1. Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach Chapter 8
Friends and Peers
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

2. Chapter Overview
Developmental changes in friendship and peer groups in adolescence and emerging adulthood
Friends’ influence, popularity and unpopularity
Youth culture
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

3. Clarifying the Difference
Peers
People who are about the same age
Friends
People with whom you develop a valued, mutual relationship.

4. Family & Friends in Adolescence
103 minutes per
day with friends
Time spent with family
decreases
Time spent with friends increases
28 minutes per
day with parents
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

5. Who Do Adolescents Talk To About..?
Youniss & Smollar (1985)
Adolescents are more likely to talk to their friends about opposite sex relationships, and to their parents about career goals. How do you interpret these data?
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

6. Why friends? I can tell my friends anything and they will understand
Close friends accept me for who I really am
A close friend mirrors
my own emotions
Keep in Mind…
The importance of friends in adolescence does not mean that close relationships with parents are incompatible with having close friendships.
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

7. Family & Friends in Traditional Cultures
Pattern of increasing time spent with peers, decreasing time spent with parents
More likely to have substantial gender differences in terms of family relationships
Even in cultures where most adolescents attend school, the social and emotional balance tilts toward family
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

8. -- 15 year old boy (Youniss & Smollar, 1985, p. 105)
“When I was younger [my friends and I] just played. Now we talk over things and discuss problems. Then it was just a good time. Now you have to be open and able to talk.”
-- 15 year old boy (Youniss & Smollar, 1985, p. 105)

9. My friend is….
(Fischer, 1981)
Late adolescents and emerging adults describe their closest relationship:
Friendly (focus on shared activities)
Intimate (focus on affection, emotional attachment)
Integrated (combines friendly and intimate)
Uninvolved (focus on neither shared activities nor intimacy)
College students were more likely than high school students to be rated as having an intimate or integrated friendship relationship.
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

10. Gender and Intimacy Females Males
Tend to have more intimate friendships than boys
Tend to have less intimate friendships than girls
More likely to place higher value on talking together as a friendship component
More likely to emphasize shared activities as the basis of friendship
Discussion Detour:
Explain and discuss possible origins of these differences from a social roles perspective.
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

11. Why do adolescents become friends?
Similarity in:
Age
Gender
Educational orientation
Media and leisure preferences
Participation in risk behavior
Ethnicity
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

12. Discussion Stop In adolescence, friendships become less interethnic.
Discuss why this might be.
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

13. Constructing Ideas: Peer Pressure or Friends’ Influence?
Why might friends’ influence be a more accurate description?
Is friends’ influence largely toward negative behaviors? Explain your answer.
From your experience, recall positive and negative
influences your friends have had on you.
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

14. Research Issue: Correlation and Friends’ Influence on Risk Behavior
Finding: A correlation exists between rates of risk behavior for adolescents and their friends.
Can we conclude that adolescents’ behavior is influenced by their friends? Why or why not?
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

15. Research Issue: Limitations
Self-report
Adolescent egocentrism may be associated with adolescents’ perceiving more similarity between themselves and others than actually exists
Selective Association
People tend to choose friends that are similar to themselves (not influence, just similarity)
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

16. Friends: Support & Nurturance
(Sullivan, 1953)
Informational Support
“What should I do? Should I ask Jimi to go out with me?”
Instrumental Support
“Thanks for helping me with my math homework”
Companionship Support
“Let’s go to the game together – that way we can sit together. I don’t know anyone at Riverdale High.”
Esteem Support
“Don’t worry about it, you’re the best guitar player here. You’ll win the songwriting contest next time.”
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

17. Discussion Stop
How would you explain the decline in leisure activities with friends that Osgood and Lee (1993) found between ages 18-28? Think about your own experiences.
Keep in Mind…
Marriage and child-rearing do not explain this decline.
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

18. Clarifying the Difference
Cliques
Small groups of friends who know each other well, do things together, and form a regular social group
Crowds
Larger, reputation-based groups of adolescents who are not necessarily friends and do not necessarily spend time together

19. Remembering Crowds in Your School
Think of your high school
days. What are the
Crowds portrayed in
these cartoons?
Are they stereotypes?

20. Using Sarcasm & Ridicule in Crowds & Cliques
Promotes dominance hierarchy
Reduces non-conformity and increases group cohesion
Directed at outsiders, clarifies group boundaries
Eases anxiety by directing attention to others
In other cultures, directed at adults, reinforces community standards
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

21. Relational Aggression
Non-physical forms of aggression:
Gossiping
Spreading rumors
Snubbing
Excluding
Covert, indirect form of aggression common amongst girls
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

22. Developmental Changes in Crowds
Age Group
Crowd Characteristics
Middle School
(Grades 6-8)
-less differentiated (two main groups – the in-crowd and the out-crowd)
Early High School
(Grades 9-10)
-become more differentiated
-more influential
Later High School
(Grades 11-12)
-become yet more differentiated
-more niches for people to “fit into”
-less hierarchical and less influential
Keep in Mind…
Adolescents do not always accept the crowd label attributed to them by peers. They may see themselves as too distinctly individual to be categorized.
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

23. Discussion Stop
Why might adolescents in schools with multiethnic populations see fewer crowd distinctions in other ethnic groups than they do in their own?
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

24. In Traditional Cultures…
There is often only one adolescent peer crowd in the community
The peer crowd is less strictly age-graded (variety of ages in the crowd)
Dormitory Life: adolescents sleep and spend leisure time in a separate dwelling, and typically work and eat meals with parents during the day
Men’s House Life: male adolescents live together with widowed or divorced men in a multi-age dormitory arrangement
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

25. From Adolescence to Emerging Adulthood…
(Dunphy, 1963)
Stage 1: Same-sex cliques
Stage 2: Boys’ and Girls’ cliques spend some time together
Stage 3: Gender cliques break down as clique leaders form romantic relationships
Stage 4: Other clique members follow suit
Stage 5: Males and females pair off in more serious relationships
Discuss Dunphy’s model in relation to the data in the following slide?
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

26. Time Spent in Other-Sex Groups or Pairs
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

27. Popularity in Adolescents & Sociometry
Sociometry: a research method in which students rate the social status of other students
Social Skills: qualities most often associated with popularity and unpopularity
Unpopularity: Two Types
Rejected
Neglected
Aggression is NOT always associated with unpopularity
Controversial students, high in aggressiveness, may be strongly liked AND strongly disliked by different people
Being unpopular reduces their chances
of inclusion in the kinds of social interaction that would help them develop social skills
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

28. Interventions for Unpopularity
Adolescent
Intervention Focus
Neglected
-learning the social skills needed for making friends
Rejected
-learning how to control and manage anger and aggressiveness
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

29. Discussion Stop
A majority of adolescents believe that excluding someone from a group is wrong.
Discuss how an adolescent may hold this view, yet still view matters of group exclusion as a personal choice.
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

30. Youth Culture: Three Components
Image –dress, hairstyle, piercings, other aspects of appearance
Demeanor – distinctive forms of gesture, gait, posture
Argot – certain vocabulary and way of speaking
Generate examples of the three components from your days as an adolescent, from the media, from past generations, etc…
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.

31. Technological Change & Youth Culture
(Mead, 1928)
Postfigurative Culture
Youth learn from their elders (e.g., traditional methods of farming)
Cofigurative Culture
Learning from both elders and peers
Prefigurative Culture
Jody teaches her Grandmother how to use the Internet
Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood: A Cultural Approach by Jeffrey Jensen Arnett. Copyright © 2004 by Pearson Education. All rights reserved.