Personal Reflections on Adolescence: Social & Developmental Psychology

This assignment is a reflective exploration of the student's adolescence, examining the period's social and developmental aspects. The student details their positive and negative characteristics, including the development of career consciousness, appearance consciousness, and hobbies, alongside challenges like psychological repercussions of physical changes and ambiguous imagination. The assignment delves into significant high school events, such as a bullying incident and a classmate's academic turnaround, and their impact on the student's perspective. Peer and parent relationships are analyzed, highlighting the importance of friendships and the complexities of family dynamics during this phase. The student also relates their experiences to David Elkind's fallacies of adolescent thinking, offering a personal perspective on the cognitive and emotional changes of adolescence.

Running head: SOCIAL & DEVELOPMENTAL PSYCHOLOGY
Social & Developmental Psychology
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

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Executive Summary:

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Table of Contents
Context:......................................................................................................................................3
Positive and Negative Characteristics during the adolescence:.................................................4
High school Event:.....................................................................................................................5
Peer Relationships:.....................................................................................................................7
Relationship with Parents:..........................................................................................................7
Adolescent Thinking:.................................................................................................................8
References:.................................................................................................................................9

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Context:
The adolescence is regarded as an important of the human life cycle. According to
Vasquez et al. (2019), the adolescence is the main stage of personality development of the
humans. At the same time, it is regarded as the most rapid phase of the human development.
As per the esteemed opinion of Kapur (2015), the adolescence is recognized as the
transitional phase of growth. Adolescence is regarded to the stage between the adulthood and
the childhood. As per the guidelines of World Health Organization, the age range for the
adolescence period is considered to be 10 to 19 years (Who.int, 2020). The mentioned age
range is recognized under the definition of Young People which ranges from 10 years to 24
years as per the guidelines of World Health Organization (Who.int, 2020). The stage is
responsible for the biological and psychosocial maturity (Curtis, 2015). According to the
comments of Viner et al. (2015), the individuals at this stage are sensitive to the characteristic
changes amongst both other individuals and the environment. The stage is considered to be
associated with greater vulnerabilities as the individuals are still at the stage of capacity
development and are on the verge of moving outside of their comfort zone which can be their
family, parents, home, friend zone or residential region.
The study is basically centred at my experience of adolescence and at the same time,
it is based on the exploration of the aspects associated with my identity formation during the
stage of adolescence. The study analyses the positive and negative characteristics that I
developed during my adolescence. Along with that, the study also mentions about the
important techniques that were applied by me for overcoming the negative aspects. Along
with that, the study evaluates my peer relationships and the relationship with parents. Other
than this, the study informs about the remarkable incidents happened in my school life and
which had a tremendous impact on my adolescence growth and personality. In addition to

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this, the study provides an important understanding of the David Elkind's fallacies of
adolescent thinking and identifies the personal instances that are supported by the concept.
Positive and Negative Characteristics during the adolescence:
The positive characteristics of mine developed in the adolescence period are the
development of the career consciousness, formation of appearance consciousness,
development of hobbies along with love for the sporting activities. In addition to this, I
started to make female friends as well. I was primarily bit shy in interacting with the female
friends and that is a major reason for the considerably low amount of female participation in
my friend list. Hence, I consider the attraction towards the opposite sex to be one of the
positive characteristics of mine developed during the adolescence period. On the other hand
there were plenty of negative characteristics as well which got developed in me during my
adolescence period and to be honest, they were considerably difficult for me to remove. The
negative characteristics that I developed in me were the psychological repercussions of my
own physical and biological changes, ambiguous imagination, fan boy characteristics or
nature of worship along with the detrimental impact of some peer group activities.
With each passing days of my adolescence, I felt that I was bit more conscious about
my career or profession. I started to think what would be a suitable career option for me and
started to identify and develop the skills that are much required for that career option. Other
than this, I started to spend a good amount of my leisure time with my friends and the
increasing participation of female members in my friend list ensured that I achieve a greater
comfort in interacting with the female friends. Along with that, my confidence in
communicating and building a rapport with the female friends went up as well. In addition to
this, I started to consider my appearance as important. I had started to hang out with friends
where female members were also present and that certainly increased my awareness and urge

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in ensuring that I am well dressed up and appear as an attractive individual. During these
period, I developed the hobby of mimicry and comedy which enhanced my acceptance in my
friend circle. Other than this, I had developed considerable amount of interest on football
during my adolescence. I was considerably fond of Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo,
Ronaldinho and Zinedine Zidane. Hence. These are the activities that shaped my positive
characteristics.
During my adolescence, I was bit short in height and that had tremendous
psychological impact on me as I had started to take it as a negative aspect of mine. I had
some discomfort with friends higher than my height and constantly tried to avoid them which
was not good at all. I had the tendency of losing my focus with ambiguous imagination and
that was a major concern for me during my studies as that resulted in lack of concentration. I
had the tendency of frequently developing a strong feeling for the political leaders and it led
me towards worshipping them. This was pretty toxic for me as in many cases as I overlooked
the necessity of evaluating the situation prior to supporting those leaders on any given
situation. I was highly emotional in nature during my adolescence which detrimentally
affected my critical thinking and power of decision making. Other than this, I along with my
peers developed a bad habit which was strictly prohibited by my parents and the same was
developed with the impact of my friends. For overcoming the discomfort of my height, I
participated in counselling sessions and for tackling emotional instability, I participated in
meditation activities. I started to develop the skills of evaluation to tackle the blind worship
and I tried to be practical in every situation to overcome the tendency of ambiguous thinking.
Other than this, I spent some time in a rehabilitation centre as well for overcoming the bad
habit that I developed with the impact of my peers group.

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High school Event:
There are several high school events that have changed me in a substantial manner
and enabled me to explore different aspects of my personality. One of them was an incident
of bullying that took place at my high school. A set of senior students who were notoriously
popular in my high school were observed to participate in an event of bullying. The group of
student were involved in bullying a student with walking disability. The student who was
bullied, was 2 year junior than me. To be honest, I had limited consideration towards the fact
at the early stage, however, things went bad quickly as the junior student stopped coming to
school for almost 17 days. The parents of the student came to the school with severe anxiety
and panic and almost cried in front our teachers’ panel. The sight was very painful to be
honest. I felt that it is perfectly alright to do funny things at the school, however, bullying is
certainly not something that I myself should practice at any situation and also I thought that I
have the responsibility to ensure that no one gets bullied at my school or near surroundings.
Other than this, one incident that changed my perspective about life and study was when one
of my friend improved his mathematic skills at the high school. His name was John and he
had considerably low skills in Mathematics.
One fine morning, our mathematics teacher asked him to solve a not so complex math
problem, however, John, out of fear that he generated with mathematic curriculum, made it
horribly wrong. The teacher gave him what I should call one of the severe punishment along
with tremendous insult in front of 40 odd students. That was the first time, I saw John crying
and I really felt bad, however, at the end final exam of the year, I was surprised to see John
achieved 3rd highest score in the class. I was really shocked and mesmerized as well,
however, that was not all. John became the highest scorer in Mathematics at the next standard
and was praised by that very teacher who insulted John in front of everyone at the class.
John’s story still is recognized as one of the best comebacks and is widely cited by our

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teachers even today whenever they are to motivate any student to overcome their fear and do
well in the subjects they fear the most. When I look at both the cases these days, I feel that
both the stories influenced my personality in a substantial manner. I learned to fight from
John’s story and I got influenced for overcoming my barriers from the incident and at the
same time, the bullying related incident enhanced my awareness and responsibility towards
the society.
Peer Relationships:
I had a strong relationship with my peers. To be honest, I had a friend circle of 7
individuals where 4 were men including me and rest 3 were female members. I still have a
genuine bond with them and they are still the most preferred group for me for spending my
leisure time. In addition to this, I feel proud to say that they are assets of my life and their
absence could have certainly enhanced my difficulty in leading a happy and sustainable life.
With a close look at their help during my difficult times, I feel that my life is affected by
them a lot. I got monetary help from them, they covered me when I was sick and at the same
time, they had my back covered when I got badly broken emotionally. They supported me
each and every part of my life. Throughout Adolescence, I feel we had several fights between
each other regarding political issues, sporting preferences, games and even in case of studies.
However, one thing remained the same and that was the strength of our bond and the love for
each other.
Relationship with Parents:
To be very honest, I had a difficult relationship with my parents at the early stage of
my life or more specifically during the adolescence. I had good rapport with my mother but I
had considerably limited interaction with my father as I started to fear him at an early stage of
my life. The positives in relationship with my parents will be their belief on me even at the

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time of adolescence and the support they provided me mentally to overcome the negative
characteristics in that time. On the other hand, the negative aspects in the relationship were
the excessive pressure I felt from my parents’ part for selecting my career option and the
strictness that they used to follow for the identification of my own friends. They had the
tendency of forcing me to do things that they would have liked to do like selecting their
preferred career option or selecting the friends whom they feel good for me and these were
the major issues for me in the relationship.
Adolescent Thinking:
I experienced only one instance where I can relate the David Elkind's fallacies of
adolescent thinking and that was when I demanded for a smartphone from my parents (Cino,
2017). Both of them, looking at my age and adolescent growth, were not ready to provide a
substantially costly smartphone and gave considerable number of reasons why I must not had
a smartphone and the consequences that is expected to have on my study. However, I
behaved like they do not have any idea of the requirements and trends of the modern society
and the importance of the smartphones for a student like me due to the generation gap. This is
where I portrayed the adolescent egocentrism and inappropriate thinking. In addition to this, I
portrayed personal fables thinking that I am important for my parents and they cannot
overlook my demand. I was unable to convince them for the smartphone and I think that
certainly have contributed to my improvement in the academics.

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References:
Cino, D. (2017). The “Puer Optionis:” Contemporary childhood adultization,
spectacularization, and sexualization. Ricerche di Pedagogia e Didattica. Journal of
Theories and Research in Education, 12(2), 269-291.
Curtis, A. C. (2015). Defining adolescence. Journal of Adolescent and Family Health, 7(2), 2.
Kapur, S. (2015). Adolescence: the stage of transition. Horizons of holistic education, 2, 233-
250.
Vasquez, B. S. G., Martinez, C. J. B., Martinez, M. E. M., & Vasquez, M. A. I. (2019). Brain
and learning on adolescence stage. International research journal of engineering, IT &
scientific research, 5(5), 1-7.
Viner, R. M., Ross, D., Hardy, R., Kuh, D., Power, C., Johnson, A., ... & Batty, G. D. (2015).
Life course epidemiology: recognising the importance of adolescence.
Who.int (2020). Adolescent development. Retrieved 3 April 2020, from
https://www.who.int/maternal_child_adolescent/topics/adolescence/development/en/