On Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:50:43 -0700, Naomi Schatz >Have you all heard about the case in Gloucester, Mass where >a bunch of girls all got pregnant "together" >(http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1815845,00.html)? >Well, I am wondering if anyone knows the psychological >precept that would explain this type of behavior?
It would help to know what specifcally you were referring to: (1) Are you referring to the premature assertions of the Time article concerning the formation of a pact? As reported in a follow-up article in Time: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1817272,00.html |So did the girls make a formal pact to get pregnant together |or not? Without comment from any of the pregnant students themselves, |it may be impossible to determine exactly what they agreed to, |and when. So far, the only school official to use the word pact |is [principal] Sullivan, who reportedly now says he does not |recall who told him about the pact in the first place. But what |does seem clear based on TIME's reporting is that some of the |girls in question did at least discuss the idea of getting pregnant |at the same time, and that too little was done to educate the girls |on the potential ramifications of that choice. If so, then the "precept" for this type of behavior may be described as the need for being sensationalistic and greed (since sex does help sell magazines, newspapers, and airtime). (2) Are you referring to the increse in teen pregnancies? As Ellen Goodman points out: http://www.alternet.org/sex/89579/?ses=6787fd3e1d2c55ae21519b2d8dbfb9d7 or http://tinyurl.com/5axdkz |Let us review the feeding frenzy that seemed to please so many |palates. The natives of the Massachusetts town already knew |there had been a bump in the number of baby bumps. High |school pregnancies had quadrupled in one year. But this didn't |get much outside notice until the high school principal told a |Time magazine reporter that nearly half the girls "made a pact |to get pregnant and raise their babies together." and |Before we comfortably return to ignoring reality, may I |remind you that the "Girls Gone Wild in Gloucester" merely |raised this school's pregnancy rate up to 3 percent, or just |under the national average for teens from 15 to 17. Are |there no cameras on, say, Holyoke, Mass., where the |pregnancy rate is 9 percent? (3) Are you referring to an attempt to provide an instant psychological explanation for a real life event that would require extensive interviewing of the people involved (if they would allow it), examination of the home and family situations that the pregnant girls came from along with appropriate control conditions (i.e., nonpregnant girls matched on various factors), as well as a consideration of the larger sociocultural factors that appear to have raised high school/teen pregnancies in recent years? If so, perhaps it a need on the part of some people to have simple explanations for complex phenomena without having to do hard work of collecting and going through the relevant evidence as well as spending a fair amount of time thinking through the situation. Remember that when a jet plane crashes, it often takes the federal panel investigating the crash from 18 to 24 months to come up with a report as what happened while most media outlets will have provided a neat little explanation within 24-48 hours. Perhaps Ellen Goodman put it best at the end of her article: |If this is still a "teachable moment" -- a phrase used to make |us feel better when we've been gobsmacked by reality -- what's |the lesson from this media frenzy? That we're spending way |too much time arguing with each other in public about sex |education, abstinence, condoms and shame. We're spending |way too little time talking to kids over the kitchen table about |sexuality and sexual values. -Mike Palij New York University [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- To make changes to your subscription contact: Bill Southerly ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
