Socialization ambiguity in Samoan adolescents: a model for human development and stress in the context of culture change.

Abstract

Rapid globalization is forcing youth around the world to confront new developmental challenges, and conceptual models are needed that can capture this experience and its developmental implications. Exposure to nontraditional lifestyles opens up new socialization opportunities and raises the possibility of stress-inducing dissonance between participating socializing agents and the messages they deliver. Socialization ambiguity is introduced as a model for culture change and adolescent stress, and it is applied to a sample of 10- to 20-year-olds (N5295) in the islands of Samoa. A physiological marker of stress (antibodies against the Epstein-Barr virus) is employed to overcome some of the difficulties associated with measuring stress outcomes. Socialization ambiguity is found to be a significant source of stress on the remote island of Savai’i and the transitional area of rural Upolu, although the direction of the association is different, possibly reflecting divergent socialization goals in these two regions.