NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
Risk Taking Behavior in Adolescence It has been researched long ago that risk taking in the adolescent age is an essential part of the personal development and learning process as a whole and must be considered as normal and natural process. Every teenager should go through a certain period of risk-taking, for it presents a part of the assertion of independence and self-testing behavior for any adolescent. Adolescence is a developmental stage between childhood and adulthood. Generally it refers to a period that ranges from teen years through early 20 s.
Because life nowadays is becoming more complex, adolescents, however, are gradually more cut off from the activities of their elders, leaving most young people with education as their sole occupation. Inexorably, this has isolated many of them from the adult world and has prolonged their adolescence. At present, almost all over the world the adolescent years are becoming marked by aggression to an alarming degree. The trend of teenage suicide has become predominantly disturbing, but risk-taking behaviors of different kinds can be observed, including alcohol and drug abuse. Any risk taking is exploratory. Many adolescents are motivated by the poor self esteem and the lack of self confidence.
Impetuous behavior and haste are strategies used by numerous adolescents to gain the consent of their peers. The main problem for young people is their appearing incapability to evaluate the potential risks and outcomes of everyday behavior. According to the statistics, more than 60 % of adolescent deaths are caused by accidents many of these are the result of risk taking. Adolescents, for the most part, exist in a highly social environment. Practically everything an adolescent does is somehow related to school. Classes, extracurricular activities such as clubs or sports teams or going to a party all tend to involve other adolescents from school.
These adolescents, who are of about the same age or maturity level are referred to as peers. Social environment of a teenager is vital in determining his risk taking behavior. Peer groups serve many functions for an adolescent. Peers can provide entertainment in the form of fun and socializing. Acceptance by a group helps to bolster self-esteem and confidence. A particular role or responsibility in a group, club or sports team can help shape adolescents identity and self-image.
One of the most important functions of peer groups is to provide information and comparison. An adolescent can learn a tremendous amount about the world outside the family. From the peer group, adolescents receive feedback about their abilities. Adolescents learn whether what they do is better than, as good as, or worse than what other adolescents do. (Stantrock, p. 184) This is vital because, like weight classes in a boxing tournament, peers must be fairly equal.
Siblings can not serve as an accurate yard stick because they are usually younger or older and at different stages of development. Information in the form of exchange of knowledge is also part of this function. There is much to be learned from friends with different perspectives. During countless hours of conversation, friends act as sounding boards as teenagers explore issues ranging from future plans to stances on religious and moral issues. (Stantrock, p. 196) This function not only serves as a measure for abilities, but for self-worth and self-confidence as well. When close friends disclose their mutual insecurities and fears about themselves, they discover that they are not abnormal and that they have nothing to be ashamed of. (Stantrock, p. 196) Another peer function, one with long-term effects, is the influence on social development and adult relationships.
Peer relationships give an adolescent the foundation for all future ones. Theorists John Piaget and Harry Stack Sullivan stressed that it is through these interactions that children learn symmetrical reciprocity. Peers must relate to each other in a reciprocal manner that involves behavior that is mutually acceptable. Adolescents learn to assert themselves while accepting others, they have influence over each other. They learn the complexities of relationships such as how to support friends while being supported, to observe others to smoothly enter existing conversations and to resolve disagreements.
A sense of fairness and justice is created from these relationships. Adolescents who gain self-confidence and learn to navigate complex social structures by interacting with peers take these skills into adulthood and apply the knowledge to the working world or the family. Considering that adolescents spend a much higher percentage of their time with each other than with their parents, it is no wonder that peer relationships are so influential in social development. It is in the various settings of peer groups that adolescents can learn about what behavior works and what does not and about their own identity and place in the world. Even negative experiences can teach the astute adolescent about themselves and others.
Peer groups are essential to any persons development no matter what those groups are or how accepted one is by those groups. Famous professor and psychologist Vygotsky (1819 - 1954) had a social constructivist view regarding the theory of social and personal intellectual development, believing that learning takes place as an interaction between the individual and the environment. In other words adolescents continually learn from outside influences. Although Vygotsky disagreed with Piagets theory of development he still restricted individual capabilities by basing his own ideas in a series of stages: vague syncretic stage, complexes stage, and potential concept stage. His theory reflects the importance of external environment that a teenager is exposed to. Vygotsky's sociocultural theory focuses on how culture values, beliefs, customs, and skills of a social groups transmitted to the next generation.
According to Vygotsky's theory social interaction between the members of society is necessary for children to acquire the ways of thinking and behaving that make up a community's culture. This theory was influential in the study of childrens cognition. He viewed cognitive development as a socially mediated process because it was dependent on the support that adults and more mature peers provide as children try new tasks. The role of social environment is vitally important for an adolescent, same way as the role a teacher is. Because the majority of adolescents spend a considerable part of their time in school, the role of teaching becomes an important tool of a teenagers mind formation.
Teacher can be the one who can heavily influence a teenager approaching the issue from the correct angle. The big controversy in education today is the way children are taught. Many of the same arguments that are made regarding what is taught can also be made regarding how it is taught. Theories of educational psychology are attempts to describe how people behave in satisfying their physical and psychological needs. The various aspects of these have a base in child development and encompass physical growth, emotional and psychological changes, and social adjustments. Adolescent risk taking behavior must be thoroughly considered by those who have an ability to influence or predetermine one.
Among those who have such an influence are parents, whose role should not be neglected. The family has conventionally provided a set of values for young people to survey. Through this kind of observation they can start to learn adult ways of behavior. In the modern industrial societies the nuclear family has become comparatively unstable, because divorces are growing gradually common and many children live their adolescence years with only one parent. As a rule, adolescents have much greater difference between the parental-child generations then their parent did. They tend to see their parents as having a small capacity to guide them in their transition from their teen world to the more adult world.
Though the process of often useless risk taking cannot be stopped, it must be controlled to the extent the risk would be minimized. Word Count: 1282 Bibliography: 1. Coon, Dennis (1998): Introduction to psychology: Exploration and Application, 8 th ED Ch. 4, Child Development. Brook/Cole Publishing Company. 2.
Stantrock, John (1992): Child Development in a Social Environment, New York: New Press. 3. Beane, J. A. (1984). Self-Concept, Self-Esteem, and the Curriculum. New York, NY: Teachers College Press. 4.
Owens, K. (1995). Raising Your Childs Inner Self-Esteem. New York, NY: Plenum Press. 5. Caissy, G. A. (1994). Early Adolescence: Understanding the 10 to 15 year old.
Reading, MA: Perseus Books.
Free research essays on topics related to: york ny, child development, peer groups, risk taking behavior, social environment
Research essay sample on Risk Taking Behavior In Adolescence
