ABSTRACT
Classic accounts portray adolescence as a time of upheaval and turmoil, a period of "storm and stress" (Hall, 1904). Aristotle (trans. 1954), for example, described the youthful character as mercurial and subject to the whims of internal drives:
Although contemporary researchers reject such strong views (e.g., Petersen, 1988; Steinberg, 2001, 2002), certain aspects of this storm and stress notion may have validity (e.g., Arnett, 1999). For example, rates of depression for girls tend to increase during early adolescence (Ge, Lorenz, Conger, Elder, & Simons, 1994) and the age-crime curve peaks at around age 17 (Moffitt, 1993). Arnett concluded that the "paradox of adolescence is that it can be at once a time of storm and stress and a time of exuberant growth" (p. 324). Accordingly, adolescence is a particularly interesting time to study personality and self-esteem development because transitional periods offer important opportunities for studying the processes that affect continuity and change in individual differences (Caspi & Moffitt, 1991).
