46
ADOLESCENCE: Social Patterns, Achievements, and Problems
them about their physical changes as a normal part of
growing up. There would as well be a n attempt to divert
them away from risky behaviors that may have longterm implications for their development far beyond
their adolescent years.
Furthermore, evidence for historical change in the
pubertal process is intriguing. Findings of very early
signs of pubertal maturation in girls in the HermanGiddens et al. work illustrate how the standards of pubertal development in terms of timing may warrant revision. The implications of a n early pubertal experience
are even further underscored, as this research suggests
that this is a n experience that will be encountered by
even more girls, and perhaps especially among African
American girls.
Although a n impressive body of research has been
devoted to understanding both the biological and psychosocial aspects of the pubertal period, it is clear
from the available research that new findings are illuminating our understanding of the pubertal process. For example, the research linking stress to pubertal development is intriguing, and represents a
clear illustration of the interface between the adolescent’s psychosocial and biological milieu. This research area is a relatively new pursuit, and further
disentangling the processes involved remains. Similarly, the study of direct hormonal links to behavior
and development during adolescence is relatively new,
and as methodologies become more sophisticated, previous conclusions have been revised. What is clear is
that hormonal links to behavior are complex, and
biopsychosocial frameworks clearly provide the best
representation of the process.
Bibliography
Alsaker, F. D. (1995). Timing of puberty and reactions to
pubertal changes. In M. Rutter (Ed.), Psychosocial disturbances in young people: Challenges for prevention
(pp. 37-81). New York Cambridge University Press.
Belsky, J., Steinberg, L., & Draper, l? (1991). Childhood experience, interpersonal development, and reproductive
strategy: An evolutionary theory of socialization. Child
Development, 62, 647670.
Brooks-Gunn, J., & Reiter, E. 0. (1990). The role of pubertal
processes in the early adolescent transition. In S. Feldman & G. Elliott (Eds.), A t the threshold: The developing
adolescent (pp. 16-53). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Connolly, S. D., Paikoff, R. L., & Buchanan. C. M. (1996).
Puberty: The interplay of biological and psychosocial
processes in adolescence. In G. R. Adams, R. Montemayor, & T. l? Gullotta (Eds.), Psychosocial development
during adolescence (pp. 259-299). Thousand Oaks, CA:
Sage.
Eveleth, P. B., &Tanner, J. M. (1990). Worldwide variation in
human growth (2nd ed.). New York: Cambridge University Press.
Graber, J. A., Lewinsohn, l? M., Seeley, J. R., & BrooksGunn, J. (1997). Is psychopathology associated with the
timing of pubertal development?Journal of the American
Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 36, 17681776.
Graber, J. A., Petersen, A. C., 6;Brooks-Gunn, J. (1996).Pubertal processes: Methods, measures, and models. In
J. A. Graber, J. Brooks-Gunn, & A. C. Petersen (Eds.),
Transitions through adolescence: Interpersonal domains and
context (pp. 23-53). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.
Grumbach, M. M., & Styne, D. (1992). Puberty: Ontogeny,
neuroendocrinology, physiology, and disorders. In J. D.
Wilson & D. W. Foster (Eds.), Williams textbook of endocrinology (8th ed., pp. 1139-1221). Philadelphia:
Saunders.
Halpern, C. T., Udry, J. R., & Suchindran, C. (1997). Testosterone predicts initiation of coitus in adolescent females. Psychosomatic Medicine, 59, 161-171.
Hayward, C., Killen, J. D., Wilson, D. M., Hammer, L. D.,
Litt, I. F., Kraemer, H. C., Haydel. F., Varady, A., & Taylor, C. B. (1997). Psychiatric risk associated with early
puberty in adolescent girls. Journal OJ the American
Academy of Adolescent Psychiatry, 36, 255-262.
Herman-Giddens, M. E., Slora, E. J,, Wasserman, R. C.,
Bourdony, C. J., Bhapkar, M. V , Koch, G. G., & Hasemeier, C. M. (1997). Secondary sexual characteristics
and menses in young girls seen in office practice: A
study from the Pediatric Research in Office Settings Network. Pediatrics, 99. 505-512.
Malo. J., & Tremblay, R. E. (1997). The impact of paternal
alcoholism and maternal social position on boys’ school
adjustment, pubertal maturation and sexual behavior:
A test of two competing hypotheses. Journal of Child
Psychology and Psychiatry, 38, 187-197.
Paikoff, R. L., & Brooks-Gunn (1991). Do parent-child relationships change during puberty? Psychological Bulletin, I I O , 47-66.
Petersen, A. C., Sarigiani, P. A., & Kennedy, R. E. (1991).
Adolescent depression: Why more girls?Journal of Youth
and Adolescence, 20. 247-271.
Petersen, A. C.. & Taylor, B. (1980). The biological approach to adolescence: Biological change and psychological adaptation. In J. Adelson (Ed.), Handbook of adolescent psychology (pp. 117-155).New York: Wiley.
Susman, E. J. (1997). Modeling developmental complexity
in adolescence: Hormones and behavior in context.
Journal of Research on Adolescence, 7 , 283-306.
Trickett, P. K.. & Putnam, F. W. (1993). Impact of child sexual abuse on females: Toward a developmental, psychobiological integration. Psychological Science, 4, 81-8 7.
Pamela A. Sarigiani and Anne C. Petersen
Social Patterns, Achievements, and Problems
Adolescence is a period of many changes ranging from
the biological changes associated with puberty, to the
social/educational changes associated with the transi-
ADOLESCENCE: Social Patterns, Achievements, and Problems
tions from elementary to secondary school, and to the
social and psychological changes associated with the
emergence of sexuality. With such diverse and rapid
change comes a heightened potential for both positive
and negative outcomes. And, although most individuals
pass through this developmental period without excessively high levels of “storm and stress,” a substantial
number of individuals do experience difficulty. For example, between 15 and 30% of students (depending on
ethnic group) drop out of high school: further, adolescents have the highest arrest rate of any age group:
and many consume alcohol and other drugs on a regular basis (Office of Educational Research and Improvement, 1988). In contrast, many adolescents do quite
well during this period of life: they acquire the skills to
move successfully into meaningful adult roles, they develop lasting friendships, and they form healthy, productive identities.
Biological Changes Associated
with Puberty
As a result of the activation of hormones controlling
physical development, most children undergo a growth
spurt, develop primary and secondary sex characteristics, become fertile, and experience increased sexual libido during early adolescence (Buchanan, Eccles, &
Becker. 1992). Because girls experience these pubertal
changes approximately 18 months earlier than boys,
girls and boys of the same chronological age are likely
to be at quite different points in physical and social
development during early adolescence. Although early
maturation tends to be advantageous for boys, particularly with respect to their participation in sports activities and social standing in school, early maturation
is often problematic for European American girls because the kinds of physical changes girls experience
(such as weight gain) are not highly valued among
many White American groups who value the slim, androgynous female body characteristic of European
American fashion models (Simmons & Blyth, 1987). African American females do not evidence this same pattern perhaps because African American culture places
higher value on the secondary sex characteristics associated with female maturation.
Stattin and Magnusson (1990) traced the long-term
consequences of early maturation in females: Their
early maturing girls obtained less education and married earlier than their later maturing peers despite the
lack of any differences in achievement levels prior to
the onset of puberty. These researchers attributed this
difference to the fact that the early maturing females
were more likely to join older peer groups and to begin
dating older males: in turn, the early maturing girls in
these peer groups were more likely to drop out of school
and get married, perhaps because school achievement
was not valued by their peer social network while early
entry into the job market and early marriage was.
Researchers have also studied how the hormonal
changes associated with pubertal development relate to
changes in children’s behavior during the early adolescent years. There are direct effects of hormones on
behaviors, such as aggression, sexuality. and mood
swings. Hormones also affect behavior indirectly
through their impact on secondary sex characteristics,
which, in turn, influence social experiences and psychological well-being. For example, when breast development is associated with increases in girls’ body image, it is also related to better psychological adjustment,
more positive peer relations, and better school achievement (Brooks-Gunn & Warren, 1988).
Changes in Cognition
Cognitive changes during this developmental period involve increases in adolescents’ ability to think abstractly, consider the hypothetical as well as the real,
engage in more sophisticated and elaborate information
processing strategies, consider multiple dimensions of
a problem at once, and reflect on oneself and on complicated problems. Such cognitive changes are the hallmark of Piaget’s formal operations stage, which he assumed began during adolescence (e.g., Piaget &
Inhelder, 1973). Although there is still considerable debate about exactly when these kinds of cognitive processes emerge and whether their emergence reflects
global stagelike changes in cognitive skills, as described
by Piaget, most theorists agree that these kinds of
thought processes are more characteristic of adolescents’ cognition than that of younger children.
Cognitive theorists have also investigated more specific information processing skills, cognitive learning
strategies, and metacognitive skills (Keating, 1992).
They find a steady increase during adolescence in information processing skills and learning strategies, in
knowledge of a variety of different topics and subject
areas, in ability to apply knowledge to new learning
situations, and in awareness of one’s strengths and
weaknesses as learners. However, in order for these
new skills to allow adolescents to become more efficient, sophisticated learners, ready to cope with relatively advanced topics in many different subject areas,
they need lots of opportunities to practice using
them.
These kinds of cognitive changes can affect individuals’ self-concepts,thoughts about their future, and understanding of others. Theorists from Erikson (1963)to
Harter (1998) have suggested that the adolescent years
are a time of change in children’s self-concepts, as they
try both to figure out what possibilities are available to
them and to develop a deeper understanding of themselves. Such self-reflection requires higher-order cogni-
47
48
ADOLESCENCE: Social Patterns, Achievements, and Problems
tive processes. During adolescence, individuals also become much more interested in understanding others’
internal psychological characteristics, and friendships
become based more on perceived similarity in these
characteristics. Again, these types of changes reflect
the broader changes in cognition that occur at this
time.
Friendships and Peer Groups
Probably the most often discussed changes during adolescence are the increases in peer focus and involvement in peer-related social, sports, and other extracurricular activities. Many adolescents attach great
importance to these types of activities-substantially
more importance than they attach to academic activities (Wigfield, Eccles, MacIver, Reuman, & Midgley,
1991). Indeed, often to the chagrin of parents and
teachers, activities with peers, peer acceptance, and appearance can take precedence over school activities,
particularly during early adolescence. Further, European American adolescents’ confidence in their physical appearance and social acceptance is often a more
important predictor of self-esteem than confidence in
their cognitive/academic competence (Harter, 1998).
The extent to which this is true in other ethnic groups
has yet to be adequately assessed.
In part because of the importance of social acceptance during adolescence, friendship networks during
this period often are organized into relatively rigid
cliques that differ in social status within the school setting (Brown, 1990). The existence of these cliques
seems to reflect adolescents’ need to establish a sense
of identity; belonging to a group is one way to solve
the problem of “who am I.”
Also, in part because of the importance of social
acceptance, children’s conformity to their peers peaks
during early adolescence. Most policy concern has focused on how this peer conformity can create problems
for adolescents, and about how “good” children can be
corrupted by the negative influences of peers, particularly by adolescent gangs-and indeed gangs do pose
serious social problems in many cities. However, although pressure from peers to engage in misconduct
does increase during adolescence, most researchers do
not accept the simplistic view that peer groups are
mostly a bad influence during this period. More often
than not, adolescents agree more with their parents’
views on “major” issues such as morality, the importance of education, politics, and religion. Peers have
more influence on things such as dress and clothing
styles, music, and activity choice. In addition, adolescents usually seek out peers whose interests are compatible with their own: this means that those who are
involved in sports will have other athletes as friends:
those who are serious about school will seek friends
who are similarly inclined. Finally, adolescents usually
select peers who share their parents’ fundamental values. In most cases, the peer group acts more to reinforce existing strengths and weakness than to change
adolescents’ characteristics.
Finally, the quality of children’s friendships undergoes some important changes during adolescence
(Berndt & Perry, 1990). As suggested by Sullivan
(1953). adolescents’ friendships are more focused on
fulfilling intimacy needs than younger children’s friendships. This is particularly true for girls.
Changes in Family Relations
Although the extent of actual disruption in parentadolescent relations is still debated, there is no doubt
that parent-child relations change during adolescence
(e.g.. Collins, 1990).As adolescents become physically
mature they often seek more independence and autonomy, and may begin to question family rules and roles,
leading to conflicts, particularly around issues like dress
and appearance, chores, and dating. However, despite
these conflicts over day-to-day issues, parents and adolescents agree more than they disagree regarding core
values linked to education, politics, and spirituality
Parents and adolescents also have fewer interactions
and do fewer things together outside the home than
they did at an earlier period-as illustrated by the horror many adolescents express at seeing their parents at
places like shopping malls. Both Collins (1990)and
Steinberg (1990) argued that this “distancing” in the
relations between adolescents and parents is a natural
part of pubertal development that has great functional
value for adolescents precisely because it fosters their
individuation from their parents, allows them to try
more things on their own, and develops their own competencies and efficacy. When parents respond to this
distancing in a developmentally supportive fashion,
while at the same time providing ample guidance and
control, their adolescent children exercise their increasing autonomy in a mature, responsible fashion and
maintain positive relationships with their parents.
School and Adolescent Development
For some children, the early adolescent years mark the
beginning of a downward spiral leading to academic
failure and school dropout.
The Junior High/Middle School Transition.
Simmons and Blyth (1987) found a marked decline in
some early adolescents’ school grades as they moved
into junior high school, a decline that was predictive
of subsequent school failure and dropout. Similar declines have been documented for such motivational
constructs as interest in school, intrinsic motivation,
self-concepts/self-perceptions, and confidence in one’s
intellectual abilities, especially following failure. Finally,
there are also increases during early adolescence in
such negative motivational and behavioral character-
ADOLESCENCE: Social Patterns, Achievements, and Problems
istics as test anxiety, learned helpless responses to failure, focus on self-evaluation rather than task mastery,
and both truancy and school dropout (see Eccles &
Midgley, 1989). Although these changes are not extreme for niost adolescents, there is sufficient evidence
of gradual decline in various indicators of academic
motivation, behavior, and self-perception over the early
adolescent years to make one wonder what is happening. And although few studies have gathered information on ethnic or social class differences in these declines, we know that academic failure and dropping out
is especially problematic among some ethnic groups
and among youth from low socioeconomic communities and families: thus, it is likely that these groups are
particularly likely to show these declines in academic
motivation and self-perception as they move into, and
through, the secondary school years.
A variety of explanations have been offered to explain these “negative” changes: Some have suggested
that declines such as these result from the intraspsychic
upheaval assumed to be associated with early adolescent development. Others have suggested that these declines are due to coincidental timing of multiple life
changes (e.g., Simmons & Blyth, 1987). Still others
have suggested that it is the nature of the junior high
school environment itself that is important. Drawing
upon person-environment fit theory, Eccles and Midgley
(1989) proposed that the negative motivational and behavioral changes associated with early adolescence
could result from the fact that traditional junior high
schools are not providing appropriate educational environments for early adolescents. According to personenvironment theory, behavior, motivation, and mental
health are influenced by the fit between the characteristics individuals bring to their social environments and
the characteristics of these social environments. Individuals are not likely to do very well, or be very motivated, if they are in social environments that do not fit
their psychological needs. If the school social environments in the typical middle grades do not fit well with
the psychological needs of adolescents. then personenvironment fit theory predicts a decline in the adolescents’ motivation, interest, performance, and behavior
as they move into this environment. There is some evidence for each of these perspectives.
The Relation of Changes in School Environments to Motivational Changes During Early Adolescence. Work in a variety of areas has documented
the impact of classroom and school environmental
characteristics on motivation. For example, the big
school/small school literature has demonstrated the
motivational advantages of small secondary schools especially for marginal students (Barker & Gump, 1964).
Similarly, the teacher efficacy literature has documented the positive student motivational consequences
of high teacher efficacy (Ashton. 1985). Finally, orga-
nizational psychology has demonstrated the importance of participatory work structures on worker motivation (Lawler, 1976). The list of such influences
could, of course, go on. The point is that there may be
systematic differences between the academic environments in typical elementary schools and those in typical junior high and middle schools: if so, these differences could account for some of the motivational
changes seen among early adolescents as they make
the transition into junior high school or middle school.
Eccles and her colleagues have called this kind of
phenomenon “Stage-Environment Fit.” At the most basic level, this perspective suggests the importance of
looking at the fit between the needs of early adolescents
and the opportunities afforded them in their middle
school environment. A poor fit would help explain the
declines in motivation associated with the transition to
either junior high or middle school. More specifically,
these researchers suggested that different types of educational environments may be needed for different age
groups in order to meet the individual’s developmental
needs and to foster continued developmental growth.
Exposure to the developmentally appropriate environment would facilitate both motivation and continued
growth: in contrast, exposure to a developmentally inappropriate environment, especially a developmentally
regressive environment would create a particularly
poor person-environment fit, which, in turn, would
lead to declines in motivation as well as in the attachment to the goals of the institution.
Eccles and Midgley (1989) further argued that many
early adolescents experience developmentally inappropriate changes in a cluster of classroom organizational,
instructional, and climate variables, including task
structure, task complexity, grouping practices, evaluation techniques, motivational strategies, locus of responsibility for learning, and quality of teacher-student
and student-student relationships as they move into
either middle school or junior high school. They argued, in turn, that these experiences contribute to the
negative change in students’ motivation and
achievement-related beliefs assumed to coincide with
the transition into junior high school. Recent research
supports these suggestions. For example, Simmons and
Blyth (1987) point out that most junior high schools
are substantially larger than elementary schools and
instruction is also more likely to be organized and
taught departmentally. As a result of both of these differences, junior high school teachers typically teach
several different groups of students each day and are
unlikely to teach any particular student for more than
one year. In addition, students typically have several
teachers each day with little opportunity to interact
with any one teacher on any dimension except the academic content of what is being taught and disciplinary issues. Thus, the opportunity for forming close
49
50
ADOLESCENCE: Social Patterns, Achievements, and Problems
relationships between students and teachers is effectively eliminated at precisely the point in the students’
development when they have a great need for guidance
and support from nonfamilial adults (Carnegie Council
on Adolescent Development, 1989). Such changes in
student-teacher relationships, in turn, are likely to undermine the sense of community and trust between
students and teachers. This in turn leads to a lowered
sense of efficacy and an increased reliance on authoritarian control practices by teachers, and an increased
sense of alienation among students. Such changes are
also likely to decrease the probability that any particular student’s difficulties will be noticed early enough
to get the student necessary help. This in turn increases
the likelihood that students on the edge will be allowed
to slip onto negative trajectories leading to increased
school failure and dropout.
There is also consistent evidence of counterproductive changes in the authority relations between students and teaches. For example, despite the increasing
maturity of students, junior high school classrooms,
compared to elementary school classrooms, are characterized by a greater emphasis on teacher control and
discipline, and fewer opportunities for student decision
making, choice, and self-management. Such a mismatch between young adolescents’ desires for autonomy and control and their perception of the opportunities in their environments should result in a decline
in the adolescents’ intrinsic motivation and interest in
school; and this is exactly what happens (Eccles et al.,
19931.
Finally, junior high school teachers appear to use a
higher standard in judging students’ competence and
in grading their performance than do elementary
school teachers. There is no stronger predictor of students’ self-confidence and efficacy than the grades they
receive. If grades change, then we would expect to see
a concomitant shift in the adolescents’ self-perceptions
and academic motivation. There is evidence that junior
high school teachers use stricter and more social comparison-based standards than elementary school teachers to assess student competency and to evaluate student performance, leading to a drop in grades for many
early adolescents as they make the junior high school
transition (e.g., Simmons & Blyth, 1987).
Eccles and Midgley argued that these types of
school environmental changes are particularly harmful at early adolescence given what is known about
psychological development during this stage of life.
Early adolescent development is characterized by increases in desire for autonomy, peer orientation, selffocus and self-consciousness, salience of identity issues, concern over heterosexual relationships, and
capacity for abstract cognitive activity (Simmons &
Blyth, 1987). Simmons and Blyth argued that adolescents need a reasonably safe, as well as an intellectu-
ally challenging, environment to adapt to these shiftsan environment that provides a “zone of comfort” as
well as challenging new opportunities for growth. In
light of these needs, the environmental changes often
associated with transition to middle grade schools are
likely to be particularly harmful in that they emphasize competition, social comparison, and ability selfassessment at a time of heightened self-focus: they decrease decision making and choice at a time when the
desire for control is growing; they emphasize lowerlevel cognitive strategies at a time when the ability to
use higher-level strategies is increasing; and they disrupt social networks at a time when adolescents are
especially concerned with peer relationships and may
be in special need of close adult relationships outside
of the home. The nature of these environmental
changes, coupled with the normal course of individual
development, is likely to result in a developmental mismatch so that the “fit” between the early adolescent
and the classroom environment is particularly poor,
increasing the risk of negative motivational outcomes,
especially for adolescents who are having difficulty
succeeding in school academically.
The High School Transition. Although there is
less work on the transition to high school, the existing
work is suggestive of similar problems. For example,
high schools are typically even larger and more bureaucratic than junior high schools and middle schools.
Bryk, Lee, and Holland (1994) provide numerous examples of how the sense of community among teachers and students is undermined by the size and bureaucratic structure of most high schools. There is little
opportunity for students and teachers to get to know
each other and, as a consequence, there is likely to be
distrust between them and little attachment to a common set of goals and values. There is also little opportunity for the students to form mentorlike relationships
with a nonfamilial adult and little effort is made to
make instruction relevant to the students. Such environments are likely to further undermine the motivation and involvement of many students, especially
those not doing particularly well academically, those
not enrolled in the favored classes, and those who are
alienated from the values of the adults in the high
school. These hypotheses need to be tested.
Most large public high schools also organize instruction around curricular tracks that sort students into
different groups (Lee & Bryk, 1989). As a result, there
is even greater diversity in the educational experiences
of high school students than of middle grade students:
unfortunately, this diversity is often associated more
with the students’ social class and ethnic group than
with differences in the students’ talents and interests.
As a result, curricular tracking has served to reinforce
social stratification rather than foster optimal education
for all students, particularly in large schools. Evidence
ADOLESCENCE: Social Patterns, Achievements, and Problems
comparing Catholic high schools with public high
schools suggests that average school achievement levels
are increased when all students are required to take the
same challenging curriculum. This conclusion is true
even after one has controlled for student selectivity factors. A more thorough examination is needed of how
the organization and structure of our high schools influences cognitive, motivational, and achievement outcomes.
On the More Positive Side. Difficulties with secondary school transitions, however, are by no means
universal. Hirsch and Rapkin (1987), for example,
found no change in self-esteem in students making the
transition from sixth grade into a junior high school.
These authors did report, however, a n increase in depressive symptomatology in girls making the transition
as compared to boys. Although some of these differences across studies undoubtedly reflect variations
across studies in populations, school environments, and
varying methodological techniques, it is likely that individual differences in young adolescents’ responses to
school transitions also play a role. In support of this
hypothesis, several studies have found negative changes
for some youth and not for others. For example, Simmons and Blyth (1987) found that girls already involved in dating and showing the most advanced pubertal development were most at risk for negative
changes in their self-esteem in conjunction with the
transition to junior high school. Similarly, Midgley, Feldlaufer, and Eccles (1989) found more extreme negative
effects of the junior high school transition on low
achieving students. Finally, Lord, Eccles, and McCarthy
(1994) found that adolescents who did well in school
during their elementary school years and who have
confidence in their academic and social abilities adapt
quite well to the junior high school transition.
Bibliography
Ashton, I? (1985). Motivation and the teacher’s sense of
efficacy. In C. Ames & R. Ames (Eds.), Research on motivation in education (Vol. 2 , pp. 141-171). Orlando, FL:
Academic Press.
Barker, R.. & Gump, I? (1964). Big school, small school: High
school sizr and student behavior. Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
Berndt, T. J., & Perry, T. B. (1990). Distinctive features of
early adolescent friendships. In R. Montemayor, G. R.
Adams, & T. t? Gullotta (Eds.), From childhood to adolescence: A transitional period? (pp. 269-28 7). Newbury
Park, CA: Sage.
Brooks-Gunn, J., & Warren, M. F! (1988). The psychological significance of secondary sexual characteristics in
9- to I r-year-old girls. Child Development, 59, 161-169.
Brown, B. B. (1990). Peer groups and peer cultures. In S . S .
Feldman & G. R. Elliott (Eds.), At the threshold: The de-
veloping adolescent (pp. 171-196). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Bryk. A. S., Lee, V. E., & Holland, F! B. (1993). Catholic
schools and the common good. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press.
Buchanan, C. M., Eccles, J. S., & Becker, J. B. (1992). Are
adolescents the victims of raging hormones? Psychological Bulletin, rrr, 62-107.
Carnegie Council on Adolescent Development (1989).
Turning points: Preparing American youth for the z i s t century. New York: Carnegie Corporation.
Collins, W. A. (1990). Parent-child relationships in the
transition to adolescence: Continuity and change in interaction, affect, and cognition. In R. Montemayor,
G. R. Adams, & T. P. Gullotta (Eds.), From childhood to
adolescence: A transitional period? (pp. 85-106). Beverly
Hills, CA: Sage.
Eccles, J. S . , & Midgley, C. (1989). Stage-environment fit:
Developmentally appropriate classrooms for young adolescents. In C. Ames & R. Ames (Eds.). Research on
motivation in education (Vol. 3, pp. 139-186). New York:
Academic Press.
Eccles, J. S . . Midgley, C., Buchanan, C. M., Wigfield, A.,
Reuman, D., & MacIver, D. (1993). Development during
adolescence: The impact of stage/environment fit.
American Psychologist, 48, 9 ~ 1 0 1 .
Eccles, J. S . , Wigfield, A., & Schiefele,U. (1998). Motivation.
In N. Eisenberg (Ed.j, Handbook of child psychology (Vol.
3, 5th ed., pp. 1017-1095). New York: Wiley.
Erikson, E. H. (1963). Childhood and society. New York: Norton.
Harter, S . (1998). The development of self-representations.
In W. Damon & N. Eisenberg (Eds.), Handbook of child
psychology, (Vol. 3. 5th ed., pp. 553-618). New York:
Wiley.
Hirsch, B., & Rapkm, B. (1987). The transition to junior
high school: A longitudinal study of self-esteem, psychological symptomatology, school life, and social support. Child Development, 58, 1235-1243.
Keating, D. F! (1990). Adolescent thinking. In S . S. Feldman & G. R. Elliott (Eds.) A t the threshold: The developing
adolescent (pp. 54-89). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lawler, E. E. (1976). Control systems in organizations. In
M. D. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology. Chicago: Rand-McNally.
Lee, V. E., & Bryk, A. S. (1989). A multilevel model of the
social distribution of high school achievement. Sociology of Education, 6 2 , 172-192.
Lord, S . , Eccles, J. S . , & McCarthy, K. (1994). Risk and protective factors in the transition to junior high school.
Journal of Early Adolescence, 14, 162-199.
Midgley. C. M., Feldlaufer, H., & Eccles, J. S . (1989).
Changes in teacher efficacy and student self- and taskrelated beliefs during the transition to junior high
school. Journal of Educational Psychology, 81,247-258.
Office of Educational Research and Improvement (1988).
Youth indicators 1988. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1973). Memory and intelligence.
London: RoutIedge & Kegan Paul.
51
52
ADOLESCENCE: Adolescent Thought Processes
Rosenholtz, S. J., & Sirnpson, C. (1984). The formation of
ability conceptions: Developmental trend or social construction? Review of Educational Research, 54, 301-325.
Simmons, R. G., & Blyth, D. A. (1987). Moving into adolescence: The impact of pubertal change and school context.
Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter.
Stattin, H., & Magnusson, D. (1990). Pubertal maturation in
female development. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaurn.
Steinberg, L. (1990). Autonomy, conflict, and harmony in
the family relationship. In S. Feldman & G. Elliott (Eds.),
At the threshold: The developing adolescent (pp. 255-276).
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Sullivan, H. S. (1953). The interpersonal theory of psychiatry.
New York: Norton.
Wigfield, A.. Eccles, J., Mac Iver, D., Reuman, D.. & Midgley,
C. (1991). Transitions at early adolescence: Changes in
children’s domain-specific self-perceptions and general
self-esteem across the transition to junior high school.
Developmental Psychology, 27, 552-565.
Jacquelynne S. Eccles and Allan Wiafield
Adolescent Thought Processes
Our adolescents today are exposed to a constantly
changing expanse of information from a multitude of
sources. Some, like cruising the Internet, were unknown to earlier generations. To stay “in the know”
vis-a-vis their peers, adolescents need continuing access
to the latest word their culture has to offer. They also
must sort through a rapid-fire and often conflicting barrage of input from peers, parents, teachers, and media,
to decide what to believe, what to ignore, and what
warrants their sustained interest. Moreover, the information processing and judgment demands that today’s
teens face are central to their survival. Decisions about
drug use, sexual activity, and social-group membership
can have life-or-death implications.
To meet these challenges, we might ask whether adolescents are equipped with cognitive skills that surpass
those they possessed as children. The question of the
cognitive competencies of adolescents, relative to those
of either the children they so recently were or the
adults they are soon to become, is one of particular
interest to developmental psychologists. To paraphrase
the title of an influential article by Carey (1985), we
can ask, ‘Xre adolescents fundamentally different kinds
of thinkers and learners from children?”
Is Adolescence Marked by a New
Stage of Cognitive Development?
Even casual conversations with adolescents confirm
that they know more about a wider variety of topics
than do school-age children. But is this knowledge base
organized any differently from the less extensive knowledge base of the child, or does it include principles or
entities that the child’s does not? One long-standing
assumption is that with adolescence comes the ability
to understand abstract concepts, such as justice or democracy. Of greatest interest to psychologists, however,
has been the possibility that adolescents are capable of
particular cognitive strategies that were not available
to them earlier, enabling them to succeed in new kinds
of intellectual tasks.
For several decades the dominant influence in this
respect has been Piaget’s theory of formal operations.
Indeed, his remains the only comprehensive theory
specifying a transformation in thinking capacities with
the transition from childhood to adolescence. Formal
operations, according to Piaget, constitute the final
stage in a developmental sequence of major reorganizations of cognitive structure that take place during
infancy and childhood. With the attainment of this
stage, thought becomes able to take itself as its own
object-adolescents are able to think about their own
thinking. Formal operations in fact are defined as “operations on operations,” that is, mental operations on
the elementary operations of classification and relation
that define the preceding stage of concrete operations.
The adolescent becomes able, for example, not only to
categorize animals according to physical characteristics
and habitats but also to operate on these categorizations-to put them into categories and on this basis to
draw inferences regarding relations that hold among
animals’ physical characteristics and habitats. The adolescent thus reasons at the level of propositions that
specify relations between one category (or relation) and
another. Associated with this second-order operatory
structure, according to the theory, are several other important cognitive strategies-analogy (constructing relations between relations, e.g., subjects: monarchy::citizens:democracy), systematic combination (e.g., of all
possible pizza types creatable with four kinds of toppings), conditional reasoning (about if-then statements), and the “scientific method” of controlled experiments in which one factor is varied systematically
to assess its effect while all others are held constant to
remove their influence.
Much subsequent research has upheld Inhelder and
Piaget’s (1958) findings that adolescents on average
perform better than children in tasks designed to assess
these cognitive strategies. Piaget, however, regarded
these various acquisitions as tightly linked manifestations of the formal operational thought structure hypothesized to emerge at adolescence. In this respect,
subsequent research has been less supportive, yielding
little evidence for a singular or abrupt transition from
the childhood stage of concrete operations to the adolescent stage of formal operations (Moshman, 1998).
Instead, substantial variability has been observed, both
within and across individuals, in the age of attainment
of the cognitive strategies associated with formal operations, with attainment in some cases still absent at
adulthood. Furthermore, modest practice can improve