Pact Mentality: the Psychology of a Pregnancy Pact

June 21, 2008— -- Days after a major news magazine reported that there was a teen pregnancy pact at a Massachusetts high school, parents and school officials struggle to understand why girls might participate in such a scheme.

The disturbing report was published by Time magazine in its Wednesday online edition, following reports of an unusually high number of pregnancy test requests at the school clinic at Gloucester High School. By the end of the school year, 17 girls were pregnant -- a figure more than four times higher than that of the year before for the 1,200 students at the school.

Psychological experts say that pacts among teens, adopted for any number of reasons, are actually quite normal.

"Kids make pacts," says Nadine Kaslow, chief psychologist at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta and a professor at Emory University's School of Medicine. "It's kind of a way to feel like a part of an in group. It gives kids an identity they share."

But in some cases, the stakes are far higher than most parents know. While some teen pacts are relatively benign agreements, other such arrangements have been shown to involve much more dangerous behaviors -- among them drug use and suicide.

"Teen pact behavior -- whether to get pregnant or to commit suicide -- has the same underlying characteristics," notes Dr. Carole Lieberman, Beverly Hills psychiatrist and a clinical faculty member at UCLA. "The act the teenagers conjure up together is forbidden and self-destructive, and therefore must be kept secret."

And as with many past instances of teen pacts -- such as an April 2007 suicide pact in Australia and another in June of the same year in Ireland -- the parents of the teens involved likely had little clue as to what was going on until it was too late.

"The members of the pact develop trust, camaraderie and rebelliousness by sharing this secret," Lieberman says. "These bonds then impel them to commit the forbidden act that they wouldn't have the courage to do on their own."