Personal Fableness and Perception of Risk Behaviors among Adolescents.

Adolescence is a crucial period where one tends to identify who they are as an individual. However, as a teenager is struggling to find his/her place in this world, it is also a time where they are prone to engaging in risk behaviors, which tend to have an extreme psychological impact. The objective was to explore the experiences of an adolescent who engages in risk behaviors and to understand their level of personal fables. The study was a qualitative design with content analysis with semi-structured interviews of ten male adolescents aged 16-18 years. The major findings of the study indicated that adolescent's pattern of thinking revolves around the fact that they are invincible and invulnerable. Furthermore, adolescents are aware of the risks they are putting themselves through and how in the process they are hurting others. The implications of the study are to conduct more life skill programs in schools; greater awareness has to be created on the impact and harmful effects of such behaviors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]