5. What do the following phrases and concepts mean? How might each be applied to

Question

5. What do the following phrases and concepts mean? How might each be applied to the study of adolescence?

     a.   the nature vs. nurture controversy (Hans Sebald)

     b.   “epigenetic principle of human development”; “role diffusion” or “identity confusion”; free                  role experimentation and the search for identity (Erik Erikson)

     c.   “psychosexual moratorium” vs. “psychosocial moratorium” (Freud, Erikson)

     d.   “excessively naturalistic conception of adolescence”; possible functions for the social structure of widespread acceptance of Erikson’s theory of the adolescent search for identity (Bennett Berger)

     e.   “regularized status passages” (i.e., institutionalized movement from one social position to another); “turning points”; “identity transformations” (Anselm Strauss). Also: explain the connection between these three (see the diagram in the relevant class handout).

     f.     “imputed (attributed) identity”; “pivotal category” (John Lofland)

6. Explain how moving from childhood to adolescence might be considered a regularized status passage.

7. Explain how calling someone an “adolescent” is imputing an identity to the person. In what sense is adolescence a pivotal category?

Explanation / Answer

5. a.   the nature vs. nurture controversy: the nature vs nurture controversy states that it is not only genes that drives a person or that makes up the entire part of his nature, but also the environment in which he is growing. This has particularly be proven with twin studies, that even after twins having a similar genetic composition, though growing in different environments, showed to have different natures, depending on the type of environment they’ve been brought up in.

b.   “epigenetic principle of human development” (Erik Erikson) :

The epigenetic principle of erikson which states that the development of a person’s personality occurs through 8 stages, and that these stages would occur in a predetermined order. Erikson’s theory was seen to be similar to Freud’s principles, though the difference was in the expansion of the theory into the social hemisphere.

c.   “psychosexual moratorium” vs. “psychosocial moratorium” (Freud, Erikson)

The psychosocial part is erikson’s theory, where he explains how the interaction of a person happens as he grows, and how his behaviour is shaped throughout his years of social interaction whereas Freud’s theory only emphasises on the se-xual stages involved in the growth of an individual .

d.   “excessively naturalistic conception of adolescence”;

This theory was given by Bennett Berger, who said that he didn’t believe that adolescence was one of the natural state affairs and that he believed in adolescence to be an ideology and it is only taken by the society, since this would only be functional by keeping younger people in a crisis state.

e.   “regularized status passages”:is one of the institutionalised movements that took place from one of the social positions to the other.

f. “pivotal category”: this means that looking at the correlative categories or the attributes of an individual, it might lead to conclusions if a person has the characteristics of an adolescent such as hormonal, immature and rebellious.

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