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person and accepted in the same age community and in the older community.
12
Adolescence has been considered from a variety of viewpoints. In the main, it has been approached from a consideration of physiological and hormonal
development, social influences, interpersonal relationships, or emotional development.
The following explanation about the adolescent’s viewpoints:
a. Cognitive Development
As young persons approach and enter the adolescent years they become increasingly able to generalize and conceptualize moral rules and principles. With the
ability to understand general moral concepts, the adolescent is able to move beyond. Cognition involves how he perceives, reorganizes, and judges the objects of
which he is seen. Generally the sturdy of cognitive development is concerned with concept formation, problem-solving, and thought processes. However, the structure
and functioning of these three processes is heavily dependent on how the individual perceives himself and his environment; thus self and cognition are closely interrelated
concepts. The individual’s cognitive structures are built on the framework of his
awareness and understanding of his environment. The significant changes in cognitive achievement occur between the ages of twelve and fifteen. The adolescent
12
Hendrianti Agustiani, PSIKOLOGI PERKEMBANGAN Bandung: PT Refika Aditama, 2006, p. 29.
21
is now able to derive conclusions from pure hypotheses without having to rely on actual concrete observations and can think in terms of theoretical constructs. Thus,
adolescent’s structure thought and form conceptual schema in a manner that enables them to transcend the concrete world of their immediate environment. Cognitive
development, like most other aspects of human development, progresses along a continuum, from structural simplicity to complexity.
13
b. Emotional Development
In adolescence, there are marked changes in the stimuli that give rise to emotions, just as there are changes in the form of emotional response. During
adolescence it is not uncommon to experience peaks and valleys of optimism and pessimism, pride and shame, love and hate. An adolescent is made increasingly aware
of his separateness by the power of emotional reactions that are not shared by parents, siblings or friends. These are some kinds of adolescent’s emotions which are
affecting the adolescent’s emotional development: 1.
Love, Affection and Joy Love is an emotion interwoven with a web of confounding components
that is very difficult to unravel. Infatuation is shallow love that is based on appearance, sexual arousal, or selfish desire. True love is based on commitment,
empathy, and compassion - components that give rise to physical arousal rather than following it.
13
Marvin Powell and Frerichs Allen H 1971, op.cit. pp. 59-60.
22
Adolescent love is the beginning of real hopes of marriage, sex, and commitment. Theorist Robert Sternberg proposes that healthy adult relationships
have three components: commitment, intimacy, and passion. Adolescents are capable of commitment, which is the drive to stay together, but their commitment is limited.
Few high school romances lead to marriage. Adolescents are capable of intimacy as well.
Intimacy is the ability to share ones emotions, thoughts, and dreams. Teens can form powerful bonds with friends in whom they confide their secrets,
hopes, fears, and dreams. Likewise, teens are capable of passion, which is the erotic or sexual component of a relationship. They experience erotic arousal even if they do
not act upon it.
14
Adolescents who are able to love possess a priceless gift. When they are loved in return they taste one of life’s greatest joys. Love for adolescents and be
loved is supremely important in their lives. The most dramatic instances of adolescent love occur when adolescents fall in love with a person of opposite sex and are
convinced their love is “true.” Adolescent also at times swept with other loving sentiments-for their parents, their home, the family pet.
15
Affection is a pleasant emotional state of relatively mild intensity; it is a tender attachment for person, an animal, or an object. Affection may be directed
14
http:www.thecitizen.comarchivemainarchive-030129healthwisehw-01.html accessed on April 25th, 2009. p. 1.
15
Arthur T. Jersild, The Psychology of Adolescence New York: The Mcmillan Company, 1965, pp. 184-185.
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toward members of the opposite sex, but it does not have elements of sexual desire nor does not have he intensity in love.
16
Affections are built up through pleasant associations; they are not innate. People tend to like those who like them and are
friendly toward them. Typically, the adolescent shows his affection by wanting to be with the person
he is fond of by doing little favors in hope of making him happy, and by watching and listening by rapt attention to everything he does or says.
Happiness is a state of well-being, of pleasurable satisfaction-the opposite of anger, fear, jealousy, or envy, all of which lead to dissatisfaction. In its milder form,
happiness results in a state of “euphoria,” a sense of well-being or of buoyancy; in its stronger form, it is known as “joy,” a state in which the individual is “walking on
clouds.” Joy is influenced to a large extent by the general psychical condition of the
individual, though good health alone is not enough to make the adolescent happy nor does it play as important a role in his joy as it does in the child’s.
17
Each advance in a person’s growth adds to possibilities of life and opens the way for new or richer satisfactions. When things go well we can assume that the
adolescent often experiences joy, as when he is warmly accepted as a companion,
16
Elizabeth B. Hurlock 1973, op.cit. p. 57.
17
Ibid. p. 58.
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when he is respected for his maturity and appreciated, when he makes a discovery of talents and abilities and qualities, etc.
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2. Anger and Fear
Adolescents, like younger and older persons, are often angry and often afraid. Fear and anger are both aroused by conditions that threaten or seem to threaten the
adolescent’s well-being – his physical safety, comfort and welfare, plans and desires, prides, or anything that he values and wishes to protect.
During adolescence anger is most often provoked by persons rather than things. There are unavoidable frictions in the give and take of everyday life. There
also are thwarting and restraints imbedded in the culture. These are transmitted by individuals, frequently by parents.
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By the time the child reaches adolescence, he has learned that many of the things he used to fear are neither dangerous nor harmful. The adolescent is far more
likely to be afraid of social situations than animals. The more important a thing is to a person, the more likely he is to be afraid if he feels that he is going to lose it or be
unable to attain it.
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3. Anxiety
Anxiety, like worry, is a form of fear. It is, as Jersild has said, …persisting distressful psychological state arising from an inner conflict. The
stress may be experienced as a feeling of vague uneasiness of foreboding, a feeling of being on edge, or as any of variety of other feelings, such as fear,
18
Arthur T. Jersild 1965, op.cit. p. 186.
19
Ibid. p. 190.
20
Elizabeth B. Hurlock 1973, op.cit. p. 49.
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anger, restlessness, irritability, depression, or another diffuse and nameless feelings.
Anxiety differs from worry and fear in one major aspect: it is a generalized
emotional state rather than a specific one. Anxiety often develops from repeated and varies worries. The more often the adolescent worries and the more different worries
he has, the more likely it is that his worries will develop into a generalized state of anxiety.
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Anxiety prevails when a person is at odds with himself. It can be defined in very general term as a persisting, distressful psychological state arising from an inner
conflict. The distress may be experienced as a feeling of vague uneasiness or foreboding, a feeling of being on the edge, or as any of a variety of other feelings,
such as fear, anger, restlessness, irritability, depression, or other diffuse and nameless feelings.
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c. Social World
