Adolescence and the Power of Social Cliques

Source: Carl Pickhardt, Ph. D.

A social clique is a group defined around some shared values or characteristics or purpose that allows members to set themselves apart from others.

Most cliques are closed groups because they are exclusively defined. “We are not they, and they are not us.” So membership is limited, decided by those who already belong.

Cliques come in many forms. For example, the cliques can be based on lifestyle, culture, popularity, wealth, gangs, athletics, gaming, or being artsy, alternative, a stoner, a skater, or whatever.

Socially, the clique has a lot to socially offer a young adolescent. For example, cliques can provide the following:

• Commonality – One feels social similarity.
• Security – One feels social protection.
• Identity – One has social definition.
• Belonging – One has a social home.
• Loyalty – One feels social allegiance.
• Standing – One feels social importance.

Cliques in Middle School

From what I’ve seen of the adolescent passage, social cliques are most powerful in middle school. Why so? During this vulnerable age, there is increased developmental insecurity for several reasons:

• There is increased separation from childhood and parents, so one can feel more lonely and disconnected.
• There are uncertain and often unwelcome physical changes of puberty, so one can feel more inadequate and uncomfortable.
• There is more social meanness (teasing, rumoring, exclusion, bullying, ganging up) as young people jockey for social place, so one can feel more exposed and vulnerable.

At this changing stage of life, forming a second family—of friends—becomes increasingly important to create and maintain acceptance, confidence, and stability. “I need a separate social life of my own.”

Clique Pressures

Cliques can feel cool when you belong and can feel cruel when you don’t. That’s one of the problems with cliques. They can cut in both ways. Acceptance is based on similarity to what is prized that members should personify and possess. Rejection is based on lacking these social credentials. Cliques can create two kinds of pressures—those from belonging and those from not belonging:

• Those in the clique can feel socially restricted and confined by similarity demands upon which social belonging depends: “To be in good standing you have to appear like us, behave like us, believe like us, keep up with us, possess like us, only socialize with us, and like us best.” For an insider, a clique can be exhausting and oppressive.
• Those not in the clique can feel rejected and even be mistreated for being different: “To be not one of us means you are not worth noticing and knowing because you don’t measure up to us, don't fit in with us, don't belong with us, can’t keep up with us, and are not as good as us.” For an outsider, a clique can be demeaning and intimidating.

The Power of Cliques

Cliques are close-knit groups in which that closeness is based on shared, even required, similarity, shunning those who are different. For example, there can be wealth cliques in which well-off young people snobbishly act like they're better than poorer students, treating lower-income peers as less worthy of consideration, notice, and association on that account.

In the social hierarchy, dominant adolescent cliques can be extremely powerful, sometimes to the frustration of parents and even teachers. Often small, cliques can exercise outsized influence when nonmembers defer to their position.

For example, many years ago, before private practice, I was called in to consult with counselors in a middle school over an eighth-grade performance problem. It seemed an older clique of students who scorned school achievement had gathered so much ruling power that academic effort by many nonmember students was actually suppressed. There was a widespread fear of making better than C’s in young people who didn’t want to offend these influential peers. So, with counselors, working with one capable student at a time, we began doing short check-ins with affected students to talk about “not doing one’s best,” “obligation to oneself,” and “braving disapproval.” There was no intent to harm the clique, only to honor individual capacity. And, gradually, the oppressive norm lost power.

The End of Cliques

For the middle-school moment, being part of a clique can provide some powerful benefits. However, as a larger, more complex adolescent world develops in high school and the reality of graduation approaches, the social shelter, simplicity, and similarity of a clique become less serviceable. Now, as conformity demands feel too restrictive, the costs outweigh the benefits, and active membership often declines.

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Eventually, the emphasis on exclusivity is the clique’s undoing. By keeping the larger world out, by restricting membership, by demanding conformity of conduct, association, and belief, it limits the social path a growing adolescent can follow. What helped at first now becomes more of a hindrance. “I used to run with that group until it started holding me back.”