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Social Development
Reader’s Guide
Exploring Psychology
Peer Pressure
Consider the following situation: “You are with a couple of your best friends on Halloween. They’re going to soap windows, but you’re not sure whether you should or not. Your friends say you should, because there’s no way you could get caught.” What would you really do?
—adapted from Developmental Psychology by T.J. Berndt, 1979
s Main Idea
Adolescents undergo many changes in their social relationships, adjusting to new relationships with parents and the influence of peers.
s Vocabulary
• clique
• conformity
• anorexia nervosa
• bulimia nervosa
s Objectives
• Describe the role of family and peers
during adolescence.
• Discuss difficulties that some adoles-
cents encounter.
The situation above was presented to participants from the third, sixth, ninth, and twelfth grades. The participants had to determine what they would do in the situation. The results demonstrated that conformity to peer pressure rose steadily from the third to the ninth grade, then declined with twelfth graders.
Adolescents experience various changes in their social relationships. No longer a child though not yet an adult, the teenager must find a new role in the family—one that parents are not always ready to accept. He or she must also adjust to new, often more intense relationships with peers.
THE ROLE OF THE FAMILY
Families in the United States have experienced marked changes in the past several decades. Prior to 1970, the typical American family had a wage-earning father working outside the home and a mother who worked
Chapter 4 / Adolescence 109