Ep 89: The Followers & the Rebels

Michelle Baddeley, author of Copycats and Contrarians, offers a multidisciplinary look at why a teen goes along with the group and when they choose instead to rebel. The key to preventing potentially harmful impulses may lie in a moment of hesitation.

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Full show notes

“I’m not going! Leave without me, I already have plans!” your son yells at you from his bed. It’s a bright and sunny Saturday, and you’re loading the car so that the family can spend a night at your parents’ house. Everyone in the family has known about the trip for a couple weeks and you can’t wait for your kids to spend some time with their grandparents. This reaction, however, comes out of left field. Confused and a little hurt, you try again to get him up to no avail. The third time you try, he claims that he never knew about the trip and made plans with his friends to go to the beach instead.

You relent, leaving him at home as you start the drive to your parents’ house. Reflecting on the events of the morning, you are very surprised that your son reacted so angrily. He knew about the plans to go to his grandparent’s house with the whole family. It seems bizarre and irrational for him to rebel against the set plans of the group. Finally, you think if there are any ways to learn how to handle teenage rebellion so this doesn’t happen again.

Surprisingly, the answer to your teen’s irrational and rebellious behavior can be found in the field of economics. The psychology of economics is strongly rooted in human decision-making skills. In economics, decisions are made by factoring risk and reward for a company as they weigh each potential move. Humans make similar decisions by balancing risk and reward, which is why some people conform to systems or why others rebel against trends.

This week, my guest is Michelle Baddeley, author of the book Copycats and Contrarians: Why We Follow Others… and When We Don’t. Michelle is an expert in behavioral economics at the University of South Australia, and she has spent much of her time investigating the correlations between decision-making and economics. Michelle’s research on group identities and the causes of conformity and rebellion has given her unique insight on how to handle teenage rebellion.

The Psychology of “The Herd”

It can be hard to know how to handle teenage rebellion, and even more challenging to understand why teenagers choose to rebel against order. The lives of teenagers can be crazy, so why do they perpetuate their own chaos by rebelling against the system?

The answer for parents, Michelle says, lies in the social psychology of economics. Michelle mentions something called the Ingroup/Outgroup Hypothesis that dissects the psychology of how we form groups. Generally, there are two ways to go about becoming a member of a group.

A good example of economic investment towards joining a group is getting a tattoo. The amount of money spent on a tattoo signals a commitment to the group, not to mention the permanent effect of getting a tattoo.

On the other hand, forming ingroup affiliations via the rejection of outgroups is simply banding together because of a rejection of other people. For example, your teen son might reject the idea of spending time with family to spend time with friends. He isn’t rejecting the family because he doesn’t like you, but he would rather be a part of the ingroup with his friends than with his family.

This might make sense, but how does this information help parents learn how to handle teenage rebellion? Your son spent the last three weekends hanging with friends. Why doesn’t he ever want to spend time with his family?

Michelle proceeds to serve up some more hot slices of knowledge. When the brain makes a decision to follow “the herd,” the decision is processed through the part of the brain that deals with negative emotions. Conversely, the brain uses positive neurological transmissions to transmit ideas that go against “the herd.”

Essentially, if your son has determined that spending time with family is part of the “herd mentality” and spending time with friends is rebellious, then he will feel rewarded when he spends more time with his friends. In this situation, the idea that he is being rebellious feeds his positive emotions resulting in little time spent with family.

Practical Uses

The behavioral information about teen decision-making is good to know, but how can parents practically apply it when it comes to dealing with how to handle teenage rebellion?

It might be hard to use this information in the example of the teen son abandoning the family trip. In a time crunch, it can be nearly impossible to reason with an argumentative teen. In that case, it might be best to let him go and do his own thing.

However, knowing about herd psychology can help when it comes to long-term planning for the next trip to visit the grandparents. If you’re trying to plan a trip three weeks out, parents can use their knowledge of behavioral decision-making to structure the trip at a time when the son doesn’t have too much going on.

One way parents can do this, perhaps, is to make plans after your teen has a big outing with friends. If you know that they’re going to a concert one weekend, plan the trip to visit the grandparents for the week after. Your teen’s friends aren’t likely to have plans after a big weekend, so that can be an opportune time to plan a weekend of family fun.

Another way for parents to approach this issue is to notice how frequently their teen is spending time with friends. If your teen hangs out with friends for four straight weeks, there’s a chance they might be a little worn out from the usual teen hijinks. Perhaps you can position a family outing as a way to “rebel” from his group of friends and take a break for a weekend.

At the end of the day the best method for a parent trying to learn how to handle teenage rebellion is to craft a situation in which their teen feels rewarded for making their choice. It might be hard to do, but it is possible to get your teen to make a decision that rewards them and is what you want them to do.

Michelle’s Skills

This interview is packed with life-saving tips and tricks for how to handle teenage rebellion, here are just a few examples from the episode.

One method Michelle mentions for how to handle teenage rebellion is to have a discussion. Building a conversation about rebelliousness will help both teenagers and parents understand where each is coming from. By giving space to have a discussion about rebellious behavior, both parents and teens will understand the other’s views and have the opportunity to make choices that respect each other.

By opening up a conversation on how to handle teenage rebellion, parents will also have the chance to give the floor to their teens. Michelle mentions a story to me about a friend of hers who had teenagers that really wanted a dog. The parents were skeptical because a dog can be a lot of work for teenagers to manage on top of school and extracurricular activities.

When the parents gave the floor to their teens, they went all out! The teens p...