| academic achievement | Achievement that is measured by standardized tests of scholastic ability or knowledge.
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| achievement | The psychosocial domain concerning behaviors and feelings in evaluative situations.
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| achievement attributions | The beliefs one holds about the causes of one's successes and failures.
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| activational role of hormones | The process through which changes in hormone levels, especially at puberty, stimulate changes in the adolescent's behavior, appearance, or growth.
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| adolescence-limited offenders | Antisocial adolescents whose delinquent or violent behavior begins and ends during adolescence (contrast with life-course-persistent offenders).
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| adolescent growth spurt | The dramatic increase in height and weight that occurs during puberty.
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| adolescent health care | A new field of study and health care devoted to understanding the health care needs of individuals during the second decade of life.
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| adrenarche | The maturation of the adrenal glands that takes place in preadolescence.
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| Adult Attachment Interview | A structured interview used to assess an individual's past attachment history and "internal working model" of relationships.
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| age of majority | The designated age at which an individual is recognized as an adult member of the community.
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| age-grading | The process of grouping individuals within social institutions on the basis of chronological age.
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| AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) | A disease, transmitted by means of bodily fluids, that devastates the immune system.
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| analysis of variance (ANOVA) | A statistical technique for comparing two or more groups on some variable of interest.
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| androgens | A class of sex hormones secreted by the gonads, found in both sexes, but in higher levels among males than among females following puberty.
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| androgyny | The combination of both highly masculine and highly feminine traits.
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| anorexia | An eating disorder found chiefly among young women, characterized by dramatic and severe self-induced weight loss.
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| anxious-avoidant attachment | An insecure attachment between infant and caregiver, characterized by indifference on the part of the infant toward the caregiver.
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| anxious-resistant attachment | An insecure attachment between infant and caregiver, characterized by distress at separation and anger at reunion.
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| aptitude test | A test designed to predict a student's future performance in school, such as the SAT.
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| asynchronicity of growth | The fact that different parts of the body grow at different rates at puberty, which sometimes results in the appearance of gawkiness or awkwardness during early adolescence.
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| attachment | The strong affectional bond that develops between an infant and caregiver.
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| attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) | A biologically based psychological disorder characterized by impulsivity, inattentiveness, and restlessness, often in school situations.
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| authoritarian parents | Parents who use punitive, absolute, and forceful discipline, and who place a premium on obedience and conformity.
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| authoritative parents | Parents who use warmth, firm control and rational, issue-oriented discipline, in which emphasis is placed on the development of self-direction.
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| autoerotic behavior | Sexual behavior that is experienced alone, such as masturbation or sexual fantasizing.
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| automatization | The mechanism through which various cognitive processes become automatic, or second nature.
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| autonomy | The psychosocial domain concerning the development and expression of independence.
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| baby boom | The period following World War II, during which the number of infants born was extremely large.
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| Bar (Bas) Mitzvah | In Judiasm, the religious ceremony marking the young person's transition to adulthood.
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| barometric self-esteem | The aspect of self-esteem that fluctuates across situations.
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| basal metabolism rate | The minimal amount of energy used by the body during a resting state.
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| baseline self-esteem | The aspect of self-esteem that is relatively stable across situations and over time.
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| behavioral autonomy | The capacity to make independent decisions and follow through with them.
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| behavioral decision theory | An approach to understanding adolescent risk-taking, in which behaviors are seen as the outcome of systematic decision-making processes.
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| behavioral genetics | The scientific study of genetic influences on behavior.
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| biculturalism | The successful maintenance of an identification with more than one cultural background.
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| Big Five | In the Five-Factor Model of personality, the five critical dimensions: Extraversion, Agreeableness, Conscientiousness, Neuroticism, and Openness to Experience.
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| Binge drinking | Consuming five or more drinks in a row on one occasion, an indicator of alcohol abuse.
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| brother-sister avoidance | The avoidance of any contact or interaction between brothers and sisters from the onset of puberty until one or both persons are married, part of the process of social redefinition at adolescence in many societies.
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| bulimia | An eating disorder found chiefly among young women, characterized primarily by a pattern of binge eating and self-induced vomiting.
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| care orientation | In Gilligan's theory of moral development, a moral orientation that emphasizes responding to others' needs.
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| charter schools | Public schools that have been given the autonomy to establish their own curricula and teaching practices.
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| child protectionists | Individuals who argued, early in the twentieth century, that adolescents needed to be kept out of the labor force in order to protect them from the hazards of the workplace.
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| chlamydia | A sexually transmitted infection caused by a bacterium.
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| cliques | Small, tightly knit groups of between two and twelve friends, generally of the same sex and age.
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| cluster suicides | Outbreaks of suicides, in which an unusually high number of suicides occur within a limited time period or small geographic area.
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| code switching | Switching between two different cultural groups' norms for behavior, depending on the situation, a strategy often employed by ethnic minority adolescents.
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| cofigurative cultures | Cultures in which the socialization of young people is accomplished not only through contact with elders but also through contact between people of the same age.
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| cognitive-developmental | A perspective on development, based on the work of Piaget, that takes a qualitative, stage-theory approach.
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| cohort | A group of individuals born during the same general historical era.
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| collective efficacy | A community's social capital, derived from its members common values and goals.
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| community service | The involvement of young people in activities that serve some social or economic need of society.
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| competence-performance distinction | The distinction between what individuals are capable of and what they actually do, important in the study of cognitive development.
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| comprehensive high school | An educational institution that evolved during the first half of this century, offering a varied curriculum and designed to meet the needs of a diverse population of adolescents.
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| concrete operations | The third stage of cognitive development, according to Piaget, spanning the period roughly between age 6 and early adolescence.
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| continuous transition | A passage into adulthood in which adult roles and statuses are entered into gradually.
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| conventional moral reasoning | According to Kohlberg, the second level of moral development, which develops during late childhood and early adolescence and is characterized by reasoning that is based on the rules and conventions of society.
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| correlation coefficient | A measure of the extent to which two factors are related to one another.
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| counterculture | A set of values and norms, typically associated with adolescents, that is hostile to the values and norms of adult society.
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| critical thinking | Thinking that is in-depth, analytical, and discriminating.
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| cross-sectional study | A study that compares two or more groups of individuals at one point in time.
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| crowds | Large, loosely organized groups of young people, composed of several cliques and typically organized around a common shared activity.
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| crystallization | According to Super, the stage during which individuals, typically between the ages of 14 and 18, first begin to formulate their ideas about appropriate occupations.
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| cultural capital | The resources provided within a family through the exposure of the adolescent to art, music, literature, and other elements of "high culture".
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| culture-fair tests | Standardized tests that do not, by virtue of their construction, favor one cultural or ethnic group over another.
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| curvilinear pattern | In statistical analyses, a pattern of relation between two variables that resembles a U-shaped or an inverted U-shaped curve.
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| date rape | Being forced by a date to have sex against one's will.
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| deductive reasoning | A type of logical reasoning in which one draws logically necessary conclusions from a general set of premises, or givens.
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| delayed phase preference | A pattern of sleep characterized by later sleep and wake times, which often emerges during puberty.
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| demographers | Social scientists who study large-scale changes in the makeup of the population.
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| dependent variable | In a research study, the outcome of interest.
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| depression | A psychological disturbance characterized by low self-esteem, decreased motivation, sadness, and difficulty finding pleasure in formerly enjoyable activities.
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| detachment | In psychoanalytic theory, the process through which adolescents sever emotional attachments to their parents or other authority figures.
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| discontinuous transition | A passage into adulthood in which adult roles and statuses are entered into abruptly.
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| disordered eating | Mild, moderate, or severe disturbance in eating habits and attitudes.
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| divided attention | The process of paying attention to two or more stimuli at the same time.
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| early adolescence | The period spanning roughly ages 11 through 14, corresponding approximately to the junior or middle high school years.
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| ecology of human development | A perspective on development that emphasizes the broad context in which development occurs.
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| education vouchers | Monetary credits issued by government that families can use to purchase schooling.
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| educational attainment | The number of years of schooling completed by an individual.
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| effect size | In research, the actual magnitude (rather than statistical significance) of a finding.
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| emerging adulthood | The period spanning roughly from 18 to 25, during which individuals make the transition from adolescence into adulthood.
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| emotional autonomy | The establishment of more adultlike and less childish close relationships with family members and peers.
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| endocrine system | The system of the body that produces, circulates, and regulates hormones.
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| engagement | The extent to which students are psychologically committed to learning and mastering material in school.
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| epidemiology | The branch of medicine devoted to the study of how health problems are spread and distributed within communities.
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| estrogens | A class of sex hormones secreted by the gonads, found in both sexes but in higher levels among females than among males following puberty.
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| ethnic identity | The aspect of one's sense of identity concerning ancestry or racial group membership.
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| ethnic socialization | The process through which individuals acquire knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs about their ethnicity.
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| ethnography | A type of research in which individuals are observed in their natural settings.
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| exo-system | In the ecological perspective on human development, the layer of the environment that does not directly contain the developing person but affects the settings in which the person lives.
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| Experience Sampling Method (ESM) | A method for collecting data about adolescents' emotional states, in which individuals are paged and asked to report on their mood and activity.
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| externalizing disorders | Psychosocial problems that are manifested in a turning of the symptoms outward, as in aggression or delinquency.
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| extrinsic motivation | Motivation based on the rewards one will receive for successful performance.
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| extrusion | The practice of separating children from their parents and requiring them to sleep in other households, part of the process of social redefinition at adolescence in many societies.
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| false-self behavior | Behavior that intentionally presents a false impression to others.
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| fear of failure | Fear of the consequences of failing in achievement situations.
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| fear of success | Fear of the consequences of succeeding in achievement situations.
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| feedback loop | A cycle through which two or more bodily functions respond to and regulate each other, such as that formed by the hypothalamus, the pituitary gland, and the gonads.
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| Five-Factor Model | A theory that holds that there are five basic dimensions to personality (see Big Five).
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| Forgotten Half | The approximately one-half of all American adolescents who do not enroll in college; they have been neglected by researchers and policy-makers.
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| formal operations | The fourth stage of cognitive development, according to Piaget, spanning the period from early adolescence through adulthood.
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| functional community | According to Coleman, a community in which parents, teachers, and adolescents all share similar values and attitudes.
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| functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) | A technique used to produce images of the brain, often while the subject is performing some sort of mental task.
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| future orientation | The extent to which an individual is able and inclined to think about the future consequences of decisions and choices.
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| gateway drugs | Drugs that, when used over time, lead to the use of other, more dangerous substances.
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| gender identity | The aspects of one's sense of self that concern one's masculinity and femininity.
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| gender intensification hypothesis | The idea that pressures to behave in sex-appropriate ways intensify during adolescence.
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| generation gap | The popular phrase for the alleged conflict between young people and adults over values and attitudes.
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| gifted students | Students who are unusually talented in some aspect of intellectual performance.
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| glands | Organs that stimulate particular parts of the body to respond in specific ways to particular hormones.
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| gonads | The glands that secrete sex hormones: in males, the testes; in females, the ovaries.
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| gonorrhea | A sexually transmitted infection caused by a bacterium.
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| health promotion | The attempt to improve adolescent physical and mental well-being by emphasizing healthy behavior and lifestyle choices.
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| health-compromising behaviors | Behaviors that place individuals at risk for health problems.
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| health-enhancing behaviors | Behaviors that lessen individuals' risk for health problems or that increase well-being.
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| herpes | A sexually transmitted infection caused by a virus.
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| higher-order thinking | Thinking that involves analyzing, evaluating, and interpreting information, rather than simply memorizing it.
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| homophobia | The unwarranted fear of homosexuals or homosexuality.
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| hormones | Highly specialized substances secreted by one or more endocrine glands.
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| hostile attributional bias | The tendency to interpret ambiguous interactions with others as deliberately hostile.
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| HPG (hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal) axis | The neuropsychological pathway that involves the hypothalamus, pituitary gland, and gonads.
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| human ecology | A field of inquiry that focuses on the study of development and behavior in context.
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| hypothalamus | A part of the lower brain stem that controls the functioning of the pituitary gland.
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| iatrogenic effects | Unintended adverse consequences of a treatment or intervention.
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| identity | The psychosocial domain concerning feelings and thoughts about the self.
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| identity diffusion (identity confusion) | The incoherent, disjointed, incomplete sense of self characteristic of not having resolved the crisis of identity successfully.
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| identity foreclosure | The premature establishment of a sense of identity, before sufficient role experimentation has occurred.
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| identity versus identity diffusion | According to Erikson, the normative crisis characteristic of the fifth stage of psychosocial development, predominant during adolescence.
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| imaginary audience | The belief, often brought on by the heightened self-consciousness of early adolescence, that everyone is watching and evaluating one's behavior.
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| implicit personality theory | An intuitive understanding of human behavior and motivation that emerges during early adolescence.
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| independent variable | In a research study, the variable presumed to influence the outcome of interest.
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| indifferent parents | Parents whose behavior is characterized by low levels of both responsiveness and demandingness.
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| individuation | The progressive sharpening of one's sense of being an autonomous, independent person.
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| induction | An approach to discipline in which parents explain their rules and the reasoning behind them.
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| inductive reasoning | Reasoning that involves drawing an inference from the evidence that one has.
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| indulgent parents | Parents who are characterized by high responsiveness but low demandingness.
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| information processing perspective | A perspective on cognition that derives from the study of artificial intelligence and attempts to explain cognitive development in terms of the growth of specific components of the thinking process (for example, memory).
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| initiation ceremony | A formal induction of the young person into adulthood.
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| intergenerational conflict | Tensions often thought to be inherent in relations between the adolescent and the adult generations; thought by most scholars to have been overestimated.
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| internal working model | The implicit model of interpersonal relationships that an individual employs through life, believed to be shaped by early attachment experiences.
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| internalizing disorders | Psychosocial problems that are manifested in a turning of the symptoms inward, as in depression or anxiety.
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| intimacy | The psychosocial domain concerning the formation, maintenance, and termination of close relationships.
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| intimacy versus isolation | According to Erikson, the normative crisis characteristic of the sixth psychosocial stage of development, predominant during young adulthood.
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| intrinsic motivation | Motivation based on the pleasure one will experience from mastering a task.
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| inventionists | Theorists who argue that the period of adolescence is mainly a social invention.
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| junior high school | An educational institution designed during the early era of public secondary education, in which young adolescents are schooled separately from older adolescents.
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| justice orientation | In Gilligan's theory of moral development, a moral orientation that emphasizes fairness and objectivity.
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| juvenile justice system | A separate system of courts and related institutions developed to handle juvenile crime and delinquency.
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| late adolescence (youth) | The period spanning roughly ages 18 through 21, corresponding approximately to the college years.
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| learned helplessness | The acquired belief that one is not able to influence events through one's own efforts or actions.
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| learning disability | A difficulty with academic tasks that cannot be traced to an emotional problem or sensory dysfunction.
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| leptin | A protein produced by fat cells that may play a role in the onset of puberty.
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| life-course-persistent offenders | Individuals who begin demonstrating antisocial or aggressive behavior during childhood and continue their antisocial behavior through adolescence and into adulthood (contrast with adolescence-limited offenders).
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| limbic system | An area of the brain that plays an important role in emotional experience.
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| longitudinal study | A study following the same group of individuals over time.
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| long-term memory | The ability to recall something from a long time ago.
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| macrosystem | In the ecological perspective on human development, the outermost layer of the environment, containing forces such as history and culture.
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| mainstreaming | The integration of adolescents who have educational handicaps into regular classrooms.
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| marginal man | Lewin's term that refers to the transitional nature of adolescence--poised on the margin of adulthood.
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| marginality | The situation of being on the margin of the mainstream society, an experience more common among ethnic minority youth.
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| median | In statistics, a measure of a group's average based on the point above and below which half the members of the group have scored.
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| mediating variable | In a research study, a factor presumed to form an intervening link between two variables that are causally connected.
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| menarche | The time of first menstruation, one of the important changes to occur among females during puberty.
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| mesosystem | In the ecological perspective on human development, the layer of the environment formed by the intersection of two or more immediate settings, as in the home-school linkage.
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| meta-analysis | A systematic approach to the analysis of a large scientific literature, in which results from different independent studies are pooled.
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| metacognition | The process of thinking about thinking itself.
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| microsystems | In the ecological perspective on human development, the immediate settings in which adolescents develop, such as the family or the peer group.
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| middle adolescence | The period spanning roughly ages 15 through 18, corresponding approximately to the high school years.
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| middle school | An educational institution housing seventh- and eighth-grade students along with adolescents who are one or two years younger.
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| midlife crisis | A psychological crisis over identity believed to occur between the ages of 35 and 45, the age range of most adolescents' parents.
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| mutual role taking | In Selman's theory, the stage of social perspective taking during which the young adolescent can be an objective third party and can see how the thoughts or actions of one person can influence those of another.
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| myelination | The process through which brain circuits are insulated with myelin, which improves the efficiency of information processing.
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| need for achievement | A need that influences the extent to which an individual strives for success in evaluative situations.
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| need for intimacy | According to Sullivan, the chief interpersonal need of preadolescence.
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| needs for sexual contact and for intimacy with a peer of the other sex | According to Sullivan, the chief interpersonal needs of early adolescence.
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| negative affectivity | The presumed underlying cause of internalizing disorders, characterized by high levels of subjective distress.
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| negative identity | The selection of an identity that is obviously undesirable in the eyes of significant others and the broader community.
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| nocturnal orgasms | In males, ejaculations that occur while asleep, sometimes referred to as "wet dreams".
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| nonshared environmental influences | The nongenetic influences in individuals' lives that make them different from people they live with.
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| occupational attainment | A measure of achievement based on the status or prestige of the job an individual holds.
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| organizational role of hormones | The process through which early exposure to hormones, especially prenatally, organizes the brain or other organs in anticipation of later changes in behavior or patterns of growth.
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| ovaries | The female gonads.
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| parental demandingness | According to Baumrind, one of the two important dimensions of parenting; demandingness refers to the degree to which the parent expects and demands mature, responsible behavior from the child.
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| parental responsiveness | According to Baumrind, one of the two important dimensions of parenting; responsiveness refers to the degree to which the parent responds to the child's needs in an accepting, supportive manner.
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| participant observation | A research technique in which the researcher "infiltrates" a group of individuals in order to study their behavior and relationships.
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| particularistic norms | Guidelines for behavior that vary from one individual to another; more commonly found in less industrialized societies.
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| peak height velocity | The point at which the adolescent is growing most rapidly.
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| peer groups | Groups of individuals of approximately the same age.
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| peer pressure | The perceived influences of one's agemates or friends to go along with their behavior.
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| permissive societies | Societies in which sexual activity during childhood and adolescence is not greatly restrained.
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| personal fable | An adolescent's belief that he or she is unique and therefore not subject to the rules that govern other people's behavior.
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| personal responsibility | The ability to take responsibility for oneself and manage one's own affairs.
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| pheromones | A class of chemicals secreted by animals that stimulate certain behaviors in other members of the species.
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| Piagetian perspective | (see cognitive-developmental).
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| pituitary gland | One of the chief glands responsible for regulating levels of hormones in the body.
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| Positron Emission Tomography (PET) | A technique used to produce images of the brain, often while the subject is performing some sort of mental task; it is more invasive than fMRI.
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| possible selves | The various identities an adolescent might imagine for himself or herself.
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| postconventional moral reasoning | In Kohlberg's theory, the stage of moral development during which society's rules and conventions are seen as relative and subjective rather than as authoritative; also called principled moral reasoning.
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| postfigurative cultures | Cultures in which the socialization of young people is accomplished almost exclusively through contact between children and their elders.
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| preconventional moral reasoning | According to Kohlberg, the first level of moral development, which is typical of children and is characterized by reasoning that is based on the rewards and punishments associated with different courses of action.
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| prefigurative cultures | Cultures in which young people socialize their elders, rather than vice versa.
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| prefrontal cortex | The part of the brain responsible for many higher-order cognitive skills, such as decision-making and planning.
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| premature affluence | Having more income than one can manage maturely, especially during adolescence.
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| preoperational period | The second stage of cognitive development, according to Piaget, spanning roughly ages 2 through 5.
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| primary control strategies | Coping strategies in which one attempts to change the stressor.
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| primary prevention | An approach to health promotion that emphasizes teaching all adolescents certain behaviors, values, and information.
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| problem behavior theory | A theory that suggests that the co-variation among various types of externalizing disorders results from an underlying trait of unconventionality.
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| propositional logic | An abstract system of logic that forms the basis for formal operational thinking.
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| protective factors | Factors that lessen individual vulnerability to harm.
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| psychosocial | Referring to aspects of development that are both psychological and social in nature, such as developing a sense of identity or sexuality.
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| psychosocial moratorium | A period of time during which individuals are free from excessive obligations and responsibilities and can therefore experiment with different roles and personalities.
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| psychosomatic disorders | Disorders that have both psychological and physical components.
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| puberty | The biological changes of adolescence.
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| Q-Sort | A research procedure in which raters make their evaluations by determining how characteristic each of several descriptors is of the person or thing being evaluated.
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| quinceañera | An elaborate sort of "coming-out" celebration for adolescent girls that is practiced in many Latino communities.
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| reference group | A group against which an individual compares himself or herself.
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| relational aggression | Acts intended to harm another through the manipulation of his or her relationships with others, as in malicious gossip.
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| resilience | The ability of the individual to continue to function competently in the face of adversity or stress.
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| restrictive societies | Societies in which adolescents are pressured to refrain from sexual activity until they have married or undergone a formal rite of passage into adulthood.
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| risk factors | Factors that increase individual vulnerability to harm.
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| risk-taking behavior | Behavior that is pursued simply because it is risky; risk-taking is thought to be linked to adolescent problem behavior.
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| rite of passage | A ceremony or ritual marking an individual's transition from one social status to another, especially marking the young person's transition into adulthood.
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| scaffolding | Structuring a learning situation so that it is just within the reach of the student.
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| scarification | The intentional creation of scars on some part or parts of the body, often done as part of an initiation ceremony.
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| school climate | The overall atmosphere that pervades a school or classroom.
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| school performance | A measure of achievement based on an individual's grades in school.
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| school-based health centers | A relatively new approach to the delivery of health care services to adolescents, which places health care providers in offices located in or adjacent to schools.
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| school-to-work transition | The link between educational institutions and the workplace.
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| secondary control strategies | Coping strategies that involve attempts by the individual to adapt to the stressor.
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| secondary education | The system of middle schools, junior high schools, and high schools.
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| secondary prevention | An approach to health promotion that is specifically aimed at adolescents who are believed to be at high risk for a particular disease or disturbance.
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| secondary sex characteristics | The manifestations of sexual maturation at puberty, including the development of breasts, the growth of facial and body hair, and changes in the voice.
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| secular trend | The tendency, over the past two centuries, for individuals to be larger in stature and to reach puberty earlier, primarily because of improvements in health and nutrition.
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| secure attachment | A healthy attachment between infant and caregiver, characterized by trust.
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| selective attention | The process through which we focus on one stimulus while tuning out another.
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| selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) | A class of antidepressant medications that have proven to be effective with adolescents.
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| self-conceptions | The collection of traits and attributes that individuals use to describe or characterize themselves.
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| self-consciousness | The degree to which an individual is preoccupied with his or her self-image.
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| Self-Directed Search | A personality inventory developed by Holland and used to help individuals better understand their vocational interests.
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| self-esteem | The degree to which individuals feel positively or negatively about themselves.
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| self-fulfilling prophecy | The idea that individuals' behavior is influenced by what others expect of them.
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| self-image stability | The degree to which an individual feels that his or her self-image changes from day to day.
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| self-reliance | Subjective feelings of one's ability to function autonomously.
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| semirestrictive societies | Societies in which pressures against adolescent sexual activity exist but are not vigilantly enforced.
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| sensation-seeking | The enjoyment of novel and intense experiences.
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| sense of identity | The extent to which individuals feel secure about who they are and who they are becoming.
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| sensorimotor period | The first stage of cognitive development, according to Piaget, spanning the period roughly between birth and age 2.
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| serial monogamy | Having a series of sexual relationships over time in which one is monogamous within each relationship.
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| service learning | Structured educational experiences that involve volunteering in the community.
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| set point | A physiological level or setting (of a specific hormone, for example) that the body attempts to maintain through a self-regulating system.
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| sex cleavage | The separation of girls and boys into different cliques, common during late childhood and early adolescence.
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| sex-role behavior | Behavior that is consistent with prevailing expectations for how individuals of a given sex are to behave.
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| sexual orientation | An individual's orientation toward same- or opposite-sex sexual partners.
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| sexual socialization | The process through which adolescents are exposed to and educated about sexuality.
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| sexuality | The psychosocial domain concerning the development and expression of sexual feelings.
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| sexually transmitted disease (STD) | Any of a group of infections--including gonorrhea, herpes, chlamydia, and AIDS--passed on through sexual contact.
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| sexual-minority youth | Gay, lesbian, and bisexual youth.
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| shared environmental influences | Nongenetic influences that make individuals living in the same family similar to each other.
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| significant others | The people most important in an individual's life.
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| social capital | The interpersonal resources available to an adolescent or family.
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| social class | The social position of an individual or family in society as determined by wealth, power, reputation, or achievement.
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| social cognition | The aspect of cognition that concerns thinking about other people, about interpersonal relationships, and about social institutions.
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| social control theory | A theory of delinquency that links deviance with the absence of bonds to society's main institutions.
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| social conventions | The norms that govern everyday behavior in social situations.
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| social perspective taking | The ability to view events from the perspective of others.
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| social promotion | The practice of promoting students from one grade to the next automatically, regardless of their school performance.
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| social redefinition | The process through which an individual's position or status is redefined by society.
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| social responsibility | The ability to cooperate with and take responsibility for others.
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| social support | The extent to which one receives emotional or instrumental assistance from one's social network.
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| specification | According to Super, the stage during which individuals, typically between the ages of 18 and 21, first begin to consider narrowly defined occupational pursuits.
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| statistical interaction | In research, when the observed effect of an independent variable (e.g., intelligence) on an outcome (e.g., grades) varies as a function of an additional independent variable (e.g., age).
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| status offenses | Violations of the law that pertain to minors but not to adults.
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| stereotype threat | The harmful effect that exposure to stereotypes about ethnic or sex differences in ability has on student performance.
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| stressful life events | Normative and non-normative events presumed to increase individuals' susceptibility to psychological distress.
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| substance abuse | The misuse of alcohol or other drugs.
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| synaptic pruning | The process through which certain unnecessary brain circuits are eliminated, improving the efficiency of information processing.
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| Tanner stages | A widely used system to describe the five stages of pubertal development.
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| teenager | A term popularized about fifty years ago to refer to young people; it connoted a more frivolous and lighthearted image than the term adolescent.
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| temperament | The individual's predisposed style of interacting with the environment, thought to be largely biologically determined and stable over time.
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| testes | The male gonads.
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| testosterone | One of the sex hormones secreted by the gonads, found in both sexes but in higher levels among males than females.
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| tracking | The grouping of students, according to ability, into different levels of classes within the same school grade.
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| underachievers | Individuals whose actual school performance is lower than what would be expected on the basis of objective measures of their aptitude or intelligence.
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| universalistic norms | Guidelines for behavior that apply to all members of a community; more common in industrialized societies.
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| value autonomy | The establishment of an independent set of values and beliefs.
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| work values | The particular sorts of rewards one looks for in a job (e.g., extrinsic, intrinsic, social, altruistic).
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| working memory | That aspect of memory in which information is held for short periods of time while a problem is being solved.
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| youth apprenticeship | A structured, work-based learning experience that places an adolescent under the supervision of a skilled adult.
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| youth culture | The popular culture thought to appeal to and shape the attitudes and behaviors of adolescents and youth.
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| youth unemployment | The unemployment of young people, especially 16- to 24-year-olds who are not enrolled in school.
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| youth | Today, a term used to refer to individuals between the ages of 18 and 22; it once referred to individuals between the ages of 12 and 24.
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| zone of proximal development | In Vygotsky's theory, the level of challenge that is still within the individual's reach, but that forces an individual to develop more advanced skills .
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