The Differences Between Adult And Adolescent Thinking Essay

The court said that because of their youth, their brains are less developed, they are more impulsive, more subject to peer pressure and less able to see the consequences of their actions. Researchers have started to look into the development of the brain from the ages of 3 to 20 years old. Brain research by Thompson and others suggests that teenagers are unformed, less mature and less resistant to peer pressure than adults are. According to Thompson’s research, “gray matter, which brain researchers believe supports all our thinking and emotions, is purged at a rate of 1 percent to 2 percent a year” (89). He also states that, “these frontal lobes, which inhibit our violent passions, rash actions, and regulate our emotions, are vastly immature throughout the teenage years” (89). Teens do know what they have done and they are capable of understanding right from wrong but their brains aren’t developed enough to make fully mature decisions.

Piaget says that within the cognitive development, there are stages. During adolescence, people hit the point where they are ending the concrete operational stage and are beginning the final stage: the formal operational stage. This means they start solving problems more rationally with increased logic, thinking more abstractly, and begin to use deductive reasoning (meaning they think about one or more statements to reach their conclusion with logic). There is also the information processing perspective which says it is more of a gradual thing than a step by step approach. The teens show they are beginning to flow into the adolescent stage of their life with their inferred thoughts, actions and words throughout the whole movie.

Adolescence is moving from childhood to adult. This adolescent year brings many changes, not only physically but also mentally, emotionally and socially (Feldman, 2006). My adolescence was a period in which I gained maturity due to the biological changes associated with puberty. I became independent from my family and developed more perspective since then. I started thinking more about my future goals. I was also trying to understand more of who I was as an adult. In Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory young people start to think abstractly and hypothetically in the formal operation stage (Berk, 2007). Therefore, this major cognitive development may have contributed to the exploration or search for my individual identity.

Adults learn the things different than a child. Grown up person has its own knowledge, relationships and values that influence how they behave and experience a new things. (Alex Lowy, Phil Hood, 2011)

When one compares the structure of the adult brain and the teenage brain, there will be several differences between the two. Adults have stronger connections from one nerve cell to another, and they all have essential communication skills. However, teenagers have more synapses and have weaker nerve connections. Also, their frontal lobes aren 't fully developed. This causes adolescence to have impulsive behavior and they typically do not recognize consequences in a situation. In the early twenties the brain becomes fully developed, so people are very good at making decision and they are able to think abstractly. There are many factors that contribute to the construction of the brain; some things help the brain develop normally, other things interrupt the process. There is a substantial amount of distinctions between the adult brain and the adolescent brain, and these includes behavioral and structural differences.

As young people progress through the adolescent stage they begin to view the world and themselves very differently than as they did a few years earlier. They become more intellectual. In the later stages of adolescence young people become less concerned about their appearance and social acceptance and more concerned about worldly issues and "who they really are." From the required text I have learned that by late adolescence, most teenagers think of themselves in terms of enduring traits, beliefs, personal philosophy, and moral standards. As they get older, children and adolescents define themselves less and less by what they look like and more and more by what they believe or feel (Child and Adolescent Behavior, pg. 196).

Young people don’t maintain the same personality, feelings and views throughout their life. At some point in their life, which very often starts during adolescence, they start looking for their true identity. The transition into becoming a more mature person may be very exciting and very uncertain at the same time. It is a process that involves many changes shaped by the family, friends, environment, community and culture. Young people become more independent, dream of living their life the way they always wanted to, they explore the world, look for new possibilities. At the same time they still ponder their personal identity, are vulnerable and easily influenced by others. They take on new responsibilities, face new challenges and make mistakes.

Being an adult is the number one thing that children want to be: The desire to get older to do things that you want when you want and having no one say otherwise. However, what is an adult? An ambiguous term that really falls into the hands of the individual, where at Sixteen you can drive, eighteen you can vote, and twenty-one you can drink, for those in the USA, all varying ages that individuals could use as indications of adulthood. Robin Heinig wrote and article “What is it about 20- somethings?” where she discusses Arnett’s proposal about a new developmental stage, “Emerging Adulthood”. Jeffrey Jensen Arnett, an American professor in psychology, believes that we aren 't entering adulthood till the later portions of our twenties. For some, this may be true but for the general population including myself I find this hard to believe. Leo Hendry’s article, “How universal is emerging adulthood? An empirical example”, on emerging adulthood gives a deeper understanding to what this generation 's kids are going through. The late teens are a crucial part to the lives of a young adult. It 's the time that we spend trying to identify ourselves, escape the circumstance that we are put into at a younger age, or just had a better family income. Arnett is not wrong, but all other external factors need to be accounted for before we know, or even consider if emerging adulthood is a new developmental stage.

As children move from adolescence to young adulthood, they encounter dramatic physical, emotional, and lifestyle changes. Developmental transitions, such as puberty and increasing

The transition to adulthood is an important area of research because of the multitude of changes that are experienced after adolescence, including the changing achievement goals, values, and aspirations that many young adults face. In your discussion post discuss significant physical, cognitive and other related life changes that impact adults during this particular stage in life.

It has been suggested by previous research that the majority of 18 to 25 year olds are no longer part of the adolescent group. Though, they do not consider themselves to be adults either. Scientists have long discovered that adolescence is critical in the transition to adulthood (Hagan & Wheaton, 1993). This period between adolescence and adulthood has been referred to as emerging adulthood (Arnett, 2000). The transition from adolescence to adulthood often involved; graduating, finding a fixed job, establishing an independent household, getting married and becoming a parent (Arnett, 1997, 2001; Nelson & McNamara Barry, 2005). However, some propose that teenagers

There are five key features that characterize emerging adulthood. The first s identity exploration. The second is “Instability.” For many the instability is a result of residential changes such as living in a dorm. There is also instability in friendships, romantic relationships, academia, and work. Emerging adults have few obligations, responsibilities, and commitments. Because they have so much autonomy in controlling their own lives the third key feature is “Self-Focused.” One of the most difficult

Adults usually make most of the decisions for young children, but adolescents must make many decisions on their own. For example, when I was a child, my mother would choose what I would wear for school and what was in my lunch box. But now, I have to choose what I will wear, what I will eat, what kind of job I want to have and many more different decisions.

Adolescence is the distinct transitional stage between childhood and adulthood in human development, extending primarily over the teenage years and terminating legally when the age of majority is reached (Rathus, 2014). However in some instances, this biological, cognitive, social and emotional maturity may not be reached until a later stage and may be dictated by gender. Adolescence is characterised by rapidly changing and unpredictable behaviour (Freud, as cited in Rathus 2014), heightened and unstable emotions (Hall, as cited in Rathus 2014), disturbances in identity, the gradual development of one’s moral reasoning (Kohlberg, as cited in Rathus, 2014) and the gradual establishment of one’s independence. Several of these changes may occur at differing phases in adolescent growth. This development is categorized into three separate stages; early adolescence, middle adolescence, and late adolescence. Early Adolescence, commencing from the ages of eleven or twelve until the age of fourteen, comprises of several features such as rapid biological development and maturity, heightened stress levels and limited coping capabilities. On the other hand, middle adolescence, from the approximate age of fourteen to sixteen, involves the gradual cease of biological change, an increase in coping strategies and declined stress levels. Furthermore, late adolescence, commencing from the age of sixteen until the age of eighteen or nineteen, encompasses physical maturity, whereby the

As a life is lived, a person will experience two stages in their life and that is childhood and adulthood. A person’s childhood is filled with joy, toys, and laughter. You can think of your childhood as the golden years of your life because that is when you discover your personality. In elementary school, we were allowed to take naps and have recess every day. When we were kids, we could not wait to grow up to be adults because we thought it was way cooler. We thought since we got told “no” that being an adult was going to be better. As we reach the stage of adulthood, we find that being an adult is not so great after all. Being an adult means bills, a job, and no more naps. The childhood stage is better than the adulthood stage because you do not have to worry about debt, you get to take naps, and you do not have to work to support yourself.