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Being Adolescent: Conflict and Growth in the Teenage Years
To find out what teenagers' lives are like, two psychologists gave beepers to seventy-five adolescents, signaled them at random, and asked them to record their thoughts and feelings as they sat in classrooms, socialized with friends, and ate dinner with their families. The result is a unique and detailed portrait of the day-to-day world of the average American teenager that offers valuable new insights for parents, psychologists, and educators.
- GenresParentingPsychology
350 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1984
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About the author
Mihály Csíkszentmihályi
83 books2,547 followersA Hungarian psychology professor, who emigrated to the United States at the age of 22. Now at Claremont Graduate University, he is the former head of the department of psychology at the University of Chicago and of the department of sociology and anthropology at Lake Forest College.
He is noted for both his work in the study of happiness and creativity and also for his notoriously difficult name, in terms of pronunciation for non-native speakers of the Hungarian language, but is best known as the architect of the notion of flow and for his years of research and writing on the topic. He is the author of many books and over 120 articles or book chapters. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, described Csikszentmihalyi as the world's leading researcher on positive psychology.
Csikszentmihalyi once said "Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason." His works are influential and are widely cited.
He is noted for both his work in the study of happiness and creativity and also for his notoriously difficult name, in terms of pronunciation for non-native speakers of the Hungarian language, but is best known as the architect of the notion of flow and for his years of research and writing on the topic. He is the author of many books and over 120 articles or book chapters. Martin Seligman, former president of the American Psychological Association, described Csikszentmihalyi as the world's leading researcher on positive psychology.
Csikszentmihalyi once said "Repression is not the way to virtue. When people restrain themselves out of fear, their lives are by necessity diminished. Only through freely chosen discipline can life be enjoyed and still kept within the bounds of reason." His works are influential and are widely cited.
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 3, 2011
This book gives amazing insight into adolescent development. Csikszentmihalyi and Larson gave pagers and self-evaluation forms to a number of high school students. The pagers would go off at random times during the days and nights that followed and the students would complete the forms describing their physical and mental states at the time the pagers went off. The analysis of the information they collected is fascinating.
Csikszentmihalyi and Larson divide their book into four sections, Perspectives, Environments, Interactions, and Transformations. Each section is more engrossing than the previous one. The conclusions that they draw from the data seem so obvious after reading them that you wonder why you couldn't have come to these conclusions on your own. Then you realize that the only reason you were able to reach that conclusion was that the authors led you to it without you even realizing it.
The one difficulty in this book for me was its density. I do most of my reading at night and it was difficult for me to stay engaged in it because of the volume of information and ideas being thrown at me. The best reading I did in this book was during the day. Definitely not light reading.
On a side note, Csikszentmihalyi is the creator of the concept of flow and this book laid some of the foundational work for Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. I had a passing interest in this book initially but wanted to read it to see where his ideas for flow came from. I am now very happy that I read this book for its own sake, rather than as a prequel.
Now if only I could pronounce Csikszentmihalyi.
Csikszentmihalyi and Larson divide their book into four sections, Perspectives, Environments, Interactions, and Transformations. Each section is more engrossing than the previous one. The conclusions that they draw from the data seem so obvious after reading them that you wonder why you couldn't have come to these conclusions on your own. Then you realize that the only reason you were able to reach that conclusion was that the authors led you to it without you even realizing it.
The one difficulty in this book for me was its density. I do most of my reading at night and it was difficult for me to stay engaged in it because of the volume of information and ideas being thrown at me. The best reading I did in this book was during the day. Definitely not light reading.
On a side note, Csikszentmihalyi is the creator of the concept of flow and this book laid some of the foundational work for Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience. I had a passing interest in this book initially but wanted to read it to see where his ideas for flow came from. I am now very happy that I read this book for its own sake, rather than as a prequel.
Now if only I could pronounce Csikszentmihalyi.
November 17, 2012
Excellent general model of adolescent experience. Includes experience sampling method approach to capturing activity data for demographic modelling, from the father of flow.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews