Social Groupings
The group affiliations of late childhood gradually break up during the preadolescent period. The need for belonging to a group becomes more important during adolescence. The close parent-child relationship, which served as a source of security for the child, becomes strained during the transition to adolescence. The possibilities of groupings are many: kinships, friends, neighbors, classmates, and special-interest peer groups of various sorts.
Groups may be charted in three ways. First, groups are charac.erized by rules of behavior accepted by a majority of the group. This group norm spells out the attitudes and actions expected of members. Second, in voluntary groups cohesiveness is important. Here one sees :he group's policing power over its members. The greater the cohesiveness of a group, the greater is the amount of conformity to its norms. A nonvoluntary group (for example, an Army reserve unit), i.e., one which persons are forced to join, may have absolute power. Third, control over members involves a monitoring system, under which deviant behavior may be punished.
There are three characteristic::, of group membership: (l) the rank status in the group; (2) the degree to which the new member values membership in the group, membership being valued more highly when it is difficult to get into the group; (3) the influence of the perceived legitimacy of the group norm, Le., the impa~nhat norm will have upon a new member.
There are marked individual ditferences as to how people fit (or fail to fit) in a group.Many of the problems of the social behavior of adolescents can be understood by seeing where each person fits into a group. Peer group clusters have been studied extensively. In many respects investigation of groupings reveals the nature of adolescent social needs.
