What Young People Want Is to Leave Home

A team of Spanish investigators has determined in a new study an interesting aspect about the relationship between antisocial behavior and goal or expectations, in teenagers. This is one of the first studies to tackle this sort of issue directly, the team behind the work says. One of the main questions the young adults were asked was what their plans were after finishing learning. Surprisingly, the researchers found that a large number of teens wanted to finish studies and then leave home. This correlation was bigger for those who exhibited the strongest antisocial behavior, AlphaGalileo reports.

“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 behavior 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,” explains for SINC expert Laura Lopez Romero.

The expert is one of the coauthors for the new study, alongside colleague Estrella Romero. Both scientists are based at the University of Santiago the Compostela (USC), in Spain. Details of their investigation appear in the latest issue of the esteemed Spanish Journal of Psychology. The investigation was carried out on about 488 participants, aged 12 to 18, who were selected from six public schools in the Galicia region. The researchers gave the test subjects questionnaires to fill out. The questions within were set up in such a manner that the team was able to extract the data it was looking for.

“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. Both groups were the same in terms of their aspirations about gaining autonomy and freedom,” Lopez Romero explains. She adds that 254 study participants were female (52.2 percent), while 233 of them were boys.