Social Relationships: Pressure or Driving Force - Assignment Example

?Social Relationships: Pressure or Driving Force Man is a social being and to meet everyday needs, they need to interact. Peer pressure is an unavoidable social feeling in everyday life of adolescents. Different adolescents respond to it differently depending upon their age, gender, upbringing, and company. Boys tend to be more impacted due to their testosterone rush. They feel a need to measure their potentials and test their limits more than girls do. This can be seen from the fact that the number of suicide attempts made is more among boys than girls. Girls do trend to threaten more but boys seem to have attempted more. Similarly mass murders are carried out by boys more often. Results show that all these teens seemed to have harbored a deep feeling of hopelessness or rage. Other factors that compel boys to respond more to peer pressure includes the violence and music they face while playing video and television games (Decter, pars. 11-13). In the process of trying to prove themselves, boys tend to get attracted to power. With power comes responsibility. Misuse of it leads to delinquent behaviors. To be a part of a specific group, adolescents acquire specific traits. This helps them in socializing and the peer pressure compels them to remain rooted to those traits. A social ecological influence leads a person to adopt specific behaviors and hinders them from doing certain things. Certain studies are carried out that report the affect of peers on tendency towards delinquent behaviors. One such study is carried out that uses data from National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health. They conclude from this data that adolescents who hang around with delinquent peers tend to be more delinquent. Also, if the choice of their friends is not structured, they develop a tendency to be delinquent. They also conclude that to some extent age, gender, institution, or family structure does not intervene from the influence adolescents accept from their peers. This study has also divided their results based on socialization and opportunity models. A number of social and parental control variables are also considered in this study. This helps understand the impact of social circle of peers and their tendency to be delinquent (Haynie, pars 1-7). Delinquent behavior is not only the result of peer pressure but also societal issues that push people towards such extremes. Studies have shown that adolescents are forced towards delinquent actions to avoid being the outcast in a society. They get addicted to please people and do things to get in their good book that they won't do under normal circumstances. Adolescents need to stay focused on principles in order to realize they are not crossing any lines when it comes to moral values. This can be achieved through values taught at their homes. It needs to be strongly embedded in the child's brain that they understand who they are and what they need and what ways are moral or immoral to attain their goals. The development of this understanding is only possible if the family is complete and not a broken home. Single parents may not be able to instill a sense of responsibility in their teens alone. They might require additional help as in the case of Hubert who was supervised by his mother alone. She had to look after other children as well and to make his space in society among people who do not mock him, he joined a gang. The importance of the role of father supervision in a boy's life is highlighted in this case. Adolescents who get carried away due to peer pressure need to be guided by a trusted but authoritative family member who can influence the adolescent and make the teen realize the implications of their actions (Greer, pars 2-4). The role of parents in controlling delinquent behaviors has been discussed a lot in the past. It has been noted that parents who spend more time with their children and keep in touch with their social circle seem to prevent them from delinquent company. This phenomenon can be categorized as exposure control as the parents control who their children can mingle with. The conceptual model of delinquency depicts that teens tend to make non delinquent friends more actively in order to avoid disapproval from their parents. So the relationship between tendency towards delinquency and attachments towards parents in inversely proportional. There might be a tie between the relationship with parents and relationships with peers. If the relationship with parents is strong, adolescents maybe able to ignore the peer pressure and give precedence to approval of parents. However, if the inclination towards peers is more, teens might choose to ignore the advice of their parents and make immature decisions. Findings in studies show that weekend time spent with parents has a huge effect towards delinquent behaviors. Teens that go to parties tend to get an opportunity to test their limits. Even if teens do not go to parties and stay back home, the leisure time at their hands may compel them to explore boundaries. If the family plans and spends time together, the teens seldom get time to indulge in delinquent behaviors (Warr, pars.1-8). The habits that teens develop over time are also influenced by their social circle. Adolescents might start smoking and drinking for a number of reasons. The reasons for such actions might be to look mature, peer pressure or being impressed by advertisements. Since teens get involved in these things without a proper understanding of their long term effects or proper usage, they are more likely to end up being addicts. It has been shown in records that teen have been targeted for tobacco till it was banned to be sold for people under 18 years of age. This has led teens in a state of fix whether to opt for smoking or not. Tobacco companies also use tactics as providing flavored tobacco to attract teens for it. Fashion is also depicted in tobacco advertisements and gives an illusion to teens that they go side by side. Proper counseling is required for teens that opt for these health hazards in life and they should be warned of the short term and long term affects. They should be warned that smoking is not a symbol of being neither an adult nor a way out to release their depressions (Egendorf, pars 1-4). Peer pressure also influences the choice of studies that a teenager makes. Adolescent tend to be impressed by their peers and wish to pursue the education their peers want them to. One reason behind this is to stay connected in the same social circle. Analysis has been done in the past that checks how students choose their education based on the fact that they achieve high or low grades. It is easy to be impressed by peers who seem to be doing well in life in general. Here student counselors and parents should play a role in helping students identify their true potential and work towards attaining it. Generally peer pressure affects a child in either of the two extremes. It might make a child shy and hesitant to face the world or it may make a child take serious risks in life. A study was conducted that measured the risk taking ability, risk preference of an adolescent and the ability to make risky decisions among adolescents. The results indicate that when adolescents are among their peers, they tend to take more risky decisions than when alone. It also depicted that adults are less likely to take risky decisions (Gardener and Steinberg, pars. 2-4). Overall society and family plays an important role in understanding how to deal with peer pressure and maintain individuality of teens. It takes an effort and a level of understanding to understand the impact of the actions that are taken and teens need to be groomed to understand the implication of their actions. Bibliography Decter, Midge. "What Are Little Boys Made Of?" Commentary 106.6 (1998): 27. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 27 Sept. 2013. A contrast is done between the boys of 50's, 60's and present by discussing their social activities and the impact of their upbringing. The basic nature of boys that made them brave and gallant seems to be suppressed to a huge extent in the younger generation that makes them oblivious of their moral duties. Different factors have been discussed that are keeping the men of today from being 'Real Men'. Haynie, Dana L., and D. Wayne Osgood. "Reconsidering peers and delinquency: how do peers matter?" Social Forces 84.2 (2005): 1109+. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 27 Sept. 2013. The relationship of peers social gathering and their delinquency inclination is studies in this paper. They considered two sociological perspectives for this purpose. Data is taken from National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health for this analysis. One important observation in this study is in the first sociological tradition i.e. socialization/ normative influence, delinquency among peers is rather limited as compared to the results shared ion previous studies. There are three other results recorded as well that consider opportunity, normative influence and peer domain. Greer, Dale. "Peer Pressure Influences Gang Behavior." Gangs. Ed. Laura K. Egendorf. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2001. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "The Devastation of Peer Pressure." Prison Mirror May 1998. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 27 Sept. 2013. The report discusses how teensget indulged in delinquent behaviors when they are rejected by the scoiety. It discusses Hubert as a case study. The teen recognizes very late in time how he was duped by his friends and no one came to save him for the actions he committed to please his friends. The author also discusses the impact of grooming of children by single parents. Warr, Mark. "Parents, peers, and delinquency." Social Forces 72.1 (1993): 247+. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 27 Sept. 2013 Different studies are conducted to see the impact of peers and parents on delinquency among juveniles. Statistical data is collected in this regard from the National Youth Survey. Results recorded indicate the impact of time spent by parents with teens and the choice of their social circle. It tries to uncover the intensity of the influence of parents over their children especially while selecting friends. The quality of time spent between parents and children remains a question. Laura K. Egendorf. "Introduction to Smoking: Teen Decisions." Smoking. Ed. San Diego: Greenhaven Press, 2001. Teen Decisions. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 27 Sept. 2013. The paper is about impact of tobacco industry on teens and how they use their advertisement campaign in targetting and attracting adolescents towards tobacco. The advertisements are not sufficient to suit their purpose so they have introduced tobacco in several flavors. They have been daring enough in the past to specifically target adolescents for tobacco. It was only after the intervention of governmental bodies that tobacco was banned fore teens and underage children. However teens smoke due to various other reasons as well. One reason includes to categorize themselves as adults. Gardner, Margo, and Laurence Steinberg. "Peer Pressure Is a Risk for Adolescents."America's Youth. Ed. Jamuna Carroll. Detroit: Greenhaven Press, 2008. Opposing Viewpoints. Rpt. from "Peer Influence on Risk Taking, Risk Preference, and Risky Decision Making in Adolescence and Adulthood: An Experimental Study." Developmental Psychology 41.4 (July 2005): 626-632. Opposing Viewpoints In Context. Web. 27 Sept. 2013. This paper takes up a hypothesis, some measures and calculated how adults and adolescents take decisions. Results are drawn against risky decisions made by both and trend is recorded for it Read More