Parental and Peer Influence on Adolescents and Young Adults

Nature is from the genetic traits passed down onto an individual hereditarily by the parents whereas nurture is as a result of environmental influences from those around us like our peers. Nature and nurture both play a crucial role in shaping an individual and to a large extent, the lives of adolescents and young adults are shaped by parental as well as peer influences. According to Albert Bandura in his social learning theory, people learn behavior through observational learning (Rosenthal, & Zimmerman, 2014).   Children are usually surrounded by influential individuals they consider to be models such as the parents at home, their teachers in school and peer group. Through observing these models, children learn and imitate what they see and hear. Bandura proposed four processes of mediation.

First is attention, for a behavior to be imitated, it has to come to our attention. Second is retention, there has to be memory for one to be able to remember the behavior after seeing it because social learning is not instant or immediate (Rosenthal, & Zimmerman, 2014).  After that, there is reproduction which is the ability to do what it is the model demonstrated. Finally, the last step is motivation, this is usually the will one has to perform the behavior. The next stage, we find that children now come into contact with their peers. This is the Industry versus inferiority stage which is at the ages of 6 to 12 where children begin to compare themselves with their peers (Batra, 2013). If they measure to their peers, they feel a sense of accomplishment but feel inferior if they do not measure up to their peers.