"Adolescence as the time when an individual 'recapitulates' the savage stage of the race's past." —Granville Stanley Hall
“Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.” —Eric Hoffer
Adolescence is a stage of development that generally begins no sooner than 10 years of age and ends, at the latest, at 19 years.
At this time mechanisms which will determine the adolescents place in the tribe and pecking order of that tribe activate, causing the well-known and typical adolescent behavior. The search for identity is a search a role in the tribe. The importance of friends is the importance of forming bonds which, in a tribal society, would become important allies later in life. The mechanism that causes rebellion is a mechanism which sets up a situation where the adolescent is properly put into his place in the pecking order, determined both by his merit and the merit of his peers and elders.
In short, adolescence is a time where we are tested by out of date mechanisms which assigned us a place in our tribe. It's not surprising that the experience of adolescence is so salient. At this time, the fires that forge us are most active.
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Categories: developmental-psychology psychology