List and define the three major issues in studying adolescent development.

Question

What will be an ideal response?

Answer 1

The three important issues raised in the study of adolescent development are nature and nurture, continuity and discontinuity, and early and later experiences. The nature-nurture issue involves the debate about whether development is primarily influenced by nature or nurture. Nature refers to an organism's biological inheritance, nurture to its environmental experiences. The continuity-discontinuity issues focus on the extent to which development involves gradual, cumulative changes (continuity) or distinct stages (discontinuity). The last issue focuses on the importance of earlier experiences in the child's life, and whether or not later experiences can make up for deficits or poor early experiences. Proponents of the early-experience doctrine believe that development will never be optimal if infants are not given warm, nurturing care in the first year of life. Proponents of the later-experience view argue that children and adolescents are malleable throughout development, and that later sensitive care giving is just as important as earlier sensitive care giving.