Positive Youth Development (PYD) Lecture 1

Learning Objectives in the next three lectures

1. Introduce positive youth development (PYD) and how this approach came about in history
2. Introduce some key developments during adolescence and young adulthood
3. Influential theories in PYD
4. Research methods in PYD research
5. The role of culture (particularly Maori vs. Western) in youth development

“Adolescence”

• A distinct period of transition between childhood and adulthood

• People mature across several domains: social, sexual, emotional, physical, cognitive

• The word ’adolescence; Only started being described as such ~100 years ago (G. Stanley Hall)

• Roots in Latin: ‘Adolescere’ = ‘to grow up’ or ‘to mature’

• Emergence of identity (“Who am I?”)

When does adolescence take place? It depends

• Varies depending on environmental factors (culture, time period, socioeconomic status)
• Western societies: 13 - 22 years
• Japan: Seijin no Hi (coming of age day) ceremony for those who have turned 20
• East Africa: Maasai people will perform initiaion to warriorhood ceremony for males turning 15.
• North America: Apache people mark transition to womanhood between ages 12 and 16.

Deficit vs. Humanistic Perspectives

The Deficit Perspective

• Focuses on avoiding shortcomings during adolescence
• Reducing problematic behaviours
• Pros: identifies important risk factors and motivates preventative measures.
• Cons: contributes to stigmatization, self-fulfilling prophecy (perpetuating low expectations), has a narrow focus.

The Humanistic Perspective

• Focuses on strengths, self-actualization, and potential
• Opportunities for growth
• Pros: promotes actions that will lead to self-discovery, encourages authentic relationships
• Cons: Optimism can be unrealistic (potential to ignore or underestimate struggles), limited acknowledgement of societal influences, risk of overlooking negative behaviours.

Deficit vs. Humanistic View

Existentialism

• Existentialism emerges to oppose essentialism
• Existentialism: ‘the self’ is not a substance or an “essence”, but as an activity or way of being whereby we are always in the process of creating who we are as our life unfolds.

Existential Psychology

• If ‘the self’ is not pre-determined, then how do we create it?
• we are burdened with the task of creating ourselves through our choices and actions
• Begins to balanced previous focus on human limitations with a focus on human potential

Early Minds: G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924)

::: notes We have now talked about how there is this global shift in thought taking place toward existentialism and away from essentialism, but just like when we talked about Cognitive development, these shifts in thought tend to originate from a handful of extremely influential thinkers. And the same is true with the shift from essentialism to existentialism. So, I want to illustrate how that same shift is taking place just by looking at two individuals, the first of whom is G. Stanley Hall, who we can see did not live to see WWII and so his view is not shaped by that particular event. :::

Early Minds: Erik Erikson (1902-1994)

Erik Erikson

• German-American developmental psychologist (psychosocial development)
• Interested in how individuals develop their personality and identity
• Interested in identity development across different cultures
• 8-stage model of psychosocial development
• Crucial decision in adolescence = Identity vs. Inferiority

Erikson’s stages

Stages

• Adolescents can develop the virtue of fidelity (consistency in their identity)
• Erikson coined the term “identity crisis”
• Sees “identity crisis” as an integral, healthy, dynamic process in identity development.
• The process by which a person forges an answer to the question “who am i?”

Identity

• We don’t just have one stable identity
• Instead we explore and shape our identity throughout life by exploring different roles in various domains
• Domains: Career, Religious affiliation, Sexual orientation, Political values, family responsibilities, etc..

Aspects of Identity development

• Identity development can be Uneven
• Identity development is often a dynamic process
• Cognitive Dissonance: a mental discomfort felt when people’s beliefs or actions are contradictory.
• Cognitive Dissonance = the engine of identity formation

Statuses of Identity Development (James Marcia, 1980)

• Marcia developed a structured interview to classify identity development
• Interview assessed:
• presence/absence of identity crisis and
• presence/absence of identity commitment
• Measured these aspects across 4 domains: occupation, gender-role, religion, politics

Identity Statuses

Identity Statuses

• Statuses are not ‘Stages’
• one doesn’t necessarily go from one to another in all domains of your life at the same time
• Found that only 5% of people had the same status across all four domains
• the remaining 95% exhibited 2-3 statuses across domains

The Self across time: How people answer the question “Who are you?” at different ages

1. Age 9: “I have green eyes. I am short. I am the fastest sprinter at our school.”
2. At 12: “I am honest. I have big ears. I am polite. I usually do well in class.”
3. At 16: “I am sensitive. I tend to be diplomatic. I sometimes can lose my temper. I am a feminist.”

The Self Concept

The Self Concept

• Throughout adolescence, self-concept becomes more complex and abstract
• Adolescents start to realise that their behaviours can be contradictory
• Adolescents then become concerned with their false self behaviours
• The False Self vs. The Real Me distinction

Role of Authenticity in development of the Self Concept

• Harter & Monsour (1992) asked 13, 15, & 17 year olds about contradictory behaviours with parents, friends, school, and romantic partners.
• Goal: to understand if there are differences in number of contradictions across age groups.
• Contradictions in Identity, often described as the “False Self”

How does one measure the False Self?

Harter & Monsour (1992) Findings

The Ecological Perspective:

• We are currently in the midst of a paradigm shift:
• We are beginning to reject dichotomies like Nature/Nurture, Continuous/Discontinuous
• These ideas used to be the foundation of developmental science
• The problem with dichotomies: They are reductive! Neither may be right!
• What’s the solution? Embrace the complexity and nuance.

But that’s exhausting! Yes, but that’s the world we live in

• The Ecological perspective and the Humanistic perspective (following on from existentialism) are what sets the stage for a new field of psychological research in the 1990s.
• Positive Youth Development (which we will dive into next lecture!)

Thank you!