Influence of Family on Adolescents in Peer Groups Fuligni, A.J. & Eccles, J.S. (199

The purpose of this study was to examine the connection between the family environment of parental authority and the social support and psychological functioning of adolescents in their peer groups. It was hypothesized that the greater the experience of assertion of parental control in matters touching on their adolescents' social and personal lives, the more likely the adolescents were to identify with their peers' authority and guidance than with their parents'.

The results of the empirical study confirmed these hypotheses. Further, the decisive period in which attitudes and the degree of peer orientation are formed is that of the early adolescence. Children's attitudes toward the degree and kind of parental involvement, or more exactly authority, over their lives that are developed in these years have implications for the degree and kind of interpersonal interaction with peers on one hand, as well as for the mental health of the emerging adolescents over the long term on the other. The transformation of the parent-child relationship is inevitable, and Fuligni and Eccles take the view that there is a difference between parental monitoring of adolescents' behavior and a framework of high parental control of such behavior. That is, the perception of high control on the part of the adolescent is li

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conventionality. The study showed that parents and adolescents hold fairly similar views, in the abstract, of socially sanctioned behavior and risks associated with such behavior. However, they diverge on the source of moral and ethical authority that should guide choices in regard to such behavior. For example, Smetana and Asquith found that parents and adolescents could agree on the fact that alcohol and drug abuse is foolish. But whereas parents view drug and alcohol use as coming under their parental jurisdiction and authority, based on their knowledge and understanding of social convention, adolescents tend to view it as coming under the domain of personal decision. Generally, parents reason along prudential (socially acceptable) lines, whereas adolescents reason along personal-judgment lines. Thus the issue becomes a tension between adolescent autonomy and parental authority. This tension can lead to conflicts in a whole range of specific issues, with the issue of the degree of adolescent autonomy underlying specific disagreements. Tricks for taming parents. (1994, November/December). Psychology Today, 45-49; 74. The purpose of this article is to explain the reasons behind the persistence of the assertion of parental
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Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1404
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page)