ADOLESCENT PSYCHOLOGY
The period of adolescence is truly one of storm and stress, caused
by the wrecking of boy-nature to rebuild it into man-nature; it is a
cataclysmic bursting of the bonds of infancy in preparation for the
larger stature of manhood. In early adolescence the boy is neither
child nor man. He is in the chrysalis stage of metamorphosis, which
is shedding the characteristics of childhood and putting on the
maturity of the adult. Neither one nor the other, he is a part of
both. Adolescence covers the period of the boy’s life between puberty
and maturity. Puberty is the earliest age at which the individual is
capable of reproducing the species and it usually begins at the age of
thirteen or fourteen, subject to the influence of the factors stated
in the preceding chapter. The growth and development of the sex organs
during adolescence produce changes which are revolutionary rather than
evolutionary in their nature. Marked physical alterations are always
attended by still more marked psychic disturbances.
The physical indicia of puberty are the lengthening of the vocal
cords, which causes the voice to change from the treble of boyhood to
the bass of manhood and manifests itself in sudden and uncontrollable
breaks in the voice in speaking and singing; the growth of the organs
of reproduction and the filling of the seminal glands; the growth of
hair on the pubes and face; the coarsening of the skin; broadening of
the shoulders, deepening of the chest, and general change from the
slenderness of childhood to the compactness of maturity.
This is the period of rapid physical growth wherein he shoots upwards
like a cornstalk under the impulse of a July sun. Elongated arms and
legs are now as conspicuous as they are unwieldy, and efforts to
discipline them are futile. The demand for “long pants,” heretofore
quiescent or erupting intermittently, now becomes insistent and
finally bursts forth with a fury produced by accumulated repression
and fortified by the assertion that “Johnny Jones wears ’em and
I’m bigger’n him”--the last word in argumentative conclusiveness.
Physical awkwardness and ungainliness, illustrated in his inability
to manage his hands and feet easily or gracefully, is due both to the
extraordinary and rapid growth of the body and nervous system which
takes place at this time, and to his instability of mind, wholly apart
from his knowledge of social usages.
The psychic disturbances produced by adolescence are still more
pronounced. The adolescent is in the throes of discarding the mental
concepts of the child and adopting those of the adult. His viewpoint
is lifted until his mental and moral horizon broadens to distances
heretofore undreamed of and discloses new and strange moral and
ethical problems. Old concepts melt away in the light of a newer and
stronger vision. Sex-consciousness overwhelms him with its complexity
and unrecognized import. The mental concepts of maturity clash with
those of childhood. His barque is sailing on uncharted waters, without
compass or rudder, while a fierce storm of uncertainty and instability
beats about him as he experiences the travail of the birth of a new
soul. It is truly the age “when a feller needs a friend”--one who
can pilot him safely through the storm of adolescence to the calm of
manhood.
Truancy reaches its flood tide during adolescence. The instinct of
wanderlust appears in response to the promptings of his savage nature,
his unease of mind, and his desire to know the unknown in the world
about him, and culminates in runaways as a revolt against the exercise
of parental authority which he believes to be unnecessarily restrictive
or severe. He is now in the formative, fermenting period when he is
reaching out to find himself, with indifferent success.
There is at this time a noticeable want of continuity of purpose
or action. He jumps from one interest to another, evincing little
stability of mind. There is want of psychophysical coördination. The
transmission between mind and body is faulty; and the imperfect gear
of intellect and will frequently fails to engage the cogwheels of
morals. The machine works poorly because it is neither complete nor
fully equipped. Workmen are still engaged on the unfinished job.
William now evinces a disposition to find fault with his home, his
clothing, his food, and restrictions on his conduct and routine.
He betrays a mental uneasiness unknown to prepubertal days, and a
willingness to argue with his parents in a self-assertive or combative
mood quite unlike his former self. Incongruities of character are
shown in petulance, irritability, disobedience, stubbornness, and
rebellion, sometimes even taking the form of cruelty to persons or
animals. This latter manifestation has been ascribed to atavism which
manifests itself in the recurrence of the savage traits of his primeval
ancestors. Dr. G. Stanley Hall thus comments on this tendency in his
exhaustive work on adolescence: “Assuming the bionomic law, infant
growth means being loaded with paleoatavistic qualities in a manner
more conformable to Weismannism, embryonic growth being yet purer,
while the pubescent increment is relatively neoatavistic.”
His proximity to the savage state is shown in his appreciation of
primitive humor. The unexpected which causes discomfiture or pain is
excruciatingly ludicrous. It is the crude, slap-stick comedy which
excites his disposition to risibility. The knockabout comedian who
falls down stairs or beats his partner over the head with an inflated
bladder produces the same degree of laughter in a boy as the felling of
one savage by another with a war club produces in the onlooking members
of their tribe. The rapier wit of keen intellectuality and the subtle
humor of fine distinctions observed in a play on words all pass over
his unscathed head.
He is a living paradox who displays at times the gallantry, courtesy
and chivalry of the knight-errant with the thoughtlessness, rudeness,
and boisterousness of the harum-scarum rowdy.
Sex-consciousness now asserts itself in an increased but diffident
interest in the opposite sex, accompanied by blushes, embarrassment,
and self-consciousness when in their presence. The desire to appear
attractive in the eyes of his girl friends prompts minute and
painstaking attention to dress, and the brilliant plumage of the male
bird is reflected in the bright colors of his attire. Formerly he
regarded girl playmates from the same viewpoint from which he regarded
boys and they were placed on the same plane and received the same
consideration as that accorded to those of his own sex, except where
the teaching of the sex-conscious parent required him to display a
gentleness toward them which his own lack of sex-consciousness failed
to prompt. Now, gentleness, courtesy, and gallantry are inspired by
adolescence from within. The companionship of the adolescent with pure,
high-minded girls of his own age is beneficial to both in the greatest
degree. Such associations are of educational value in that they project
high ideals of the feminine traits of gentleness, sweetness, and
purity whose influence is reflected in his improved manners, dress,
and conduct. It fosters the idealistic and spiritual phase of love and
removes it from the coarseness and baseness engendered by the purely
sexual appeal. These love affairs are numerous but transitory--their
duration being dependent upon the time required to satisfy his
idealism; and at the first suggestion that his idol has feet of clay
his affection is transferred to another pretty face and sweet nature.
Not infrequently he bestows his affection upon a girl several years
older than himself, to which he is actuated by two impulses--the
half-formed sex-impulse of the man to seek a mate, and his adolescent
need of “mothering,” both of which are measurably gratified by the
reciprocal love of an older girl.
He begins his love-making slyly and shamefacedly. George waits after
school, occupied with an ostensible engagement which will consume
the time until Mary shall appear. His meeting with her, after all
these elaborate plans, appears to be quite unexpected. A diffident
greeting is followed by an inquiry as to whether she is going home.
Her affirmative answer is seized upon as his excuse for walking in
her direction. Then follows his request to be permitted to carry her
books. They discuss matters of mutual interest in school or social
life, while he, with furtive glances, notes the beauty of her face,
the wealth of her hair, and the velvet of her cheek. Sunlight is
playing hide-and-seek in her eyes, while the roses in her cheeks blush
a deeper red, matching the ribbon which adorns her pigtails as she
feels the flood of his unexpressed admiration surging over her. Never
was there such a wondrous being in all the world! He idealizes her
every attribute until she surmounts a pedestal far removed from things
earthy. A smile of approval from this young goddess is treasured in
his heart of hearts, sacred from the misunderstandings of a profane
world. He is assailed by daydreams of knight-errantry in which he is
performing some chivalrous act of heroism to which the maiden shall be
a witness. Or better still, he imagines himself playing the part of a
cavalier rescuing her own sweet self from distress or danger and then
receiving as his reward her avowal of affection, while he protests that
his heroism is nothing and that he would do a thousand times more for
her.
Evidences of his tender regard for the girl of his choice are given
in secret, as too holy for an unappreciative world to comprehend, and
the twittings of his elders on the subject of puppy love (cruel in
their unsound psychology) are met with prompt and positive denials.
Such manifestations of incipient affection should be recognized as the
intermediary elaboration of a high and spiritual love whose ultimate
fruition will be matrimony. All the world loves a lover--provided he is
not a boy. The adult who cannot see the psychology in such incidents
must be blind indeed.
The exceptional plasticity of mind characteristic of this age renders
him highly susceptible to influences for good or evil. It is the great
character-building period of his life in which are crystallized his
moral and ethical concepts which attain their latter perfection in the
succeeding period. Your boy is putty in your hands. He is a superlative
impressionist. His impressionistic mind is molded as deeply by evil as
by good. For this reason, it is necessary that his environment--which
is the cumulative influence of the precept, example, and conditions
which surround him--should be good and wholesome. As the drip-drip-drip
of water wears away the stone, so the constant drip of environing
influences wears its way into character.
The foundations of will-power are now laid in his efforts to propel
himself into a choice between the good and the bad, between right and
wrong. Judgment and discretion appear in embryonic form and slowly
and laboriously develop into cautious discernment and the faculty of
deciding justly and wisely, which reach their approximate maturity late
in the reflective period.
It may be interesting to note that the law presumes that every person
at the age of fourteen has common discretion and understanding,
until the contrary is made out; but under that age there is no such
presumption. It therefore follows that when a child under fourteen
years of age is offered as a witness in a court of law, a preliminary
examination conducted by the judge must be made to ascertain whether
he has sufficient intelligence to relate the facts as they occurred
and sufficient moral sense to comprehend the nature and obligation
of an oath. But the law is conservative in its presumption, as such
intelligence and moral comprehension are, in most instances, developed
in the child at a much earlier age and numerous cases are cited in
the law reports in which children as young as seven or eight have
qualified, after examination, as witnesses competent to testify.
During this period occur three cycles of particular susceptibility to
religious influence. The first appears about the age of twelve under
the stimulus of witnessing the conversion or affiliation with the
church of some adult whom he looks up to, and is chiefly due to the
faculty of imitation--one of the characteristics carried over from the
individualistic period; the next occurs at age of fourteen, when his
emotionalism is dominant, under the excitement of a powerful emotional
experience; the third cycle of religious conversion appears at sixteen
when he is leaving the heroic period and entering the thoughtful or
reflective stage of his adolescence and such a conversion is grounded
in the thoughtful promptings of the intellect, rather than the emotions.
This is also the age of experimentation in which his longing to
know the unknown leads him to make short excursions into the fields
of mechanics, physics, electricity, hydraulics, magic, and others
which hide their secrets from the casual observer. This trend of
his activities may be directed by suggestion, supplemented with the
necessary equipment, toward manual training and handicraft--ideal
employments for the early adolescent.
This is the age of hero-worship and every boy in this period, without
exception, has a personal hero. He may not take the world into his
confidence by divulging his secret, but whether admitted or not, he
possesses a hero whom he looks up to, admires, and copies. I know a
thirteen-year-old lad whose hero is his eighteen-year-old cousin for
whom his admiration manifests itself to the extent of trying to imitate
his tone of voice, his walk, his gestures, and personal appearance,
including the wearing of the same kind of ties which his cousin
affects. He never ceases praising the football prowess of his relative
and continually quotes him as an authority on athletics.
The boy of this age worships a physical hero. Power, strength, and
authority make a powerful appeal. His hero may be the policeman on
his beat who is the emblem of physical strength and vested with the
authority of law to make arrests; the fireman who displays wonderful
courage in the rescue of imperiled persons from burning buildings; the
engineer who guides the locomotive dashing like a meteor through the
blackness of night; the prize fighter who has won a championship in the
squared ring; or the baseball or football athlete whose name is on
every tongue. His hero must be a mighty man of action, for he worships
at the shrine of athletic prowess. To test the truth of this statement,
ask any boy you may meet, between the ages of twelve and sixteen,
whether he would rather be the winner of the Nobel prize for scientific
achievement or Ty Cobb (with a batting average of approximately .370),
and the unanimous verdict will be in favor of the ballplayer. So
strongly is hero-worship implanted in his nature and so completely does
it dominate his viewpoint that it remains, with gradually diminishing
intensity, for many years thereafter. Happy the boy whose father is his
hero and happy the father who is a hero to his son!
The objective of hero-worship is always an older male--never a female.
No instance of normal heroine-worship has ever been noted. The wealth
of love which he may manifest toward his mother, female friend or
teacher is entirely disassociated from hero-worship. It lacks the
sex-element necessary to inspire emulation. He wants to be a man--not a
woman. For this reason, it is desirable that he should have opportunity
for association, during adolescence, with men of strong character and
personality. The differences between the psychologic processes of the
male and the female adult are too well known to require discussion
here. Widows who keenly appreciate the absence of the father’s guiding
hand frequently attempt to be both father and mother to their sons,
and in so doing the apron strings are knotted doubly hard and fast.
Then ensues a conflict between the feminine and maternal policy and
the adolescent longing and reaching out for ultimate masculinity.
The mother is the last person to recognize adolescence in her son;
she wants him to remain the infant she has always regarded him. His
beginnings to emulate masculinity clash with her desire to keep him a
child. I have in mind a mother who is rearing the most lady-like boy
in my acquaintance. Her inherent delicacy and refinement of nature
prompt her to develop these same qualities in her son as the ultimate
end to be attained. With no qualifications for boy-training except
mother-love, feminine ideals, and an ambition to rear her son to
beautiful manhood, she refuses him participation in rough and tumble
sports and games because they are “rude and ungentlemanly” and besides,
they would soil his clothes. Many mothers of the neighborhood hold him
up to their own unregenerate offspring as a model of neatness and a
paragon of propriety, but the boys call him “Sissy.” The author has
witnessed many examples of apron-string policy whose unpsychological
and repressive tendencies cannot fail to be detrimental to the ideal
development of adolescence.
Gratitude is a virtue displayed by few boys prior to the reflective
period, because they fail to appreciate the motives which inspire the
act which should call forth expressions of gratitude, especially if the
act or service is of an altruistic nature. Of course, he will thank
you for a gift of candy or a toy; but never for the time and thought
expended in giving him instruction or moral training, or taking him
in the woods for a day, or pointing out to him the constellations at
night. He is not ungrateful. He merely accepts these things as a matter
of course until he reaches the age which recognizes and appreciates the
sacrifices incurred by the giver of altruistic service.
The beginning of the reflective period witnesses the subsidence of the
fierce storms of earlier adolescence and is followed by comparative
physical and emotional calm, although attended by intellectual
agitations of lesser import. The boy now enters an era of mental
development characterized by a thoughtful, reflective attitude toward
the great problems of life. A serious viewpoint is developed which
changes the previous aspect of the world. He devotes much thought to
his life-work; to making choice of an occupation or profession and
preparing for it. His future career looms large in the foreground
of his problems, and prompts a close analysis of his inclinations,
aptitudes, and qualifications for special lines of work. The
realization that he must soon take his place among the men who are
doing the world’s work overwhelms him, at times, with the immensity
of his job. Introspection, as a part of his self-analysis, becomes a
habit which induces him to make continual comparisons between his own
natural endowments and those of others of his own age. He seeks, with
all the faculties at his command, to find that niche in the business,
professional, or industrial world which he can best fill and it is at
this time that he needs the vocational guidance of his father.
Early in this period a morbid self-consciousness frequently appears
as the result of a too minute introspection with eyes whose views
of life are not correlated. He discovers defects in his personal
appearance, faults of character and deficiencies of intellect which are
magnified out of their true proportions. His sense of perspective is
in its formative stage and this causes many molehills to loom high as
mountains. He is now his own most severe critic and imagines that his
immature conclusions as to his personality are shared by all others;
and many hours of humility and mental depression ensue from this
condition. Egotism and an exalted appreciation of his own worth are
also manifest, due to the same uncoordinated sense of values. He often
exhibits alternate states of exaltation and depression produced by a
trifling remark or a trivial incident which is given an importance it
does not deserve. As he advances through this period, his perspective
finds truer adjustment, his sense of values becomes settled, his
judgment ripens and these anomalies disappear. But he may be saved
many hours of soul-stress by the father who is able to diagnose his
condition, or who is on sufficiently intimate terms of confidence
with his son to inspire a frank avowal of his troubles. Here is the
opportunity for the father to apply his common sense, ripe judgment and
experience to the solution of these problems of the later adolescent.
Attention has already been called to his impressionability to religious
influences during the early part of this period through an appeal based
in intellectualism (as distinguished from the emotionalism of the
preceding period), to which the ethical concepts now being formed are
closely related.
Another distinguishing trait is the evolution of his sociological
consciousness through which he recognizes himself as a unit in the
social economy, with all its attendant rights and duties. He discards
the selfishness and individualism of an earlier era and adopts the
obligations of altruism. His desire to be of genuine service to his
fellow man seeks expression first in visionary plans to reform the
world, followed afterward by practical work in help for others, such
as leadership in boys’ clubs, secretarial duties or teaching in Sunday
schools, or similar employments of altruistic purport. Government
under processes of law takes on a newer, clearer and more personal
meaning. And with it comes recognition of civic responsibility.
Intellectual storms gather when vague, unassorted, inchoate, and
impossible theories of social and political reform--long since tried
and discarded--loom big on his horizon and are eagerly seized upon and
advocated as original discoveries. His opinions are expressed with
a dogmatism which characterizes the cocksureness of youth. Verbal
limitations inspired by sound judgment and broad experience, as well
as the cautious phraseology of scientific conservatism have no place
in his vocabulary. His theories are all promulgated with an arrogant
assertiveness born of the optimism of inexperience. He is now fairly
bursting with self-importance. But all these manifestations are
important only as indicating his desire to solve the great problems of
life and are the precursors of a sounder judgment which will come with
maturity of intellect and experience.
It is at or near the beginning of this period that the youth looks
down on the younger boy, whom he characterizes as a “kid.” The dislike
and even positive aversion of the older boy for companionship with
the younger has its basis not so much in their differing physical
and mental attainments as in their differing viewpoints caused by
their unequal psychological development. Illustration of this may be
observed in two boys, both of whom are sixteen years of age and of
equal mentality and physique, one of whom has and the other has not
entered the reflective period. Such boys are out of harmony with each
other in every taste, desire, and predilection which is actuated by
psychological impulse, and find a common ground of companionship only
in athletics and classroom studies.
Will power, born during the heroic period, is now stimulated to rapid
growth which culminates during the latter part of the reflective
period. No longer is he a straw borne on every passing wind of
influence, but a human being capable of exercising a moral choice
between two courses of action.
His mental and moral stature has been reached by gradual and almost
unnoticed gradations; and such growth, which had its beginning in blank
chaos, has been even greater and more marvelous than his physical
growth between birth and maturity.
Self-flattered, unexperienced, high in hope,
When young, with sanguine cheer and streamers gay,
We cut our cable, launch into the world
And fondly dream each wind and star our friend.
--Young’s NIGHT THOUGHTS.