Posted: 10/15/04
Teens choose friends over ministers
in making ethical choices, poll says
WASHINGTON (RNS)–Teenagers who want help making ethical decisions are about six times more likely to seek out their friends than to ask a minister for guidance, a poll shows.
Eighty-three percent of teens said they would turn to their friends for help in making such choices, followed by their parents (68 percent), teachers (27 percent), the Internet (24 percent) and clergy (14 percent).
The poll also showed that almost one-third of teens surveyed think they have to “bend the rules to succeed.”
A smaller percentage–20 percent–gave that answer in a similar poll last year.
Harris Interactive conducted the poll for Junior Achievement, an organization focused on educating young people about business, and Deloitte & Touche, a major accounting firm.
“These poll results indicate that teens are getting mixed messages, so we continue to believe that ethics education must begin early, during formative years,” said James Quigley, chief executive officer of Deloitte & Touche.
The survey of 624 students was drawn from a larger Harris Interactive poll conducted by e-mail, and it was weighted demographically to represent the nation. Conducted during the summer, it has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
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