Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
• Dating
• Sexual activity
• Problems in adolescence
– Contraception
– Pregnancy
– Abortion
– Parenthood
Liking No Yes No
Infatuation Yes No No
Empty Love No No Yes
Romantic Love Yes Yes No
Companionate No Yes Yes
Love
Fatuous Yes No Yes
Consummate Love Yes Yes Yes
Applying Sternberg to
Adolescence
• Consensual validation
– People like to find in others an agreement, or consensus, with their own
characteristics
– Finding this consensus supports, or validates, their own way of looking
at the world
• People of all ages tend to have romantic relationships with people who are
similar to them in characteristics such as:
– Intelligence
– Social class
– Ethnic background
– Religious beliefs
– Physical attractiveness
Sexual Activity
Sexual Activity Males Females
Masturbation • Majority of boys begin about age • 33% of females reported
13 masturbating by age 13
• 90% by age 19 • 60% to 75% by age 20
Necking and Petting • 60% of 13 year olds had kissed at • 73% of 13 year olds had kissed at
least once least once
• 20% reported touching a girl’s • 35% reported having their breast
breast touched
• By age 18, 77% reported penile • By age 18, 60% reported vaginal
touching touching
Sexual Intercourse • Before 1965, 25% of boys reported • Before 1965, 10% of girls reported
and Oral Sex having intercourse having intercourse
• After 1965, 54% of boys reported • After 1965, 52% of girls reported
having intercourse having intercourse
Ethnic Differences
• The proportion of high school students in grades 9-12 who have had
intercourse is:
• Research has indicated that Asian Americans are considerably less likely to
engage in sexual activity in adolescence compared with any other major
American ethnic group
Cultural Beliefs and Adolescent Sexuality
• Restrictive cultures:
– Place strong prohibitions on adolescent sexual activity before marriage
– Strict separation of boys and girls in early childhood through adolescence
– Some countries will even include the threat of physical punishment and
public shaming for premarital sex
– Usually more restrictive for girls than boys
• Semi-restrictive cultures:
– Have prohibitions but they are not strongly enforced and are easily
evaded
– If pregnancy results from premarital sex, the adolescents are often forced
to marry
• Permissive cultures:
– Encourage and expect adolescent sexuality
– Sexual behavior is encouraged even in childhood and the sexuality of
adolescence is simply a continuation of the sex play in childhood
Sexual Activity
• Authoritative parenting
– Later sexual activity
– Less risky sexual activity
• Parent-adolescent conflict
– Earlier sexual activity
– High-risk sexual activity
• STD transmission
• Pregnancy
Parents and sexual activity
• Parent-child communication
• Most effective
– for females (rather than males)
– with mothers (rather than fathers)
– if communication of values/attitudes
– for preventing risky sexual behaviors
Parents and sexual activity
• Household composition
• Adolescents in midst of divorce
– Increase in risky behaviors generally
• Sexual initiation
– More experienced adolescents with less experienced
adolescents
– Epidemic model
• (e.g. Kids)
Ecological model
• Individual-level factors
– Intelligence
– Drug use (risk behaviors)
– Sexual abuse
• Family-level factors
– Single-parent homes
– Poor parenting
– Low SES
• Extra-familial factors
– Sexually active friends
– Committed relationship
– Low-quality neighborhood
– Few positive school experiences
Peer Influences
• Characteristics of non-virgins
– Similar self-esteem as virgins
– Similar overall life satisfaction as virgins
– More likely to be early maturing
– Tend to have lower levels of academic performance and academic
aspirations
• Adolescents who have sex early (15 years old or younger)
– Early users of drugs and alcohol
– More likely to be from single parent households
– More likely to have grown up in poverty
Contraceptive Use Among Sexually
Active Adolescents
• Many adolescents fail to
use contraception regularly
– Although rates have
improved since 1970s,
~40% of high school
students did not use a
condom the most recent
time they had sex
• Contraception may not be
readily available for all
adolescents
Contraceptive Use and
Nonuse
• Why do most sexually active
adolescents fail to use
contraception consistently?
• Think about:
– Infrequency of sex
– Cognitive development
– Personal fable
– Embarrassment
Contraceptive Use and Nonuse
• Two types of countries have low rates of teenage
pregnancy:
– Those that are permissive about adolescent sex
– Those that adamantly forbid adolescent sex
Permissive Countries Restrictive Countries
Denmark Japan
Sweden South Korea
Netherlands Morocco
Compare this to
Canada where
sexual activity rates
are the same but
the pregnancy rate
is about half
Facts about the “Facts of Life”
…. That means
about 50% of adolescents raise their own children
(sometimes with the help of the father but most often
with the help of the adolescent mother’s own mother)
Teen Birth Rates
Black teens are twice In recent years, birth rates
as likely as White have become highest of all
teens to get pregnant among Latina adolescents
What about Mom?
• Twice as likely to drop out of school
• Less likely to go to college or become employed
• Less likely to get married
• More likely to get divorced if they get married
Interesting Footnote:
Like adolescent mothers, the problems of adolescent
fathers often began prior to parenthood
What about Baby?
• Children born to adolescent mothers face a higher likelihood
of a variety of difficulties in life
– Babies are more likely to be born premature
– Lower birth weight
– Premature and low birth weight are related to a variety of physical and
intellectual problems
– Greater likelihood of behavioral problems
– School misbehaviour, delinquency and early sexual activity
It is important to note:
These problems are not just due to having an adolescent mother
but also due to the fact that most adolescent mothers are not
only young and unmarried but poor as well
Sexually Transmitted Diseases
• By age 24, one in three sexually active Americans have contracted an STD
• Two thirds of all STDs occur in people who are under 25 years old
• Gonorrhoea
– Caused by bacteria that thrive in the moist mucous membranes of the body
– Very easily passed along during sex
– Females are at least twice as likely as males to become infected
• Herpes Simplex
– Caused by a virus
– Has two variations: herpes simplex I and herpes simplex II
– Highly infectious (75% of persons exposed to an infected partner will become
infected)
– There is no cure for herpes
Sexually transmitted diseases
• HIV/AIDS
– Strips the body of its ability to fend off infections
– The body is highly vulnerable to a wide variety of illnesses and diseases
– 90% of cases of HIV in the U.s. result from intercourse between homosexual or
bisexual partners
– Outside the U.S. HIV/AIDS is spread mainly between heterosexual partners
– Has a long latency period (tend to by asymptomatic up to 5 years)
– AIDS is the leading cause of death worldwide among persons 25 to 44 years
old
– 10 of every 11 new HIV infections worldwide come from Africa
– The mortality rate for people who have AIDS remains extremely high
Sex Education