As a result, parents see less of their children during adolescence. We find that as youth move into adolescence, they experience more negative emotions and fewer extreme positive emotions. The cognitive changes adolescents go through make them more sensitive to what is happening elsewhere in the world and to things happening in their personal lives that wouldn't have mattered as much 3 or 4 years earlier. There is a stereotype of girls being more emotional, but the research doesn't bear that out. Boys and girls report an equal number of positive and negative emotions, but the emotions are expressed differently.
Boys tend to project emotions outward.
Boys are more often delinquent, and they are more likely to lash out, to raise their voices, to use drugs. The effect is less than one might think. When we ask youth about the reasons for their emotions, family is mentioned relatively little unless a major family change has occurred, such as a death or divorce. The majority of adolescents' emotions are caused by peer relations, including romantic relationships, real and imagined. Emotions often go up or down over someone they haven't even talked to.