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Teens Define Themselves in Terms of Positive Traits, Adults More by Social Roles
- agumonkey 7y agoIt seems in all history roles were a foundational concepts. Can social groups build on traits alone ?
- inawarminister 7y agoIt's more likely for traits to get imprinted in roles, for example priesthoods (shamans), excluded "dirty" social groups (Dalit, burakumin, European Gypsies), and nobles. But these are all big societies. Perhaps early society, or small enough social groups, can have non-explicit assigned roles and can remember/recognise each other's traits. So who are brave, who are smart/knowledgeable, who are ambitious, who are hardworking, who cheats/lie/snitch to other groups etc.. I think I just described schoolchildren and prison inmates.
- parentheses 7y agoMy experience aligns with this. It makes total sense too. When we were young, much of our focus was on the "me", so we define the self using language oriented that way. As we grow collaboration, relationships, etc. become more important and even the focus of our lives. Late bloomers also are late to this shift in my experience. The differences between girls and boys is especially interesting and does make sense. I wonder hows much is nature vs nurture. Anyone have insightful papers on this subject?
- dmos62 7y agoWell a teen today doesn't have a social role, except as a vehicle for future potential, to put it dryly. My grandfather took care of domestic animals while they were grazing (not sure what that's called) before he was 10, so economically that's a different world to what I was doing when I was that age. So a teen today can't really define himself in terms of social roles. We also have a culture of performance-based social-worth, so kids will be openly evaluated "you're good at riding that bike" or "throwing that ball" or "doing schoolwork", and the child's inner dialogue will be like that as well: "Joe is better at this competitive thing", "I am better at this", etc. The only thing that kind of baffles me is that the article says that teenagers mostly define themselves in positive traits, as if it's implied that they're being honest: it's quite counter-cultural to bad mouth yourself. I dispute that we have a significant bias toward defining the self positively, examples are too banal to list.
- NikkiA 7y ago> My grandfather took care of domestic animals while they were grazing (not sure what that's called) before he was 10 'husbandry' probably.
- maxerickson 7y agoHerding.
- kosievdmerwe 7y agoNope "shepherd" (EDIT: shepherding is only for sheep, herding is the general term via maxerikson). I've never seen husbandry used for individuals, shepherding however is a part of animal husbandry.
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoHerdsman or stockman and there's an old English name that completely eludes me at the moment. Then also the species variations of shepherd: goatherd, swineherd and cowherd. Edit: Most herdsmen in the UK had their own number system - 123: yan, tan, teddera etc. I wonder if that's the case elsewhere.
- ipsi 7y agoIt looks like it was a slightly different system in various regions of the UK: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Tan_Tethera https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yan_Tan_Tethera
- NeedMoreTea 7y agoWow, I knew it varied widely across the country, but not between places only a dozen miles apart. Nor that it tracks back 1,500 years or more - which presumably explains the many variations!
- captainredbeard 7y ago
- iamwil 7y agoI thought teenagers defined themselves in terms of their music tastes.
- jandrese 7y agoOr arbitrary social conventions? Jock, nerd, goth, rebel, etc... in Breakfast Club style.
- SomeOldThrow 7y agoThat had certainly died by the time I got to high school in 2003. That movie is definitely a trip to watch now!
- bilbo0s 7y agoThere's no such thing as jock, nerd, goth, rebel etc anymore. Today's teens are actually pretty different than the generations that came before. Some things don't change though. There is still such a thing as asshole and douchebag.
- SomeOldThrow 7y agoYea, this is also how I remember being a teenager.
- abledon 7y agonowadays its mostly fortnite skins
- badpun 7y agoI laughed, but the grunge/rap/metal/hippie "skins" of my youth were basically just as shallow.
- booleandilemma 7y agoAt one time it was Winamp skins.
- supernova87a 7y agoWell, duh of course they do -- teenagers ain't done jack squat in life yet, what else are they going to define themselves in terms of?
- asveikau 7y agoProbably some teenagers have done important things. I don't expect them to have a long list of accomplishments (or even the same is true of most adults), but I am also not going to denigrate or take away from their experience with phrasing like "ain't done jack squat". Seems unnecessarily angry, and like a put-down.
- klysm 7y agoHaving research for the ‘well duhs’ is quite valuable
- tuesdayrain 7y agoIm surprised that "defining yourself" is even a thing that so many people seem to care about. It seems pretty unnecessary. I'm just ..me. If I was required to give a description of myself for some hypothetical reason then whether that description includes social roles, personality traits, or whatever would depend on the reason I'm being asked.
- Falling3 7y ago> It seems pretty unnecessary. Most of the things we spend most of our time on are, strictly speaking, unnecessary.
- qball 7y agoOf course, the fact that we make sure that they don't do anything, and discriminate against them when they try to break that expectation, has absolutely nothing to do with that.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- superkuh 7y agoAdults sink most of their lives into work and raising children. There's not much time for hobbies to define them, relatively. So they define themselves by their work.
- sporkologist 7y agoIn other news, 5 year olds define themselves in terms of how much they love their mommies.