That’s what many college students do and many emerging adults as well. Carolyn McNamara Barry and Stephanie Madsen, two sociologists working on the Changing Sea Project–which is chock full of great research on young people–say has some merit in exploring:
Emerging adults report that friends affect their major life decisions. In fact, friends’ behaviors affect emerging adults’ positive outcomes, including church attendance. Friends’ behaviors also influence more negative outcomes (e.g., those with aggressive friends are more likely to abuse their romantic partners). Besides friends’ behavior, the quality of the friendship matters, with “better” friendships promoting positive adjustment and reducing problem behaviors. We don’t yet know whether these effects are due to choosing a bird with similar feathers or birds shaping each other’s behavior—likely it is a bit of both.
My thought is that this is all about trust. That there is so much NOT to trust in our culture that many have held tightly to people who have proven themselves worthy of their trust–and thus, they turn to them when the time comes to make important decisions.
Make sense? Who do you turn to when you nee to make a decision and why?