This week around the lunch club table, I was lamenting the fact that as I have aged…(no I’m no that old – young enough to joke about aging)…I have become more stupid. (Does this count as an oxymoron because I used the word lamenting in a sentence trying to exemplify my stupidity? (If I wasn’t so stupid, would I know the answer to that question??)).

I blame my university friends for under-stimulating my brain cells.    I turned from debating the fermat’s last theorem to being part of a gang called the lip gloss ladies – no lie. Use it or loose it is the neuro-psycholgists moto, is this true? Let me do some a-searching

 

A guy called Spady (that could be a title of a film; not a good one) says that while being popular and joining a lot of clubs is positively related to setting yourself goals, it is negatively related to you achieving them.  So unless you are the captain of the football team, you won’t get into the top university and you will become pond-scum…I’m paraphrasing.

 

Gertner and Rice (no not a german dish) say popular children have better emotional intelligence, but who needs that? is that not just a way of saying popular children know what to do to make themselves popular? Tsk bring me the lost gift of the geekiness

 

Here we are, here is the crux of the matter:

Biddle Bank and Marlin (sound like Harry Potter Characters) say Prior studies have come to various conclusions about the relative impact of parents and peers on adolescent behavior. Such studies have measured a wide variety of events that are presumed to indicate parental and peer pressures on adolescents and have presumed various ways in which adolescents might be affected by those pressures. It is here suggested that: (1) parents and peers may influence adolescents through two different processes-the expression of normative standards, or the modeling of behaviors; (2) adolescents may respond to such pressures directly or by internalizing norms or preferences for conduct; and (3) pressures, norms, and preferences have different effects on adolescent behavior depending on the topic of behavior considered. These propositions are supported with findings concerning adolescent drinking and school achievement. Among other conclusions, peers are more likely to influence adolescents through modeling, while parental influence is more strongly exerted through norms.

 

Translation – your parents will influence what you internalise as being normal – your values and beliefs, while you are more likely to copy what your friends actually do with their time.

 

Therein lies the…. the… the whatty? c-hem.

 

I should have listened to my parents and worked hard; then I should have chosen friends from the maths department who played chess in their spare time. 

 

Could I have known that with out all the research?  No – I’m not clever enough!

 

It’s never too late – now where is that Rubix cube?

 

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