Authenticity vs. Social Expectations with Dr. Rebecca Shiner

When do you feel most like yourself? For a lot of us, the answer isn’t always clear. You might feel one way around friends, another in school, and a completely different version of yourself online. That means, over time, it can get harder to tell which parts of you feel real and which parts are shaped by expectations. That is why, for this episode, I wanted to explore: How do teenagers balance being authentic with the pressure to fit in, socially, academically, and even digitally? To help us explore these questions, I’m honored to welcome Dr. Rebecca Shiner.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey everybody, and welcome to Growing Forward. I am your host, Sadie Sonaborn Malachy, a 16-year-old girl from Southern California, and I'm really glad all of you joined me here today. Whether you're a listener who has been with us for a very long time or joining for the very first time, I'm so glad that you're here, and I really hope that this episode touches where it needs to. I want to begin today with a simple question. When do you feel most like yourself? For a lot of us, that answer isn't always clear. You might feel one way around friends, another in school, and completely different version of yourself online. And over time, it can get harder to tell which parts of you feel real and which parts are authentically you deep within. So for this episode, I wanted to explore how do teenagers balance being authentic with the pressure to fit in socially, academically, and even digitally. To explore these questions, I'm honored to welcome Dr. Rebecca Shiner. Dr. Shiner is a developmental psychologist at Colgate University whose research focuses on personality development across childhood and adolescence, including how traits, identity, and coping patterns evolve. Her work shows that personality is not fixed, but continues to develop and change throughout adolescence and beyond. So without further ado, I am so excited to welcome Dr. Shiner to Growing Forward Today. Thank you for being here. Yeah, I'm glad to be here. Okay, let's begin. So, what initially drew you to study personality and identity development in children, adolescents, and in young adults?

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Okay, so my interest initially started more so with young kids. I loved kids. When I was a teenager myself, I felt more at home, I feel like, with younger kids than sometimes I did with other teenagers. I just loved the fact that little kids were spontaneous and kind of lacking in self-consciousness in the way that teenagers were. So when I went to grad school, I was really attracted to the idea of becoming a clinician who was going to work with young kids. And then my research was going to focus on younger kids. And so a big part of what I did for quite a while was focusing on elementary school age kids. That was my favorite age range. But over time, I've started to fall in love more with adolescents and young adulthood, in that I think that's where a lot of the interesting action is happening. There's so much kind of complicated, rich development that's happening in young people that cannot happen really in younger kids. And that's what I'm more attracted to understanding. I think there's something so incredibly, I know it's a can be a stressful period of life, but I also think it's an incredibly exciting time as you're getting to try new things out and as these new layers of your personality kind of start to come online.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Definitely. I love that perspective that you started at one point and you realize that maybe I can explore this other thing. And especially in our other episodes, we have highlighted that idea of adolescence is this time of change. And a lot of things are happening to us. As you noted, positive and negative things happen, both socially, emotionally, and just everything around us. However, as you stated, it's really cool that these things do happen and that we learn about them and grow from them. And it's really interesting that you started this perspective of childhood because it really does root all deep down within of who we were when we were young. And then it really takes off during these years. So I like that progression and that idea that you started at that point that is really crucial. And we don't always highlight on this podcast, yet it is important to our development, development and who we are now.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

Absolutely. Yeah. And I the thing is, there's still always that kernel of who we all were when we were little that I think kind of informs our sense of who we are, even as as adults.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

Exactly. And even with all of the influences around us, external and internal now, as you said, a lot of what we like and what we do and our hobbies and our activities do relate to who we were when we were young. So I like bringing that idea that we do have a lot of formative things that come during this period. However, it does loop back to who we were and who we're becoming. So during adolescence, why does this question of who I am, who I'm becoming, and all the things in between become so much more central? What's happening developmentally at this stage to influence these thoughts to become more significant?

SPEAKER_00 4:34

Right. So, well, part of it is puberty, which I'm sure that you already know, right? So puberty just sort of kicks off this whole cascade of all of these biological changes that really expand what young people are capable of doing and the kind of issues that that seem the most important. So when you after you hit puberty, you start to be able to think in a much more abstract way. You can contemplate sort of big questions, right? You can you're not going to find like a six-year-old debating the merits of democracy versus other forms of government, right? These are those kind of big questions that you can only cognitively start to take on after you hit adolescence. But it's a little bit of a double-edged sword in that once you can start to think about these complicated issues, sometimes that gets turned in on the self as well, right? And you can start to really ponder in some ways that can end up being pretty painful, you know, the nature of your own existence, the things that are the most important to you. So yeah, part of it is just that cognitively you're capable of doing so much more as an adolescent. And then also your whole social world starts to shift to other kids your own age. That's kind of where the action is happening. You're trying to work out things about who you are as you are interacting more with kids. I mean, obviously, there's parents are still important, and family is more important in some ways than I think researchers recognize for a long time. But a lot of the exploration and the trying new stuff out is happening with friends, not so much with family. So that's where the stakes are. It's kind of the stakes are very high in terms of your relationship with other kids.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

Yeah, there definitely is that change socially. As you kind of said or alluded to, we are spending more time with our friends, whether that is in school or our extracurriculars, when our when we are in our adolescent years, we kind of bounce straight from school to home. Or for many teenagers, they do that. However, I also want to note the thing that you said of it can be both sides of the sword. You can be on the side where it feels comforting and you're learning things about yourself through your friends, and you're kind of advancing this perspective about all these things. And as you said, we can discuss these bigger topics about politics, about the world around us, and have these really crucial conversations that maybe lead us to thinking one way or another, which is super positive. But we also can be on the other side of the story and start contemplating things and things become more serious and sometimes more consuming. So I like that you noted that there are two sides of that story yet again, because sometimes, unfortunately, drift into the one side where it feels as if they're attacking them all the time. But in reality, if we shift our perspective a little bit, we can balance the two worlds, which is what I hope to go into a little bit more during that. Yeah, sounds good. So, right now, currently in society, many teens feel pressure to fit in socially, academically, or even online. With the rise of social media and a bunch of different things day to day, things just become a little bit more consuming in that perspective. And especially for teenagers now, it feels as if they always can't cope with it. So, from your perspective, why is that pressure so strong during adolescence and has it changed over time compared to what it was in the past and what it is now?

SPEAKER_00 7:59

Yeah, I think that's such a good thing to think about. I I think across cultures, so this is not like a uniquely modern phenomenon. There's something that happens in adolescence where there's a kind of press to start gauging where you stand relative to other teenagers. And there can be a kind of jockeying for status in terms of who's kind of ending up on top in different ways. Again, that's not unique to the United States. It's not unique to this historical moment. This seems to be almost like a biologically programmed part of adolescence, this kind of sizing each other up and competing a little bit for status. I think that what's more difficult is just that the peers that you are competing with are so many more than, say, that tiny group that maybe historically people would have spent time with a group of about 200 people, right? So they're only kind of jockeying for status with this limited number of people. But now, because schools themselves are larger, communities are larger, and then once you expand it to include all of social media, then suddenly the people that you may feel yourself to be competing with include this range of people, many of whom you have never met, never will meet. And all of those people have the capacity to be offering their judgment of where you stand relative to other people. So it has this incredible burden in terms of just the scope of the range of people that you may be comparing yourself with. And also it never quite shuts down because it's not like in earlier eras where a kid who was struggling at school or feeling anxious or concerned about where they stand socially could kind of come home, could maybe be with a small group of friends or with family, kind of settle back down, feel feel good again, and then go out bravely into the world again. Whereas now there's there's more of this kind of constant exposure to what other people think of you, and also the need to present yourself a particular way if you are trying to win approval from other people. It really requires a particular strength in terms of knowing what your own values are and being sort of rooted in a stronger sense of who you are, I think, to be able to navigate that.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

For sure. And I think for some adolescent members, that's especially difficult because during this period, you are finding out who you are. So for moments of time, you don't always know who that person is, which makes seeing, as you said, that social media comparison online 24-7, 365 days a year almost for a lot of us, really, really consuming. Sometimes you can't get out of that loop. And in previous episodes, we've discussed how to get out of that loop and change your perspective. You noted it does come a lot from who you are. And because adolescence is this period of growth and development, that's where the conflicting side of it is. However, I love that you also said that it is innate and people in the past have also struggled with this. If you watch movies from the 80s and stuff, you kind of see those people who maybe are like a little bit more bully aspect or have a little bit more confidence or whatever it may be. So it has happened over time, and just because of social media, it's been, as you said, getting amplified a little bit more. However, we aren't alone in this situation, and it does happen to have a positive side. And as we've seen as life continues on and as we age and everything in between, things get better. And especially finding those little gaps to figure out who you are and work against what the societal norms are, or fitting in, maybe because that's where you feel more comfortable. Just finding that happy medium is something that I really love that you also said. However, during this whole period of time, we are also figuring out that we are different from one another. I'm maybe not, I'm maybe not like the person next to me in class, and maybe the person across from me is my closest friend. We are all different and we have differences in our day-to-day lives. Our traits are different, our characteristics are different. So, how do those personal traits and identity development specifics influence the way teens respond to those societal pressures and everything day-to-day?

SPEAKER_00 12:28

Yeah, that's a great question. Um, because clearly, kids differ in their personalities from very early in life. I mean, even um toddlers, you know, you can see big differences in terms of courage and jumping into new situations or being really nervous about kind of scary things. So those traits that we have, they change over time. So I do want to emphasize that, but still, kids are gonna vary in terms of how much they are affected by stress, how much they are say bothered by um social concerns with other kids. So, for example, one personality trait that is really well known and well studied, and I hate this name, but it's called neuroticism. And it has to do with the extent to which you tend to experience a lot of different negative emotions, like anxiety or feeling kind of easily stressed, feeling kind of like vulnerable, maybe when you're in a tough situation. And so some kids find it easier just kind of temperamentally to just roll with things. And then other kids are are kind of more sensitive and more easily made to feel bad when things are tough. Tricky is that that that's a tendency that kind of gets amplified when you're a teenager. So you're like part of being a teenager is just having this kind of burst of negative emotions that feels so intense and just feels very difficult to manage. And so part of the task is like trying to not avoid that. For sure. Right, but trying to figure out how to kind of live with that feeling and just continuing to do the things that are of deep value to you. But anyhow, so so some kids are gonna just be more affected by stress than other kids are, in part because of temperament. And I it's also the case that kids who may have experienced a lot of tough experiences, a lot of um adversity as younger kids may find themselves particularly struggling in part because they may not have quite the same confidence that they can make it through some of the stresses of being a teenager.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Definitely. So for people in that situation or individuals in general who don't always feel that they can rely on who they are deep within or don't know who they are yet, how do they adapt to social environments or how do they reform their thoughts around it? Is it adapting and integrating themselves into what those social norms are? Is it finding a balance? Is it changing? What do adolescents need to do to try to feel better in those situations where they maybe feel hopeless? Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

I think that I have a few thoughts about that. So one is that it takes courage to be a person in general. It's not, yeah, is right, it's not just that being a teenager is particularly difficult, but just being a person is difficult, right? And part of pursuing the things that the that matter the most to you means recognizing that sometimes you are going to feel uncomfortable when you are pursuing those things, um, that ultimately it's worth it. The things that are worth pursuing and going after are worth enduring the stress and the potential uncertainty for. So I do think that having a clear sense that you want to try things, that you want to give yourself the opportunity to take risks in order to pursue the things that you may end up really loving or that you may end up finding to be really meaningful, making the choice to dive in even while feeling uncertain, even while feeling a little bit scared and so on, i is just so important, I think, kind of ultimately really getting a better sense of who you are. So, you know, I I I don't think that, you know, there's an inherent sense of authenticity that just comes to people naturally. I think it's something that you actually work out, not just when you're a teenager, but kind of across the course of your life by doing things. I guess and taking the risk, right? By just diving in and doing things.

SPEAKER_01 17:06

I think that perspective is so beautiful because a lot of the times when kids kind of get in this idea or adolescent members get in this idea that they haven't found themselves. So taking risks is going to become more negative, and then they don't ever take the chance to discover who they are. It becomes so much more detrimental. As you said, taking those risks some can sometimes give us rewards. And those rewards can be so fulfilling. Yes, in some times, in some perspectives, it can be a negative experience, and you maybe won't like what's happening around you and you will feel uncomfortable and whatever it may be. You can grow from it though. You can learn from it. You can learn that, okay, I didn't like that thing. That isn't who I am. That's not who I want to be. How am I gonna change my idea of what that is to be positive? What can I do to split the script in a sense and kind of turn on the switch to be more in my favor? You're never gonna find that though, if you don't take the risks as you amplify it. It's like going on a roller coaster. Maybe it is scary, maybe it does feel upsetting in your stomach, or maybe it's the most thrilling experience you've ever had. But you will never know until you try it. A lot of the times in adolescence, kids kind of get in this mentality of, okay, I'm gonna step away. I don't know what to do, so I'm gonna step away and I'm gonna push back. As you said though, pushing forward and trying new things and amplifying the idea that discovering yourself isn't always gonna be easy, it will turn out much better than staying behind.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

I was just gonna add one thing. I did a study that I did I loved a couple years ago. It was aimed at young adults, not teenagers, but um, it was aimed at helping them learn to better tolerate uncertainty. I I feel like we're in an era right now where so much is in flux all of the time. And people across the age spectrum, you know, feel as if the world is very uncertain. So I created this study to try to help people feel like they can navigate uncertainty a little bit better. And so one of the things I did at the beginning was I asked these young adults to simply write about a time that they had embraced uncertainty in order to pursue something that they loved and something that they wanted. And every single participant in this study, and it was an international sample from all over, and every single participant was able to identify at least one time that they had gone after something or they had endured that that feeling of uncertainty in order to get something that they wanted. And there was something about recalling those times that they had done that that empowered them to feel like, okay, like I can survive that. Even if it didn't work out exactly the way that I wanted, I can survive it. And in most cases, they could identify things that had gone great because of having taken the risk.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

That is such a beautiful project that you did. And just amplifying the idea that you can think back and maybe you don't know who you are for a moment in time. But if you look back on your life and you note things that were positive, were great, made you feel a way that you want to continue to feel, maybe you can add those things back into your life, incorporate them in a different way, whatever it may be. I like that idea of reflection. And a lot of the times on this podcast, we do talk about journaling and reflecting because it is such a wonderful thing that you can do to just revamp your mindset and kind of reset yourself. However, for some individuals, it is really hard when maybe they have strayed so far away from authentically who they are that they can't find a way back. So, what are some of the signs early on that indicate that someone is drifting from who they are? And how can they get out of that web and return to who they truly want to be?

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think that is a really good question. I think that some teenagers and some young adults haven't even had a chance to actually figure out what it is that they like in a way. They've been on a particular pathway for their whole lives. I'm thinking of kids who are being pressured in a kind of high achievement direction, right? And a lot of things have been decided for them, you know. So they may or may not know exactly what it is that they like. So I would say that, you know, the signs that that maybe you're kind of drifting, it can be sort of a feeling of emptiness, or it can be a feeling of really not even being able to identify like these are the things that make me feel alive, right? Make me feel aware that I have this incredible privilege of being alive. Um, I think that that for some young people, they they don't know what they like, right? And so I think making tiny micro. Micro choices in the direction of trying something and then seeing how it goes. Is a really important way of kind of moving yourself back more in the direction of trying to live in a way that actually makes sense for you, right? That actually fits with what your values are and what you find to be meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 22:27

Yeah, that is such a great perspective. And I love that you said that adolescence is a formative year. However, for many of us, we don't figure out who we are. We still have our whole journeys to figure out who we want to become, what we want to do. And currently in society, for a lot of individuals, as you said, there is that pressure to, okay, figure out what you want to do, figure out how are you going to conform to that idea, do everything to make sure that that thing happens. And it pushes everything that may be important to the person aside. And they lose themselves for a little bit. And because they're so busy, they don't realize it. If that relates to you, listen in really closely. Because in those moments in time, realize take a breath. Take a minute to reset and think what is truly important to you, your parents, your teachers, whoever it may be, if you feel pressure from them, let them know. They are there to help you really deep with down within. So figuring out who you are, as you said, continues through a long period of time. Even if for a moment we think we found it, sometimes it disappears. It isn't a linear journey. A lot of things in adolescence are. And highlighting it and learning how to work with it and do all of the different things to just make it feel easier and make the process flow more smoothly really does make the biggest of differences. Towards the end of this discussion, I really want to talk about social media because I know that we highlighted it is an innate feature to sometimes feel that you have to conform to societal expectations and change who you are deep within. However, as we also stated, social media has just amplified that idea and made it much more difficult for adolescents to figure out who they are, figure out what is them, what isn't them, when that comparison is happening 24-7. So, how truly do these social media and online environments complicate the process of self-expression and identity formation? And how can individuals develop the courage to express themselves in a way that authentically feels like them online?

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Right. So I do think part of the issue with social media is not just the uh the feeling of social comparison and the worries about how you're perceived. There's a more subtle temptation, I think, that happens on social media, which is that sometimes there's a temptation to try to figure out who you are through these online means. And it's often by slotting yourself into a category. So there are a million TikToks that are about, you know, the Myers Breaks, for example, the per the personality typology, or they may be about some diagnosis that is kind of a currently interesting diagnosis to a lot of people, maybe autism or something like that. And I think that there is a strong develop a sense of identity by putting yourself into a category that you are learning about online. It could even be like your attachment style, right? There's all this stuff about attachment categories online too. When I gave a workshop for the Connecticut School Psychology Association, and one of the this was last year, and one of the biggest concerns with those school psychologists was exactly what I'm describing here, which is that students would be coming to school saying, like, I've just discovered that I have this diagnosis, or I've discovered that I fit into this particular box. I don't think this is a healthy way to figure out who you are. Um, because there's only a limited amount that you can learn through this kind of intellectual exercise. And in a way, it's a little bit still always a persona online, right? It's not fully kind of who you are just in your day-to-day life. Yeah. And so that kind of false attempt to figure out who you are by slotting yourself into this group, fitting yourself into this diagnosis, in a way, it's kind of a cage. And it almost, I think, has the potential to like shut down the process of actually figuring out who you are. I yeah, I just I really strongly believe that most good identity development is happening out in the real world. Trying to have your first boyfriend and screwing it up, right? It's um, you know, it's is doing something that can turn out to be incredibly embarrassing, but that you eventually recover from. Yeah. And you learn something. So you try something, you see how it makes you feel, you kind of reassess, you try another thing. So, you know, in a way, I really think that ultimately the most damaging thing about social media is not even so much the social comparison, but the fact that sometimes it can seem like almost too direct and easy a route to figuring out who you are and and what makes you tick.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

And as you alluded to, it kind of narrows down what we want to venture out of because it feels like a blanket almost when we realize that, oh, maybe someone online is like me. Like, or maybe I do fit into that category, or maybe I feel that way and that is who I've become. And now I finally feel that I've designed who I want to be and who I want to become. However, in reality, we only get a small snippet from social media. And as he said, comparison can be one thing, but in this light, it narrows our view and it makes us feel that okay, I found it. I found who I am, I've done all of this stuff, and it's been a tough, tough road. And now it's an easy way out to feel complete. I feel that I've made it. I feel that I can define myself in this way. And it feels so wonderful and fulfilling for just a period of time, though. Eventually it'll come back and you'll realize maybe that isn't me. Maybe that isn't who I want to be. But now where do I go from here? I've looked for all of my answers online and I thought I found them, and it felt so great for such a period of time, but now it's shifted. Now it's away. Now I don't relate to that person anymore or that category or that idea. So it does really narrow our perspective. And for a while it does feel comforting, it feels like a warm hug, but eventually we need to step out of our comfort zone and realize there's so much more. There's so much more to who we are. We don't fit into one thing like snowflakes, like when snow falls. They all look the same from afar, but if you look at them from a microscopic level, they're all different. None of them are the same. So if we think about that analogy and we realize that, okay, maybe I do relate to that person in some way. Maybe I do have a certain branch per se that is like them. However, deep within I'm not. And finding a way to feel more like me is so much more important. So finally, Dr. Shiner, what message would you want to share to adolescents, teenagers, and young adults who feel like they don't quite fit in or are still trying to figure out who they are?

SPEAKER_00 29:42

So many of my favorite adults are people who really struggled when they were teenagers. I do feel like quite often those are the teenagers who grow up into being the most interesting adults. And that may be partly because they've had to really think for themselves about the kind of person that they want to be, right? And so the process itself may be a little bit difficult, but ultimately it's gonna lead to becoming a person that you are more satisfied with. I guess the other thing that I would add is just that the process of life is so long. And really it adults are still working out who they are. They're still, you know, in the best case scenario, you can be an 80-year-old who is growing and learning. I mean, one of my um husbands, my husband had a spiritual director who was an 80-year-old man who took up the violin, right? He was growing some new part of himself. So I think it's easy when you are a teenager to forget how long life is and to remember that development is just continuing and and the best possible life is one where you are continuing to change and to grow over time.

SPEAKER_01 31:06

That is a wonderful closing thought. And ending on this idea of it takes a minute to get over those rough patches. When you're climbing a mountain, when you're on a hike, you don't get to the end immediately. You're gonna step over stones, maybe trip, scrape your knee, whatever it may be, but eventually you're gonna get to the end and it's gonna feel great as you amplified. Maybe it doesn't end when you turn 18 or 20 or 25 or 30, whatever it may be. It can continue throughout your whole life. And yes, it is difficult. Yes, it feels strenuous sometimes. However, discovering who you are isn't gonna be fulfilling unless it is a journey to get there. So I loved that final thought that you gave to us. Dr. Shiner, thank you so much for being part of this conversation. Your work truly helps make something that feels abstract identity, personality, authenticity feel a little bit more understandable and a lot more human. So thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, thank you, Sadie. And to everyone listening, you don't have to perfectly define your sense of self right now. In fact, part of growing up is trying different things, questioning what fits and slowly learning what feels real to you. It is a process that isn't linear, and discovering who you are may take a very long time. But realizing that that process will be fulfilling at some point is the most rewarding part. You're allowed to change, you're allowed to grow, and you're allowed to take your time to figure everything in between. Because being yourself isn't something you arrive at all at once. It's something you build piece by piece over time. So thank you everybody, Dr. Shiner, listeners, and everyone in between for joining me on this episode of Growing Forward. I'll see you next time as we keep exploring what it truly means to grow up in this current world that we are in. Signing off with loads of positivity, your host, Sadie Sunniborn Maliki.