Stages of Human Development Adolescence

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Stages of human development

Adolescence

Agustin Portillo

Psychology, Imperial Valley College

PSY- 204: Developmental Psychology Concept of Death

Joseph Pipkin

June 8, 2022
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Abstract

There are seven different stages of human development which are Infancy, Early Childhood,

Middle Childhood, Adolescence, Emerging Adulthood, Adulthood, and Late Adulthood. Each

one of those stages is so important in the life of every human because we need them in order for

us to fulfill and/or reach full maturity. This is not something that we choose to do since is

something that happens automatically for everyone. As mentioned, every stage of development is

so important, but there is one stage that for many people such as scientists and psychologists is

interesting to do research on and it is Adolescence. Many things can happen during this stage,

such as trying and living new experiences like starting to take drugs, maybe starting to make a

family, which is common nowadays or even developing mental disorders such as Severe

Depression. This stage is for many the point where their future life will be determined depending

on the relationships they might have, such as friends, romantic relationships, family, and their

environment.
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Stages of human development

Adolescence

Every form of life on this earth must go through different stages of processes in their

lives where they are born, grow, mature (sometimes in different ways), develop new ways of

behavior, live new experiences, and at some point, die. Every form of life is quite different in the

way that they go through the different stages and processes for them to succeed or to acquire full

maturity in life. Human development is “the development of human beings’ cognitive,

emotional, intellectual, and social capabilities and functioning over the course of a normal life

span, from infancy through old age. It is the subject matter of the discipline known as

developmental psychology" (EB). Humans' stages of development are divided into 7. These

stages are Infancy (from 0 to 2 years), Early Childhood (from 2 to 6 years), Middle Childhood

(from 6 to 11 years), Adolescence (from 11 to 18 years) which is the middle stage, Emerging

Adulthood (18 to 25 years), Adulthood (from 25 to 65 years), and Late Adulthood (from 65 years

and older). Each one of these seven stages has its processes and the way that cognitive behaviors

work such as the way humans behave, think, socialize, and talk. Many factors influence these

processes and cognitive behaviors such as Nature which is how biology such as the genes that we

inherit have an effect/influence many of our cognitive functions, Nurture is when the

environment such as the people around us like our friends have an effect in our way of thinking

and/or behaving, Epigenetics is how the environment has an effect with genes, and Differential

Susceptibility is how environmental experiences has an effect with some inherited genes or how

some experiences affect us either in a good or bad way could also affect us in another type of

related experiences, either in a good or bad way. As mentioned, adolescence is the middle stage

of development and for some people, this stage is like a breakpoint where everything can happen
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at any time without prior notice. Also, for many psychologists and scientists, this is one of the

most interesting developmental stages to do research on and experiments because of how

predictable but also at the same time how so unpredictable this stage can be. Though this stage

can be so interesting and important for human development, unfortunately, some mental

disorders are more common to be developed during this stage such as Depression in girls and

Schizophrenia in boys.

Adolescence is the transition in the middle between middle childhood and entering

adulthood. Therefore, “children who are entering adolescence are going through many changes

(physical, intellectual, personality and social developmental)” (AD) and becoming somehow

more mature to many circumstances by turning into teenagers or adolescents. And also, the

transition of adolescents by becoming even more mature by entering puberty and almost

reaching the full development of their brain. There are many changes in our body and mind

during this stage. Many of those changes can vary between males and females. In males “There

are changes that happen, but they happen gradually and over a period of time, rather than as a

single event” (Hopkins). Since every male/boy can be and have different ways of going through

these changes during this stage, some of the most noticeable and average physical/sexual

changes in boys/males are that they gain height and get taller, and they also start gaining more

fat, pubic hair starts to show up, the penis grows, and they have their first Spermache which is

when they first ejaculate seminal fluid, their voice gets deeper (not always but in many cases),

they start to grow facial hair and also hair under their arms, and they get acne. Girls/females

“experience puberty as a sequence of events, but their pubertal changes usually begin before

boys of the same age” (Hopkins), and as males, each one of them is different when it comes to

all these physical changes during adolescence. Girls’ most noticeable and most common
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physical/sexual changes are that they have their first menstrual period which is also called

menarche, their nipple grows as well as their breasts and hips because of the increase of fat, and

they start to grow some pubic hair, and their height increases.

Now, as mentioned as well as many physical changes that occur in the adolescence stage

of development there are also many mental, intellectual, and/or cognitive changes for boys and

girls. During this stage, when it comes to mental and/or cognitive changes “the developing

teenager gains the ability to think systematically about all logical relationships within a problem.

The transition from concrete thinking to formal logical operations happens over time” (CD).

Some of these changes could be that they can reason things better, they become more emotional

since the Limbic system which oversees emotional impulses matures before the prefrontal cortex

that is in charge of emotional regulation, and they see the world differently depending on their

environments such as their friends and family, among many other changes. Two of the most

common mental/brain changes that occur during puberty are sleep and our behaviors related to

dopamine when it comes to rewards. “Dopamine is involved in reward circuits, so adolescents

may judge that the possible rewards outweigh the risks. Adolescents respond especially strongly

to social rewards during activities, and they prefer the company of others their same age”

(Human Development). This means that when adolescents reach puberty dopamine increases

leading them to behave in certain ways. In most cases, teenagers tend to behave according to

their peers and/or close related friends. Here is what I called the breaking point because anything

can happen. Let's say for example that one teenager that goes to high school tends to have friends

that go to parties to drink and use drugs and they often miss school because they want to party.

Because of that teenager/adolescent that has those types of friends, they are going most likely to

become like them and maybe even worse. They could become addicts, they could develop
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psychological disorders because of drugs, among many other effects that they might somehow

suffer in the future because of their behaviors as adolescence. On the other hand, if the teenager

tends to have relationships with friends that usually attend school, do their homework, do not use

drugs of any kind, and do not usually go to parties they are most likely to become also like them

and have better chances of having a better and great life in the future because of those behaviors

and relations they had in their adolescence. Therefore, I see this stage of development as a

breakpoint in our lives. Because depending on what we do, with whom do we choose to make a

relationship, depending on what we say, or think our life is going to change and turn either bad

or good where those effects are going to be portrayed in our future when we reach adulthood.

The other most common change during puberty is sleep. During adolescence, teenagers tend to

either not sleep or quit their required hours of sleep for their brains to work properly and at their

full functionality. “Adolescents are notorious for not getting enough sleep. The average amount

of sleep that teenagers get is between 7 and 7 ¼ hours. However, they need between 9 and 9 ½

hours” (Mindell, Owens). There are many reasons why teenagers do not get enough sleep and

those reasons might depend on many factors. The most common factors could be because they

change their sleep schedule or their internal clock. After all, they either have a lot of things to do

such as school assignments, or work because many adolescents already have many obligations in

their lives where they need to work for them to be able to pay for school, a car or even to be able

to provide for their own family because many adolescents have kids already at this point of their

lives. These factors can have a negative effect also, in many factors of their personal life such as

if they are deprived of their sleep most of the time their moods are going to change in a negative

way where they are going to be angry all or most of the time, they could get irritated easily, and

they are not going to be able to regulate their emotions as well as a person that does get enough
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and proper sleep. Therefore, some ways of preventing these things to happen could be just

getting enough sleep by getting to bed early without the phone, television, or any type of

distraction, also trying to avoid caffeine, and not oversleeping on days off from school or work

since their internal clock can change fast and they will have problems while trying to sleep early

when needed.

Unfortunately, there are many disorders that adolescents can develop during this stage.

Two common disorders can be diagnosticated while in adolescence such as Schizophrenia which

most commonly appears in boys and Depression which is most common to appear in girls but

regardless of that, either of those disorders can affect everyone. These two mental disorders

(Depression and Schizophrenia) are closely related since many patients (Around 25%) that have

Schizophrenia is also diagnosticated with depression or depressive symptoms. Severe/major

depression or teen depression “is a serious mental health problem that causes a persistent feeling

of sadness and loss of interest in activities. It affects how your teenager thinks, feels and

behaves, and it can cause emotional, functional and physical problems” (Mayo Foundation). As

mentioned, some of the most noticeable changes in depression are emotions and behaviors. Some

of the main emotional changes could be that the person who suffers from it feels sad most of the

time and cries often for no reason, they feel empty and nothing makes them feel happy, and they

lost interest in a lot of things such as relationships or recreative activities, if they at some point

accomplished something big like finish a major career or getting a great job they will feel like if

they did nothing important, they might also have trouble trying to concentrate, they suffer from

low self-esteem, and if the depression is at some point severe they might have thoughts of death

or suicide. Now, for the behavioral changes, they could be that they either sleep too much or they

could have a hard time when trying to sleep (Insomnia), they can also either lose or gain a lot of
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weight since their appetite can constantly change when going through depression, they always

might feel tired, they rather stay in their rooms away from every type of social interaction, they

care less about their appearance, they start to behave in different and bad ways such as speeding,

drinking too much alcohol, start using drugs, they start doing bad at school by missing classes

and failing with homework and assignments, and again if the depression is severe they might

harm themselves in many ways and at some point they might commit suicide or at least attempt

to do it. Nowadays depression among student adolescents is very common because of the

situation with covid in the past years, and many have been struggling a lot to do good in school

and life overall. Some ways to prevent depression to develop in teenagers or to prevent it to grow

once it is already developed could be to go talk and advert someone unaffected by this disorder

about the situation, and once someone is already adverted about what is happening to start

focusing “on the early detection and treatment of depression, and tertiary prevention attempts to

minimize disability arising from depression” (Bennett, Jones, Smith).

Human development is the process that humans must go through for them to acquire

and/or achieve full maturity or development of their psychological and cognitive behaviors and

functions such as reasoning, thinking, and learning to behave more maturely in certain

circumstances. There are seven different stages of development which are Infancy, Early

Childhood, Middle Childhood, Adolescence (the middle stage), Emerging Adulthood,

Adulthood, and Late Adulthood. When it comes to Adolescence it is curious and interesting how

people that are going through this stage and go through puberty behave in many different,

predictable but also at the same time in so unpredictable ways because it is known by many

scientists and psychologists that teenagers or adolescents’ behavior can be predictable but that it

will all depend on how they live their lives when they go through this stage. For example, if they
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live their lives by being surrounded by bad people, predictably, they are going to start behaving

in bad ways such as missing school and start taking drugs, among many other related types of

behavior. On the other hand, if the adolescent is surrounded by good people, they are more likely

to go to school, have good grades, and be good or humble with others. One of the most

interesting things about this stage is that every adolescent/teenager has a rate of progression over

these cognitive changes. Some might mature and develop all these mental and physical changes

faster and even at a younger age, and some others might last longer to acquire and/or develop all

those changes or not even be able to go through puberty (delayed puberty) ever or later in their

lives. All stages of human development are so interesting and also really important for everyone

to know more about them because hopefully, this is what we all are going to go through at some

point, and as well as all this has its good change and or processes it also has some bad changes or

developments such as disorders like depression. Therefore, it is really important to know about

all this and to have some preventions also in case someone we know goes through some rough

time during their adolescence or in any stage of their life.


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