Ernest R. Groves

The Social Background of Wartime Adolescents

Although the war reaches into every nation, community, and family, its effects everywhere are not the same. Its consequences are largely a matter of distance. This, however, includes the question of psychic as well as spatial nearness. We do not expect so much reaction to war conditions by the adolescent in the United States as in England, and we expect less there than in France. Likewise, the boy who has lost a father or a brother of whom he has been fond feels the nearness of the war in a way not experienced by another adolescent who has no close kinsfolk in it. Vivid imagination as compared with lack of imagination also influences the feeling of nearness or distance in the emotional reactions of the individual to the war. Although there is no escape from consequences of the war, there is evidence that many American youth are not very greatly disturbed by the hazards associated with the conflict. In one study it was found that fear, anxiety,