Unit 1

SELF DEVELOPMENT

Module 4

Development Stages in
Middle and Late Adolescence
Rubrics for Essay Learning Exercises:
CRITERIA 4 3 2 1
Information is Information is Information is The information
very organized in slightly organized but appears to be
a well- organized in a paragraph(s) are disorganized.
Organization
constructed well-constructed not well-
paragraph or paragraph or constructed.
paragraphs. paragraphs.
Information Information Information Information has
relates to the relates to the partially relates little or nothing
topic. It provides topic. It provides to the topic. No to do with the
Content a lot of few supporting details and/or topic.
supporting details and/or examples are
details and/or examples. given.
examples.
Main points well Main points well Main points are Main points lack
developed with developed with present with detailed
high quality and quality limited detail and development.
quantity support. supporting development. Ideas are vague
Development Reveals high details and Some critical with little
degree of critical quantity. Critical thinking is evidence of
thinking. thinking is present. critical thinking.
weaved into
points.
Essay is free of Essay has few Most spelling, Spelling,
distracting punctuation and punctuation, and punctuation, and
spelling, grammatical grammar correct grammatical
punctuation, and errors allowing allowing reader errors create
grammatical reader to follow to progress distraction,
Grammar errors; absent of ideas clearly. through essay. making reading
& Mechanics fragments, Very few Some errors difficult;
comma splices, fragments or run- remain. fragments,
and run-ons. ons. comma splices,
run-ons evident.
Errors are
frequent.
Meets all formal Meets format and Meets format and Fails to follow
and assignment assignment assignment format and
requirements and requirements; requirements; assignment
evidences margins, spacing, generally correct requirement;
attention to and indentations margins, spacing, cover format,
detail; all are correct; essay and indentations; incorrect
Format margins, spacing is neat and essay is neat but indentations;
and indentations correctly may have some neatness of essay
are correct; essay assembled. assembly errors. needs attention.
is neat and
correctly
assembled with
professional look.
4: DEVELOPMENT STAGES IN
MIDDLE AND LATE ADOLESCENCE

Do you remember the feeling you had when you finally celebrated your 13th birthday,
which symbolized your crossing over the developmental stage of childhood to teen-hood?
There was probably some sadness because you realized you were not a child anymore.
You probably felt some excitement because suddenly you have strong needs and desires
to be with people your age, making friends, and having fun without your family. You also
must have felt afraid of the future. You also started to notice certain physical changes
happening to your body—the growth of hair in the armpits and the pubic area, the increase
in height, and for the males, the deepening of the voice. For females, it is the start of their
menstruation period and the developing of their breasts. These physical changes mark the
onset of puberty, and the beginning of the adolescent stage of the human development.

Learning Outcomes:
At the end of this module, the students should be able to:

1. classify various developmental tasks according to developmental stage;

2. evaluate one’s development in comparison with persons of the same age group; and,
3. list ways on how to become a responsible adolescent prepared for adult life.
I. Adolescence—Between Childhood and Adulthood
As adolescents develop physically, they also develop cognitively, psychologically,
socially, and spiritually.
The ages during adolescence may be bracketed as follows (Corpus et al. 2010):
• Early adolescence - ages around 10 to 13
• Middle adolescence - ages from 14 to 16
• Late adolescence - ages from 17 to 20

American psychologists differ slightly with their

age definitions of adolescence. Feist and Rosenberg
(2012) pegged early adolescence at age 11 or 12,
and late adolescence at about age 18. Hence, in
America, a child is usually out of the house by the
age 18 because this is the age on how they define
young adulthood. This age definition of adolescence
is not a cut-and-dried rule as some persons mature
ahead of others, or some experience delayed
maturity due to many factors like genetics,
environment, or even economic conditions.

II. Erikson’s Eight Stages of Personality Development

Erik Erikson’s eight stages of personality development
define each stage of human development with a crisis or a conflict.
Each crisis or conflict either gets resolved or may be left
unresolved, resulting in favorable or unfavorable outcomes.

In referring to these eight stages of development espoused

by Erikson, it is important to know that the stages are borderless
and flowing, not strictly fixed and definite. An adolescent who is
experiencing identity issues may also be experiencing intimacy
issues (young adulthood) or may still be struggling with inferiority
(of school age), depending on whether or not they were able to
resolve each stage crisis.

Conflict or
Influential Possible Results from Resolving Conflict
Stage Crisis to be
Figure or Crisis
Resolved
Favorable Results Unfavorable Results
Infancy Parents Trust vs. • Being able to trust others • Mistrusting others,
(from birth to Mistrust when primary caregiver withdrawal or
18 months) (usually the mother) estrangement
provide caring,
attention, and love
 Early Parents Autonomy vs. • Develops self-control • Compulsive self-restraint
Childhood Shame and and physical skills, and or compliance
(18 months to 3 Doubt sense of Independence • Willfulness and defiance
years) without losing self- • Failure will result in
esteem feelings of shame and
• Ability to cooperate and doubt
to express oneself
• Develops feeling of
autonomy

Late Childhood Parents and
(Pre-School) Teachers
(3-5 years)
Initiative vs • Learns that being • When using too much
Guilt assertive, using power, power and control,
and being purposeful might experience
can influence their disapproval resulting in
environment lack of self- confidence
• Develops sense of and sense of guilt
purpose • Pessimism, fear of being
• Starts to evaluate one's wrongly judged
behavior

School Age Parents and Industry vs. • Learns how to cope with • Loss of hope, sense of
(6—12 years) Teachers Inferiority the school environment being mediocre
and its demands • Develops feelings of
• Learns how to create, inferiority
develop, and manipulate • Withdrawal from school
• Develops a sense of and peers
competence and
perseverance

Adolescence Teachers and
(12-20 years) Significant
Others
Identity vs. • Develops a sense of self • Feeling of confusion,
Role and identity indecisiveness, and anti-
Confusion • Plans to actualize one’s social behavior
abilities • Weak sense of self
• Develop the ability to
stay true to oneself

Young Friends Intimacy vs. • Develops a strong need • Impersonal, weak

Adulthood Isolation to form intimate, loving relationships
(20-25 years) relationships with a • Avoidance of relation-
group of people or with ship, career, or lifestyle
another person commitments
• Develops strong • May result in isolation
relationships and loneliness
• Learns commitment to
work and with another
person or group

Adulthood Community Generativity • Creates or nurtures • Self-indulgence, self-

(25-65 years) vs. Stagnation things that will outlast concern, or lack of
them, either by having interests and
children or creating a commitments
positive change that • • Shallow involvement
benefits others. In the world, pessimism
• Creativity, productivity,
feeling of usefulness
and accomplishment,
and concern for others
 Maturity Community Integrity vs • Sense of fulfillment as • Sense of loss, contempt
(65 years to Despair one looks back In one's for others
death) life and develops • May result in regret,
feeling of wisdom bitterness and despair
• Acceptance of worth
and uniqueness of one's
own life
• Acceptance of the
inevitability of death
and transitioning

III. Adolescence: Identity vs. Role Confusion

In the description above for the adolescent stage, the crisis or conflict identified is that
of identity and role confusion. What does this mean?

Identity is the concept of an individual about himself and is often referred to as “self-
identity,” molded through various interactive experiences around himself, such as their
family and community, and his responses in terms of thinking, attitude, and behavior to
external stimuli.

Role confusion is the negation of self-identity, in a sense that there is confusion over
one's self-concept or the absence or lack of such a concept.

IV. Changes During Adolescence

The adolescent’s physiological transitioning
is very pronounced at this stage. Puberty kicks in
and is fueled by the hormonal changes that are
occurring and pushing the adolescent toward
sexual maturation. At this stage, the brain also
continues to develop. Cognitive growth among
adolescents is usually marked by the way they
are able to comprehend abstract concepts, such
as freedom and human rights. Their beliefs about
morality, religion, and politics are also starting to
evolve (Feist and Rosenberg 2012).

Experimentation is a common activity among

adolescents as they search for their identity. They
want to be treated as adults, and they see adult
behavior as something to emulate. Socializing among male and female adolescents also
occur in this phase. In this digital era, online friendships abound, thanks to social
networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter; other platforms like online
games are also popular among adolescents. Sexual experimentation also happens in this
stage. However, due to their underdeveloped cognitive and affective capacities and
education of the matter, this experimentation sometimes end up in a disaster, such as
teen pregnancies and sexual diseases.
V. Adolescence and Social Behavior
Every culture has a representation of how their adolescent
population behaved over the decades. For example, in the USA,
the term “teenage rebellion” was popularized in the 1950s with
the beatnik movement at its forefront. Popular rebel teen stars
such as James Dean and writer Jack Kerouac became the icons
of that era.

Local teenagers copied their American counterparts It was

the era of the ‘Lo-Waist Gang,’ where actors wore tight fitting
jeans and pompadour hairstyles slopped with pomade.

On the local scene, social and political activists, mostly

high school and college students, were in the midst of the
political turmoil that dominated the Philippines before and
during martial law.

While there were activist students marching around the

streets of Manila other young Filipinos went up to the hills of
Antipolo, Rizal to hold their Antipolo Rock Festival held in
1970.

Toward the new millennium, the new adolescents who were born from the 1980s to
about the early 2000s became known as the “millennials.” This generation was born in
the midst of a grey technology boom; hence, they were aiy, referred to as “digital natives”
versus the previous generation who were referred to as “digital immigrant;” having
migrated from non-digital to digital technology.

The social lives of the millennials are driven by technology

and their social interactions are dictated by their use of socia
networks, mobile phones, and other gadgets.

VI. Skills and Tasks Appropriate for Middle and Late Adolescence
What do Filipino adolescents need to learn in terms of developmental tasks and skills
in order for them to grow into well-rounded young adults? Let us take a look at what the
American culture more or less expects from their adolescents to learn, according to a study
conducted by the Work-Life Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, titled
Raising Teens Project (http://hrweb.mit.edu/worklife/raising-teens). The study
enumerated ten desirable developmental tasks every adolescent in America should
develop:

1. Adjust to sexually maturing bodies and feelings – being aware of the bodily changes
happening, managing sexual feelings, and engaging in healthy sexual behaviors.
Establishing sexual identity and developing skills for romantic and meaningful
relationships are the healthy results when adolescents learn to adjust to their own
development.
2. Develop and apply abstract thinking skills - effectively understand and coordinate
abstract ideas, thinking out possibilities, trying out theories, planning ahead,
reflecting on how and what they are thinking, and coming out with their own personal
philosophies.
3. Develop and apply a new perspective on human relationships - developing the
capacity for compassion by learning how to put themselves in “somebody else’s shoes”
in order to understand other people's feelings and perspectives.
4. Develop and apply new coping skills in areas such as decision-making, problem
solving, and conflict resolution - they should be able to project toward the future
and see the consequences of their decisions.
5. Identify meaningful moral standards, values, and belief systems - the formation of
their own belief systems that will guide their decisions and behaviors.
6. Understand and express more complex emotional experiences - becoming more in
touch with their emotions and see the complex variances among strong emotions and
feelings.
7. Form friendships that are mutually close and supportive - Learning how to trust
others is an important task for an adolescent to develop.
8. Establish key aspects of identity - be encouraged to develop .their own healthy self-
concepts that reflect their uniqueness in relation to themselves, their families and
friends, and with the bigger community.
9. Meet the demands of increasingly mature roles and responsibilities - it is
important for the emerging adult to acquire skills and knowledge that will provide him
with meaningful careers and jobs and to live up to the expectations regarding
commitment to family, community, and nation-building.
10. Renegotiate relationships with adults in parenting roles - the adolescent stage
sees the movement toward independence and autonomy. In the Philippine setting, this
is not as pronounced as with other western cultures. However, Filipino adolescents
should be able to communicate with their parents their need for a certain degree of
independence as they mature to young adulthood.

Filipino authors Corpuz et al. (2010) in their book, Child and Adolescent Development,
identified similar developmental tasks a Filipino adolescent needs to learn. These are:

1. Developing occupational skills - skills that can help the adolescent develop
responsibility as a preparation for gainful employment ahead.
2. Self-reliance - the ability to identify their own skills and knowledge, capabilities, and
resources to engage in meaningful activities and not rely too much on others.
3. Ability to manage their finances - be able to discern what is the difference between
“wants” and “needs,” and be able to learn self-control when handling their finances.
As early as possible, the adolescent should learn financial literacy through various
means available to them.
4. Social responsibility - adolescents should be able to see beyond themselves, take into
consideration the greater community around them, and see their role in improving and
developing these communities, serving as change agents.
5. Mature work orientation - develop pride in what they do and raise standards of
excellence in the quality of their work.
6. Personal responsibility - to be fully responsible for their own decisions and actions
by owning them, become aware of the repercussions or results of the decisions they
 make and be mature enough to “own” these results, and refrain from putting blame
on others for the results of their decisions and actions.
7. Positive attitude toward work - in the book, The Prophet by the Lebanese poet, Kahlil
Gibran, he wrote, “Work is Love made Visible.” Developing a healthy and positive
attitude toward work means that we see work as an expression of our love for people
who are important to us, including ourselves. One can learn new things and grow to
become highly skilled, knowledgeable, and loving person if he or she sees work as a
way toward self-improvement and as an expression of love for his or her significant
others.

Here is an additional list of developmental tasks and skills a Filipino adolescent should
acquire:

1. Being courageous in standing up and being different from your friends. The
adolescent needs to feel he or she belongs to a group. While this is important, belonging
to a group does not necessarily mean losing one's identity and being guided by “mob
rule,” or what the majority does. Being courageous means learning to say “NO”.
2. Developing self-esteem. Learn to understand, accept, and appreciate oneself as a
unique person. Avoiding comparisons between you and other people is also a healthy
way to develop self-esteem.
3. Being true to yourself and avoiding the tendency to please others. Adolescents
struggle to assert their individuality or uniqueness because they are afraid others will
not approve or like them, or will not allow them to become member of a group. By
developing one's self-esteem, the need for approval from others becomes less.
4. Learning how media and advertising are trying to influence your thinking and
feelings. Understand that news is reported for a reason, usually to serve the purpose
of someone or some organization. Understand that advertising employed to sell
consumer products work on either fear or desires.
5. Becoming aware, critical, and being involved with social issues. Ask questions and
speak up whenever possible to address social issues such as poverty and corruption.
Let our leaders know how you think and feel about our society, and learn to suggest
solutions in improving our lives.
6. Embracing a healthy lifestyle. Becoming aware of your health and the food you eat,
and engaging in sports and other physical activities beneficial to your wellbeing. Learn
to relax.
7. Developing your spirituality. Finding what gives meaning to your life and to all the
experiences you are going through.

REFLECTION #4
In your journal, write your thoughts about the topic discussed in this module. Which of the skills
and tasks have you learned and acquired? Are these important to your development and self-
concept? Why? What are the changes have you experienced during your adolescent period?
REMEMBER!
1. Puberty involves the physical changes that happen during the adolescent stage. During
puberty, the adolescent body matures sexually.
2. Cognitive development also happens during adolescence as the brain continue, to grow and
develop. New cognitive skills develop such as reasoning, abstract thinking, and increased
intelligence.
3. Social development happens during adolescence when adolescents desire for more autonomy
and independence from their-families, and as their friends and peers become their primary
influence, taking over the previous roles their parents had.
4. Idealism and experimentation are hallmarks of the adolescence stage. Beliefs and values are
formed at this stage, sometimes even questioning the existing and accepted social norms. With
puberty, the adolescent also goes into experimentation of their bodies, exploring their
sexuality, as well as substances such as alcoholic drinks or drugs, which may result in
addiction or crime.
5. There are certain developmental tasks and skills adolescents have to learn and imbibe so that
they can prepare themselves in becoming more responsible adolescents and mature toward
young adulthood. These tasks and skills will also help adolescents in defining their career
preferences while preparing them for more meaningful and productive lives.
6. Self-identity or self-concept evolves from an individual's own set of beliefs and values system,
in the roles he has identified for himself, the responsibilities he recognizes and owns, and the
expectations others have on him.

References

Santos, Ricardo Rubio. Personal Development. First Edition. Rex Printing Company. Quezon City. February
2016.
Feist, Gregory J. and Erika L. Rosenberg. 2012. Psychology: Perspective and Connections, 2nd Edition,
International Edition. New York, NY, USA: McGraw-Hill.
Corpuz. Brenda B., Ma. Rita D. Lucas, Heidi Grace L. Borabo, and Pat I. Lucido. 2010. Child ond Adolescent
Development: Looking at Learners at Different Life Stages. Metro Manila, Philippines: Lorimar
Publishing, Inc.

http://www.sinclair.edu/academics/lhs/departments/n5g/pub/ma5lowanderiks

http://wwwJearn.ppdictionary.com/personality_development_4 htm

Images and Artworks used in this Module:

• https://pinoy.news/page/45/
• https://web.facebook.com/420PhilippinesOFFICIALPAGE/posts/2998752983511526?_rdc=1&_rdr
• https://interaksyon.philstar.com/trends-spotlights/2020/11/17/180634/mass-student-strike-
petitioners-unfazed-by-roques-babagsak-kayo-warning/
• https://www.livescience.com/57503-selfie-science.html
• https://practicalpie.com/erik-erikson/
• http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Young-Catholics:-Church-supporting-Filipino-youth-
42292.html
• https://play.street-smart.be/en/game/view/77