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American Teens Claim Wide "Comfort Zone"

American Teens Claim Wide "Comfort Zone"

Birds of a feather may flock together, but do they feel comfortable flying with other kinds of birds? If the "birds" happen to be American teenagers, then the answer seems likely to be yes. A recent Gallup Youth Survey* asked teens whether they generally feel comfortable or uncomfortable with people whose ideas, beliefs, or values are different from their own. A clear majority of teens, 78%, said they feel comfortable, while 20% said they feel uncomfortable.

Fifteen-year-old Josh Larsen's views echo the majority of his peers'. A high school sophomore from Omaha, Neb., Josh says he's comfortable with people with different ideas, beliefs, and values -- up to a point. "As long as people don't try to press their views on me, I don't care," he says. "But if they're trying to make me be open to what they're talking about, without being open to what I'm talking about, it's annoying. If both of us are on the same field, then it's all right."

Church Attendees, Girls Less Comfortable With Differences

Although most teens are comfortable with people who don't share their views and beliefs, some are less at ease. Teens who said they attended church or synagogue in the last week are less comfortable than teens who did not attend: 70% of churchgoing teens said they feel comfortable, while 85% of non-churchgoing teens said the same. Conversely, churchgoing teens are the most uncomfortable of all the demographic groups tested: 29% of them said they are uncomfortablewith people whose ideas, values, and beliefs are different.

Social scientists have long explored the reasons why people who share similar attitudes, beliefs, and values tend to seek out people who are like themselves and develop fewer relationships with people who are different. This natural tendency, termed values homophily, could partially explain the differences among teens who go to church or synagogue and those who don't. Regular, frequent exposure to an organized belief structure, like a church or a synagogue, could explain why teens who attend them are more likely to exhibit values homophily.

Girls are somewhat less likely than boys to be at ease with people who are different. Eighty-three percent of boys and 73% of girls said they are comfortable with people who have different views, values, and beliefs. Still, clear majorities of both genders are comfortable in this respect.

Lindsay, a high school junior from New Jersey, says she has always felt "fairly comfortable" with people with different beliefs, but realized after she spent a semester at the Island School in the Bahamas that she didn't give people's values enough consideration and thought. "My time at the Island School taught me to recognize my biases and where they come from," Lindsay says. "So now I feel much more comfortable with other people who have different beliefs than I do. I give their opinions more thought and consideration."

Not-So-Different Strokes

As interesting as the differences are, some of the similarities are almost as intriguing. Among teens, comfort with people who have different ideas is not related to their nascent political orientation. Roughly equal numbers of teens who say they plan to vote Republican, Democrat, or independent when they are old enough said they feel comfortable with others who have different ideas, values, and beliefs from their own.

*The Gallup Youth Survey is conducted via an Internet methodology provided by Knowledge Networks, using an online research panel that is designed to be representative of the entire U.S. population. The current questionnaire was completed by 517 respondents, aged 13 to 17, between Aug. 1 and Aug. 29, 2003. For results based on the total sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±5 percentage points.


Gallup https://news.gallup.com/poll/10225/American-Teens-Claim-Wide-Comfort-Zone.aspx
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