Cross-cultural patterns in adolescents

• TYPE OF PSYCHOLOGY: Developmental psychology; multicultural psychology
• Adolescence, generally considered to be the years between the ages of twelve and eighteen, is a time of rapid development and confusion, both physically and emotionally. Adolescence is viewed differently in different cultures; although certain characteristics seem to be widespread, they are not necessarily universal.

Introduction

Adolescence is a time of rapid and difficult changes unlike any other period in a human’s life. Both physical development and cognitive development enter dramatic new stages. The physical changes of puberty signal the onset of sexuality; cognitive abilities progress to the sophistication needed for mathematics and complex word use. Social relationships outside the family become much more important. American psychologist and educator G. Stanley Hall is remembered most for his “storm and stress” theory on adolescent development. Hall suggested that adolescence is a time of conflict with parents, mood swings, and engaging in risky behaviors. However, some modern research suggests that many adolescents continue to seek out their families for social support. The interdependence model suggests that successful navigation of adolescent development is through steady increases in freedom and responsibility. When presented with this consistency, adolescents are less likely to rebel. However, adolescence is still widely regarded as the most turbulent period of life and a time in which adolescents restlessly seek their own identity (psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson referred to the process as the identity crisis stage of development).

Both psychological and general Western cultural views of adolescence reflect the way this period is perceived in Western society. Two of the most widely discussed psychological models of adolescence—Jean Piaget’s cognitive stage of formal operations and Erikson’s view of the identity crisis—exemplify this Western orientation. Piaget’s model of the stages of cognitive development (beginning in infancy), in particular, has been studied cross-culturally; that is, researchers have explored whether the stages apply equally well to various cultures. It has been found that the stages do not universally occur in the order that Piaget suggested.

Rites of Passage

The idea of adolescence as a separate stage is relatively new. Before the mid-nineteenth century, in fact, a person was simply considered to pass from childhood to adulthood. Historically and in different cultures, various initiation rituals or rites of passage have marked this transition. For example, in contemporary American society, such a rite of passage is learning to drive. This event embodies some of the complexities of modern society in that learning to drive symbolizes a new autonomy, yet the adolescent is still dependent on a parent or parents: The parents usually own the first car the adolescent drives, pay the necessary insurance, and set restrictions such as curfews. Cultural values mediate the interaction between parents and adolescents during these milestones. In cultures emphasizing family harmony, collectivistic values, and family obligations, parents may view these milestones as times of increased responsibility for the adolescent and expect their contributions to the family to increase. However, in individualistic cultures that view adolescence as a time of growing independence and rebellion, rites of passage may indicate individual autonomy and signal the adolescent’s gradual emergence from family life into society.

Many tribal cultures have puberty rituals that reflect the way puberty is viewed in the culture. The Arapesh, a society in New Guinea, have a ceremony at a girl’s first menstruation in which a menstrual hut is built for her; she is rubbed with stinging nettles by the older women, and she fasts for a number of days. Among the Mano of Liberia, boys participated in a pubertal ceremony in which they underwent a symbolic death, complete with chicken’s blood, to make it seem as if a spear had punctured them. The Pueblo Indians’ traditional puberty ceremony for boys involves whipping, a largely ceremonial event in which no blood is drawn. During the initiation, children are supposed to be very frightened; they are not ashamed to cry aloud. Taking a psychoanalytical approach to the cross-cultural study of male initiation ceremonies, John Whiting, Richard Kluckholm, and Albert Anthony noted that, in some cultures, mother and newborn infant share a bed exclusively for a year or more after childbirth. They concluded that such societies are more likely to have a ceremony of transition from boyhood to manhood, with the ritual helping to sever the boy’s emotional bond with his mother. In various cultures, hazing, harsh endurance tests, and genital operations have all been performed in the name of initiation protocol.

Cultural attitudes and expectations of adolescence, as well as adolescent behaviors and skills, show both similarities and differences in different cultures. Much has been learned about this by studying the conflicts and difficulties experienced by adolescents of minorities and adolescents whose families have immigrated to the United States. These youths often have conflicting role models (or worse, no effective role models). The experiences of Asian American youths from Southeast Asia have been discussed by J. F. Nidorf. Living in the United States, the youth feels they must develop autonomy from parents to attain a personal identity and sense of worth. Yet the parents believe that the adolescent should remain “indefinitely in a position of mutual interdependence with family members” and that a sense of self-worth comes from subordinating one’s own needs and assuming greater responsibility for the needs of other family members. In other words, the adolescent hears that one should “become a success in the United States, but find a way to do it without becoming an American.” In another example, in traditional Chinese families, dating, as practiced in the United States, does (or did) not exist. As B. L. Sung puts it, in China, teenagers are kept “under wraps” until they are married; in the United States, they are “titillated.”

Adolescence in Israel

Among the cultures in which various aspects of childhood and adolescent development have been studied are Israel and Japan. The Israeli kibbutz is a collective settlement, either agricultural or industrial. The profits that are generated supply the members’ basic needs as well as medical and social services. Approaches to child rearing vary among kibbutzim; children are often reared as much by other supervising adults and by the community as a whole as by their biological parents. Traditionally, adults have their own living quarters, but children often live separately from their parents in special children’s housing (this is by no means true of all kibbutzim). Cooking and dining are communal activities.

Psychoanalyst Edith Buxbaum practiced in Israel in 1965–66 at Oranim, the child guidance clinic of the kibbutzim; she wrote of her experiences there in “Problems of Kibbutz Children” in Troubled Children in a Troubled World (1970). She noted that behavior considered to be delinquent was not usually reported as such, but that it occurred in connection with other symptoms. The peer group has a very strong influence on kibbutz adolescents (as on kibbutz children of all ages), in part because the children are together so much of the time. The peer group is as much a consistent factor in a child’s life as are the child’s parents; the group is together from infancy until graduation from high school. The group is a primary source of security as well as of rules and demands. From about the age of ten, children are often given work to do on the adult farm, and shirking one’s duty is looked on very unfavorably by the peer group.

Although adolescence in most cultures is a time of belonging to groups, they are most frequently voluntary groups. This is not true of kibbutz adolescents, Buxbaum points out, and she compares the general attitude of loyalty and helpfulness among teenagers there to that among students at institutions such as boarding schools. In most adolescent groups, the voluntary aspect gives the group much of its character; it leads to a sense of assertion and rebelliousness. This rebellious quality is largely missing from the kibbutz adolescent group; here, individual rebellion must be directed against the group itself. In its extreme cases, rebellion may cause an adolescent or young adult to leave the kibbutz altogether—often for a different kibbutz.

Possibly the biggest rite of passage for a person reared on a kibbutz occurs at the end, not the beginning, of adolescence. At the age of eighteen, both men and women leave the kibbutz temporarily to perform Israel’s compulsory military service. For some, this will be their first extensive experience with the “outside” world. Some who leave do not return, although leaving can involve challenges caused in part by a lack of preparedness for living outside the kibbutz. The purpose of kibbutz upbringing and education is primarily to help children reach their potential while preparing them for life on the kibbutz. It is not necessarily designed to promote success in the wider society, since the kibbutz prefers that young people return.

Adolescence in Japan

In Japan, only since the 1950s has the concept of an adolescent, or teenager, in the Western sense, become popular. Its arrival was largely attributed to Western, especially American, influences and an increase in affluence. Historically, a young person passed from childhood to adulthood. There is no real Japanese-language equivalent for the word “teenager.” High school students are commonly referred to as children (young people aged seven or eight through fourteen are called shōnen, and those fifteen to twenty-four are called seinen). The skepticism and questioning attitude toward society associated with late adolescence also exists in Japan, though typical Japanese adolescent rebellions pale in comparison with Western proportions and standards.

Japanese adolescents associate mostly with same-sex friends, tending to associate with people their own age (as opposed to spending time with their elders) much more than previous generations have. The changes wrought by technological advances have increased the importance of the nuclear family structure in Japan, although adolescents spend most of their time outside of school with their friends. The family’s primary demand on the adolescent is for academic achievement. Students spend several hours a day on homework. Values such as diligence, endurance, dedication, and the willingness and ability to choose a difficult task play important roles in education. Socialization is also very important in Japanese culture, generally much more so than in American society.

A 1984 study that looked at self-concept and gender role development in Japan concluded that major inequalities exist between girls’ and boys’ levels of self-esteem, which proved to be considerably lower in girls. An even greater discrepancy was found in gender roles, self-concepts, and perceived gender role norms. Girls are much more conditioned to conform to traditional gender role expectations. Educational institutions demand, either explicitly or implicitly, that students—especially girls—conform to traditional gender role stereotypes. In a 1989 study of Japanese and German students’ own perceptions of socialization and gender, it was noted that the Japanese students reported significantly more parental acceptance and parental control than their German counterparts. Traditional gender role orientations were also more apparent in Japanese students.

Psychology and Anthropology

The study of behavior in different cultures has traditionally been the province of anthropology and sociology rather than psychology. A few psychological theorists in the 1960s, however, did begin to question psychology’s nearly total reliance on Western cultural values for its models of normality and abnormality, noting, for example, the similarities between symptoms of “madness” and types of religious experiences such as shamanistic trances.

One of the first widely read works dealing with adolescence in a non-Western society was anthropologist Margaret Mead’s Coming of Age in Samoa (1928). Causing something of a sensation when it first appeared, the book described puberty and adolescence in a simple Pacific island culture (her study focused only on girls). Mead’s methodology and findings have since been reexamined and called into question by such researchers as Derek Freeman, who wrote a 1983 volume intended to “right the wrongs” committed by Mead and present a more accurate picture of traditional Samoan society. Nevertheless, her work, flawed though it may have been, was influential in focusing interest on other societies’ approaches to life stages and sexuality.

The study of adolescence in American society began in earnest in the 1950s, an era of postwar prosperity in which teenagers as a group had increasing visibility and mobility, attributable in part to the automobile. There was a growth of behavior labeled juvenile delinquency—illegal, antisocial behavior, including gang activity—that caused concern among sociologists, law enforcement agencies, and parents alike. The image of rebellious teenagers riding motorcycles and listening to rock and roll caught the public imagination and became the fodder for many motion pictures.

In many cultures, adolescence is a time of strong peer-group attachments. Moreover, cognitive abilities reach new levels of sophistication (Piaget’s “formal operations” stage). Therefore, as adolescents are being formally or informally initiated into the ways of adulthood, they are also able to question those ways; the types of questions asked, the satisfaction with traditional answers, and the levels of actual rebellion that occur vary across cultures and between individuals. Similarly, the skills and behaviors necessary for success in a society vary, depending on the society’s complexity and stratification. In technological societies, such as those in the United States and Japan, formal education is tremendously important. In all cultures, adolescence is a critical time for learning necessary life skills and discovering one’s ability to acquire them.

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