Exploring Adolescence: A Threefold Examination of Self-Esteem

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Recommended: Introduction to adolescence

Adolescence, like for most teenagers, was a strange period for me. It was a period full of changes and a constant feeling of having to adapt to such changes. Not only did I experienced physical changes like growth in height, and the development of secondary sexual characteristics, but I also experienced psychological changes such as a drop in self-esteem. The could be several explanations as to why me, like many adolescents, would experience a drop in self-esteem around the ages of 13-14. These explanations could be divided into three categories: Cognitive, social, and behavioral.

Cognitive explanation

A cognitive explanation as to why me, like many teenagers, would experience a drop in self-esteem would be the fact that adolescents have …show more content…

The adolescent brain is a bit more sophisticated than that of a child. However, the brain still developing and that could have an effect in the mood and behavior of an adolescent, due to the increase of activity in the brain. We discussed in class that the adolescent brain is under constant activity, having different processes happening simultaneously. There are different hormones that affect the way an adolescent’s brain and body work, like dopamine for example. Dopamine, during adolescence is going all over the place, which impacts the way adolescents behave-- causing them to engage in risky behavior due to their reward system. All of these changes happening in the body could potentially explain the drop in self-esteem-- the different changes happening all at once can easily impact the behavior and mood of an adolescent, making them feel more negative emotions than what they did before. Steinberg would probably agree that biological changes going on during adolescence can definitely make an adolescent experience a drop in their self-esteem and in their overall mood. Because the prefrontal cortex is not fully developed and because of the different hormones that are produced by the body, an adolescent could easily have a drop in their

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