Discuss the development of self-concept among adolescents.

Answers will vary. Before adolescence, children describe themselves primarily in terms of their physical characteristics and their actions. As they approach adolescence, children begin to incorporate psychological characteristics and social relationships into their self-descriptions. Adolescents' self-perceptions become more complex than those of younger children. According to Susan Harter's Self-Perception Profile of academically talented adolescents, many factors come into play. Adolescents may describe themselves as anxious or sarcastic with parents but as talkative and cheerful with friends. Such contradictions and conflicts in self-description reach their peak at about age 14 and then decline. The advanced formal-operational skills of older adolescents allow them to integrate contradictory aspects of the self. The older adolescent might say: "I'm very adaptable. When I'm around my friends, who think that what I say is important, I'm very talkative; but around my family, I'm quiet because they're not interested enough to really listen to me."