Social Relationships tend to be less intimate, with lesser self-disclosure involved, but may still be exclusive, and may demand certain levels of loyalty as in fraternities or religious organizations, and to a lesser extent, loosely knitted social clubs like practitioners of certain specialized professions.

Middle and late adolescents usually find themselves in the company of their peers, usually from the school or the neighborhood. From high school to college, adolescents mature faster socially, and new lessons are learned especially on how their social interactions affirm their self-identity, increase their self-esteem, and develop their capacity to nurture relationships.

According to Rashotte, the authors: Defined social influence as things such as behavior, actions attitude, concepts, ideas, communications, wealth, and other resources that bring about changes in the beliefs, attitudes, and/or behavior of persons as a result of the action/s of another person.

It appears that most teens do not experience adolescent “storm and stress“ to the degree once famously suggested by G. Stanley Hall, a pioneer in the study of adolescent development. Only small numbers of teens have major conflicts with their parents (Steinberg & Morris, 2001), and most disagreements are minor. For example, in a study of over 1,800 parents of adolescents from various cultural and ethnic groups, Barber (1994) found that conflicts occurred over day-to-day issues such as homework, money, curfews, clothing, chores, and friends. These disputes occur because an adolescent’s drive for independence and autonomy conflicts with the parent’s supervision and control. These types of arguments tend to decrease as teens develop (Galambos & Almeida, 1992).

As adolescents work to form their identities, they pull away from their parents, and the peer group becomes very important (Shanahan, McHale, Osgood, & Crouter, 2007). Despite spending less time with their parents, most teens report positive feelings toward them (Moore, Guzman, Hair, Lippman, & Garrett, 2004). Warm and healthy parent-child relationships have been associated with positive child outcomes, such as better grades and fewer school behavior problems, in the United States as well as in other countries (Hair et al., 2005).

Although peers take on greater importance during adolescence, family relationships remain important too. One of the key changes during adolescence involves a renegotiation of parent–child relationships. As adolescents strive for more independence and autonomy during this time, different aspects of parenting become more salient. For example, parents’ distal supervision and monitoring become more important as adolescents spend more time away from parents and in the presence of peers. Parental monitoring encompasses a wide range of behaviors such as parents’ attempts to set rules and know their adolescents’ friends, activities, and whereabouts, in addition to adolescents’ willingness to disclose information to their parents. (Stattin & Kerr, 2000) Psychological control, which involves manipulation and intrusion into adolescents’ emotional and cognitive world through invalidating adolescents’ feelings and pressuring them to think in particular ways is another aspect of parenting that becomes more salient during adolescence and is related to more problematic adolescent adjustment.