Chapter 8: Friends and Peers Flashcards
What are Peers?
people who have certain aspects of their status in common
What is the definition of “friends”?
Friends are people with whom you develop a valued, mutual relationship.
When do adolescents become increasingly involved with their friends?
As they move away from their parents
The amount of time spent with friends increases (and time spent with family decreases)
Who do adolescents depend most on for intimacy and companionship? In what ways?
Adolescents indicate that they depend more on their friends than parents or siblings for companionship and intimacy
Friends are whom adolescents feel most comfortable and feel they can talk to most openly.
friends become increasingly significant as confidants and as sources of personal advice and emotional support
who become the source of adolescents’ happiest experiences,?
their friends
how can adolescents develop good attachments to friends?
Adolescents who have secure attachments to their parents are more likely to develop secure attachments to friends and parents shape their adolescents’ peer relationships in a variety of indirect ways.
8.1 Summarize the shift in adolescence in the balance between friendships and family relationships in developed countries.
Although peers are also important to young people in traditional cultures, the influence of peers is enhanced in developed countries because school brings peers together for many hours each day, away from their parents.
what issues do adolescents goto their parents about vs. their friends?
parents: education and career
friends: more personal issues, such as romantic and sexual issues or problems with their parents
how do parents influence their children’s friendships during adolescene?
-where they live, religious services, school choice
-they set the pool of peers from which they select their friends
-encouraging or communicating disapproval
-encouraged academic achievement and lowers drug use which changes the friends they have
8.2 Explain how the balance between friendships and family relationships is distinctive in developing countries.
Adolescence in traditional cultures also entails less involvement with family and greater involvement with peers, although peer involvement tends to be greater for boys.
However adolescents in developing countries often still work alongside their parents in fields or factories. Therefore, more of their time is spent with their families than in the West, thus it may be that they remain close to their families even as they develop greater closeness to their friends during adolescence.
difference between time with peers in boys and girls in traditional cultures?
Traditional cultures are more likely to have gender differences in adolescents’ relationships with peers and family.
in traditional cultures, involvement with peers and friends tends to be much greater for boys than for girls
what do adolescents find in having a “close friend”?
In a close friend, adolescents find someone who mirrors their own emotions and they feel open with friends in a way they rarely do with parents.
why are friends also the source of adolescents’ most negative emotions ?
Friends are also the source of adolescents’ most negative emotions as their strong attachments and reliance on friends leave them vulnerable emotionally.
They worry whethar their friends like them or if they are popular enough
two reasons why friends are the source of adolescents happiness?
- in a close friend, adolescents find someone who mirrors their emotions
- adolescents feel free and open with friends in ways they rarely do with their parents- friends accept and value them for who they really are
The most distinctive feature of adolescent relationships, compared to friendships in late childhood is…
what does it involve?
intimacy
it involves sharing thoughts and feelings
what is involved in intimacy in adolescent friendships?
-trust and loyalty
-an increased amount of time together spent in conversation about significant issues
Adolescents rate which qualities as more important to friendship than younger children?
trust and loyalty involved in intimacy, rather than as stressing play in shared activities
How does greater abstract thinking allow for more intimacy in adolescent friendships?
-become cognitively capable of perspective taking and empathy
-allows adolescents to think about and talk about more abstract qualities in their relationships, such as affection, loyalty, and trust,
-talking about their new social understandings with their friends such as embarassing moments, gossip
How does thinking change during adolescene?
What does this influence?
Thinking becomes more abstract and complex
it influences their social cognition
gender differences in intimacy of adolescent friendships?
Girls tend to have more intimate friendships than boys
-they express their feelings more openly
-they spend more time talking
-more likely to say they feel trust and closeness with their friends
Boys still increase their intimacy, but not to the same extent as girls
-they are more likely to emphasize shared activities as the basis of friendship, such as sports or hobbies.
-they may risk loosing their masculinity when talking about their feelings
one way of explaining the increased importance of intimacy in adolescents is in terms of…
cognitive changes
For adolescents, what is one of the keys to choosing friends?
similarity
Adolescent friends tend to be similar in
their educational orientations, the preferences for media and leisure activities, and in risky activities
how are adolescent friends similar in their educational orientations?
-attitudes toward school
-levels of academic achievement
-future educational plans
how are adolescent friends similar in their preferences for media and leisure?
tend to like the same music, wear the same style clothes, and prefer to do the same things in their leisure time
it makes relations between friends smoother and help avoid conflict
how are adolescent friends similar in their risk behaviour?
resemble in the extent to which they use substances, drive dangeriously, vandalize
they tend to do these activities with other friends
how do ethnic boundaries in friendships become sharper during adolescence?
-as they become adolescents they become aware of the interethnic tensions in society
-as they create an ethnic identity, they may begin to see differences more sharply
-it reflects the patterns of the society they live in
which age group is most likely to have other-sex friends?
emerging adults, rather than adolescents
what is a more accurate term than peer pressure for the social effects adolescents experience? why?
Friends’ influence
friends have a substantial influence on adolescent’s choices and values, but the peer effects (from peer pressure) tend to be relatively weak
how do friends INFLUENCE risk behaviour in adolescents?
-important both in encouraging participation in risk behavior and in discouraging risk behavior
-providing emotional support and assistance in coping with stressful events
-Both types of friends’ influence rise in strength in early adolescence, peak in the midteens, then decline in late adolescence
in terms of adolescent’s risk behaviour, is there a correlation between them and their friends?
A correlation exists between the rates of risk behaviors that adolescents report for themselves and the rates they report for their friends
however, this does not imply causation
two reasons why correlation between adolescent’s risk behaviour and their friends is NOT causation?
- seperate reports indicate that adolescent’s percieve their friends to be more similar to them than they actually are
- selective association: the principle that most people choose friends who are similar to themsleves
Theorists (THOMAS BRUNDT) on adolescents’ friendships have specified four types of support that friends may provide to each other in adolescence…. what are they?
informational: advice and guidance on solving personal problems, such as those involving friends, romantic relationships, parents, or school
instrumental: help with various tasks such as homework, chores, lending money, etc…
companionship: rely on eachother as companions in social activities and routines
esteem: support they provide by congratulating them on success and consoling them when they fail, “being on their side”
according to longitudinal studies, what can friend’s support do for an adolescent?
friends’ support can lead to less depression and higher academic performance, but also to participation in risk behavior.
cliques vs crowds?
Cliques are small groups of close friends who know each other well, do things together, and form a regular social group, such as sports activities
Crowds are larger, reputation-based groups of adolescents who are not necessarily friends and do not necessarily spend much time together
main function of crowds?
Crowds mainly serve the function of helping adolescents to locate themselves and others within the secondary school social structures.
Help adolescents address identity issues and make sense of the school social world and find a place in it (define their own identity and others)
what happens to leisure activities with friends from adolescene to emerging adulthood?
Emerging adults typically leave home and friends rise in importance. In one study, average rates of participation in leisure activities with friends were considerably higher among emerging adults than among older adults. However, even within emerging adults these activities steadily declined.
sarcasm and ridicule are a part of
antagonistic interactions
function of antagonistic interactions in peer groups?
-promote the establishment of a dominance hierarchy
-reinforce clique conformity
-strengthen clique identity
Antagonistic interactions are a way of easing identity anxieties by drawing attention to others who are implied to be both inferior and very different from the self.
Schlegel and Barry provide several examples of cultures where groups of adolescent boys use sarcasm and ridicule to…
to enforce conformity to cultural standards of behavior and punish those who violate them
Define relational aggression, and explain why it is more common among girls in adolescence.
Relational aggression includes sarcasm and ridicule as well as gossiping, spreading rumors, snubbing, and excluding others from the clique. Harms others through damaging their relationships.
It is especially common among adolescent girls as the direct forms of disagreement and conflict are prohibited in the female gender role.
For example: they experience anger but are not allowed to publicly express it
Crowd definition and membership becomes important in adolescence, perhaps because of…
cognitive changes or identity issues
Spending a lot of time around peers elevates the importance of them as…
social reference groups
Crowds are especially likely to exist in large secondary schools where they are helpful in…
making sense of an increasingly complex social world
what occurs in crowds during early to mid-adolescence vs. mid- to late adolescence?
early to mid-adolescence: become more differentiated and more influential
mid- to late adolescence: less hierarchical and less influential as adolescents develop their identities and are more confident of their place in the peer social world
why is crowd membership no longer revelant in emerging adulthood?
Emerging adults enter social worlds in work and leisure that are more diverse in age
there is already a hierarchy in the workplace so they do not have to try and find a place
crowds in schools of non-white students?
Scholars have found that in high schools with mostly non-White students, the same kinds of crowds exist as among White adolescents. ex: elites, athletes, academics, etc..
For minority adolescents as with White adolescents, crowds serve as reference groups and as a way to establish a status hierarchy
are there crowds in multiethnic high schools?
In these schools, adolescents tend to see fewer crowd distinctions in other ethnic groups that they do in their own
for example, they crowd all asians into oen category, when in reality there are asian elites, asian academics, etc..
what are crowds like in traditional cultures for adolescents??
Traditional cultures often have one adolescent peer crowd in the community and are also less strictly age-graded.
In many traditional cultures, the center of adolescent social life is a dormitory where adolescents hang out, relax, and engage in sexual play.. Another arrangement is a men’s house which is open for males of all ages (those that may divorced or widowed too)
Although crowds as found in American schools do not really exist in traditional cultures, many traditional cultures do have…
a distinct social group of young people
The age-graded school setting of Western societies lends itself to the development of…. as a way of?
reputation-based crowds
as a way of defining and organizing a social structure.
Popularity in adolescence is measured through… what is it?
sociometry, which involves having students rate the social status of other students
Sociometric research has revealed that the most important determinant of popularity and unpopularity in adolescence is…
social skills
According to Dexter Dunphy, explain same-sex relationships in terms of stages?
first stage: early adolescence when social lives mostly take place within same-sex cliques
second stage: boys’ and girls’ cliques begin to spend some of their leisure time near each other
third stage: the gender divisions of cliques begin to break down as clique leaders form romantic relationships
fourth stage: all cliques and crowds are mixed-gender groups
fifth stage: males and females begin to pair off in more serious relationships, and the structures of cliques and crowds begin to break down
what was wrong with Dexter Dunphy’s same sex realtionships in terms of stages?
Dunphy’s model of ending up in committed intimate pairings by the end of high school probably applies more to his time
what factors are related to popularity at all ages?
Physical attractiveness, high intelligence, and social skills
what makes young people unpopular?
A perceived lack of social skills and focus on academics to the exclusion of a social life
Popularity and unpopularity tend to endure because…
example?
the characteristics and behavior that led to these social statuses tend to reinforce and perpetuate them
example: children who are popular are reinforced everyday in their popularity, this kind of reinforcement strengthens their confidence and gives them more opportunity to practice their social skills
why is there interventions for unpopularity and what do they teach?
Adolescents who remain unpopular suffer a number of negative consequences such as depression, behavioural problems, and academic problems
Interventions for unpopularity tend to focus on learning social skills
Popularity and unpopularity tend to be consistent from childhood through adolescence perhaps because of…
the stability of the qualities that contribute to popularity and unpopularity such as intelligence and aggressiveness
scholars emphasize that there is a certain self-perpetuating quality to both popularity and unpopularity in adolescence
People who are well liked by others tend to be…
-friendly, cheerful, good-natured, and humorous
-treat others with kindness and are sensitive to their needs
-listen well to others and communicate their own point of view clearly
-both organize and participate in group activities
-confident without appearing conceited
There are two types of unpopular adolescents
Rejected adolescents are actively disliked by their peers, usually because others find them to be aggressive, disruptive, and quarrelsome
Neglected adolescents do not make enemies the way rejected adolescents do, but they do not have many friends either.
Research indicates that rejected adolescents’ deficits in social skills are based on…
a deficit of social cognition
aggressive boys have a tendency to interpret other boys’ actions as..
hostile even when the intention is ambiguous
extreme form of peer rejection is called?
bullying
there are three components to bullying:
- aggression
- repitition
- power imbalance
Studies show that bullying in adolescence is a worldwide phenomenon, with rates mostly in the…
10% to 20% range
Consequences of bullying include?
physical effects such as headaches and difficulty sleeping as well as psychological effects such as loneliness and anxiety
what is youth culture?
Along with their smaller social groups young people constitute a group as a whole, separate from children and separate from adult society, with their own distinct culture
the values that distinguish youth culture are
hedonism (seeking of pleasure) and irresponsibility (postponment of adult responsibilities)
Matza and Sykes wrote that youth culture is based in which kind of values?
subterranean values
Michael Brake proposed three essential components of the style of youth culture?
image, demeanor, and argot
what contributes to youth culture?
a pluralistic society
-socialization which condones high variability between groups and individuals
societies that have an extended period of time between independence and adult responsibilities
develop mainly in societies that are affluent and individualistic.
one way that youth establish who is and isnt a part of their culture is…
through slang
an informal vocabulary and grammar that is different from that of the native language
Explain how technology is important to the distinctiveness of youth culture
Technology allows young people to spread the latest trends in youth culture among themselves, with the filtering or interference of adults
in recent decades, young people have also led the way in creating and adopting new technologies, so that adults often learn new technologies from the young, a reverse of the historical direction of learning
Findings indicate that youth spend more time with same sex or other sex peers?
other sex peers
what percent do adolescents spend connecting with their friends on social media everyday?
57%
In traditional cultures such as INDIA, time spent with family is greater for adolescents because…
typically spend more leisure time with family than friends because they value and enjoy spending time with my family more.
this is because they are a COLLECTIVISTIC culture
Which of the following best reflects the research evidence for an adolescent’s explanation for the dissolution of a friendship, and why?
Adolescents are most likely to indicate violations of trust, such as divulging secrets or competing for a romantic partner, as the main explanation for the dissolution of a friendship because intimacy is more highly valued in adolescent friendships than in younger childhood friendships.
In general, the friendships of adolescent girls are based more on ______ than the friendships of adolescent boys, whereas the friendships of adolescent boys are based more on ______ than the friendships of adolescent girls.
intimacy; shared activities
Which of the following reflects the research evidence for characteristics of friendships between adolescents and emerging adults?
Emerging adults are more likely to have other-sex friendships than adolescents.
