What is Peer Pressure and Who is at Risk?

However, much of the research on peer pressure focuses on teenagers, due to the idea that they are more vulnerable to peer influence. One of the main reasons that peer pressure has garnered so much attention in recent https://ecosoberhouse.com/ years is because of its influence on addiction. A large number of teenagers first try drugs or alcohol because they are encouraged to do so, either directly or indirectly, thanks to the behaviour of their peers.

For example, if a group of good friends wants to get good grades, an adolescent may be positively influenced to study. Negative peer pressure is the influence a person faces to do something they wouldn’t normally do or don’t want to do as a way of fitting in with a social group. People often face negative peer pressure to drink alcohol, do drugs, or have sex. Among the different types of peer pressure, direct influences may be among the most powerful.

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His primary research interests include traffic psychology, young risky driving, injury prevention, psychological assessment, research methods and statistics. Drug use is a necessary prerequisite to drug misuse and substance use disorders, making it a key risk factor. A 2020 study estimates that in 2016, 11.6% of adult drug users had problematic drug use or an addiction. Peer pressure is a risk factor for drug use, including alcohol use, among both children and adults.

In the case of teens, parents are rarely concerned about the peer pressure their kids may face to engage in sports or exercise, as these are typically seen as healthy social behaviors. This is OK, as long as the exercise or sport does not become an unhealthy way of coping, excessive to the point of negatively affecting their health, or dangerous (as in dangerous sports). In reality, peer pressure can be either a positive or negative influence that one peer, or group of peers, has on another person. The following six terms are often used to describe the types of peer pressure a person may experience. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), teens ages 12 to 20 account for 11% of total alcohol consumption in the U.S.

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Negative peer pressure occurs when friends negatively influence each other. Examples of negative peer pressure include trying to talk someone into trying drugs, cigarettes, alcohol, and sex. Peer pressure presents itself both explicitly and implicitly, or alternatively, directly and indirectly.

This process will eventually help your social skills because interacting with other people is the easiest way to feel what it is like to be someone else. That is why we try to experience a situation from another person’s perspective if we get upset with them. There are times when empathy can feel like a disadvantage if it feels like you’re always helping the other person, but it is also a process that will help you to mature. When you have a group of friends who come from a diverse set of family experiences, then you have an opportunity to see how the world operates with greater clarity. You can benefit from their observations of life, just as your friends can learn from yours. When you can see a wide range of behaviors and choices, then it becomes easier to make the right decision.

Peer Pressure

Members of a peer group are more likely to influence a person’s beliefs, values, and behavior. A group or individual may be encouraged and want to follow their peers by changing their attitudes, values or behaviors to conform to those of the influencing group or individual. For the individual affected by peer pressure, this can have both a positive or negative effect on them. Peer influence has a significant impact on the initiation of tobacco smoking and drug usage.

In most scenarios, youth will find that a polite, but firm, “no thanks” is enough. In turn, your friend might reconsider criticizing people based on their appearance. By simply adhering to your own values and sharing them with a friend, you can positively peer pressure them to think before making a negative comment. What starts out as positive peer pressure may become negative pressure if it leads a person to over-identify with sports, for example, putting exercise and competition above all else. In order to interact with the world, we have to develop social cues and skills that allow us to easily adapt to our environments at home, school, work, and in public. Peer pressure can be beneficial when it offers encouragement, positive feedback or advice, or provides a prompt to consider new experiences.

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Indirect peer pressure occurs when somebody feels influenced to act in a certain way based on the decisions and actions of others. When large groups of people become interested in the same thing, it’s natural to want to feel included in this group. There is a negative connotation surrounding the word peer pressure, and for good reason.

When you are making choices to gain acceptance into a group of friends, then you are changing who you are at a core level to please someone else. Instead of focusing on your identity, you shift it to become something that others want to see. Although it can feel direct peer pressure good to experience acceptance, this emotion can be short-lived because the friends who demand compliance through peer pressure are usually the first to walk away from you in life. If other people are asking you to change, then they aren’t really your friends.

This suggests that children and teens who face high levels of peer pressure and give in to that pressure may have a higher lifetime risk of addiction. Peers play an important role in many people’s lives, especially in late childhood and adolescence when young people attempt to become more independent, gain acceptance, and build an identity. Peer pressure refers to the fact that peers can pressure one another to engage in certain behaviors — both positive and negative.

Sometimes, it’s about collaboration and support rather than pressure to make poor decisions. Peer pressure can happen to anyone at any age, but it’s important to know why peer pressure might happen to better prepare you in setting boundaries. “Oftentimes peer pressure happens because we don’t want to be the only ones doing something,” says Karen Hasselman, School-Based Therapist at Centerstone.

It is no surprise that, once a child has reached an age where peers are a central part of their life, this strategy of imitation can translate into a susceptibility to peer pressure. Even young children are keenly aware of social hierarchies, and therefore have a strong tendency to defer to adult authority figures and majority opinions. Every child was handed a book with pictures of animals on both pages and asked to indicate the size of the animal on the right-hand page. Every book was identical except for the last child who would sometimes get a different sized animal.