Research Paper, Advanced Level of Study
Title: The Influence of Peer Groups in Adolescence: A Necessity or a Nightmare
Assignment:
Research Paper in Social Psychology.
Study Tutor's Comments:
This is a well-written and well-documented paper about the increased importance of peer groups for today's adolescents in America. You and the authors you cite attribute this primarily to the rise of the two income family. It would be interesting to compare the American situation to the European situation to see if the same thing has taken place there or not and why. If there are differences, this could shed light on other factors (historical and cultural) since European families have probably experienced the same growth in two-income households. Good work.
Area of Study:
Human Development
Paper
Despite so much change in today's society, the fundamental tasks of growing up still endure - to find a place in a valued group that gives a sense of belonging; to identify and master tasks that are generally recognized as having value and therefore can earn respect by acquiring skill to cope with them; to acquire a sense of worth as a person; and to develop reliable and predictable relationships with other people, especially a few close friends and loved ones. (Hamburg, 1992). In this paper, I intend to examine the role of peer groups in the adolescent's life and the unquestionable rise of such groups in today's society.
But is the rise of peer groups in our fast-paced world a problem that needs to be remedied, or is it an inevitable - perhaps even necessary - part of life in contemporary America? Sides have been drawn on this volatile issue and I will show that, unless we can remedy the social climate of today, peer groups have become a necessity for the American adolescent in the 1990's. Their influence, whether good or bad, is unavoidable given the social conditions that teenagers live under in today's society.
Today's children are living a childhood of firsts. They are the first daycare generation; the first truly multi-cultural generation; the first generation to grow up in the electronic bubble, the environment defined by computers and new forms of television; the first post sexual revolution generation; the first generation for which nature is more abstraction than reality; the first generation to grow up in new kinds of dispersed, deconcentrated cities, not quite urban, rural, or suburban. (Louv, 1990). The combined force of these changes produces a seemingly unstoppable dynamic process. Childhood today is defined by the expansion of experience and the contraction of positive adult contact. Each part of this process feeds and speeds the other. The more of a manmade world that children experience, the more they assume they know, and as they become adolescents, the less they think they need adults.
Because children seem to know more about the world, adults are more likely to assume, sometimes wistfully, that kids can take care of themselves. As a result, children and adults pass each other in the night at ever-accelerating speeds, and the American social environment becomes increasingly lonely for both. Although most children do grow up to be healthy and whole adults, substantial members encounter serious problems along the way that threaten their survival or leave their entire lives warped or unfulfilled.
Indeed, all children entering adolescence are faced with difficult times, to say the least. However, adolescents in today's society suffer three times as much stress as they did fifteen years ago. (Kaplan, 1993). Many teens try to balance schoolwork with part-time jobs, dating and other activities. Today's teens also deal with an uncertain national economy, violence, AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome), and other sexually transmitted diseases. With all this, teens lack the experience and the coping and problem-solving skills that would help them make good decisions about handling these stresses. Without such skills and given the almost complete absence of their families support, teens are at the mercy of their friends' immature ideas about how to solve problems. (Kaplan, 1993).
The adolescent years from roughly twelve to nineteen are special; special in that they offer a developing person the opportunity to experiment with contrasting lifestyles, with different selves. It is a time of transition; a time of self-definition. Without this period of trials and errors, the adult would grow up to be just a larger copy of the child it had been earlier. During the teenager years, due to the large extent of choices that both biology and culture open up, the developing adolescent is allowed the freedom to alter his course in life; a life we all travel through only once, regardless of race, creed, or social status.
The simplest task of adolescence is to learn the patterns of action required for participation in society. Teenagers must acquire habits to live by. They must learn that there are times for sleeping and eating, for working and studying, for relaxing and playing. If they do not learn to concentrate on these tasks at the prescribed times in the prescribed ways, they will not be able to function as adults. Moreover, as self discipline increases, the young must feel that their actions are worthwhile, that the goals society presents make sense. Otherwise adolescents will grow up to be well-socialized but confused and discontented adults.
Teenagers have to learn how to enjoy what they are doing, and they must learn how to give meaning to the events unfolding in their lives, by relating them to freely accepted goals. The difference between confident and productive adults and disillusioned ones is to be found in how they experience their day-to-day activities. The hidden curriculum of growing up lies in how a person learns to respond to daily situations: in mastering interactions with parents, achieving harmony with friends, learning to handle the pressures of school, and developing means to transcend everyday conflicts. (Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1984).
In all societies since the beginning of time, adolescents have learned to become adults by observing, imitating, and interacting with grown-ups around them. The self is shaped and honed by feedback from men and women who already know who they are, and can help the young person find out who he or she is going to be. The importance of the family, immediate and extended, in an adolescent's life ( in any life, for that matter) is of paramount importance. It is therefore quite startling and very distressing when we look around our society and see how little time today's teenagers spend in the company of adults. The adolescent today is socialized more within the confines of their peers than with any adults, a situation that both parents and teachers fear and distrust, because it competes with adult socializing experiences for the teenager's attention.
Adults are afraid that the lives of their sons and daughters will be shaped by the spontaneous goals of youth and fed by affirmative feedback, while at the same time these sons and daughters will resist being shaped by the goals around which adult life in our culture is built. The paradox is that adults themselves, especially in today's self-centered society, are prepared to invest relatively little of their own time, attention, and wisdom to provide the bridge. Except by parents' manipulation through external rewards and punishments, teenagers are more or less left on their own to choose among the directions available to them. (Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1984).
In a contemporary society, peer groups have become an increasingly important context in which adolescents spend time. Modernization has led to more and more age segregation-in schools, in the workplace, and in the community. Today's teenagers spend far more time in the exclusive company of their peers than their counterparts did in the past. (Steinberg, 1996). How much time one spends with friends as opposed to adults will play a great part in the development of the adolescent into the mature adult they will become some day. Soaring divorce rates and the unprecedented emergence of women in the paid labor force have greatly reduced time families spend together making peer groups a viable alternative, even more so than normally would be expected. Moreover, the rapid growth of the teenage population as experienced in the 1990's has led to a rise in adolescent peer groups simply because the sheer increase in the number of peers that young people have has increased. (Steinberg, 1996).
In essence, it is other people who socialize us by the support and feedback they provide. As George Meade (1934) pointed out, it is by relating to others, either concretely or in imagination, that we develop attentional patterns we call the "self." (Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1984). Social structure is passed on through the family, which has always been viewed as the smallest subsystem of society. Like any other social system, however, it exists only insofar as individuals expend energy toward a common set of goals. This creates a climate of love and mutual support. When parents and children cease to pay attention to each other's goals, the family breaks up as a viable unit. This, I believe, is what is happening in our society today.
As the importance of the family in the adolescent's life declines, whether it be from a divorce or from normal growth, friends move to the forefront. Friends are usually peers, that is, people of the same age, with similar backgrounds and interests. Peer group membership answers adolescents' concerns about many things including their changing bodies. Discussing their fears with other young people experiencing similar physical changes and asking similar questions about their impact helps adolescents to accept their physical development. In several ways, the group reassures the individuals that they are acceptable and not abnormal. Peer groups can help adolescents accept their physical development by devising means to hide it. Body differences appear less different when people dress alike. Each group has its own look, from sophisticated dressy, to designer labels, to ratty jeans and T-shirts, to whatever is handy. Each group presents an identifiable image through a style of dressing that clearly states what is acceptable. (Kaplan, 1993).
Becoming a peer group member meets many adolescent concerns about social expectations as well. Young people need to development independence from their parents. They need to learn decision-making skills, to act on their own and learn to live with he consequences. But young teenagers find these goals confusing and the ways of achieving them even more so. They feel dependent on their parents because they privately know that they lack the confidence and the skills to succeed in the outside world alone. Adolescents, however, deeply resent this need and view it as a sign of weakness, often covering up with arguments and impulsive behavior. (Kaplan, 1993).
Teenagers know they must be different from their parents', for them, this is a matter of self-esteem. They feel they must view the world differently; they must move away but they remain uncertain about what they must move toward. They have to establish their own identity to help find themselves. The peer group provides temporary aliases; for the present, a least, everyone will know who they are: they are members of This Group. (Kaplan, 1993).
The peer group defines what is "normal" for its members in attitude, thought, and behavior. They have all the answers, albeit each group solving their own questions and fears in their own way. Wear these clothes, talk this way, act that way, and the group guarantees your acceptance. In this way, young people gain self-esteem from separating from parents and the group prospers as well. Each new member's following the code and accepting the group's influence strengthens the code and verifies the correctness of all the members. Conformity for many adolescents is not a price costing individuality, but a blessing, freeing them from responsibility, loneliness, and possible failure. All reinforce each other. (Kaplan, 1993).
Because peer groups give their members the qualities that young adults seek, these groups hold a very influential place in adolescent life. Considering the complexities and uncertainties of their changing lives, it seems understandable that young adolescents would give in to peer pressure more than any other group. But what motivates an adolescent to join a peer group in the first place? Studies have shown that the family situation influences the reasons for seeking group membership and the readiness to give in to peer pressure. Families in which parents express relatively little concern or affection for their growing children, show a "do whatever you want, I don't care" attitude, and apply rules inconsistently lead to young adolescents desperately needing approval and affection. If no gained from their parents, these young people will find approval and affection from their friends. This appears to be the situation in our fast-paced world today. Far too many parents are too busy working all hours of the day and night; Johnny or Suzy just don't fit in their schedule anymore. Subsequently, they join a peer group feeling so dependent on keeping the group's acceptance and approval that they frequently follow its dictates sooner than a member from a different type of family.
Young people from families that show active concern and who expect their children to meet certain standards of performance, enforce rules consistently, and encourage family members to try new experiences and put out their best efforts are not so dependent on keeping group approval. These young people often feel better about themselves as worthwhile and capable persons than those from unconcerned families. They build confidence from opportunities in which they can successfully meet their parents' expectations. They learn at home that the environment responds in predictable ways, and they have a surety about their ability to master whatever comes their way. Hence, they frequently have the point of view and self-assurance to stand apart from group influence when they choose to do so. They don't feel the pressure to give in and compromise what they truly believe in.
So, let me pose this question once again. Is the rise of peer groups in our present fast-paced society, then, a problem that needs to be remedied, or is it an inevitable - perhaps even necessary - part of life in contemporary America? This question has sparked some of the hottest arguments in the study of adolescence during the past twenty five years. (Brown, 1990). On one side are those who say that age segregation has led to the development of a separate youth culture, in which young people maintain attitudes and values that are different from - even contrary to - those of adults. According to some observers, age segregation has so strengthened the power of the peer group that American adolescents have become alienated and unfamiliar with the values of adults. No longer are young people interest in the things their parents wanted for them. In fact, teenagers have become separated from adult society to such an extreme that they have established their own society - a separate youth culture that undermines parents' efforts to encourage academic excellence and instead emphasizes sports, dating, and partying. (Steinberg, 1996).
According to this view, problems such as youth unemployment, teenage suicide, juvenile crime and delinquency, drug and alcohol use, and premarital pregnancy can be attributed to the rise of peer groups and the isolation of adolescents from adults. To be sure, contemporary adolescents do spend more time in peer groups than their counterparts in previous eras ever did? But why? I think modernization has eroded much of the family's importance as a political, social, and economic unit. In less industrialized societies, political, economic, and social institutions revolve around the family. Occupation, choice of spouse, place of residence, treatment under society's laws, and participation in governing the community are all tied to one's relatives are. Individuals' family ties determine whom they can trade with and how much they pay for various commodities. In short, how adults are expected to behave depends on which family they come from. (Steinberg, 1996).
In American society today, things are quite different. The erosion of the family has taken its toll in recent decades. The intact, cohesive, nuclear family, dependable in every crunch, is almost extinct. Supportive family members who are always there to lend a hand or give advice are not just around the corner any more. There are fewer people to help as families grow smaller and more mobile. Moreover, society puts a great emphasis on options, freedom, new horizons - an accentuation of the longtime American emphasis on individuality. The basic value has many evident values, yet its side effects - one being the sharp increase in the rate of divorce - has taken its toll on our children's lives. Adolescents need a reasonably predictable adult environment that fosters gradual preparation for life. (Hamburg, 1992). The majority of adolescents today don't live in this environment; hence, the growing need for peer groups.
Times are a lot more stressful today for teenagers than they were in the past which has led theorists to suggest that regardless how they influence adolescent behavior, peer groups are inevitable and necessary by-products of modernization. In essence, they provide the emotional support that seems to be lacking in our highly stressful, quickly paced, technological world. Adolescents in our society today face an unprecedented, bewildering variety of potential life goals, life styles, and values. Each choice entails the learning of skills that are not natural and that are meaningful only within the limits and conventions of the chosen role. Specialization is the name of the game. To make matters more difficult, the ladder one must climb to achieve competence in each role keeps getting longer and longer. The years of schooling and training stretch even further, postponing the feeling of control that a young person derives from mastery of a craft or profession.
The universal tensions of adolescence become greatly exacerbated when adult responsibilities are so diverse, abstract, and diffuse that young persons cannot imagine what they will be doing when they grow up, let along why. A relatively unproblematic adolescence can then turn into a long struggle to determine who one is and who one should become. Despite all its technological progress an material influence, our culture produces many young people who have no desire to participate in it. (Csikszentmihalyi & Larson, 1984).
Additionally, television's graphic portrayal of violence as a means of dealing with life's problems has had extensive repercussions especially on the youth of today. Although violence has long been an integral part of human history and of child development, no generation in history has ever grown up with so much exposure to vivid, immediate, and wanton violence divorced from moral as well as physical consequences. (Hamburg, 1992). Many members of peer groups follow the actions (and at times, unfortunately, bad ones at that) of other members doing things they never would have done alone. Following the group's wishes, young people do not risk making their own decisions. In their minds, they need not accept responsibility for their actions. When everyone is to blame, no one is to blame. Groups are not accountable. (Hamburg, 1992).
But if friendship leads to deviance, it can also provide opportunities for growth that are not available in other contexts. Harry Stack Sullivan (1953), the psychiatrist, has observed that only peers can give a growing person the kind of unbiased feedback needed to develop a realistic sense of self. In a similar way, Piaget has argued that an autonomous sense of morality evolves by negotiating with peers. (Piaget, 1965). I think the best way one truly learns is through the give-and-take of interaction with other friends, one's equals, so to speak. Adults can show by example, preach, whatever (and all that is extremely important) but children learn by interacting with those their own age. As they grow older, learning to respond to peer pressure could facilitate a person's commitment to group norms, (hopefully the good kind), and thus help integrate the adolescent into the fabric of society.
How then does a young person, growing up in this conflicting world of values, survive and reach adulthood with a sane mind? It all should begin with the context of the family; it is here where youngsters find the earliest support for their developing selves. But as we have seen, times have drastically changed. The two-parent family is far from the norm today; single parents going it alone are much more visible. Peer groups have always been in existence simply because they serve an important purpose in growing up but the need for them now is greater than ever before. Clearly, friends present opportunities for either growth or disruption; but with the nuclear family all but a relic of times gone by, peer groups might be the only source of hope for our kids. And that is sad.
[Note: Student does not use correct bibliographic form]
Bibliography
Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly and Larson, Reed. Being Adolescent. New York: Basic Books Inc., 1984.
Erikson, E.H. Childhood and Society. New York: Norton Books, 1950.
Hamburg, David. Today's Children-Creating a Future For A Generation In Crisis. New York: Random House, 1992.
Kaplan, Leslie S. Coping With Peer Pressure. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, 1993.
Louv, Richard. Childhood's Future. Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1990.
Mead, George. Mind, Self, And Society From The Standpoint Of A Social Behaviorist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1934.
Piaget, J. The Moral Judgement Of The Child. New York: The Free Press, 1965.
Steinberg, Laurence. Adolescence. New York: McGraw-Hill Inc., 1996.
