Written by the Fiveable Content Team โข Last updated September 2025
Verified for the 2026 exam
Verified for the 2026 examโขWritten by the Fiveable Content Team โข Last updated September 2025
Definition
G. Stanley Hall was an American psychologist who focused on child development and education. He is known for his theory of adolescence as a turbulent time due to biological maturation and societal demands.
This branch of psychology studies physical, cognitive, and social change throughout life span. Like biologists studying the life cycle of butterflies from caterpillar to chrysalis to butterfly.
Storm-and-Stress View: A view proposed by Hall that adolescence is a turbulent time charged with conflict and mood swings. Imagine it like weathering a storm at sea โ it's a challenging, tumultuous journey, but it's also part of the process to reach calmer waters (adulthood).
This is a theoretical approach in social and natural sciences that examines psychological traits such as perception, memory, and language from an evolutionary perspective. Itโs like looking at the features of a car (psychological traits) and understanding why they were designed that way for survival on the road (evolution).