Hurlbert 1

Calvin Hurlbert
RWW 9, Class 8
Ms. Bartz
April 18, 2016
Friends Influencing Identity
As a high school student, teenagers spend most of their day around their friends.
Because teens are spending most of their life as a high school student around their
friends, they start to act like them just to fit in. Some people say that everybody is an
individual and are completely unique so people cant act like their friends, and thats
partly true, but people subconsciously start to act similarly to everyone they hang
around. Therefore, the biggest contributor to ones identity is how friends they spend
time around act.
Because of this tendency for people to act like their friends, Valerie Ulene, a
psychologist at the University of Oregon, said A study published in February in the
Journal of Early Adolescence showed that friendships can also make the difference
between good and bad grades at school. So, if student get a better influence from their
friends, they tend to get better grades. Her colleagues also surveyed over 1,200 middle
school students and asked them to identify their three best friends. They said Students
whose friends were prone to misbehave didn't do as well in school as kids whose
friends were socially active in positive ways, such as participating in sports at school or
completing their homework on time. If kids have a bad influence, then it can lead to a
lower fitness level because they arent participating in any sports. Not only do their
friends help their identity blossom, they help keep them in extracurricular activities.

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Another thing about teenagers friends influencing them is that according to
Valerie Ulene, who said The good news is that adolescence doesn't last forever. Kids
are most susceptible to their peers' influence during middle school, around the age of 13
or 14. By high school, there's already a dramatic shift in the way their brains are
working, and the sway that other kids hold over them isn't nearly as strong. So once
teens are into their early to mid 20s, they arent influenced as much by their friends, so
if they grew up around bad people, they can strive to be a better person when theyre
older if they want. Also, their parents may have raised them well, just their friends had a
bad influence on them so that they acted more like their friends.
While is may seem like family is the biggest contributing factor to identity
because most everybody has lived with them all of their life, it is not because most
everybody is spending most of their time with their friends during their teenage years
which is the time period where people developing most and are able to absorb the
culture around them. Because this is the development stage and the time period where
teenagers are absorbing the culture the most, they will act more like their friends, which
are the biggest influence on teens identity.
Ones identity is the shaped the most as a teenager by their friends because it is
the developmental stage of life. Someones family may influence them, but most
teenagers dont really want to end up exactly like their parents, but most teens
subconsciously see their friends as a sort of role model. Therefore, people start to act
like whoever they are around when theyre growing, bad or good, so the people they
hang around can choose the path they go down.

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Works Cited
Valerie Ulene. "A Teen's Friends Are a Powerful Influence." Los Angeles Times. N.p.,
11 Apr. 2011. Web. 14 Apr. 2016.