Psychosocial Development during Adolescence: Progress in Developmental Contextualism

Abstract

Adams, Gerald R., Montemayor, Raymond, and Gullota, Thomas (Eds.). (1996). Psychosocial Development During Adolescence: Progress in Developmental Contextualism. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. 322 pages. Paperback ISBN 0-7619-0533-2. This edition of the Advances in Adolescent Development series focuses on the developmental contextual perspective. This edited book has several aims. Given an expanding interest in approaching adolescence from a developmental contextualist frame work, the editor chooses to focus on the work of John Hill and review the history and progress from Hill's pivotal statements in 1973 to the present. We are also provided a comprehensive discussion of developmental tasks in adolescence based on Hill's proposal to explore these tasks from a bio-psychosocial perspective. Finally, the book describes the unfolding research agendas in studying psychosocial development in adolescence from the developmental contextualist perspective outlined by Hill. Psychosocial Development During Adolescence is organized into an introductory chapter on the legacy of John Hill; seven major chapters, each covering one major psychosocial theme in adolescent development, such as autonomy, intimacy, and identity; and a concluding chapter reflecting past and future use of the developmental contextualism perspective on the study of adolescence. The introduction to the legacy of John Hill is valuable for zeroing in on the developmental contextual perspective. Hill advocated the centrality of psychosocial variables in the study of normal development in adolescence. He also identified bio-psychosocial factors (such as puberty, cognition, or self-definition), and contextual factors (such as gender, race-ethnicity, and social class) as important determinants of adolescent behavior. Hill's influence in identifying intimacy, detachment-autonomy, sexuality, achievement, and identity as the main psychosocial themes in adolescent development is evidenced by the vast array of work from the developmental-contextualist perspective that currently dominates the field. The introductory chapters lay the foundation for subsequent chapters by articulating Hill's ecological theory of adolescent development, which focuses on associations between the person and the situation throughout the life course. The editors offer their historical perspective on Hill as one method of addressing the vast complexity of the discipline and the possibility of seeing how various ideas, methodologies, and theories are related. Chapter two begins with a brief discussion on adolescent autonomy, followed by a more comprehensive presentation of the debate over the adaptive value of emotional distance (detachment) from parents during adolescence. The authors also discuss parent-- adolescent relationships in the context of promoting individuality versus maintenance of emotional connection, reviewing numerous studies on the value of opportunities for decision making in the family context. The last section of this chapter considers the restricted legal rights of adolescents in conjunction with the empirical work that calls these self-governing restrictions into question. In Chapter three, the reader is presented with the most compelling topics and recent trends in adolescent sexuality, such as pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and sexual violence. The authors note the struggle that researchers face in attempting to address the topic of sexuality amidst problem-focused agendas and varying social perceptions surrounding adolescent sexual behavior. The presentation of trends in sexual behavior is followed by a review of key findings on sexual development, including sexual identity formation, behavior patterns, and aberrant sexual experiences. A lucid discussion of the differences between trends and developmental sequences helps the reader distinguish between social change and perceptions of sexual deviance in adolescence. Of significance in this chapter, the authors claim that because comparatively little research exists on noncoital behaviors (i. …