Chapter 8: Friends and Peers

Question 1

Peers

Answer 1

Other people who all share a certain salient characteristic or status.
Peer groups provide social support needed in development of self-identity and self-esteem.

Question 2

Friends

Answer 2

People who have developed a valued, mutual relationship which provides companionship, emotional and personal support.

Question 3

Intimacy

Answer 3

Degree to which two people share personal knowledge, thoughts, feelings.

Question 4

Peer pressure

Answer 4

Common term for social effects from other adolescents.

Question 5

Friends’ influence

Answer 5

Pressure to think and act like one’s friends.

More accurate term because friends have more influence over behaviour than peers do.

Question 6

Selective association

Answer 6

Principle that most people tend to choose friends who are similar to themselves.

Question 7

Informational support

Answer 7

Between friends, advice and guidance in solving personal problems.

Question 8

Instrumental support

Answer 8

Between friends, help with various tasks (ex. homework).

Question 9

Companionship support

Answer 9

Between friends, reliance on each other as companions in social activities.

Question 10

Esteem support

Answer 10

Providing congratulations for success; encouragement or consolation for failure.

Question 11

Cliques

Answer 11

Small groups of friends who know each other well, do things together, and form a cohesive social group.

Question 12

Crowds

Answer 12

Large, less personal, reputation-based groups of adolescents.
Five major types: elites, athletes, academics, deviants, others.

Question 13

Relational aggression

Answer 13

Form of nonphysical aggression that harms others by damaging social relationships, ex. gossip, spreading rumours, social exclusion.

Question 14

Social cognition

Answer 14

Understanding how groups work.

Question 15

Social competence

Answer 15

Using social skills to facilitate good social interactions.

Question 16

Social skills

Answer 16

Skills for successfully handling social relations and getting along well with others.

Question 17

Emotional regulation

Answer 17

Managing anger or aggression.

Question 18

Sociometry

Answer 18

Method for assessing popularity/unpopularity by having students rate the social status of other students.
Several types: popular, rejected, neglected, controversial.

Question 19

Popular adolescents

Answer 19

Adolescents with many positive ratings, often nominated as best friend, rarely disliked.
- high in sociability, social dominance, low levels of aggression

Question 20

Rejected adolescents

Answer 20

Adolescents who are actively disliked and avoided by their peers.
- excessively aggressive, disruptive, quarrelsome

Question 21

Neglected adolescents

Answer 21

Adolescents who have few or no friends and are largely unnoticed by their peers.
- low self-esteem, loneliness, depression, alcohol abuse

Question 22

Controversial adolescents

Answer 22

Adolescents who are aggressive but also posses social skills, so they evoke strong emotions both positive and negative from their peers.

Question 23

Social information processing

Answer 23

The interpretation of others’ behaviour and intentions in a social interaction.
Having social skills means giving others the benefit of the doubt and avoiding tendency to interpret their actions as hostile.

Question 24

Bullying

Answer 24

Aggressive assertion of power by one person over another. Victims tend to be socially isolated, have poor social skills, and avoided/rejected by peers.
Three components:
- aggression (physical or verbal)
- repetition (occurs repeatedly over time)
- Power imbalance (the bully has higher peer status than the victim)

Question 25

Youth culture

Answer 25

Culture of young people as a whole, characterized by values of hedonism (pleasure seeking) and irresponsibility.

Question 26

Subterranean values

Answer 26

Values such as hedonism, excitement and adventure, asserted by sociologists to be the basis of youth culture.

Question 27

Style

Answer 27

The distinguishing features of youth culture, including image, demeanour and argot.

Question 28

Image

Answer 28

In Brake’s description of the characteristics of youth culture, refers to dress, hairstyle, jewellery, and other aspects of appearance.

Question 29

Demeanor

Answer 29

In Brake’s description of the characteristics of youth culture, refers to distinctive forms of gesture, gait, posture.

Question 30

Argot

Answer 30

In Brake’s description of the characteristics of youth culture, refers to a certain vocabulary and way of speaking.

Question 31

Slang

Answer 31

An informal vocabulary and grammar that differs from the native language.

Question 32

Postfigurative cultures

Answer 32

In traditional cultures, parents pass on knowledge, skills, values to children.
Rate of technological change is slow.

Question 33

Configurative cultures

Answer 33

Those in which the skills that are important to the economy change from generation to generation. Young people learn from both their parents and other young people.

Question 34

Preconfigurative cultures

Answer 34

Direction of learning is from the young people to their parents. Mead believed this would occur when technological change occurs rapidly.

Question 35

Dormitory

Answer 35

In some traditional cultures, a dwelling in which the community’s adolescents sleep and spend their leisure time.

Question 36

Men’s house

Answer 36

In some traditional cultures, a dormitory where adolescent boys sleep and hang out along with adult men who are widowed or divorced.