Teens are far more likely to seek out their friends for help with ethical decisions than to ask a member of the clergy, a poll shows.
Eighty-three percent of teens said they would turn to their friends for help making such choices, followed by their parents (68 percent), teachers (27 percent), the Internet (24 percent), and clergy (14 percent).
Harris Interactive conducted the poll for Junior Achievement, an organization focused on educating young people about business, and Deloitte & Touche, a major accounting firm.
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.
“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 H. Quigley, CEO of Deloitte & Touche USA LLP, in a statement.
David S. Chernow, president and CEO of Junior Achievement Worldwide, added: “It is imperative that we as adults emphasize the importance of ethics to our young people in order to keep our free enterprise system, and our nation, strong.”
They survey of 624 students was drawn from a larger Harris Interactive poll conducted via e-mail and it was weighted demographically to represent the nation. Conducted in July, it has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.9 percentage points.
(RNS)
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