Cultural Images and Adolescent Behavior Essay -- Essays Papers

Cultural Images and Adolescent BehaviorTeenagers seek to designate themselves through their clothing, jargon, experiences, hairstyles, and, most of all, group associations. In all, this experimentation suggests that the adolescent attempts to secern himself/herself through externalrather than intrinsicstimuli. Accordingly, images from toss offular culture a great deal provide the external basis from which teenagers will benchmark their thoughts, opinions and associations. Indeed, adolescents will work on their identities largely in conformance with these pop culture images. They perceive much(prenominal) images as the cordial norm and, thus, as a means to acquire the social sufferance that is so vital to their personal maturation.Furthermore, such pop cultural figures as P. Diddy, Britney Spears and Jennifer Lopez create intangible brands that help establish these norms. not only does each celebrity market tangible brands through their variant products and clothing lin es, but each also enjoys a social acceptance that extends well beyond the sales revenue of their charge-emblazoned products. The celebrities themselves constitute, in fact, their own name brands. Indeed, they can sell magazines, capture massive audiences and have a substantive fan following based solely upon their individual popularity.When people harmonize themselves with a particular brand or branded image, they immediately collide with a new identity that is in some senses, confined to the social viewpoints of that brand. Teenagers exemplify this phenomenon. When they wear an article of clothing that says GAP or learn to music by Eminem, they are creating a brand of themselves. But do brand images presented in popular culture really create social norms that affect how teenager... ... & Saltzman, J. & Leary, M. (2003, April). Social approval and trait self-esteem, 23-40. The Journal f look into in Psychology, 37, 2.Miller, L. (2003, August). The little book of soci al theories, 49 -50. Rushkoff, D. (1999). Coercion why we listen to what they say. New York Riverhead Books.Sewell, R. (2003, August). The pressure to be perfect. Scripps Howard News Service. Retrieved October 1, 2003 from Lexis-Nexis database.Zgourides, G. & Zgourides, C (2000). Cliffsquickreview sociology. value City IDG Books Worldwide. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 Members of a group where the leader personifies the ultimate goal and the members toil is to journey up the pyramid of commitment and devotion in baseball club to move closer to the idealized but unattainable goal (Rushkoff, D., 2000).