4.8 Adolescents Develop Socially and Emotionally

Developing an Identity The psychologist Erik Erikson (1959) proposed a theory of human development based on the psychological challenges we face at different ages in our lives and how these challenges affect our social relationships. Erikson thought of psychosocial development as having eight stages, starting from an infant’s first year of life through old age (Table 4.1). Because it recognizes the importance of the entire life span, Erikson’s theory has been extremely influential in developmental psychology. However, a theory is only as good as the evidence that supports it, and few researchers have tested Erikson’s theory directly.

Erikson thought of each life stage as having a major developmental “crisis.” The individual reaches a challenge to be confronted. All of these crises are present throughout life, but each takes on special importance at a particular stage. Although each crisis provides an opportunity for psychological development, a lack of progress may impair further psychosocial development (Erikson, 1980). However, if the crisis is successfully resolved, the challenge provides skills and attitudes that the individual will need to face the next challenge. According to Erikson’s theory, a fundamental challenge that adolescents face is how to develop an adult identity. This crisis of identity versus role confusion includes addressing questions about who they are.

According to Erikson, adolescents are looking for something that “fits” as they search for an identity. They may shift between various peer groups and try out different activities, hobbies, and musical styles. Many aspects of the environment can influence the development of identity, from the neighborhoods where people grow up (Leventhal & Dupéré, 2019) to how they present themselves and how people respond to them in social media (Bayer et al., 2020). Adolescents’ families also influence their identity formation.

During their exploration, teenagers examine alternative belief systems and subcultures. They may wonder what they would be like if they were raised in other cultures, by other caregivers, or even in other historical times. Globalization means that adolescents are now exposed to many different worldviews, political systems, and musical styles that they may find personally relevant and therefore integrate into their identity (Gibbons & Poelker, 2019; Miller & Collette, 2019). Both race and ethnicity play prominent roles in adolescent development. Indeed, they combine to form an ethnic-race identity that incorporates how adolescents identify themselves; their knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about their ethnic and racial groups; and their personal experiences of being treated as a member of those groups (Benner et al., 2018; Umaña-Taylor et al., 2014). Adolescents’ ethnic-race identity is also heavily influenced by the families in which they are raised (Atkin & Yoo, 2019). All of these factors combine to influence the unique identities that adolescents adopt.

Parental Style and Influence A common belief is that adolescents come into conflict with their parents as they develop their identities. For most families, however, this conflict leads only to minor annoyances, and it can actually help adolescents develop important skills, including negotiation, critical thinking, communication, and empathy (Holmbeck, 1996). According to Erikson’s theory, negotiating a pathway to a stable identity requires breaking away from childhood beliefs by questioning and challenging parental and societal ideas (Erikson, 1968). But even though adolescents and their parents may disagree and sometimes argue, across cultures parents have a great deal of direct influence on their children’s behaviors, values, and independence (Feldman & Rosenthal, 1991). Do different parenting strategies matter?

Parents differ greatly in how they treat their children. So-called helicopter parents hover over their offspring and bulldoze career paths in front of them. They might even demand to know whether their young adult children have completed their college homework. Other parents are much more relaxed, with an easygoing philosophy about letting kids be kids. One influential approach identifies four different parenting styles based on how responsive and demanding the parents are (Baumrind, 1971; Maccoby & Martin, 1983; Table 4.2). Responsive parents are loving and sensitive to their child’s emotional and physical needs, whereas unresponsive parents are emotionally cold and inattentive to their child’s needs. Highly demanding parents set rules, place limits on the child’s behavior, and expect the child to obey their requirements. Parents who are low on the demanding scale refrain from imposing their authority on their children.

Which parenting style is best? Decades of research have generally found that authoritative parenting produces the most favorable outcomes (Figure 4.24; Baumrind, 2013). This demanding but warm style of parenting has tended to predict happier children over time, whereas neglectful and authoritarian styles have been associated with anxiety, depression, and lower self-esteem in their children (Pinquart, 2016; Pinquart & Gerke, 2019). Meanwhile, adolescents raised by either authoritarian or permissive parents have been found to be more aggressive (Masud et al., 2019). However, newer research suggests that in some families an authoritarian parenting style can have protective effects for children (Smetana, 2017). For this reason, the effectiveness of parenting styles must be assessed within particular cultures.

An important criticism is that the model is most applicable to Western children. In addition, a key question is what features of different parenting styles matter most. For instance, why does authoritative parenting generally work better than the other parenting styles? One possibility is that some children respond well to having rules imposed on them and therefore the parents do not need to be as strict (Tiberio et al., 2016). Research in child development has shown that some children seem more difficult to parent and that parents who adjust their parenting style to the child’s personality and behavior are the most successful at parenting (Chess & Thomas, 1984; Li et al., 2019).