In parallel with the search for his image is a search for an answer to the question: what kind of personality am I? Teenager attracts everything unusual. Therefore, he believes that he may be interesting to himself and others, only if it is original. Again the difficulties. Once again, the teenager feels that he is "unreachable".
Why? He understands that while he lacks experience, knowledge, some qualities that will allow him to really think independently, he has not yet learned to create something new creatively. So far, he can only copy - a natural way to learn.
Then the teenager compensates for the lack of internal maturity by external copying. Hence, the deliberate demonstration of any qualities, the proclamation of original ideas and system of values. Thus, he shows his maturity, independence, independence and independence. At the same time, under the ideological "packaging" of the teenager does not feel the full inner conformity to the created image, and this causes his uncertainty and anxiety. In general, most often at this age, the "real self" differs significantly from the "ideal". Thus, another element is added to the "teenage complex".
Demonstration of independence, maturity, originality requires appropriate confirmation in life - because others have the opportunity to understand the truth or falsehood of the image. Therefore, the lower the teenager's self-esteem, the more unattainable the standard to which he or she aspires, the greater the uncertainty. Then he starts to underestimate his real possibilities, avoids solving any life tasks (in building relationships, in self-realization, in achieving goals, etc.), except for the simplest ones. This limits its development, both social and personal.
There is another variant of compensation for the feeling of internal insolvency - overrated self-esteem. A teenager as if ceases to notice his real shortcomings. He sees himself as he would like to be. The mechanisms of psychological protection obligingly help him to notice and exaggerate in others exactly what he hides from himself. They are the ones that make him very irritated. Making fun of them in other people, he thus asserts himself. This also prevents the further development of the teenager's personality, as he stops working on himself and stops developing.
At the same time, it is at this age that the trend towards development is strongest. Teenager readily perceives everything new, the interest in life in general and its various manifestations pushes him to new experiments, he easily learns, easily refuses that does not lead to success (as he imagines it). All these abilities need a certain vector - a direction that will gradually lead him to true maturity. Typically, this direction sets out the environment in which the young person lives, the communities in which he or she finds application and acceptance. Accepting the social and moral values of such an environment, one begins to build one's personality and future life according to them.
If a young person does not find such a community, he or she creates it for himself or herself in the inner world. He correlates himself with the values and qualities that are bestowed upon the fictional or real people he would like to consider himself a friend of.
It should be taken into account that all the processes described above are almost never understood by the teenager. Of course, he does not formulate his intentions, for example, "I will detach myself from my parents" or "I will explore the values of other people". He does it spontaneously, intuitively, often without even understanding the essence of the processes that take place in it.
With the onset of adulthood, all the processes described take on a more relaxed form. The junior is less inclined to rebellion and spontaneous expansion of boundaries. Now he is interested in the qualitative mastering of the degree of freedom, which he managed to defend in early adolescence. More and more life tasks have to be solved quite independently. Parents can no longer always help him, even if they want to do so. He already has experience of conscious relationship building, as well as experience of painful consequences of ill-considered actions. Now he often thinks about the results of his actions and decisions.