Graffiti and adolescent personality.

Graffiti has been studied for many years from many viewpoints. They have been used to explain accounts of people, styles of life, and assumed relationships. The present paper reports an attempt to analyze graffiti as outward manifestations of adolescent personality. Results suggested that different forms of graffiti could be interpreted from five characterizations of early adolescent personality: sexual maturity, self-identity, idealism, iconoclasm, and rebelliousness. Significant differences were found between boys and girls in numbers of inscriptions for each category. Further, the graffiti were analyzed in relation to early adolescent stages of development.