Significant anatomical and physiological changes in the body of an adolescent served for a long time as the basis for various theories about the biological conditionality of the characteristics of an adolescent and the phenomena of critical development in this age period. This idea was laid down by St. Hall and 3. Freud and dominated the first quarter of our century. The existence of a crisis and a complex of specific features in adolescents was considered by Hall and Freud (the founders of a trend called biogenetic universalism) to be an inevitable and universal phenomenon due to its biological conditionality.
In the 20s and 30s, a direction opposite to biogenetic universalism began to gain strength, as specific studies accumulated in different countries, which showed the dependence of some aspects of a teenager’s personality on his social affiliation. Such a theoretical orientation existed in a number of studies in Soviet psychology (in the period of its formation). So, L.S. Vygotsky put forward a hypothesis about the discrepancy between the three points of maturation — sexual, general organic and social — as the main feature and main contradiction of adolescence. A strong blow to the theories of biogenetic universalism was dealt by American anthropologists (ethnographers), who studied the so-called «primitive civilizations» in order to establish what in a person is determined by «nature» and what is determined by «culture», i.e. specific socio-historical conditions of life and development. M. Mead, who studied adolescents on the island of Samoa, proved the inconsistency of the idea of the inevitability of crisis and conflicts in adolescence and showed their social, rather than biological, conditionality. She discovered the existence of a harmonious, conflict-free transition from childhood to adulthood in Samoan adolescents and described in detail the living conditions, the characteristics of upbringing and the relationship of children with others. Mead generally assessed adolescence in girls as the most pleasant and free period in comparison with childhood and adulthood. Later, she showed that the onset of puberty in a girl, firstly, may not be a fact of extreme subjective importance for her and go almost unnoticed and, secondly, have different meanings for the life of the tribe (be a boon for everyone or carry a danger ) and the girl herself: in some cases this is a signal for recognizing her adulthood and preparing for the marriage ceremony, in others, the circle of her rights and obligations only slightly changes. In studies of ethnographers, it was found that adolescence can have a different duration and, in some tribes, be limited to several months.
The assertion that the «Oedipus complex» is obligatory for boys was also refuted and the possibility of the absence of a crisis in adolescent boys was established both in the conditions of specially organized preparation for adult status, which is acquired by a teenager after initiation, and with the gradual mastery of the requirements of this status.
Based on the generalization of ethnographic materials, R. Benedict singled out two types of transition from childhood to adulthood: 1) continuous and 2) with a gap between what the child learns in childhood and those behaviors and ideas that are necessary to fulfill the role of an adult. The first type of transition exists in conditions of similarity of a number of important norms and requirements for children and adults. In such circumstances, development proceeds smoothly, the child gradually learns the ways of adult behavior and is prepared to fulfill the requirements of adult status. The second type of transition exists when there is a discrepancy in the essential norms and requirements for children and adults (Benedict and Mead considered it characteristic of modern American society and countries with high industrial development). Under such conditions, the transition to adulthood comes with external and internal conflicts and has a specific result — unpreparedness to play the role of an adult when «formal» maturity is reached. Benedict emphasized that the path along which the transition from childhood to adulthood occurs varies in different societies and none of them can be considered as a «natural» path to maturity.
The theoretical significance of ethnographic research is great. It has been proven that the specific social circumstances of a child’s life determine: 1) the duration of adolescence; 2) the presence or absence of a crisis, conflicts, difficulties; 3) the nature of the transition itself from childhood to adulthood. From these studies, the opposite conclusion to Freudianism followed: in man, the natural cannot be opposed to the social, since the natural in him is social.
Anthropologists have viewed adolescence as a period when the child is on his way to his place in society, when he penetrates into the social life of adults. In the development of this idea, a special place belongs to K. Levin (USA), who continued to analyze the position of a teenager in modern society and considered the conflict type of transition to adulthood from the point of view of the position in society of a group of children and a group of adults, their certain rights and privileges. He stated the separation of these groups and believed that in adolescence there is a change in belonging to the group. A teenager has a desire to move into a group of adults and enjoy some of their privileges that children do not have. However, he is not yet accepted by adults and therefore finds himself in a position between groups. Levin makes the degree of difficulties and the presence of conflicts dependent on social factors — the sharpness of the distinction in society between a group of children and a group of adults and the duration of the period when a teenager is in a position between groups. Levin’s ideas about the «restlessness» of the adolescent are currently being developed by D. Coleman and other philosophic psychologists who speak of the existence of a special «subculture» of adolescents, i.e. about the presence of a society of adolescents in a society of adults.
L.S. Vygotsky posed completely new problems in the study of critical ages: the need to isolate the main neoformation in the mind (of an adolescent) and to clarify the social situation of development, which at each age represents a unique system of relations between the child and the environment. He believed that the restructuring of this system of relations is the main content of the «crisis» of adolescence.
Thus, the development of theoretical thought in explaining the «crisis» in adolescence consisted in the gradual accumulation of generalizations, saying that the characteristics of the manifestations and course of the adolescent period are determined by the specific social circumstances of the life and development of a teenager, his social position in the world of adults.