Persuasion and Teenagers

I can remember a time that I exhibited psychological reactance (Brehm & Brehm, 1981), where one reacts to the fact someone is trying to change their mind by moving in the opposite direction argued (with respect to one's personal attitude).

When I was a sophomore in high school I started dating this girl named Sarah. I didn't know too much about her when we started dating, but I soon knew more than I wanted to. Anyway, my mother found a letter I had from her and freaked out because it contained some stuff about Sarah's past, and she tried to make me stop seeing her. Well, I didn't have a car and we lived half an hour from my high school so I was only seeing her at school as it was, and when I interpreted my mother's yelling as trying to persuade me of something, I moved in the opposite direction.

"No way I'm breaking up with her!" I told myself. Even though I knew it was probably a smart move, my mother trying to persuade me made me react and try to cling to my independence and freedom by stubbornly, against my own reason, insisting that I keep dating her.

I remember this happening a lot in those years. Adolescents are told they aren't children and they aren't adults. The only freedoms adults give adolescents are responsibilities. Your old enough to be responsible, but not to know what is good for you, or just plain what is good. I'm sure everyone displayed psychological reactance in their adolescent youth, many times.

Brehm, S.S., & Brehm, J. W. (1981). Psychological reactance: A theory of freedom and control. New York: Academic Press.