Variability of Adolescent Experience between Cultures - Essay Example

Does the adolescent experience vary between cultures Since the birth of this world people have devised a set of rules which they follow. These set of rules can also be known as culture. People in this world have different cultures in which they live in. Research has proved that culture plays an important role in developing the personality of one. Due to the changes in culture through out the world there is found a difference in the perspective and thoughts of an individual. People belonging to the West have a totally different perspective than the people belonging to the Middle East or Asia. And culture plays an important role in carving and forming the personality of one individual. Due to the cultural changes it is seen that the adolescents belonging to Turkey have a different personality than that of the adolescents belonging to the United Kingdom. This article would further review the role of culture in modifying and making up the personality of one individual in the United Kingdom and Turkey. According to Marcia, family relations and the perspective of the family plays an important role in the development of the personality of one individual (Conger & Galambos, 1997). The relationship between parents and the adolescents plays a very deep role in the character development of the adolescents. To confirm the effect of culture, relationships and the style of living help in the development of the identity of the individual (Adams & Jones, 1983; Grotevant & Cooper, 1985; Matos, Barbosa, Almeida, & Costa, 1999; Meeus, Oosterwegel, & Vollebergh, 2002; Samuolis, Layburn, & Schiaffino, 2001; Weinmann & Newcombe, 1990). Research conducted by many people has clearly illustrated that the parent's personality and views have an effect on the identity that the adolescent adopts. O'Connor (1995) observed that the moral support of parents act as a strong help for the male and female children to recognize and strengthen their individual identity. Adams and Jones (1983) stated that female adolescents try to act like their mothers in order to get the same individual habits their mothers have. Mothers act as their first role model. Adams' (1985) study clearly shows that more friendly strong and pleasant relationship and behavior of parents, towards the female adolescents, leads to a faster move towards their personality development. Kamptner (1988) also emphasizes on independence and tenderness of the adolescents to help them building up their confidence and individual identity. All these findings lead to a common result that the way of nurturing and the interest of parents in their children provide the children with support to build up their personality and individual vision to see and observe things. Parents play a magnificent role in the development and exploration of the children's skills. The child-parent relationship is the strongest relationship and must be handled carefully. Then negligence from parents may ruin the future of the child. Parents are responsible to teach the adolescents about their culture, relationships, manners, customs etc. Style of nurture and relationship between parent and child vary from culture to culture, this leads to a change in each cultures adolescents. The way of thinking, viewpoint and problems of adolescents, also depend on the culture to which they belong. The cross-culture study by Taylor and Oskay (1995) exposed that American parents are less controlling than those of Turkey. It has been observed that Turkish parents are much strict and firm regarding their cultural and moral values. Their firmness leads the Turkish adolescents to a much improved and self-motivated personalities than other culture's adolescents. Most of the Turkish families are traditional although differences are being observed among different regions. The social environment of the family system of Turkey is based on group activities, devotion and interdependence in place of self-rule and egoism (Okman-Fisek, 1982). In spite of the regional disagreements and changes of thoughts, respect is still extremely valued feature of Turkish culture (Kagitcibasi, 1996). Much of the adolescents' population belonging to Turkish culture live with their parents because Turkish parents provide their children with mental needs (like dependency) for more years as compared to the American adolescents. Even above the age of 18 (i.e. 60.9% of the total population) live with their parents and this condition is considered as usual (Gulerce, 1996). Mocan-Aydin (2000) also props up this observation and declares that emotional dependency is usually encouraged and is apparent as "the manifestation of being a good son or daughter who respects and cares for the elders of the family" (p. 284). Most of the families expect their children to take care of them when they are old and dependent on their children for their necessities. This approach may be spotting to build up mutual and communal values in the adolescents in place of individualistic accomplishments (Kagitcibasi, 1982). There is a vast space to investigate about the differences between the attitudes of male and female adolescents during the process of identity development. There are some points of controversy when analyzing the gender differences regarding the ego identity status which generally accounted that more female adolescent were in achievement status than the male adolescents (Cramer, 2000; Forbes & Aston, 1998; Meeus, 1996). But gender does not alone play a central role in the identity development of adolescents. This point has been examined by the study of Kroger (1997), who stated that men and women were parallel in terms of identifying their individuality and did not demonstrate any particular difference in the procedure of developing the identity status. The examination of Turkish culture regarding the gender studies gives many different observations. Eryuksel (1987) examined that no gender differences in the university students are found. According to this observation, they are equally treated and their mental abilities and psychological requirements are evenly fulfilled. In contrast, Varan (1990) examined that the ego identity status varies between male and female adolescent. He studied and concluded that the gender has an impact on the adolescents' ego identity status. This impact varies as the age, region and socioeconomic status of the adolescent vary. Turkish families prefer the needs and requirements of male adolescents over the female. A usual discrimination exists in the Turkish families as well as many other cultures in the world. They have a typical concept that male adolescents should be treated more properly as their culture percepts the sons as the main source of future financial support and security (Kagitcibasi, 1982; Okman-Fisek, 1982). This concept in Turkish families' mind makes an image of different views parents have in their mind regarding the future of their male and female adolescents. This discrimination upsets the identity development of male and female adolescents. Turkish families attach their children to themselves and they provide them with an environment where they are able to interact with the people of their culture. Turkish people give importance to their old traditions and follow them. They give complete information about their culture to their children since their childhood. Turkish families develop a self confidence in their adolescent so that their explorations skills could be refined. Exploration refers to an individual's effort to search for and try out the alternative prospect in his/her social environment. Okman-Fisek (1982) stated that "increased democratization in discipline among middle-class parents was not accompanied by increased training for autonomy, in contrast to Western studies, in which the two child-rearing attitudes have been generally found to co-vary" (p. 302). In simple words, although Turkish parents show equally acceptance/involvement and control/supervision, they promote dependence in their children by limiting their self-reliance and self-direction. This may be judged as a culturally customized approach of authoritative parenting or soft-authoritarian parenting. Our observation also recommends that adolescents who alleged their parents as lenient were more foreclosed than individuals who perceived their parents as negligent. This judgment verifies the analysis that if parents do not succeed to control their children and, simultaneously, ignore them, this would pessimistically influence identity structure of the adolescents. In Turkish culture, male adolescents are supposed as the future hope of the family; therefore, more responsibilities may be forced on males to confirm that they will take care of their parents when they grow to be old. This view is sustained by research done by Kagitcibasi (1981, 1983, and 2000) who accounted that 79 percent of Turkish parents expected their sons to respect and care for their family elders. Further, 60% of the parents wish for their children, particularly the sons, to be accommodating, while only 18.5% favored them to be self-determining. Surrounded by such a family atmosphere, it is not unexpected that the sons internalize more principles of the family and turn out to be more foreclosed. As a result, we think that our research on Turkish culture reconfirms the significance of familial determinants in adolescents' identity growth. Especially, the result maintains the view that parental attitudes slow down or enhance identity status of adolescents. While on the other hand there is a completely different culture which is being followed in the United Kingdom. And this culture adopted by the parents and people in UK has an effect on the identity of the adolescents. Adolescents which belong to some other ethnicity but are born in the UK have differing perspectives. For example adolescents whose parents belong to Turkey but presently are living in the UK. These adolescents go through a great change in their personality as some can bare the changes of the environment while some cannot. The style of parenting has been classified in many words. Altogether it can be said that there are four stances adopted by the parents. Authoritative parenting is the one in which parents have strict rules which their children should follow. They let their children do things but also restrict them from doing stuff which the parents don't like. Neglectful parents are the ones who do not pay enough attention to their children and let them do whatever they want to. Authoritarian parents are the ones who do not let their children do anything out of limits and prefer keeping their children dependent on them. While parents who possess a permissive stance let their children do anything according to their needs and do not control them if they go out of bounds (Kimmel & Weiner, 1985; Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg, & Dornbusch, 1991). Two most common kinds of parents found in the United Kingdom are neglectful parents and authoritative parents. Adolescents who belong to Turkey but are born and bread in the UK sometimes go through the situation of emotional distress as well. This is because their parents belong to Turkey and thus have the views of people like Turkey (Gibbons 2000). While the adolescents are born in the UK and thus have adapted to the culture of the people who live in the UK. This culture adopted by the adolescents is not acceptable to the parents and this leads to many fights in the family. It can also lead to many psychological problems in the adolescents. This is a cause of depression in the adolescents and thus a change in their identity formation. Another group of adolescents who belong to some other country or culture are able to adopt the conditions and rules laid down by their parents. This group adopts the identity as that of their parents and does not look forward to achieve their own goals and aims. However the majority of parents in the UK have a neglectful behavior towards their children. And this behavior leads to the identity foreclosure of the adolescents there. Parents who have a neglectful behavior do not demand anything of their children and permit them to do whatever they want to. This is a cause of identity foreclosure in the adolescents of the UK (Coleman 1997). This is found to be very common in the United Kingdom among the adolescents. And this neglectful behavior by parents has adverse effects on the actions of adolescents. At times it leads the adolescents to involve in the activities of sex, drinking and smoking. These adolescents further face the problem of choosing their path correctly in the future. However the culture of the Middle East and Asian countries is very different than that of the Great Britain. This culture heavily effects the actions and the identity of the people. The adolescents who are of a Britain origin, born and bread there have different perspectives than that of the adolescents belonging to Middle East or Asian countries. The adolescents in the Britain are more vulnerable to get independent than to support their parents in their future life. This is not because of the identity formation or foreclosure in the adolescents but is because of the culture which has prevailed in the United Kingdom. Adolescents after the age of eighteen tend to be independent and at times the parents also prefer their children to get independent as soon as they can (MORAN, P., FORD, T., BUTLER, G., & GOODMAN, R. 2008). The culture in the United Kingdom does not support parents who are of an authoritative nature and thus we can find quite a less number of parents with the nature of being authoritative in the UK. Adolescents in the United Kingdom also do not prefer living with the parents who do not allow them to live according to their will. In the UK the parenting is different than that of Asian and Middle East countries. This is because of the difference in cultures between the countries of West and Middle East. However there can also be found many parents in the West which help their children to reach a height where they can form their identity perfectly. These parents encourage their children towards their own goal and advice them in different situations. These parents are quite successful in forming the personality of their children. Research has shown that there is no difference between the treatment of the girls and boys in the UK. The effect of culture in the people of UK is a main factor of this treatment. The culture of UK encourages the parents to rely on their daughters too but like other countries too some daughters are not allowed to interact with the opposite gender. But this kind of treatment is not common in the United Kingdom. However research has proved that both the genders are treated equally and fairly by the parents in the British society. This has lead to the equal identity formation of the girls like the boys. Conclusion: This article reviewed the gap between the cultures and traditions of different societies. It showed that culture plays a great role in identifying the personality of one individual. The perspective and culture of British varies than that of the Turkey. And this article shows that the culture difference plays a role in the development of one individual. Girls in the Britain face a different culture than that of Turkey and thus possess a different identity. The article shows that the style of parenting also lays a platform in the development of the personality of one individual. While the stance which the parents adopt towards their children is also due to the culture they belong to. For e.g. Parents belonging to Turkey adopt a more authoritative, authoritarian and permissive attitude while the British culture favors parents of permissive and authoritarian attitude. This shows that culture has a deep effect on the parenting attitudes too. 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