16.3 Peer Power

Adolescents rely on peers to help them navigate the physical changes of puberty, the intellectual challenges of high school, and the social changes of leaving childhood. Friendships are important at every stage, but during early adolescence popularity is most coveted (LaFontana & Cillessen, 2010).

Same Situation, Far Apart: Friends Together Teenagers in the middle of the United States (Illinois) and in the middle of Sudan (Khartoum) prefer to spend their free time with peers (these are all 15- to 17-year-olds), not with adults. Generational loyalty is stronger during these years than during any other stage of life.

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Peers and Parents

Adults are sometimes unaware of adolescents’ desire for respect from their contemporaries. I did not recognize this at the time with my own children:

• Our oldest daughter wore the same pair of jeans in tenth grade, day after day. She washed them each night by hand and asked me to put them in the dryer early each morning. My husband was bewildered. “Is this some weird female ritual?” he asked. Years later, she explained that she was afraid that if she wore different pants each day, her classmates would think she cared about her clothes and then criticize her choices.
• Our second daughter, at 16, pierced her ears for the third time. When I asked if this meant she would do drugs, she laughed at my ignorance. I later noticed that many of her friends had multiple holes in their ear lobes.
• At age 15, our third daughter was diagnosed with cancer. My husband and I weighed opinions from four physicians, each explaining treatment that would minimize the risk of death. She had other priorities: “I don’t care what you choose, as long as I keep my hair.” (Now her health is good, and her hair grew back.)
• Our youngest, in sixth grade, refused to wear her jacket (it was new; she had chosen it), even in midwinter. Not until high school did she tell me she did it so that her middle school classmates would think she was tough.

In retrospect, I am amazed that I was unaware of the power of peers.

Sometimes adults conceptualize adolescence as a time when peers and parents are at odds, or worse, as a time when peer influence overtakes parental influence. This is not true. Relationships with parents are the prototype for peer relationships: Healthy communication and support from parents make constructive peer relationships more likely.

Parents and peers are often mutually reinforcing, although many adolescents downplay the influence of their parents and many parents are unaware of the influence of peers, as I was. Only when parents are harsh or neglectful does peer influence reign alone (Bakken & Brown, 2011).

Peer Pressure

For every adolescent, peer opinions and friends are vital. One high school boy said:

Adults sometimes fear peer pressure; that is, they fear that peers will push an adolescent to use drugs, break the law, or do other things their child would never do alone. But peers are more helpful than harmful (Audrey et al., 2006; Nelson & DeBacker, 2008), especially in early adolescence, when biological and social stresses can be overwhelming. In later adolescence, teenagers are less susceptible to peer pressure, either positive or negative (Monahan et al., 2009).

Peers may be particularly helpful for adolescents of minority and immigrant groups as they strive to achieve ethnic identity, attaining their own firm (not confused or foreclosed) understanding of what it means to be Asian, African, Latino, and so on. The larger society provides stereotypes and prejudice, and parents ideally describe ethnic heroes and reasons to be proud (Umana-Taylor et al., 2010), but each young person must fashion his or her own identity, distinct from that of either society or parents (Fuligni et al., 2009). For this, peers may be pivotal (Whitehead et al., 2009).

Watch Me Fall Peers can be helpful or harmful, but they are never ignored. Adolescent boys in a skate park were videotaped in two circumstances: with an attractive female stranger sitting on a bench nearby and with no one watching. (The camera was hidden.) When the female observer was present, the boys took more risks and fell more often (Ronay & von Hippel, 2010).

COURTESY RICHARD RONAY

The social context is especially crucial. For example, in large schools with many ethnic groups, friends from the same background help adolescents avoid feeling adrift and alone, as they resist social prejudice and yet distance themselves from the patterns and attitudes of their parents (Kiang et al., 2009).

You read in Chapter 15 about the dangers of technology. Remember, however, that although some adolescents seem addicted to video games or the Internet, most are not. Technology is a tool, which might exacerbate depression or self-destruction, but it does not cause the problem (Yom-Tov et al., 2012).

Despite adult fears to the contrary, technology usually brings friends together in adolescence (Mesch & Talmud, 2010). This is obvious with texting and email, but also occurs with video games. Many games now pit one player against another, or require cooperation among several players (Collins & Freeman, 2013). Technology users, including video game players, are usually at least as extraverted and socially connected as other adolescents.

Although most social networking is between friends who know each other well, the Internet may be a lifeline for teenagers who are isolated because of their sexual orientation, culture, religion, or native language. Furthermore, online resources for teens struggling with depression, addiction, and countless other issues are sometimes particularly helpful, partly because they are frequently anonymous—parents and classmates need not know.

A Social Gathering Fifty years ago teens hung out on the corner or at the local drug store. Now they gather in someone’s house. Each seems to be in his or her own world, but show and tell is part of technology for adolescents.

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A particular niche is found within technology for adolescents with special health needs. During these years, many of them refuse to follow special diets, take medication, see doctors monthly, do exercises, or whatever. Technology can literally save lives, as shown with teenagers who have diabetes: They monitor their insulin via cell phone, talk to the doctor via Skype, and talk to other young people with diabetes via Internet chat (Harris et al., 2012).

Peers are often beneficial, but they can lead one another into trouble. Collectively, peers sometimes provide deviancy training, whereby one person shows another how to rebel against social norms (Dishion et al., 2001). However, innocent teens are not corrupted by deviant friends. Adolescents choose their friends and models—not always wisely, but never randomly.

A developmental progression can be traced: The combination of “problem behavior, school marginalization, and low academic performance” at age 11 leads to gang involvement two years later, deviancy training two years after that, and violent behavior at age 18 or 19 (Dishion et al., 2010, p. 603). This cascade is not inevitable; adults need to engage marginalized 11-year-olds instead of blaming their friends years later.

To further understand the impact of peers, examination of two concepts is helpful: selection and facilitation. Teenagers select friends whose values and interests they share, abandoning former friends who follow other paths. Then friends facilitate destructive or constructive behaviors. It is easier to do wrong (“Let’s all skip school on Friday”) or right (“Let’s study together for the chem exam”) with friends. Peer facilitation helps adolescents act in ways they are unlikely to act on their own.

Thus, adolescents select and facilitate, choose and are chosen. Happy, energetic, and successful teens have close friends who themselves are high achievers, with no major emotional problems. The opposite also holds: Those who are drug users, sexually active, and alienated from school choose compatible friends.

For instance, one U.S. study found that “tough” and “alternative” crowds felt that teenagers should question every adult rule, whereas the “prep” crowd thought that parental authority was usually legitimate (Daddis, 2010). A study in Finland found that students with high grades criticized those who prioritized sports or did not study, who reciprocated by disliking the honors crowd (Laursen et al., 2010).

A study of identical twins from ages 14 to 17 found that selection typically preceded facilitation, rather than the other way around. Those who later rebelled chose lawbreaking friends at age 14 more than did their more conventional twin (Burt et al., 2009). A study of teenage use of cigarettes also found that selection preceded peer pressure (Kiuru et al., 2010). Peers provide opportunity and encouragement for what adolescents already want to do.

Romance

Half a century ago, Dexter Dunphy (1963) described the sequence of male—female relationships during childhood and adolescence:

1. Groups of friends, exclusively one sex or the other
2. A loose association of girls and boys, with public interactions within a crowd
3. Small mixed-sex groups of the advanced members of the crowd
4. Formation of couples, with private intimacies

Culture affects the timing and manifestation of each step on Dunphy’s list, but subsequent research in many nations validates the sequence. Heterosexual youths worldwide (and even the young of other primates) avoid the other sex in childhood and are attracted to them by adulthood. This universal pattern suggests that biology underlies this sequence.

The peer group is part of this process. Romantic partners, especially in early adolescence, are selected not for their individual traits as much as for the traits that peers admire. If the leader of a girls’ group of close friends pairs with the leader of a boys’ group, the unattached members of the two cliques tend to pair off as well. A classic example is football players and cheerleaders: They often date each other. Pairing of groups allows easy double or triple dating, makes it easier to have a mixed-sex party, and helps explain why adolescent romantic partners tend to have less in common, in personality and attitudes, than adult couples do (Zimmer-Gembeck & Ducat, 2010).

Teens’ first romances typically occur in high school, with girls having a steady partner more often than boys do. Exclusive commitment is desired, but “cheating,” flirting, switching, and disloyalty are rife. Breakups are common, as are unreciprocated crushes. All of this can be devastating, with emotions such as hatred and despair leading to irrational revenge or impulsive suicide. In such cases, peer support can be a lifesaver; friends help adolescents cope with romantic ups and downs (Mehta & Strough, 2009).

Contrary to adult fears, many teenage romances do not include sexual intercourse. In the United States in 2011, even though about one-third of all high school students were sexually experienced by the tenth grade, about another one-third were virgins at high school graduation (see Figure 16.4). Norms vary markedly from group to group, school to school, city to city, and nation to nation.

Many Virgins For 30 years, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey has asked high school students from all over the United States dozens of confidential questions about their behavior. As you can see, about one-third of all students have already had sex by the ninth grade, and about one-third have not yet had sex by their senior year—a group whose ranks have been increasing in recent years. Other research finds that sexual behaviors are influenced by peers, with members of some groups all sexually experienced by age 14 and members of others not until age 18 or older.

For instance, twice as many ninth- to twelfth-graders in Memphis as in San Francisco say they have had intercourse (62 percent versus 28 percent) (MMWR, June 8, 2012). Obviously, within every city are many subgroups, each with their own norms. Parents have an impact. Thus, when parent—child relationships are good, girls from religious families tend to be romantically involved with boys from religious families, and their shared values typically slow down sexual activity (Kim-Spoon et al., 2012).

Some adolescents are attracted to peers of the same sex. Sexual orientation refers to the direction of a person’s erotic desires. One meaning of orient is to “turn toward”; thus, sexual orientation refers to whether a person is romantically attracted to (turned on by) people of the other sex, the same sex, or both sexes. Sexual orientation can be strong, weak, overt, secret, or unconscious.

Currently in North America and western Europe, not just two discrete orientations (homosexual and heterosexual) but a range of orientations—including bisexual, asexual, mostly homosexual, adamantly heterosexual, transgender and so on—are possible (Denny & Pittman, 2007). The DSM-5 no longer has a category called gender identity disorder, and instead has gender dysphoria—for people who are distressed at whatever gender or orientation they have.

Girls Together These two girls from Sweden seem comfortable lying close to one another. Many boys of this age wouldn’t be want their photograph taken if they were this close together. Around the world, there are cultural and gender norms about what is acceptable physical expression of affection among friends during adolescence.

Obviously, culture and cohort are powerful. In many nations of Africa and the Middle East, non-heterosexual behavior is considered criminal. Worldwide, many gay youths date members of the other sex to hide their orientation, and they are at higher risk for binge-drinking, suicidal thoughts, and drug use. Hiding one’s orientation is less common in communities in which same-sex partnerships are accepted, especially when parents affirm their offspring’s sexuality. At least in the United States, adolescents have similar problems and strengths whether they are gay or straight (Saewyc, 2011).

Sexual orientation is surprisingly fluid among adolescents. Girls are particularly likely to decide their orientation only after they have had sexual experiences; many adult lesbian women had other-sex relationships in adolescence (Saewyc, 2011).

Among sexually active teenagers in New York City, 10 percent had had same-sex partners, but more than one-third of that 10 percent nonetheless identified themselves as straight (Pathela & Schillinger, 2010). In that study, those most at risk of sexual violence and sexually transmitted infections (STIs) were those who had partners of both sexes.

Sex Education

Many adolescents have strong sexual urges but minimal logic about pregnancy and disease, as might be expected from the 10-year interval between maturation of the body and of the brain. Millions of teenagers worry that they are oversexed, undersexed, or deviant, unaware that thousands, maybe millions, of people are just like them.

As a result, “students seem to waffle their way through sexually relevant encounters driven both by the allure of reward and the fear of negative consequences” (Wagner, 2011, p. 193). They have much to learn. Where do they learn it?

Many adolescents learn about sex from the media. The Internet is a common source. Unfortunately websites are often frightening (featuring pictures of diseased sexual organs) or mesmerizing (containing pornography), and the youngest adolescents are particularly naïve.

TV watching peaks at puberty, and the shows most watched by teenagers include sexual content almost seven times per hour (Steinberg & Monahan, 2011). That content is alluring: Almost never does a television character develop an STI, deal with an unwanted pregnancy, or mention (much less use) a condom. Magazines may be even worse. One study found that men’s magazines convince teenage boys that maleness means sexual conquests (Ward et al., 2011).

Adolescents with intense exposure to sexual content on the screen and in music are more often sexually active, but this correlation is controversial (Collins et al., 2011; Steinberg & Monahan, 2011). Do teenagers watch sexy TV because they are sexually active, or does the media cause them to be sexually involved? One analysis concludes that “the most important influences on adolescents’ sexual behavior may be closer to home than Hollywood” (Sternberg & Monahan, 2011, p. 575).

As that quote implies, sex education begins at home. Every study finds that explicit parental communication influences adolescents’ behavior (Longmore et al., 2009). However, many parents wait too long to discuss sex. They tend to express clichés and generalities, unaware of their adolescents’ sexuality. Three studies of quite different groups illustrate the problem.

1. Parents of 12-year-old girls were asked whether their daughters had hugged or kissed a boy “for a long time” or hung out with older boys (signs that sex information is urgently needed). Only 5 percent of the parents said yes, as did 38 percent of the girls (O’Donnell et al., 2008).
2. African and Hmong American 14- to 19-year-olds rarely tell their parents about their romantic encounters. For example, one girl said she was going to the movies with her girlfriend (true) but not that their boyfriends were coming, too (Brown & Bakken, 2011).
3. Mexican American mothers told their teenagers cuidate, “take care of yourself,” which their teenagers interpreted as advice about health, not contraception. Some of the girls became pregnant, to the mothers distress and surprise. They thought they had warned their daughters and sons to use condoms if they had sex (Moncloa et al., 2010).

What should parents say? That is the wrong question, according to a longitudinal study of thousands of adolescents. Those teens who became sexually active and who were most likely to develop an STI had parents who warned them to stay away from sex. In contrast, adolescents were more likely to remain virgins if they had a warm relationship with their parents—specific information was less important than open communication (Deptula et al., 2010).

Especially when parents are silent, forbidding, or vague, adolescent sexual behavior is strongly influenced by peers. Boys are likely to learn about sex from other boys (Henry et al., 2012). Partners also teach each other. However, their lessons are more about pleasure than consequences: Most U.S. adolescent couples do not decide together before they have sex how they will prevent pregnancy and disease, and what they will do if their prevention efforts fail.

Sex education varies dramatically by nation. The curriculum for middle schools in most European schools includes information about masturbation, same-sex romance, oral and anal sex, specific uses and failures of various methods of contraception—subjects almost never covered in U.S. classes, even in high school. Rates of teenage pregnancy in most European nations are less than half those in the United States. Perhaps curriculum is the reason, although obviously curriculum is part of the larger culture, and cultural differences regarding sex are vast.

Within the United States, the timing and content of sex education vary by state and community. Some high schools provide comprehensive education, free condoms, and medical treatment; others provide nothing.

Some schools begin sex education in the sixth grade; others wait until senior year. If they begin early, many sex-education programs successfully delay the age at which adolescents become sexually active, and they increase condom use, but some programs have no impact (Hamilton et al., 2013; Kirby & Laris, 2009).

One controversy centers on whether abstinence should be taught as the only sexual strategy for adolescents. It is true, of course, that abstaining from sex (including oral sex) prevents STIs and pregnancy, but longitudinal data on several abstinence-only programs, four to six years after adolescents had participated, was disappointing. For instance, about half the students in both experimental (abstinence-only) and control groups (more comprehensive sex education) had had sex by age 16 (Trenholm et al., 2007). Students in the control groups knew slightly more about preventing disease and pregnancy, but their sexual activity was similar in those who had abstinence-only education.