Blog 2

At the beginning of the reading from the textbook, I found myself asking questions. McGoldrick and Carter (2005) were posed at critics of Erikson’s theory, however I did not see it this way (and it is in my power to question real-life psychologists, of course). They said that our context influences the choices we make (Corey & Corey, 2008), which was meant to be a dig at Erikson’s general theory about life-stage conflicts. I politely disagree with the idea that these thoughts must be competing. I whole-heartedly feel that the people and places we surround ourselves with affect our decisions, but that plays into Erikson’s idea that we can either progress or regress in our lives based on the result of those decisions. For instance, if a girl fives into peer pressure to have sex when she is in high school, the result of that could either be feelings of degradation or a feeling of empowerment because she learned that making her own decisions will serve her in more productive ways in the future.

This leads into some thoughts I had on the Steinberg (2008) article. It is clear from the statistics presented that the educational programs intended to lower risk-taking in adolescence are not working, but I can also speak from personal experience on why they don’t work. I can remember being in high school and having the assemblies about the woman who got pregnant from foreplay, the videos about the man who lost his jaw from chewing tobacco, and the girl who had burns covering most of her body because her father was drunk driving and crashed into a Mac truck. But do you know what the students were doing during these showings? We were laughing at our health teacher’s outfit. We were writing notes about our boyfriends, and that weekend we were pouring liquor from our parent’s cabinets into water bottles (Okay, during that last one I was in bed with my dog reading, but someone was stealing alcohol). All the assemblies did for us was give us fodder for our jokes.

This risky behavior that I was somewhat taking part in was based mainly on peer pressure. It was funny to laugh at Mr. Groff (health teacher) because if I made a funny comment, people liked me more. These years of trying to fit in were very impactful on my self-concept that Erikson talks about (Corey & Corey, 2008, pg. 57). I made decisions that were probably hurtful to the people I was disrespecting (i.e. presenters at assemblies), but I eventually changed the context I was in so that I could make healthier decisions for myself and overcome crises in my life more appropriately.

Corey, G. , & Corey, M.S. (2008). I never knew I had a choice: Explorations in personal growth (9^th ed.). Belmont, California: Thompson Brooks/Cole. ISBN: 9780495602293.

Steinberg, L. (2008). A social neuroscience perspective on adolescent risk-taking. Developmental Review, 28, 78-106