Adolescence marks the transition from childhood to adulthood, and it is a fundamental period in human development. When a pre-adolescent emerges into puberty and their body starts to change, the adolescent’s behavior, as well as their cognitive thought, also changes. Adolescence also marks a social transition that counteracts a shift into a new school environment. In this stage of life, our problem solving skills become more skillful and more complex. We also learn how to define and portray ourselves to the world, as well as develop our own values. Close relationships are better defined and we explore our importance, limits, and roles within the family structure. In America, adolescence is defined between the ages of 12 and 20 (cited from class discussion). Within this time frame, an adolescent explores many new environments, roles, and experiences. Adolescence begins at about the same time as students enter their first year into middle school. Students are still considered to be in adolescence when they continue on into high school. They are no longer an adolescent by the time they are a junior in college, or a senior, depending on what month they were born in. In my life experience, the biggest change of all occurred between my senior year in high school, and my freshman year in college. Through my community service, I find myself working with many high school students, particularly seniors. I decided to interview a female high school senior who plans on attending the University of Denver next year, because I was interested whether or not she had any of the same aspirations, fears, and thoughts as I did when I was about to graduate from high school and begin a new life at DU.
The student that I decided to interview is very similar to me in demographics, economic status, ethnicity, religion, and class standing in high school. Because of these similarities, I decided to interview this young lady so that I could compare her to myself. The name of the young lady I interviewed is Alejandra. Alejandra is an 18 year-old Hispanic female getting ready to graduate from high school in Pueblo, Colorado. She attends a public school which consists of about 750 students. Alejandra comes from a family of four that consists of her mother, her father, and her brother; she is the eldest of the two children. When she is not spending time with her family or working on school work, she is busy with her duties as vice president of NHS (National Honor Society) and her presidency duties of the FBLA (Future Business Leader of America). Despite her busy schedule, she even finds time to volunteer in her community. Alejandra volunteers in her community by tutoring younger students. Throughout Alejandra’s interview, I learned that from a single question, you can learn a great deal from an individual.
One of the first questions I asked her was if she could describe herself to me. And from this single question, I learned that she is a caring individual with hopes and dreams. Alejandra describes herself as an outgoing person who likes to take risks. She also described herself as an intelligent young woman who lacks common sense in some situations. Despite her desire to take risks, she also stated that she tends to be shy around people she is not use to being around, but if you do get to know her, you learn that she is very open and talkative. Alejandra’s description of herself illustrates an adolescent’s capability of self-understanding through abstract thought. There is also an example of the contradictory within the self theory. Alejandra had stated that she tends to be very shy, especially in situations that are new to her and when new people are around her. The contradictory of self is displayed in this situation because she describes herself as being an extremely shy person, but yet she likes to take risks. Most shy people have the propensity to not take risks, or put themselves in situations that are new, because a new situation brings new people and surroundings. When asked why she likes to take risks, she stated that “Risks prevent me from becoming boring and a school geek that no one likes to hang out with or be friends with. I don’t want to become one of those people that have no friends and have no fun”. I then asked her what kind of risks she takes, that help her achieve this identity. She replied that she hasn’t technically taken any huge risks, and that the biggest risk she had ever taken was to ditch one of her classes. Through this series of questions, Alejandra illustrates what she fears to become, and what she hopes to become, and who she is currently. In one view, an important aspect of the ideal or imagined self is the possible self: what individuals might become, what they would like to become, and what they are afraid of becoming, as cited by Santrock 172. This type of behavior and thought is psychologically healthy, according to psychologists, because it can help an individual to be motivated and avoid behaviors that would make an individual unhappy. Alejandra’s attitude and responses to this question illustrates her self-understanding.
Recall, however, that the self involves not only self-understanding but also self-esteem and self-concept. That is, adolescents not only try to define and describe the attributes of the self (self-understanding), they also evaluate attributes (self-concept and self-esteem) (Santrock 173). Self-esteem is evaluated and defined by an individual from several domains, such as physical appearance, concept of physical attractiveness, and relationships with family, friends, and teachers. In Harter’s research, for example, global self-esteem was correlated most strongly with physical appearance, a link that has been found in both the United States and other countries. In another study, adolescents’ concept of their physical attractiveness was the strongest predictor of their overall self-esteem (Santrock 175). Since I work almost weekly with Alejandra, I had an opportunity to see how she acts with her peers. She seems very confident about her appearance and her attractiveness. She tends to be flirty with her male peers, but only with her closest friends, because she does tend to be shy around people she does not know very well. When Alejandra is around students she is not close to, she is shy only in the way she talks. For example, she will think before she speaks when she is around acquaintances, but will blurt things out when she is around close friends. When she is around students she does not consider to be her close friends, Alejandra sits and thinks to herself with a confident attitude. It almost seems as if she knows she’s pretty and doesn’t have to be outgoing to have others think that she is pretty. Alejandra’s behavior and attitude of flirting illustrates that she has a high level of self-esteem, but only when she is around her closest friends is it obvious that she has self-confidence. Alejandra explained to me that she sometimes feels the urge to be more open to the students she is not very close to and to show them her other side. Her curiosity to explore new roles portrays Erik Erickson’s psychosocial moratorium—the gap between childhood security and autonomy as an adult.
Erickson’s psychosocial moratorium occurs in his fifth developmental stage. At this time, adolescents are faced with deciding who they are, what they are all about, and where they are going in life (Santrock 178). Adolescents are exploring new roles religiously, romantically, socially, as well as new roles within the family structure. Another theorist, James Marcia developed four identity statuses that demonstrate an adolescent’s position within their own identity. The four stages are identity achievement, identity moratorium, identity foreclosure, and identity diffusion. Identity achievement occurs when an individual makes a commitment about something and had explored alternatives. Identity moratorium occurs when an individual hasn’t made a commitment, but is exploring their possibilities. Identity foreclosure occurs when an individual has made a commitment, but did not explore alternatives. And finally, identity diffusion occurs when an individual has not made a commitment and has not explored their possibilities. Alejandra is identity foreclosure because she has made a commitment to go to college but chose to go only because her parents wanted her to. She had discussed the possibility to not attend college right after high school, but her parents refused to let that happen. Alejandra stated: “They think that I will just goof off, party, and never want to commit to school if I take some time off to explore the different opportunities life offers you”. She instead agreed to go to college and start her graduation requirements and in the mean time take time to explore different work forces as an extracurricular activity. Further proof that Alejandra is in identity foreclosure is illustrated by her choice to keep the same religion as her parents, without exploring other religious options. She has also committed to college without knowing what field she would like to study. Despite her incapability to explore new options, Alejandra is faced with many decisions that she must analyze and face.
Adolescence, marked by its pubertal changes, is also marked by increased decision making. Just like any other adolescent, Alejandra is faced with deciding which friends to choose, whether to have sex, go to college, and buy a car. In some reviews, older adolescents are described as more competent than younger adolescents, who in turn are more competent than children, as cited by Sanctrock. I asked Alejandra what kind of advice she would give her friend if she had asked her if she thought it was a good idea to get plastic surgery. I asked her this question because I was interested whether Alejandra had similar answers to those listed in the book. Her first response was: “What is the surgery for? If it is cosmetic, I would suggest that she talk to the school nurse and her parents about the dangers and risks. I would ask her why she wanted to have it and if the surgery would truly make her happier. But if it is for medical reasons, than I would tell her that she do the surgery and that I’d pray for her”. Other students, who were asked the same question, replied: “The different aspects of the situation need to be examined along with its effects on the individual’s future, especially relationships with other people”. Alejandra did answer this question very similar to the eighth-, tenth-, and twelfth-grade students from the Byrnes and Klaczynski study. One of the decisions adolescents are faced with is whether to have sex. Some teenagers believe that if they have sex without a condom they will not get pregnant, contract a sexually transmitted disease or become emotionally attached. Adolescents who believe that they are invincible display egocentrism through personal fable—an adolescent’s sense of personal uniqueness and invincibility. When asked about teen pregnancy at her school, Alejandra had replied that “Babies shouldn’t be having babies. I don’t think we should be having sex at this age because we are incapable of understanding the risks and consequences”. She replied to this answer in the “we” tense, which indicated to me that she knows about what kind of consequences there are, but she cannot understand the full extent of them.
Alejandra has been a member of the “nerds” since she was a freshman, but she has recently gained new grounds in social status among her peers. She believes that it’s because a few of her close friends are friends with some of the popular kids, and she is popular by association. I asked her to compile a list of various crowds in her high school, and she listed about six: the jocks, the nerds, the popular kids not in sports, the ROTC kids, the skaters/smokers, and the Goths. I then asked how she knew someone was in a certain crowd. She replied that the biggest key was to see how they dressed, talked and acted. The ROTC kids almost always wore their uniforms; the Goths wore nothing but black; the skaters wore baggy clothes and smoked all the time, and the popular kids and jocks would be the best dressed in the school. I asked her why she felt she belonged to the nerds, and she said that her closest friends were the smartest of the school, and so was she, and that her clothes aren’t really up to style. I also asked her how many close friends she had and how many acquaintances she had. She considered 18 people as her close friends and 20 as acquaintances. She described her closest friends as people she can be herself around. She also described them as nonjudgmental and people who share similar interests with her. Gottman and Parker categorize an adolescent’s friendships into six different functions: companionship, stimulation, physical support, ego support, social comparison, and intimacy/affection (Santrock 360). Alejandra has described her closest friends with a few of the qualities Gottman and Parker had stressed as being an important aspect to an adolescent’s relationship among friends.
From Alejandra’s description of her parents, I would say that her parents are authoritative. Authoritative parenting is a style of parenting that encourages adolescents to be independent but still places limits and controls on their actions (Santrock). She described her parents as hard working, dedicated, strict, and very loving and caring. They allow her to discuss her feelings and choices, but in the end, she does what they ask because they are either very persuasive or she believes what they are saying is right for her. She appears to be struggling with autonomy, but I think that she will gain new grounds in this quest when she moves into the dorms and is away from her parents. Autonomy is an adolescent’s ability to make responsible decisions for oneself (Santrock). We have seen in several portions of this paper that she complied to her parents wishes, but yet she discusses other possibilities with them, and in the end she does what her parents think are best. She wants to gain this autonomy but she also doesn’t want to disappoint her parents or hurt their feelings. I truly believe that she will gain this autonomy when she moves away from her parents.
Physical maturation is an issue every teen has to deal with. They have to consider how they feel about their bodily changes, and if they feel comfortable around their peers who are going through the same changes as them. However, it is important to note that not all teens mature at the same time or rate. Alejandra had described her physical maturation as right on time. She didn’t feel awkward that some of her peers had bloomed before her, and she didn’t feel like she was better than the peers that were late bloomers. Findings show that Early-maturing girls had more problems in school, were more independent, and were more popular with boys than late-maturing girls were (Santrock). Findings also show that late-maturing girls in late adolescence have body images that more closely approximate the current American ideal of feminine beauty—tall and thin. If I could describe Alejandra’s physical appearance in two words, I would say that she is tall and thin. Perhaps this is why she is confident in her appearance and why she seems to know that most boys think she is pretty.
Towards the end of our interview, I thought that Alejandra had opened up enough to me and was comfortable enough with me that I could ask her some more personal questions. Alejandra was asked to look at several magazine clippings that illustrated teen idols in provocative scenarios. Her first response was “she is dressed as a slut, but in a way it shows women’s liberation”. I watched a few teen-oriented television shows, and I could not believe what I had seen. One of the shows I watched was MTV’s The Real World and realized that they are portraying to adolescents that drinking and having sex is the cultural norm. In the United States the majority of individuals have had sexual intercourse by the end of adolescence (Santrock). I asked Alejandra about this and she had said that that is why so many teens are pregnant these days. She told me that a lot of her friends and her peers believe that that they try to follow what the media displays to try to act cool. I think that this cultural norm that is being taught to our adolescents is depressing and devastating to our future. Teenagers who have babies are less likely to go to college and better their lives. I then asked Alejandra to discuss what she thought about the media.
Alejandra described the media as music videos, The Real World, and other MTV television shows, as well as teen magazines. Alejandra stated: “The media sets the norms and what’s expected and accepted as the “Norm”. We are all affected, that’s why you see 13-year-old girls dressing and acting like they are 18!” In class we discussed how the media really does influence the cultural norm and popular teen movies, such as Mean Girls and 13 Going on 30, helps drive this adolescent norm. Alejandra didn’t have much to say about these two movies, other than that teens cause their own drama and that these movies illustrate a typical high school in America.
