Sexual development and some aspects of social behaviour in adolescent girls
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15291/radovifpsp.2435Abstract
In an investigation on 385 girl pupils of the eighth class in primary school from Zadar, Šibenik and Split, the hypothesis that breach of the usual rules of behaviour is determined, not only by the time of sexual maturity of adolescent girls, but the interaction of the time of sexual maturity and the order of birth was tested. Investigations were carried out to establish whether these girls, regarding the order of birth and the time of sexual maturity, differ in the expectancy of their parent’s sanctions for breach of rules. A two-way analysis of variance (2 X 4) was carried out on the frequency of the breach of the usual rules of behaviour. The results showed that the effects of the time of sexual maturity and the order of birth, very according to the nature of the breach; namely for the breach of smoking rules, the order of birth was the only significant variable. The rules of school diligence were affected only by the time of sexual maturity. The only significant effect of the interaction of the two variables was shown on the breach of parental prohibition. The results were interpreted in terms of learning according to the model. The interpretation that these adolescents imitated older brothers and sisters and/or peer groups seemed relevant because they did not differ in the expectancy of parental sanctions for the breach of the rules regarding the sequence of birth, or the time of sexual maturity. The results also indicated that it was not justifiable to generalise the results found in some other cultures (e g. on 14 yr. old Swedish girls), that the girls who sexually mature earlier, break the rules of behaviour signifi, cantly more than their peer groups who sexually mature later. It seems that they break the rules more when some intervening social wariables are present with their earlier sexual maturity.
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