Contemporary Adolescence

Contemporary Adolescence Adolescent society, culture and subculture

Adolescents would rather talk to:

Family and friends • Adolescents generally select friends with similar values • Depend more on friends than family • Often feel that friends understand them better than their family • Friends feelings often mirror each other • Friends can also be a source of anger, frustration, sadness, and anxiety

Peer pressure • Rises in early adolescence, peaks in mid-adolescence, and decreases in late adolescence • Risk behaviors • Correlation between friends and risk behaviors • Selective association • Adolescents are similar in risk behaviors before they become friends • Peer pressure can also steer adolescents away from risk behaviors

Peer pressure • Support and nurturance • Informational: advice and guidance • Instrumental: help with tasks (homework, etc.) • Companionship: relying on each other in social activities • Esteem: congratulating successes, encouraging or consoling failure

Adolescent societies • Formal societies • Which school they attend, student organizations • Informal societies • Get together socially, but don’t participate in a formally structured social relationship • Division by grade • Social class and status

Cliques and crowds • Cliques: small group of friends who spend a considerable amount of time together • Crowd: groups of cliques that get together

Cliques • Sarcasm and ridicule seem to play a role in cliques • Sarcasm within the clique • Sarcasm directed outside the clique • Relational aggression • Includes gossiping, spreading rumors, and excluding others • Tends to be more common with girls

Development of crowds Trendies Trendies Headbangers Normals Grit-headbangers Dweebs Punks Grits Grades 6-8 Head-bangers Grades 9-10 Trendies *Crowds define social status less around grade 11 *Self identification plays a role in viewing crowds *There is also a difference between peers assigning a group and self assigning Normals Grits 1994 Hippies Skaters Punks

Popularity and unpopularity • Social skills • Friendly, cheerful, good-natured, humorous, kind, and sensitive • Rejected adolescents • Actively disliked usually because of being aggressive, disruptive, and quarrelsome, selfish • Neglected adolescents • Do not make enemies, but no friends either • Popular children tend to be popular as adolescents

Interventions for nonPopularity Neglectedadolescents • Teach social skills: • How to enter group • How to listen • How to attract + attention Rejected adolescents • Stop, calm down, think • Say or write feelings • Set +goal for outcome • Think of how to get to outcome • Anticipate consequences • Choose best solution

Bullying • Aggression • Repetition • Power imbalance • Video

Youth subcultures • Skateboarders • Work under an negative image, although that is not always true • Early on adopted a punk look and listened to punk music, but that’s changed somewhat • Baggy jeans, oversized shirts, but a newer style (“hesh”) has tighter clothing • Work hard to improve their performance

Youth Subcultures • Hip-Hop • Listening and dancing to rap music • Dancing began with breakdancing • Wear baggy, overzied clothing

Youth subcultures • Goth • Tend to wear black • Favor pale complexions, black nail polish and lipstick • Interested in questions about good and evil • Some fascinated by macabre and funereal. • Most goths are not violent

Youth subcultures • Indie • Skinny jeans, v-neck t-shirts for boys, oversized shirts for girls • Long, messy hair • Listen to indie music

Youth subcultures • Emo • Represents sadness, guild, despair • Heavy makeup and sporty clothing • Hair is black, short, unisex, and covers half the face • Variety of piercings • May be “cutters” or attempt suicide

Material concerns of adolescents • Clothing • Automobiles • Cell phones • Computers and internet

Non-materials concerns • Slang • Music • Entertainment

Contemporary Adolescence