Side by side with social and cultural aspects, personality is built by bio-psychological phenomena.
From a biological point of view, many changes occur because of the onset of sexual hormones. It is a period marked by specific behavior and needs, as a consequence of sexual energy.
From a psychological point of view, these changes result inquietude, awkwardness and new desires. They also start:
- creating self-reference - coming from new male and female identity references;
- taking part in seduction games and possible sexual and loving interaction;
This means that, from now on they want to belong to groups or to be close to friends who are popular or well-succeed in: sports, music bands, internet games and have the most popular boyfriends or girlfriend. Not only because all of the above, but also as a result of it, it is expected that academic performance worsens, since motivation and interests are turned into another direction. They start to experiment existential feelings and to be touched by questions linked to their personal project of life : who I am, what I want, what are my beliefs, how I will satisfy my needs, what I am going to do for living, etc
This is when they begin to detach from their parents expectation for them to , slowly, build their own “project of life”- a new life long psychological phase. From this perspective, adolescence begins in puberty with:
- estrogen and progesterone in girls and testosterone in boys
- breast, uterus, vagina, penis and testicles growth
- pubic hair in girls and boys
- shoulder and pelvic change in girls and facial hair growth in boys
- first menstruation in girls and first ejaculation in boys
Sexual hormones onset and body changes are linked to psychological changes that, in their turn, are linked to eroticism, which permeates teenagers interests and needs from this time on///. The new sensations brought by sexual energy turn into arousal- erotic desire directed to another body-. From this moment on, teenagers need privacy, which is the reason for detaching from parents and start creating more complicity with friends, mostly of the same age and sex. The development of intellectual abilities, together with sexual energy, are responsible for bringing about a new dimension in identity: ambiguitiy. The “moral binarysim”, well placed in childhood: “right or wrong”, “light or dark”, tend to slowly disappear and turn into more complex feelings, beliefs and opinions until a more sophisticated moral behavior is set.
Difficulties in accepting their body, both in puberty and in adolescence, is another important aspect. It is understandable, if we consider that the body changes more quickly than the image of it, bringing low self-esteem and susceptibilities- it is the period of pimples and stretch marks.
Puberty is the first stage of adolescence. It happens between 9 and 14 years old, give or take and its main characteristic, from a psychological point of view, is the introjection of new male and female identity references. At this stage, new models are projected in heroes or celebrities; the men and women they want to be. In the next step, these admired traits are found in a Great Friend. Great Friends express the authenticity, what is new or different from their original families and are the ones considered well-succeeded in social performances. They also work as identity models whose role is to “teach” them how to feel more secure in first erotic approaches.
1 According to T.H.Schoen-Ferreira (2010), the last updates in neuroscience show evidence that “Frontal Lobe (part of the brain lying immediately behind the forehead, that includes the area responsible for reasoning and decision making), start to develop during the first stage of adolescence” (WHO, in T.H.Schoen Ferreira & Cols.2010).It means that, by the end of it, analytical and critical capacities are almost fully operant . We will not dig into this perspective, because it overcomes our intention, which is arguing about the role of eroticism and sexuality in adolescence.
To be continued in Post 3
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