent personality & behavior 

Lecture 9 Media use 

• Adolescents are heavy users of media.  

• How does this media use impact the development? (2) 

• How does adolescent development influence media use? (1) 

Moderate discrepancy hypothesis (MDH) 

• Children and adolescents are predominantly attracted to entertainment that deviates only moderately from the things they know, understand, and are capable of.  

• Children and adolescents are not or less interested in entertainment that deviates too much from their existing framework and experiences.  

• Developmental approach: Hypothesis is a viable explanation of why media preferences differ so much among different age groups. As children develop, they learn and understand more, so what attracts them in media also changes.  

• Children and adolescents like to be challenged, but not too much. It has to relate to the things they know.  

• Media can be used to gratify certain needs. Individuals select media to gratify needs that they have (e.g., needs to lift your mood (> choose a happy song)) 

• Needs are determined by developmental level 

• Depends on different situational and individual factors, including development 

Five main developmental characteristics that inform needs and gratifications 

1. Identity exploration  

2. Autonomy and self-efficacy  

3. Peer orientation (and romantic partners) 

4. Emotionality and sensation seeking 

Physical development (hormonal changes) 

• Changes in appearance 

• Interest in sex (curious and questions) 

• Impact on mood (moody, fluctuations in mood) 

Link to media 

• Needs in media preferences  

• Adolescents have a need for information: insecure about bodies, interest in sex > what should a body look like? What is attractive? 

• Media can used to seek advice about these topics 

• Risky consequence: e.g., boys asking girls for nude selfies, difficult to oversee the consequences  

Physical development 

• Pruning: decline grey matter > more efficient processing 

• Cell bodies and synapses  

• ‘Use it or lose it’ 

• Explains why after this process of pruning, it becomes much harder to learn new things 

Cognitive development 

• Formal operational thinking: logical, abstract hypothetical, problem-solving, interest in future 

• Only completely in place at the end of adolescence  

• Adolescents will switch between concrete and formal operational thinking 

• Disadvantages:  

• Egocentrism is on overdrive. They imagine this audience: what would other people think about what I’m doing? 

• This all has implications for media use 

Media implications 

• More complexity in story lines  

• More complex characters  

• Topic that deal with big world issues > war movies, science fiction 

• Fast-pace media which stimulates problem-solving skills 

• Multiple levels: not easily get bored 

Lecture 11 Alcohol use and delinquency 

Intro  

Under the influence of alcohol, youth are at higher risk to be involved in aggressive behavior and violent behaviors.  

Part 1 – alcohol use and delinquency 

Do the Dutch drink? 

• Underage drinking 

• 13 years old > monthly drinking = 8.8% 

• 15 year old drinkers > binge drinking = 70.8% 

Are they delinquent? 

• Self-reported criminal behavior (at least one delinquent act in the last 12 months): 

• 12-17 year 

• 2010: 38% 

• 2015: 35% 

• 10/11 year old 

• 2010/2015: 20% 

• Most prevalent delinquent acts:  

• Violence acts 

• Threatening 

• Vandalism 

• Registered minor suspects: 

• 50% fewer registered minor suspects in 10 year 

Part 2 – Similarities and differences between alcohol use and delinquency 

Shared similarities 

• Interrelated 

• Correlated and co-occurrence 

• Table: number of offenses and prevalence rate of different drinking behaviors. Those adolescents who were not involved in any offense, half of them had drunk alcohol at least once in their life. Number of kids that had been involved in lifetime drinking, increases in amount of offenses 

• Longitudinal predictions: most studies find no predictive effect of alcohol use on delinquency, whereas delinquency mostly is a significant predictor of alcohol use 

• Peak in adolescence 

• Predictor of other risk behaviors (e.g., drug use, risky sex) 

• Shared underlying mechanisms (e.g., self-control, peers) 

• Importance of parental control and warmth 

• Decline in recent years 

• decline started from 2006/2007 onwards 

• Registered minor suspects: also a decline starting from 2006/2007 

• What is going on there? 

Differences 

• Development 

• Alcohol use: increases up to at least 25 years 

• Delinquency: decline 18 year onwards 

• Across gender 

• Alcohol use: hardly any differences between boys and girls 

• Delinquency: boys are more likely to be involved in delinquent behavior than girls 

• Representation ethnic minorities 

• Alcohol use: less likely to drink 

• Delinquency: more likely to be involved 

• Behavior-specific vs general parenting 

• Age restriction 

• Alcohol-specific rules/communication 

• Delinquency: general parenting 

• No age restriction 

• Level of control and support are important in both parenting behaviors 

• Four different parenting styles 

• Neglectful: these kids are most likely to drink and engage in risky behaviors 

• Balance between control and support – alcohol use 

• Most of the parents in authoritative/average authoritative group 

Lecture 12a suicide and related problems in adolescence 

Suicide in the Netherlands 

• 1% of all deaths 

• Males commit suicide 2 times more than females 

• Cause of death of young people in NL 

• 10-25 years 

• Traffic accidents 

• Suicide 

• 25-40 years 

• Suicide 

• 40-60 years 

• Health related causes 

• Suicide 

• Methods of suicide 

• men: violent method: 50% hanging, 1 in 9 jump in front of train (more often among youth) 

• Women: less violent: 33% hanging, 25% medication overdose, 1 in 9 jump in front of train (more often in youth) 

Leading cause of death US youth 

• Second cause of death 

• Also a high homicide rate 

• Across various ages: 

• Suiciding is the leading cause of death among individuals between 1 and 65 years of age 

• Suicide methods US: children and others 

• Availability of guns > firearms is the leading methods, then suffocation/hanging, ingestion, CO poisoning, jumping from a height, cutting, other causes 

Suicide rates by race/ethnicity 

• Males are more likely to attempt suicide 

• Rural areas 

Frequency of suicidal ideation and attempts 

• Thinking of suicide > ideation > attempt > suicide 

• Once one attempts suicide, they are more likely to do it again (15-fold) 

• Most common diagnoses in teen suicides: 

• Depression 

• Antisocial 

• Substance abuse 

• Anxiety 

• Despite the high rates of depression, among those who commit suicide, 24% who have completed suicide, were prescribed antidepressants, but zero found at autopsy: lack of using antidepressants > increases changes of suicide 

• Why do males complete more suicides than females, even though females are more likely to attempt suicide? 

• Gender paradox of suicidal behavior: 

• Areas with lower prescription rates (antidepressants), the rates of suicide are higher 

• If males are not going into doctors to get treatment, then this could be a potential explanation for why we see more suicides completions among males 

Factors that predispose to suicide 

• Personal characteristics 

• Psychopathology 

• History of prior suicide attempt 

• Cognitive and personality (hopelessness & poor interpersonal problem-solving) 

• Homosexuality 

• Biological factors 

• Family characteristics 

• Family history of suicidal behavior 

• Higher rates of parental psychopathology 

• Non-intact families 

• Impaired parent-child relationships 

• Adverse life circumstances 

• Stressful life events 

• Childhood physical abuse 

• Sexual abuse 

• Contextual factors