Peer Pressure In Adolescents

Peer Pressure In Adolescents

It is the direct influence on people by their peers which may lead to them changing their attitudes, values, or behaviors to conform to those of the influencing group or individual. This can yield either positive or negative results.

It can be in form of encouragement, request, challenge, threat, or insult.

What Is A Peer Group?

It is a social and primary group of people who have similar interests, age, background, or social status.

How Does Peer Pressure Influence Adolescents?

While we are constantly influenced by those around us, ultimately the decision to act (or not to act) is up to us as individuals. So when it comes to decision making, the choice is up to you.

The Positive Effect

• Peer pressure also affects adolescents positively. An adolescent may join a study group just because his or her friends did. Friends could encourage each other to study, go out for sports, or follow new artistic interests.
• Adolescents can begin to engage in new activities that can help build strong pathways in the brain. This means that teens have the potential, through their choices and the behaviors they engage in, to shape their brain development.

The Negative Effect

• A dip in self-confidence – This can take a normally self-confident child and make him/her someone who is not sure about themselves and has low self-esteem. Low self-esteem and a lack of confidence, in turn, might impact the adolescent.
• Poor academic performance – Adolescents like to be accepted by their peer group and this may mean more to them than Parent or Guardian’s approval. This may have a direct effect on their academics because despite being capable of performing better, some choose not to because in the eyes of their peers it makes them look “uncool” and some also perform poor because, in their quest to fit in with their peers, they have less time to study.
• Adopting bad habits – Peer pressure propagates bad habits such as alcohol consumption, smoking, drug abuse.
• Shame – This can make adolescents ashamed of themselves and their families, especially if their peers are more privileged than they are.
• Cutting off family – Some adolescents leave home and cut off their family.
• May engage in self-harm and suicide ideation – Some severe cases of peer pressure lead to depression, self-harm, or suicide.

Adolescents cannot be policed but they need to know that they are loved by their family and friends. They also need to recognize how unique they are and try not to put unnecessary pressure on themselves.

Also, they should make good and productive friends, and when in doubt, they can seek counsel from their Parents or Guardians. For those that have been greatly influenced negatively, it is not too late for them to change for the good.