The Psychology Book

IN CONTEXT

APPROACH

Human development

BEFORE

1905 Sigmund Freud, in Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality, claims the teenage years are the “genital stage.”

AFTER

1928 American anthropologist Margaret Mead, in Coming of Age in Samoa, declares that adolescence is only recognized as a distinct stage of human development in Western society.

1950 Erik Erikson, in Childhood and Society, describes adolescence as the stage of “Identity vs. Role Confusion,” coining the term “identity crisis.”

1983 In Margaret Mead and Samoa, New Zealand anthropologist Derek Freeman disputes Mead’s claim that adolescence is merely a socially constructed concept.

The word “adolescence” ...