Social changes and development in adolescence

Social changes and development in adolescence

Social animal. He is born in a society and he develops works and progresses in the society. Social development is very essential for proper adjustment in the society. In adolescence the child enters quite a new field of social responsibilities. The adolescence becomes self-conscious of his place in the society. In these circumstances, the major social changes that normally occur in adolescents are as follows:

i) Increased peer-group influence: with the advancing age, the child remains most of the time with his friends. The friends and type of peer-group the adolescent joins, shape his behavior, speech and interests than the family does. If members of the peer-group experiment with alcohol, drugs, or tobacco, adolescents are likely to do the same.

ii) Changes in social behavior: the most marked and important social change in adolescents is radical shift form disliking members of the opposite sex to preferring their companionship. Besides these, the adolescents make friendship with those who conform to their standard and do not tolerate the interference of parents and other members in selecting friends.

iii) There is an increasing interest to attend parties, fairs, and celebrations where members of both sexes meet.

iv) Adolescents take interest in taking up various types of problems.

v) Achievements whether in sports, school work, or social activities bring personal satisfaction in the adolescents.

vi) A strong desire for independence develops in adolescence. This leads to many clashes with parents and other adult in authority.

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Physical changes and development in adolescence

Physical changes and development in adolescence

In adolescence marked external and internal physical changes takes places which have significant behavioral implications.

i) Changes in height: Almost all boys and girls show a spurt in growth during adolescence.

ii) Changes in weight: It is similar to that for height changes.

iii) Changes in bodily proportion: Different parts of the body grow at different rates and attains their maximum development at different times. Thus, the various parts of the body gradually comes into proportion.

iv) Changes of voice: voice of boys becomes hoarse and girls voice becomes sweet during adolescence.

v) Sex organs: Both male and female sex organs reach their mature size in late adolescence.

vi) Secondary sex characteristics: Secondary sex characteristics, such as the growth of breast, widening of the pelvis, pubic hair, hair in arm pit and menstruation can be observed in the girls, whereas in the case of boys hair appear on upper limbs, beard, public hair and hairs in arm-pit, etc. develop during adolescence.

vii) Physiological changes: The internal system of the body acquire their full growth. In fact, all these physical changes make the adolescence self conscious.

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Mental changes and development in adolescence

Mental changes and development in adolescence

Mental changes and development during adolescence accelerates on many intellectual fronts. The mental development or changes in adolescence are characterized as under:

i) Ability to generalize the facts: Children usually generalize in relation to concrete objects, whereas adolescence can generalize in an abstract way.

ii) Increased ability to understanding: There is an increase in the ability to see relationship and to think the solution of more difficult problems.

iii) Development of memory and imagination: With the maturity of nervous system the memory power of adolescent increases. Besides this, they can imagine about a situation which is not physically present.

In spite of these changes, the ability to communication with other persons, moral concepts, decisions making and identification with conditions also develop significantly.

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Emotional changes and development in adolescence

Emotional changes and development in adolescence

Basically human beings are creatures of feeling or emotion. Our emotion controls our behavior. Adolescence is marked by heightened emotionality, therefore it has been thought of as a period of storm and stress. In fact adolescent boys and girls come under social pressure and face new conditions. The major emotional changes normally occur are as under:

i) Toleration of loneliness: The adolescent develop a feeling of loneliness.

ii) Bearing of tension: the adolescent feels a kind of inner freedom and freedom to feel and experience, which develop competencies to bear the tensions in different social situations.

iii) Emotional feelings are widened: Adolescent starts taking account of past and imagines of future. He/she starts appreciating elder and younger people, and emotionally attach them with a hero of his/her choice.

iv) Realism in emotional experiences: The adolescent enters the period of reality. Now he/she perceives and appreciates people around him/her.

v) Loyalties expand: the adolescents now start to feel their loyalties towards home, community and various other fields.

Besides these, the adolescents develop the capacity of sharing emotion, and reviewing of hopes. The adolescents express their anger by sulking, refusing to speak, or loudly criticizing those who anger them.

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Adolescence

Adolescence is the most important period of human life. Poets have described it as the spring of life human being and an important era in the total life span. The etymological meaning of ‘adolescence is to grow to maturity’. Adolescence is the span of years during which boys and girls move from childhood to adulthood, mentally, emotionally, socially and physically.

According to a group of psychologists, it is the period when an individual is capable of begetting offspring. It means that then we can say he/she has become an adolescent.

As it is used today, the term adolescence has broader meaning. It includes mental, emotional, and social maturity as well as physical maturity. It is customary to regard adolescence as the beginning when children become sexually mature and ending when they reach the age of legal maturity. Chronologically, adolescence comes roughly in between the years from 12 to the early 20s. The onset of adolescence varies form culture to culture depending on the socio-economic conditions of the society and the country. In this period, great changes occur in all development dimensions of the individual.

Adolescence is the most important period compared to others because of their immediate effects on attitude and behavior. Similarly, it also characterized by transitional period; period of change, age of problem, time of search for identity, time of unrealism, and threshold of adulthood. So, they begin to concentrate on behavior that is associated with the adult status, such as smoking, drinking, using drugs, and engaging in sex.

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