Discuss the statement that adolescence is a period of Storm and Stress.

Authors Avatar

Student ID: 3c3263974        15th March 2010

Discuss the statement that ‘adolescence is a period of Storm and Stress’.

Adolescence is the developmental stage between childhood and adulthood; “The period of development from the onset of puberty to the attainment of adulthood. This begins with the appearance of secondary sexual characteristics, usually between the ages of 11 and 13 years of age (Colman 2006). It represents the period of time during which a person experiences a variety of biological changes and involves a dramatic transitions in the physical, social, sexual, and intellectual spheres. This essay will review the theories of adolescences and the extent to which they characterise adolescences as a time of storm and stress as suggested by Hall (1904). Firstly, the changing notion of adolescence through history and its cultural context will be discussed, followed by the biological, psychosocial and cognitive approaches to adolescence.  

Adolescence as a period of stress and storm can be traced back as far as writings of Plato and Aristotle. Plato (1953) described adolescent boys as constantly arguing and very easily excited. Aristotle (1941) described adolescents as “lacking in sexual self-restraint, fickle in their desires, passionate and impulsive”. However, during the middle ages, adolescence was mostly ignored as a life stage and children were viewed as small adults. “Childhood and adolescence were regarded as two sides of the same coin” (Dubasa et al, 2003). The first person to determine a difference between the two was Rousseau. Rousseau described it adolescence as “A change in humour, frequent anger, a mind in constant agitation, makes the child almost unmanageable. His feverishness turns him into a lion. He disregards his guide; he no longer wishes to be governed.” (Rousseau, 1911)

Psychologists of that time agreed with Rousseau’s ideas and in 1904, influenced by the evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin, G. Stanley Hall defined adolescence as a period of “storm and stress, a time of universal and of inevitable upheaval”. To Hall, adolescence represented a period when early human beings went from being beast-like to being civilized. To Hall, the end of the adolescent stage marked a new birth, in which higher, more completely human traits were born. Culturally, in the 18th century, the period of adolescence was first seen in middle- and upper-class children as education went on longer and children stayed home for an increasing portion of their lives. By the 20th century, after World War II, adolescence became a general phenomenon (Dubasa et al, 2003). According to Koop et al (2003) despite the historically changing view of adolescence and social context in which they developed, these stereotypes of adolescences certainly remain parallel to those of today and act as the foundation of our present-day representations of adolescence.

The biological approach argues that the agitation in adolescence is universal and is not effected by time and social context. Puberty is often considered to initiate adolescence (Petersen & Taylor, 1980). During puberty, the young person achieves their adult size and appearance alongside all the underlying physiological processes (Tanner, 1962). Current evidence indicates that biological changes make some contribution in respect to mood disruptions. Susman et al (1987) found that high levels of various adrenal and gonadal androgens were linked with sad affect, irritable rebelliousness and mild delinquent behaviour in boys. Additional evidence suggests that hormonal changes during puberty contribute to emotional volatility (Buchanan et al., 1992) and also the negative moods (Brooks-Gunn et al, 1994) seen in early adolescence. These studies however, are limited as they focus on only early adolescence and may be subject to reporter bias. They are based on the retrospective memory of mood and behaviour as recalled by the mothers of the adolescent. Puberty is also thought to mark the completion of brain development; the development of neural pathways and the process of myelinisation of nerve fibres integrating the two hemispheres (Yakolev & Lecours, 1967). Recent evidence however argues that changes continue to occur in the brain over the whole life span (Petersen, 1985).

Join now!

However, research has shown that the biological changes of puberty alone do not make adolescent storm and stress either universal or inevitable. This can be demonstrated by the fact that not all cultures experience adolescent storm and stress to the same degree and some cultures do not experience it at all. Margaret Mead's study (1928) found that adolescence in Samoa was a blissful, utopian transition. These findings have been confirmed by numerous other studies looking at adolescence worldwide, reporting that most traditional cultures experience less storm and stress among their adolescents, compared with the West (Schlegel and Barry, 1991). ...

This is a preview of the whole essay