This study examines the normalcy of adolescent risk-taking and proposes that the social adventures of adolescents have significance for the development and maintenance of interpersonal relationships and self-identity. To evaluate the narrative role of shared risks in transforming different types of relationships, an interview procedure was developed in which 30 adolescents between the ages of 16 and 18 years were presented with hypothetical adventures. The subjects were asked to speculate about the interpersonal consequences of adventures shared with close friends versus acquaintances, and about the consequences of experiences that varied in terms of relative risks. A major theme to emerge in the course of this study concerns the importance that adolescents attach to secrecy and privacy. Th data indicate that adolescents perceive risk-taking as a mechanism for creating private experiences, or shared knowledge significant for group relations. Thus risk-taking functions to maintain and facilitate ingroup-outgroup boundaries. In addition, adolescents' tolerance for non-conforming expressions of selfhood may be limited to stable, close-friend relationships. Finally, conformity to group pressure may be a transient phenomenon, mediated by the developmental status of the group. (RJC)