- Providing Primary Status:
An individual earns this through his own efforts with the demonstration of his abilities and skills. It differs from attributed status, which comes from being a member of a given family. Peer group help the adolescent form a self image by granting a primary status.
- Providing norms for governing behaviour:
As peer groups establish their own norms and standards of behaviour, the adolescent is able to deviate from parental norms while having their support.
This support is particularly important to the adolescents because of initial confusion. They experience when confronted with the values, life styles and vocations that comprise a society. Peer group norms are designed to provide both guidelines for behaviour and a source of common evaluation for appraising activities.
- Facilitating emancipation from the family:
Healthy family relationships more naturally and normally leads to adolescents’ independence. Peer group builds on this trend- because of intensity of relationships in the modern nuclear family- it serves as a ‘distancing’ function between parents and adolescents.It helps the parents to see the adolescent as an independent individual. Furthermore the adolescent begins to understand both the satisfaction and pain of relating to others in an independent, adult fashion.
- The peer group as a testing ground:
Allows adolescent to test themselves in a variety of roles. They can test abilities, emotions, feelings, values and life styles within and empathic group.
By observing and talking about how peers react to an adolescent’s way of thinking / behaving he further refine his self concept and range of behaviours.
- Peers provide partners for practicing existing social skills and trying out new ones.
When adolescents interact with their peers, they acquire skills in perspective taking, persuasion, negotiation, compromise and emotional control.
- Peers socialize with one another:
Children and adolescents socialize with one another in several ways. They define options for leisure time getting together in a study room. They offer new ideas and perspective perhaps demonstrating how to do. They serve as role models and provide standards for acceptable behaviour, showing what is possible, what is admirable, what is cool. They reinforce one another for acting in ways deemed approximate for their age, gender, ethnic group and cultural background.
- Peers contribute a sense of identity:
Association with a particular group of peers helps adolescents to decide who they are and who they want to become. They compare themselves with peers and observe how their own characteristics (ex. Physical characteristics, athletic powers, school achievements etc) are unique. As a result they look inwards at their own characteristics, rather than outward at their peers.
- Peers help one another make sense of their lives:
Peers help in sorting the issues which are confusing, ambiguous and troubling events. By sharing, criticizing one other’s ideas, perspectives, beliefs and values, adolescents construct increasingly complex perspective understanding the world around them.
- Peers provide emotional and social support: adolescents often seek comfort from peers when they are anxious or upset.
Participants