Nervous Habits
At puberty there is likely to be an increase in nail-biting. This nervous ehavior decreases as the adolescent, becomes more conscious of his appearance. Substitutes, such as finger tapping, hair twisting, or igarette smoking, arise. Nervousness in girls may take the form of siggling or overreacting to mild stimuli; such behavior usually lessens after puberty. Boys tend to display exaggerated behavior in such acts as "burning rubber off the tires."
The nervous habits of adolescent college students have been rudied extensively, One may conclude that worries, shifts in mood, and the more acceptable emotional feelings take over from earlier ','ert emotional expressions. The college freshman must deal not only with old nervous habits, such as nail-biting, but habits of thought as ell. Moods of exhilaration and depression alternate, varying with evironmental influences (the big weekend versus examination peri).
Research indicates that increased emotionality, and the many bits which are displayed during adolescence are attributable mainto social factors. Chief among these are unfavorable family relanships, restraints imposed by parents, and situations in which the dividual feels inadequate and where expectations of mature behavior exceed actual performance. For the college freshman, coming to derstand and learning to cope with a new psychological climate is -pecially difficult. Once he or she learns more about "the system," :rvousness decreases considerably.
