Minimizing Embarrassment: Boys' Experiences of Pubertal Changes

Abstract

As very little is known about boys' subjective and emotional experiences when going through puberty, the qualitative research method of grounded theory was used in this study to address the question: “What is the experience of the physical maturational changes in male adolescents?” A Basic Social Psychological Process emerged, Minimizing Embarrassment, with four stages: waiting for the change, noticing the change, dealing with the change, and feeling comfortable with the change. Boys developed expectations from listening to others, by looking at older males, and by wondering and imagining what the changes would eventually be like for them. After developing these expectations, they compared their physical changes to others and to their own expectations. If the boys felt they were different from their peers, they worried about this difference. They used strategies such as avoiding, pretending, and joking to avoid embarrassment or to deal with embarrassing situations. If the boys felt they were “normal,” they accepted the fact that they were maturing properly.