THE ORIGINS OF ADOLESCENT PEER GROUPS IN CONTEMPORARY SOCIETY
The peer group has become an increasingly important context in which adolescents spend their time. Today's teens spend more time in the company of their peers than their counterparts did in the past. For example, high school students spend twice as much time each week with peers as with parents or other adults.
Among the many factors that have contributed to the rise of adolescent peer groups in modern America are changes in the schools, changes in the workplace, and changes in the population.
The Educational Origins of Adolescent Peer Groups: The development of age-graded educational institutions have made contemporary American peer groups more narrowly defined and age segregated than in many other societies. Adolescent peer groups based on friendships formed in school did not become prevalent until the second quarter of this century.
Work, Family Life, and Adolescent Peer Groups: The physical separation of teenagers and adults also stemmed from changes in the workplace. More stringent child labor laws and the rise in maternal employment forced adolescents to spend their days in school while adults went to work. Today between 2 million and 6 million school-aged youngsters come home from school to houses with no adults present.
Changes in the population: Due to the baby boom after World War II, there was a rapid growth in the teenage population over a decade later. The percentage of the U.S. population comprising 15- to 19-year-olds reached its highest levels in 1975. It began to increase again in 1990, and by the year 2000, approximately 1 in 7 individuals in this country will be adolescents.
THE ADOLESCENT PEER GROUP: A PROBLEM OR A NECESSITY
Is There a Separate Youth Culture? Social scientists have long debated whether the prominent role played by peer groups in the socialization of young people is cause for concern or celebration. On one side are the commentators who suggest that teenagers have become separated from adult society to such an extent that they have established their own society--a separate youth culture that undermines parents' efforts to encourage academic excellence and instead emphasizes sports, dating, and partying.
Research by James Coleman revealed that academic achievement was valued more by parents than by adolescents. However, some research suggests that adolescents' problems may not be directly linked to the rise in power of adolescent peer groups. For example, during early adolescence, young people are more oriented toward their peers, but during mid to late adolescence (when adolescent problems tend to increase), adolescents' orientation toward their peers is on the decline.
In general, studies of peer pressure indicate that most teenagers feel that their friends are likely to pressure them not to use drugs or engage in sexual activity. However, peer pressure does appear to exist in the area of alcohol consumption. Thus, adolescents exert both positive and negative influences on each other, and it is incorrect to describe the peer group as a monolithic, negative influence.
The Need for Peer Groups in Modern Society: On the other side are those who argue that industrialization and modernization have made peer groups more important. For instance, less industrialized societies revolve around the family and transfer information by socializing children through contact with the culture's elders. This type of culture has been labeled by Margaret Mead as postfigurative. Since norms are considered particularistic in this culture, sending youngsters off to school to learn is not an effective strategy.
Modernization, however, has made contemporary society's norms universalistic, and grouping individuals together by age is thus a more efficient socialization strategy. Instead of being a postfigurative culture, today's society is more cofigurative, since socialization is accomplished through both contact with adults and people of the same age. Furthermore, some believe our society may eventually be replaced by a more prefigurative culture where adolescents become adults' teachers.
THE NATURE OF ADOLESCENT PEER GROUPS
Changes in Peer Groups During Adolescence: The structure of peer groups changes as individuals move into adolescence. First, there is an increase in the amount of time individuals spend in the exclusive company of their peers. For example, nearly half the people adolescents mention as significant others in their lives are people of the same age.
Second, peer groups function outside adult supervision more during adolescence than before. Whereas the majority of children's activities center around adults (e.g., Little League), teenagers are granted far more independence (e.g., going to the mall with a group of friends).
Third, during adolescence increasingly more time is spent with opposite-sex peers. Childhood peer groups are highly sex segregated, a phenomenon known as sex cleavage. During adolescence, the structure of the peer group changes as teens begin to associate more with members of the opposite sex.
Finally, during adolescence larger collectives of peers, called "crowds," begin to emerge. Studies show that it is not until early adolescence that individuals can confidently list the different crowds that characterize their schools and reliably describe the stereotypes that distinguish the different crowds from each other. These transformations are linked to the biological, cognitive, and social transitions and definitional changes of adolescence.
Cliques and Crowds: Researchers studying the social groupings of adolescents distinguish between crowds and cliques. Cliques are small groups of adolescents who are friends and who see each other regularly. The importance of the clique is that it provides the main social context in which adolescents interact with each other.
Changes in Clique and Crowd Structure Over Time: Observational studies using participant observation indicate changes in the structure of cliques and crowds over the course of adolescence. Cliques, which begin as same-sex groups of individuals, gradually merge to form larger, mixed-sex groups, as adolescents begin dating and socializing with peers of the opposite sex. In late adolescence, these groups begin to break down, as adolescents' social ties start to revolve more around couple-based activities. Crowds, which peak in importance during the mid-adolescent years, become more differentiated and more permeable during high school, and their influence becomes less salient.
ADOLESCENTS AND THEIR CROWDS
The Social Map of Adolescence: Crowds are large, vaguely defined groups that are based on reputation. Although the specific crowd names may differ from school to school, most high schools have relatively similar crowd structures with some version of "jocks," "populars," "brains," "nerds," and "toughs."
Crowds as Reference Groups: Adolescents' crowds can be mapped on two distinct dimensions: how involved they are in adult institutions, such as school; and how involved they are in the peer culture. Because they often serve as reference groups, crowds play an important role in adolescents' identity development. Crowds appear to increase in importance during early adolescence and decline in importance during late adolescence.
ADOLESCENTS AND THEIR CLIQUES
Similarity Among Clique Members: Cliques play an important role in the development of social skills and intimacy. Although clique members influence each other's behavior and values, research has also shown that adolescents select their friends to begin with on the basis of similarity.
Typically, adolescents' cliques are composed of people who are of the same age and the same race, from the same social class, and--at least during early and middle adolescence--of the same sex.
Common Interests Among Friends: Three factors appear to be especially important in determining adolescent clique membership and friendship patterns: orientation toward school, orientation toward teen culture, and involvement in antisocial activity (such as gangs).
Similarity Between Friends: Selection or socialization? Research has begun to explore how peers are attracted to one another. Studies indicate that both selection and socialization are at work. For example, adolescents who are alcohol users tend to select peers who also use alcohol which in turn increases their alcohol consumption.
POPULARITY AND REJECTION IN ADOLESCENT DEVELOPMENT
The determinants of popularity during adolescence are different than the determinants of status or leadership. Popular adolescents--like popular children and popular adults--are outgoing, friendly, and socially adept. Unpopular adolescents tend to fall into three categories: aggressive adolescents, withdrawn adolescents, and aggressive-withdrawn adolescents. Some aggressive adolescents use relational aggression (more common among girls), which is intended to harm other adolescents through deliberate manipulation of their social standing.
Unpopular, aggressive adolescents are more likely than their peers to think that other adolescent's behavior is deliberately hostile, referred to as the hostile attributional bias. In general, adolescents who are rejected by their peers are at risk for a wide variety of psychological and behavioral problems, including academic failure, conduct problems, and depression.
A recent study of African-American adolescents finds that deficits in social information processing may characterize overly aggressive black youngsters. Furthermore, ethnic and cultural factors may also determine adolescent reactions to rejection. For example, African-American adolescents who saw a videotape of a boy who was rejected for a team said that, in a similar situation, they would get angry and leave. Mexican-American adolescents, on the other hand, said they were more likely to feel hurt but would not leave.
Numerous interventions have been designed to improve adolescents' social competence, including those that focus on improving unpopular adolescents' social skills and social understanding.
THE PEER GROUP AND PSYCHOSOCIAL DEVELOPMENT
The peer group provides an arena for identity exploration, development and expression of autonomy, socialization of appropriate sexual behavior, and influence on academic achievement.
Individuals who are unpopular or who have poor peer relationships during adolescence are more likely to be low achievers in school, drop out of high school, have a range of learning disabilities, and show higher rates of delinquent behavior,
