Western culture seems determined to portray adolescence as a time of great turmoil. Sex, substance use, crime, and antisocial behavior are supposedly the norm, young people never talk to their parents except to make unreasonable demands, and adolescent women in particular are seen as being at the mercy of their hormones and societal pressure, with mood swings so typical as to be unremarkable. Adolescents seem to symbolize both the best and the worst of our worlds. But what is the evidence for any of this?

Adolescence as a developmental phase for study has a relatively short history. One of the first notable books on the topic was G. Stanley Hall’s 1904 Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime and Education (1). It is clear that Hall acknowledged the multiple influences on adolescent behavior and emotional outcomes. Some traditional cultures have not seen adolescence as a distinct developmental phase, yet current processes of globalization have had a significant impact on how societies manage transitions for youth. Such issues are highlighted by researchers in New Zealand studying Samoan girls’ views of themselves (2) in a culture where adolescence is not generally recognized, or in New Zealand Maori rangatahi (teenagers’) discussion of their body image (3).

A steep rise in many “adult-type” mental health problems occurs at adolescence, and gender differences in prevalence of disorder also become far more marked than in childhood. Suicide attempts, anxiety and depressive disorders, and eating disorders are all more common in adolescent girls than boys (4). Adolescent girls have traditionally shown lower rates of substance abuse, antisocial behavior, and completed suicide,
but even these rates are rising to match those of boys (5). Although no gender difference is found in attachment security in early childhood, in adolescent girls we find a higher rate of emerging borderline personality disorder and a greater vulnerability to developing post-traumatic stress disorder (6).