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One of the most important social transitions that takes place in adolescence concerns the emergence of sexual and romantic relationships. In contemporary society, most young people begin dating sometime during early adolescence.

Dating during adolescence can mean a variety of different things, from group activities that bring males and females together (without much actual contact between the sexes); to group dates, in which a group of
boys and girls go out jointly (and spend part of the time as couples and part of the time in large groups); to casual dating as couples; and to serious involvement with a steady boyfriend or girlfriend. More adolescents have experience in mixed-sex group activities like parties ordances than dating, and more have experience in dating than in having a serious boyfriend or girlfriend.

Most adolescents’ first experience with sex falls into the category of “autoerotic behavior”—sexual behavior that is experienced alone. The most common autoerotic activities reported by adolescents are erotic fantasies and masturbation.

Taken from : The Gale Encyclopedia Of Psychology 2ND Edition - Bonnie Strickland

Crowds are large collectives of similarly stereotyped individuals who may or may not spend much time together. In contemporary American high schools, typical crowds are “jocks,” “brains,” “nerds,” “populars,” “druggies,” and so on. In contrast to cliques, crowds are not settings for adolescents’ intimate interactions or friendships, but, instead, serve to locate the adolescent (to himself and to others) within the social structure of the school. As well, the crowds themselves tend to form a sort of social hierarchy or map of the school, and different crowds are seen as having different degrees of status or importance.

The importance of peers during early adolescence coincides with changes in individuals’ needs for intimacy. As children begin to share secrets with their friends, a new sense of loyalty and commitment grows, a belief that friends can trust each other. During adolescence, the search for intimacy intensifies, and self-disclosure between best friends becomes an important pastime. Teenagers, especially girls, spend hours discussing their innermost thoughts and feelings, trying to understand one another. The discovery that they tend to think and feel the same as someone else becomes another important basis of friendship.

Taken from : The Gale Encyclopedia Of Psychology 2ND Edition - Bonnie Strickland

One of the most noteworthy aspects of the social transition into adolescence is the increase in the amount of time individuals spend with their peers. Although relations with agemates exist well before adolescence, during the teenage years they change in significance and
structure. Four specific developments stand out.

First, there is a sharp increase during adolescence in the sheer amount of time individuals spend with their peers and in the relative time they spend in the company of peers versus adults. In the United States, well over half of the typical adolescent’s waking hours are spent with peers, as opposed to only 15% with adults—including parents. Second, during adolescence, peer groups function much more often without adult supervision than they do during childhood. Third, during adolescence increasingly more contact with peers is with opposite-sex friends.

Finally, whereas children’s peer relationships are limited mainly to pairs of friends and relatively small groups—three or four children at a time, for example— adolescence marks the emergence of larger groups of peers, or crowds.

Taken from : The Gale Encyclopedia Of Psychology 2ND Edition - Bonnie Strickland

Susceptibility to the influence of parents and peers changes with development. In general, during childhood, boys and girls are highly oriented toward their parents and less so toward their peers; peer pressure during the early elementary school years is not especially strong. As they approach adolescence, however, children become some what somewhat less oriented toward their parents and more oriented
toward their peers, and peer pressure begins to escalate.

During early adolescence, conformity to parents continues to decline and conformity to peers and peer pressure continues to rise. It is not until middle adolescence, then, that genuine behavioral independence emerges, when conformity to parents as well as peers declines.

Social transition
Accompanying the biological, cognitive, and emotional transitions of adolescence are important changes in the adolescent’s social relationships, or the social transition of adolescence. Developmentalists have spent considerable time charting the changes that take place with friends and with family members as the individual moves through the adolescent years.

Taken from : The Gale Encyclopedia Of Psychology 2ND Edition - Bonnie Strickland

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Being independent means more than merely feeling independent, of course. It also means being able to make your own decisions and to select a sensible course of action by yourself. This is an especially important capability in contemporary society, where many adolescents are forced to become independent decision makers at an early age. In general, researchers find that decision-making abilities improve over the course of the adolescent years, with gains continuing well into the later years of high school.

Many parents wonder about the susceptibility of adolescents to peer pressure. In general, studies that contrast parent and peer influences indicate that in some situations, peers’ opinions are more influential, while in others, parents’ are more influential. Specifically, adolescents
are more likely to conform to their peers’ opinions when it comes to short-term, day-to-day, and social matters—styles of dress, tastes in music, and choices among leisure activities. This is particularly true during junior high school and the early years of high school. When it
comes to long-term questions concerning educational or occupational plans, however, or values, religious beliefs, and ethical issues, teenagers are influenced in a major way by their parents.

Taken from : The Gale Encyclopedia Of Psychology 2ND Edition - Bonnie Strickland

And finally, older adolescents are able to see and interact with their parents as people—not just as their parents. Many parents find, for example, that they can confide in their adolescent children, something that was not possible when their children were younger, or that their adolescent children can easily sympathize with them when they have had a hard day at work.

Some theorists have suggested that the development of independence be looked at in terms of the adolescent’s developing sense of individuation. The process of individuation, which begins during infancy and continues well into late adolescence, involves a gradual, progressive sharpening of one’s sense of self as autonomous, as competent, and as separate from one’s parents. Individuation, therefore, has a great deal to do with the development of a sense of identity, in that it involves changes in how we come to see and feel about ourselves.

The process of individuation does not necessarily involve stress and internal turmoil. Rather, individuation entails relinquishing childish dependencies on parents in favor of more mature, more responsible, and less dependent relationships. Adolescents who have been successful in establishing a sense of individuation can accept responsibility for their choices and actions instead of looking to their parents to do it for them.

Taken from : The Gale Encyclopedia Of Psychology 2ND Edition - Bonnie Strickland

During the psychosocial moratorium, the adolescent can experiment with different roles and identities, in a context that permits and encourages
this sort of exploration. The experimentation involves trying on different personalities and ways of behaving. Sometimes, parents describe their teenage children as going through “phases.” Much of this behavior is actually experimentation with roles and personalities.

For most adolescents, establishing a sense of autonomy, or independence, is as important a part of the emotional transition out of childhood as is establishing a sense of identity. During adolescence, there is a movement away from the dependency typical of childhood toward the autonomy typical of adulthood. One can see this in several ways.

First, older adolescents do not generally rush to their parents whenever they are upset, worried, or in need of assistance. Second, they do not see their parents as allknowing or all-powerful. Third, adolescents often have a great deal of emotional energy wrapped up in relationships outside the family; in fact, they may feel more attached to a boyfriend or a girlfriend than to their parents.

Taken from : The Gale Encyclopedia Of Psychology 2ND Edition - Bonnie Strickland