Social Development in Adolescence
Adolescence is a serious and important period of social development in an individual's life.
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| What is social development in adolescence |
It is a period of examination for young people so that they are subject to serious changes in their relationships with others, as they understand their self-identity.
Social Psychology studied in detail the relationship between adolescence and social development
These are the most important points related to social development in the stressful stage including:
1. Identity Formation
Adolescence may try new styles such as music and different hobbies that establish their independent identity
2. Friends relationships
Friends have a significant impact on the formation of a teenager's identity. Friends' styles and lifestyles may affect teenagers, so adolescents will imitate their friends in their clothes, hobbies, beliefs, and values.
3. Romantic Relationships
Adolescence is a dangerous period for young people, when they begin to search for what fills their desires and experience manifestations of attraction and infatuation.
Young men enter romantic relationships seeking emotional intimacy, self-discovery, and learning about empathy, connection, and compromise.
4. Social Media and Technology
Adolescent communication and interaction have become easy due to the existence of social networking sites, which are an opportunity for young people to express themselves, communicate, and share information.
However social networking sites have harm to young people such as bullying, and the lack of restrictions and boundaries between online relationships.
It is worth noting that social development during adolescence varies between individuals.
This is due to several factors, such as the family environment, mood, and economic, social, and cultural status, which influence the behavior of adolescents with these developmental changes.
Common Challenges of Adolescents in Social Development
There are many challenges that adolescents face in social development, including:
1. Peer pressure
Adolescents may be forced to conform to the habits, behaviors, and morals of a group of friends in a desire to adapt with them, whether friends' habits and behaviors are good or bad, so adolescents may get wrong behaviors and bad habits from their friends.
2. Dental exploration
Dental exploration is the attempt of adolescents to discover themselves and know their identity.
In adolescence, the exploration process is difficult for the following reasons: Confusion, inner struggle to understand beliefs and values, self-doubt, and inability to determine right and wrong .
3. Challenges of romantic relationships
It is the nature of the adolescent to pursue romantic relationships, but he/she may have problems such as heartbreak, rejection, and jealousy, which may lead to a change in the behavior of his/her for the worse.
Adolescence may be beaten or killed because he/she does not have the experience to act in such situations.
4. Conflict between parents and teens
The adolescent may like to be independent in his decisions and positions without the parents interfering in that, even if the decisions are wrong.
Therefore, conflicts may arise between parents and adolescents due to differences in opinions, expectations, and habits.
Therefore, parents must understand the adolescent's behavior and gradually deal with adolescents and be friends with them to better affect their mental processes.
Experiments about social development in adolescents
1. Practical experiments
Practical experiments have been conducted on the impact of various factors on the social development of adolescents to ensure that the hypotheses and studies are correct. These factors include:
a. Peer influence and risk-taking
Psychologists conduct practical experiments on a group of adolescents in the presence of their friends, such as the decision-making experiment in telling the truth or lying.
Question: "Do you take drugs or not"?
Assume the group members are 4 friends, first, second, and third have drugs, so the answer of the fourth friend is yes without stress, however, he does not have drugs because impacts his friends' decision
2. Norms and Social Conformity
The researchers conducted a set of practical experiments to study the effect of social habits on adolescents.
For example:
Adolescents are gathered and asked questions about some widespread social habits such as the habit of smoking and bragging about it
Do you smoke in front of your parents or do you smoke without their knowledge?
If the majority of the group answered, "We smoke in the presence of our parents and we do not feel fear and guilt", this answer is expected to have a strong effect on the adolescents in a group to answer with the same answers like their friends, and therefore adolescents will actually smoke in front of their parents and will not be afraid of them.
" What are the best ways to choose good adolescent friends?"
The process of choosing good friends is very important because linking adolescents 's morals, actions, decisions, and behaviors to friends' actions.
The most important ways to choose friends are:
1. Passionate words
Some friend's pronunciation may be bad and contain cursing and obscene language Such friends should be kept away from because they will change the adolescent's words into bad ones
2. Monitor friend's free time
Some friends, during their free time, practice sports activities such as football, swimming, etc., or study specialized courses that will serve their professional lives in the future.
These friends should be focused on and adolescents urged to join them because the teenager will benefit from his time in a way that will benefit him.
3. Monitoring the change in the academic level of friends.
Some friends have excellent academic standards, until a certain period becomes very bad, and they reverse 180 degrees Of course, this is not normal, so such friends are not suitable for adolescents because they have been exposed to calamities or misfortunes, or have consumed drugs and intoxicating substances that led to this sudden change.
4. Friends taking drugs and alcohol
Drugs are destructive to society, especially to young people.
Therefore, if the friends of the adolescent use drugs and are addicted to them, then the adolescent will take drugs sooner or later.
It depends on the adolescent's closeness and attachment to his friends, in addition to his lack of knowledge of the destructive dangers of drugs
5. Romantic relationships
Friends’ preoccupation with romantic relationships may lead to serious problems, including low academic standards, psychological and physical problems, and a lack of focus on building the future.
Therefore, the adolescent immersed in these friends will engage in romantic relationships at an underage age, which will lead to psychological destruction and intellectual, and behavioral issues.