Teenagers Look Forward to Finish Studies and Quit Home

By Priya Devi

Monday, June 21, 2010, 17:08

The primary goal of teenagers now is to finish their academic studies and leave home to enjoy their liberty. This was studied by two researchers from the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC).

The study further explained about teenagers' relationship between goal settings and antisocial behaviour .

The most antisocial aspect is that teenagers give more importance on popularity with others.

Here is Laura Lopez Romero, co-author of the study with Estrella Romero and a researcher at the USC quoted both on goals and antisocial behaviour.

"The goals that teenagers place most importance on are to do with leaving home, work and education, in other words they are related to finishing their studies and academic achievements."

"Antisocial goals are to deceive, steal or bypass rules and laws, but not as a means to an end, rather as an end in themselves. In other words, taking part in this kind of behaviour is a goal in itself for adolescents, because it allows them to achieve social recognition and to establish an identity and antisocial reputation, which gives them a certain level of popularity with others."

In this research the main aim was to study how teenagers goals were organized and the relationship between those goals and antisocial behaviour.

So the test was done on 488 participants, aged ranging between 12 and 18, at six public schools in Galicia which was based on questionnaires. In this, the participants have to place their prior goals first with a scale of six options.

"Then we analyzed the young people's involvement in antisocial behaviour," the expert pointed out.
Again the researchers did a survey on the gender role relationship between goals and antisocial behaviour. They interviewed the participants out of which 233 were boys and 254 were girls.

"We observed very classic differences between the two groups. The girls placed more importance on goals related to education and interpersonal-family aspects, while the boys set targets that were more antisocial or related to sporting achievements", explained Lopez Romero.

The result was that the only similarity between girls and boys was their goal of leaving home.

"Both groups were the same in terms of their aspirations about gaining autonomy and freedom," said the expert.
This study was published in the Spanish Journal of Psychology.