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CABUYAO INTEGRATED NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
Senior High School Department
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Chapter 1
THE PROBLEM AND ITS BACKGROUND
Introduction
Adolescence is a developmental period in everyone’s life and it is a
transitional stage that ranges from childhood to the adulthood where they experience
various biological and psychological changes like the development of secondary
sexual characteristics, etc. Though the physical, psychological and cultural
expressions may begin earlier and end later the adolescence period generally
corresponds to the teenage years. It is the time of discovery and disorientation.
Erik Erikson, a psychoanalyst formulated the psychosocial stages of human
development that every individual has to go through from infancy to late adulthood
and in each stage an individual confronts and masters new challenges. The stages
have been divided into eight stages of psychosocial development. These stages are
hope, will, purpose, competence, fidelity, love, care and wisdom. In each stage an
individual faces with psychosocial crisis and successful achievement of each stage
lead to healthy and integrated personality. Failure in achievement of any stage leads
to reduced ability to complete subsequent stages and leads to unhealthy personality
and sense of self.
Erikson development of stages is such that each stage depends upon the
successful achievement of a previous stage by an individual and uncompleted
stages seems to arrive as a threat for the healthy development of an individual. In
eight stages of psychosocial development the fifth stage is corresponding to the
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CABUYAO INTEGRATED NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
Senior High School Department
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adolescent phase. McLeod, (2008) put forth that Erikson has greatly lay emphasis on
the adolescent phase; because he assume that it is a vital phase for developing an
individual identity in the society. In this stage the adolescents are faced with the
conflict of identity and role confusion in which they experience some identity crisis
and mixed feelings about the ways to fit into the society and may experiment with
behavior and thinking and strive to achieve self-chosen identity.
Erik Erikson proposed that adolescents gradually achieve a sense of identity
about them and move onto the next stage. During adolescence, along with the
biological changes the young adolescents’ report change in their relationship with
parents, peers, teachers, and others with whom they interact regularly. During this
time the parents and the peers influence the adolescents’ in the development of
identity. Kroger (1947) found that there is a positive correlation between
adolescents’ identity exploration and commitment to secure attachment and the type
of family interaction style.
In the period of adolescence, individuals are influenced by various factors in
life and among these peers play a vital function. Peer influence is present from birth
to death of an individual but it has a significant outcome during adolescence as
adolescents begin to rely less upon their parents and become more independent and
commence to spend most of their time with their friends. Berger and Rodkin (2011)
propose that peer groups are significant social context for shaping individual
attributes and behavior. A Peer group is defined as small social group of people with
similar age and interests that may bring about a change in the social orientation of
adolescents’, thereby shifting the adolescents’ focus from parents to the peers. As a
result they may experience peer pressure. Santor, Messervey and Kusumakar,
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CABUYAO INTEGRATED NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
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(2000) as cited in Esen (2012) define peer pressure as “group insistence and
encouragement for an individual to be involved in a group activity in a particular way”.
There can be direct or indirect peer pressure on adolescents. But a good
number of the adolescents are more influenced by the thoughts of their peers than
their actions. Maxwell (2002) suggests that observation of a friend involving in
various risk behaviours predict the high possibility of adolescents indulging in similar
kind of behaviour in future.
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CABUYAO INTEGRATED NATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL
Senior High School Department
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Background of the Study
The phenomenological approach allows us to
