Have you ever noticed that groups of teens tend to dress alike, talk alike and sometimes even think alike? In fact, while working with one of my fourteen year-old interns, Brian, I noticed that he acted very similarly to his guy friends–they had the same less, wore the same dark denim baggy pants and even used the same hand gestures while speaking. This was not too surprising. However a few days later I met Brian after band rehearsal for an interview and I almost didn’t recognize him! He was dressed differently, talked differently and had slightly different affectations–more like, yup you guessed it, his band friends.
I watched with great interest as he spoke with his band friends in a completely different way than a few days earlier with his neighborhood friends. As we walked away from the group I asked him about his two ‘personas.’ He replied that he had never thought about it, but now that I brought it to his attention he agreed that he is different around each group of friends. He shrugged, “I guess it’s an automatic thing.”