Social And Cognitive Development In Adolescence

Adolescence is between 12 and 20 years of age period of rapid changes in the physical, cognitive, social-emotional development passing from childhood to adulthood stage.
Girls are more likely to develop physically at an earlier age as compared to boys. Girls would have puberty at ages between 10 to 13 years old and take 2 years to fully develop. Boys would have puberty at the ages between 12 to 15 years old and similarly take 2 years to fully develop. At this stage also secondary sexual characteristics begin to develop for boys and girls.
In girls, it would include increase development of subcutaneous fat which leads to weight gain; increase height growth; production of hormones - gonadotripins stimulated by the pituitary glands and hypothalamus

This is because of the adolescent shift in mental operations from concrete operations to formal operations thinking. As a result, adolescents think quantitatively and qualitatively in a systematic and rapid approach in comparison to childhood. They are able to adopt new and abstract approach in thinking through mental capability as reversibility, interpropositional thinking and hypothetico-deductive-reasoning.
Slater & Bremner (2003) explains that there is a correlation between social and cognitive development in adolescents. This is because they are more conscious of the environmental factors around them such as parents, friends, society, which has an influence in their actions, thinking, emotions. The development of formal operations thinking bring about a different worldview of the social settings in relation to them such as egocentricism, imaginary audience, personal fable, invincibility principle.
2) Explain how each of the physical, cognitive, socio-emotional changes has an impact on adolescent

As an individual, they may adopt a different perspective compared to their peers or parents. It a period of time where they seek to question their identity or place in the society.
There is likewise the development of egocentrism due to their incapability of seeing the point of view of others except themselves. This forms two types of thinking which is known as imaginary audience and personal fable. Imaginary audience is being over-conscious that there are people actually watching their every action, how they look. They feel as though their life is a stage and they are the main character with others around them watching as an audience although it is imaginary. They may engage in acts to seek attention from others due to their believe of the imaginary audience
The personal fable thinking alludes to the immature feeling of individual uniqueness and indestructibility. It makes them think that nobody can comprehend how they feel except themselves. Another part of the personal fable thinking includes the conviction that one is indestructible and nothing can transpire. This outcomes drives them to engage in risk taking or unsafe practices as substance misuse, sexual wantonness, alcoholism which may affect their