Conflicting Group Membership: A Study of Parent-Peer Group Cross-Pressures

Abstract

M t MULTIPLE group membership, particularly in heterogeneous societies, often carries with it the possibility that the individual will belong to groups with mutually conflicting normative systems.' Since each group seeks to transmit and enforce its own particular norms and values, the individual whose membership groups conflict is likely to be caught between the cross-pressures of contradictory group expectations and role prescriptions. This paper is a study of the influence of two membership groups on the attitude of a group of adolescents, many of whom find themselves in a cross-pressure situation. The membership groups with which we are here concerned are among the most important to which the adolescent belongs: the family, his first membership group and one which plays an important role in the socialization process; and the peer group, the group in which the adolescent in particular finds many of his gratifications. Both groups exert pressures upon the adolescent. Frequently these pressures are mutually sustaining, but in some areas they may be in conflict, demanding from the adolescent patterns of thought and behavior which are mutually incompatible. For many adolescents one of these areas is religion.2 In this paper we shall examine the conflicting expectations that familial and peer groups have concerning one facet of the adolescent's religious orientation. Our task is to examine the relationship between the adolescent's religious attitude and that of his membership groups,