This study aims to exploring the importance of peer groups, how belonging to different types of groups affects the actual perception of oneself, the peer group and other groups, and the perception of difficulty in coping with developmental tasks. 600 adolescents from Bologna, Italy filled out a questionnaire, consisting of three parts. The results show that peer groups are important in adolescence lifes. Overall, 90% of the subjects were members of a peer group; most often they belonged to informal or quasi-informal groups.A smaller percentage belonged to formal groups, like to sport or religious groups. The scopes to meet the groups were most often for amusement and also for talking about one's personal problems.Surprisingly, the differences of descriptions of oneself and the own group, oneself and the self-defined outgroup, oneself and drug abusers, did not differ considerably among informal and formal groups. Also informal and formal groups described the ingroups equally favorably and outgroups equally unfavorably. Moreover the results show that informal and formal groups did not differ in the perception of difficulty in coping with developmental tasks.These results indicate that the type of groups is not a crucial variable in explaining differences in evolution of the self-system in adolescents.
In Italy, almost all adolescents join one or more peer-groups fairly regularly and are aware of the existence of different types of peer-groups. This chapter reports on several studies on adolescents and the importance of their peergroups. It reviews investigations of social psychological aspects of adolescents and their peer-groups and, more specifically, of ecological aspects of peergroups, dynamics of social categorization, and the effects of the relationship between the individual and the group on selfdescription and the perception of others. As far as social categorization processes are concerned, support was found, in part, for Turner's (1981) self-categorization theory, and in part, for Deschamp's (1982) co-variation thesis.
This study was designed to explore critical events during adolescence and coping processes as dependent, first, on the relationship with peers, and second, on the type of peer‐groups teenagers join. In all, 75 young people, members of four street groups and two religious groups, were given a questionnaire assessing identification with their peers and demographic characteristics, and then interviewed about critical events. The results show that the nature of the group individuals join is of minor importance, whereas the relationship established with peers is crucial: highly identified subjects not only more often join their peers but seem to derive more profit from interactions with people in general, both peers, friends, and parents. The peer‐group is important, not to substitute for contacts with the family or other persons, but as a social entity to fill a vacuum during adolescent years.
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