A longitudinal investigation of adolescents' changing perceptions of pubertal timing.

Abstract

College of Health and Human DevelopmentPennsylvania State UniversityThis study examined, longitudinally, adolescents' self-ratings of timing of puberty and how theseperceptions are related to an objective measure of pubertal timing, pubertal status, and feelingsabout their pubertal timing during 7th, 8th, and 12th grades. There is moderate consistency inself-reported pubertal timing across adolescence. Perceptions of pubertal timing at 12th grade werepredicted by both actual pubertal timing and 8th-grade perceptions. Furthermore, the direct com-parison of perceived timing with an objective timing measure indicated that perceptions becamemore accurate by 12th grade. Feelings about pubertal timing were related to perceived timing butnot to the objective measure of pubertal timing. These results suggest that actual and perceivedtiming are overlapping but distinct timing measures that reflect different biological and psychoso-cial processes.Pubertal development, characterized by rapid physicalgrowth, large increases in levels of hormones, and the appear-ance of secondary sexual characteristics (Petersen & Taylor,1980), is considered one of the most important transitions thatoccur in adolescence. Two aspects of pubertal developmenthave received considerable attention: pubertal status and pu-bertal timing. Pubertal status refers to the current level of physi-cal development experienced by the adolescent relative to theoverall process of pubertal change, whereas pubertal limingrefers to whether an adolescent's pubertal process is occurringon time, early, or late relative to his or her peers. Thus, pubertalstatus is an absolute measure, whereas pubertal timing is a nor-mative measure. Changes in pubertal status have been asso-ciated with both intra- and interpersonal changes in such areasas self-concept, cognitive abilities, and family relationships(Crockett & Petersen, 1987; Simmons, Blyth, Van Cleave, B Steinberg & Hill, 1978; Tanner, 1962). The timingof pubertal development has also been associated with changesin these domains (Jones & Mussen, 1958; Mussen & Jones,1957; Newcombe & Dubas, 1987; Petersen & Crockett, 1985;Steinberg, 1987).The most widely accepted standard for the assessment ofThis research was supported by Grant MH 30252/38142 to Anne C.Petersen. Portions of these data were reported to the Society for Re-search in Child Development, Kansas City, Missouri, April 1989.We gratefully acknowledge the work of the entire staff of the EarlyAdolescent Study, as well as the cooperation and contributions of theyoung adolescents who participated in the research.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Ju-dith Semon Dubas, Penn State Adolescence Study, 104 HendersonBuilding, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania16802.pubertal status is the five-stage Tanner criteria based on ob-served changes in primary and secondary sexual characteris-tics (Marshall & Tanner, 1969,1970). Because this technique,designed to be used by health professionals, cannot always beused in research, several self-report scales of pubertal statushave also been developed (e.g., Duke, Litt, & Gross, 1980;Morris & Udry, 1980; Petersen, Crockett, Richards, & Boxer,1988) and validated (Brooks-Gunn, Warren, Rosso, & Gargiulo,1987; Dorn, Susman, Nottelmann, Inoff-Germain, & Chrou-sos, 1990; Petersen et al., 1988).In most cases, pubertal timing has been assessed by compar-ing an individual's pubertal status (or retrospective reports ofage of development) on some indicator (eg., menarche) witheither national or local (i.e., sample) norms, using a trichotomi-zation procedure or standard (Jeviation cutoffs for early, on-time, and late classifications. Self-report measures of pubertaltiming have also been used (Rierdan & Koff, 1985; Sanders S Silbereisen, Petersen, Albrecht, & Kracke, 1989).Whereas the validity of self-report measures of pubertal sta-tus has been established, little is known about the validity andstability of self-report measures of pubertal timing either dur-ing pubertal development or after pubertal development. Attimes researchers have used retrospective recollections of pu-berty to examine whether the influence of pubertal timing ismaintained into adulthood (Sanders & Soares, 1986). Thus, it isimportant to establish whether the same effects of timing ofpuberty are found when the ratings are obtained during or afterdevelopment.One problem with self-assessment of timing during the pu-bertal process is that the comparison person and the referencegroup are changing. Thus, one might perceive oneself as earlyone year and on time the next, depending on the pubertal sta-tu s of the peer group. Hence, retrospection pubertal timing580