Will my kid choose to do the right thing and recycle?

By: Catherine Blanchard

Olimpia Zagnoli

When it comes to adolescents, we can often worry about the decisions they are making. Their autonomy is developing in new and exciting ways, but this brings risk and uncertainty for those responsible for the adolescent. One of the biggest worries for parents is whether or not their child will make morally upright decisions. Lucky for us, Tobias Krettenauer at Wilfred Laurier University researched how adolescents’ morality develops in the context of environmental decisions (2017). By looking at and understanding his findings, we can better understand how adolescents approach these specific decisions, apply these findings to other moral decisions adolescents have to make, and thus take some of the mystery out of the mysterious moral musings of minors.

            So, why exactly was Krettenauer trying to research the moral development of adolescents surrounding the environment? For starters, there wasn’t much research about it to begin with! Previously people had studied how adolescents generally approached the topic of environmental concerns, but there wasn’t much information about the differences that occurred as adolescents developed their moral decision-making abilities (2017). Knowing this, Krettenauer got his crew together and preformed a cross-sectional study which gathered 325 Canadian adolescents who ranged from early adolescents to late adolescents and asked them a series of environmental questions. These questions were aimed at having the adolescent engage in imaginative scenarios, some involving their own family and others involving a hypothetical family, and then express their feelings towards these scenarios (2017). With these questions, Krettenauer and his crew were measuring their emotional responses to the scenarios, their moral judgements concerning them, their overall appreciation for nature, and the active steps they would take in engaging in behavior that would benefit the environment (2017). What is interesting about their measurements is that they captured, not only the adolescents’ thoughts and feelings about engaging in pro-environmental behavior, but also their willingness and likelihood to put their money where their mouth is and engage in these behaviors. Now, Krettenauer found that as adolescents aged, they were more likely to fall off the environmental band-wagon. The reason why, ironically enough, was because they saw it as a band-wagon or, in other words, just a social convention that wasn’t actually obligatory. Another reason, Krettenauer found, that caused this dip off in late adolescents was a decrease in appreciation for nature (2017). All that being said, Krettenauer’s research with Canadian adolescents and their feelings towards the environment can tell us a lot about the moral developments of adolescents in general.

            I’ll circle back around to that daunting question all parents ask themselves: Will my child do the right thing? If you’re looking at Krettenauer’s results and feeling hopeless, don’t be! If the reason the adolescents break moral obligations is that they only see them as social conventions, then the solution is written in the problem. As a parent, you can help your adolescent understand that some things aren’t merely social conventions. So, fear not and have hope that they’ll make good decisions!

References

Krettenauer, T. (2017). Pro-environmental behavior and adolescent moral development. Journal of Research on Adolescence (Wiley-Blackwell), 27(3), 581–593. doi: 10.1111/jora.12300

Zagnoli O. (Photographer). (2015, Feb 27). n.d. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/opinion/sunday/is-the-environment-a-moral-cause.html

How your Parents Influenced your Identity

By: Hunter Doiron

            In my angsty adolescence, I would have never admitted that my parents were somehow affecting my own identity. I had found my own friends, listened to my own music, did my own schoolwork, etc., and so I would have told you that I was controlling my own identity for myself.

            Even though I was learning to form my own self-image and act true to myself, research has found that there is a link between one’s family security and satisfaction of psychological needs to one’s true self behavior as an adolescence (Goldner and Berenshtein-Dagan, 2016). This particular study began by hypothesizing that there was indeed a connection between high levels of family security and emotional fulfillment with higher levels of an adolescent experiencing both true-self knowledge and behavior (Goldner and Berenshtein-Dagan, 2016). They gave questionnaires to 302 total Israeli adolescents that asked both about their family life, such as marital status of their parents and meeting emotional needs from family, along with questions pertaining to how they viewed their true-self (Goldner and Berenshtein-Dagan, 2016). The researchers did find that their hypothesis was correct which means that even though I wanted to follow my own path to finding my identity, I should be giving credit to my parents for giving me a secure and stable home life along with allowing me to experience emotional satisfaction whenever necessary.

            Me graduating high school thinking that I was forming my own identity by myself, but now I look back and see that my parents were right there behind me always helping me discover my true-self potential.

 

            The researchers say their goal was, “to shed light on the construct of the true self during early and middle adolescence by exploring the contribution of security within the family and satisfaction of basic psychological needs to these adolescents’ true-self behavior” (Goldner and Berenshtein-Dagan, 2016). Similarly, my goal in this blog is to share their findings so that you reading this can look back on your adolescent days and see where maybe your parents actually did help you find your identity or even where you still wish they would have done better. Regardless, most of us will be parents one day ourselves, or maybe you’re already one, so by having a solid understanding of a parent’s role in helping their children discover themselves, we can all better strive to fulfill that crucial component of our potential or actual children’s lives.

I’m sure if I ever have kids they will hang out with their own friends, listen to their own music, and do their own school work, but that won’t ever stop me from doing my best to give them the safe and secure environment they deserve to foster their own true-self image and behavior just like my parents did for me.

References

Goldner, L., & Berenshtein-Dagan, T. (2016). Adolescents’ true-self behavior and

adjustment: The role of family security and satisfaction of basic psychological needs. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly (1982-), 62(1), 48–73. https://doi.org/10.13110/merrpalmquar1982.62.1.0048

Writer's Guidelines

The purpose of this blog is to provide readers with credible, accurate, and reliable information about adolescent development and to help others better understand this dynamic period of development. 

Topics: We welcome posts on psychosocial issues and contexts that impact adolescent development.

Audience: Our blog is intended to be helpful for non-experts, such as parents and other adults who work closely with adolescents, including foster parents, adoptive parents, and grandparents raising grandchildren.

Post types include:

• “Quickie” - 75-100 word summary of a very recent (last 2 years) empirical article.
• “Research Spotlight” - 400-500 word summary of a recent (last 5 years) empirical article.
• “Adolescents in Pop Culture” - 400-500 word examination of a fictitious or real adolescent portrayed in the media (series or movie) using multiple research articles.
• “Fact Checker” - 400-500 word examination of a claim you find in the media. Think of this as “I read/heard that _____, but in reality the research says _____”.
• “Hot Topic” - 400-500 word review of a particular research area that summarize findings from a handful of articles (e.g., “Top 10 reasons for _____” or “A Step by Step Guide for _____”).
• “Q&A” - Post an interesting question about adolescent development, then provide a 400-500 word answer backed up by research. This can take the form of an advice column (i.e., write a fictional “Dear Researcher” letter to then respond to).

Research:  Posts are based on peer-reviewed, empirical research.

Documentation:  Posts use APA-style for in-text citations and references.

About this Blog

This blog was created to provide a place to showcase evidence of significant learning by students in PSYC 3320 Psychology of Adolescence. 

I invite you to read and comment on the posts published in this blog and to contemplate how you might use the research reported in the blog to better understand adolescent development.