peer pressure

Examples of peer pressure in the following topics:

• Cultural and Societal Influences on Adolescent Development

  • The influence of parental and peer relationships, as well as the broader culture, shapes many aspects of adolescent development.
  • Research shows there are four main types of relationships that influence an adolescent: parents, peers, community, and society.
  • Peer groups offer members of the group the opportunity to develop social skills such as empathy, sharing, and leadership.
  • Peer groups can have positive influences on an individual, such as academic motivation and performance; however, they can also have negative influences, such as peer pressure to engage in drug use, drinking, vandalism, stealing, or other risky behavior.
  • Susceptibility to peer pressure increases during early adolescence, and while peers may facilitate positive social development for one another, they may also hinder it.

• Eating Disorders

  • These circumstances may include biological contexts, genetic predispositions, psychological factors (such as depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder), and environmental influences (such as social isolation, parental influence, peer pressure, and cultural pressure).
  • Peer pressure and idealized body types seen in the media may be significant factors.
  • Cultural influences are accused of distorting reality, in the sense that people portrayed in the media are unnaturally thin by putting excessive pressure on themselves (often through eating disorders), or thin by means of editing and airbrushing photos to make them look thinner and blemish-free.

• Conformity

  • It is generally distinguished from obedience (behavior influenced by authority figures) and compliance (behavior influenced by peers).
  • Conformity may result from either subtle, unconscious influences or direct and overt social pressure.
  • For instance, if Susan lands a really prestigious, high-paying job, she is more likely to be offered similarly high-paying jobs in the future because potential employers will be influenced by their peers' previous decisions about her.
  • In a control group with no pressure to conform, participants had an error rate of less 1%.

• Compliance

  • In social psychology, "compliance" refers to an individual's acquiescence in response to a request from a peer.
  • Immediacy: The proximity of the group makes an individual more likely to comply with group pressures.
  • Pressure to comply is strongest when the group is closer to the individual and made of up people the individual cares about.

• Erikson's Stages of Psychosocial Development

  • Children begin to compare themselves with their peers to see how they measure up.
  • If children do not learn to get along with others or have negative experiences at home or with peers, an inferiority complex might develop into adolescence and adulthood.
  • When adolescents are apathetic, do not make a conscious search for identity, or are pressured to conform to their parents’ ideas for the future, they may develop a weak sense of self and experience role confusion.

• Cultural and Societal Influences on Child Development

  • For instance, first-generation Chinese American children raised by authoritarian parents did just as well in school as their peers who were raised by authoritative parents (Russell et al., 2010).
  • For example, stereotype threat can lower the intellectual performance of black students taking the SAT, due to the stereotype that they are less intelligent than other groups, which may cause them to feel additional pressure and anxiety.

• Learning Disabilities and Special Education

  • Special-education programs are designed to help children with disabilities obtain an education equivalent to their non-disabled peers.
  • Certain laws and policies are designed to help children with learning disabilities obtain an education equivalent to their non-disabled peers.
  • Language difficulties related to ASD will sometimes make it hard for the child to interact with teachers and peers or themselves in the classroom.
  • Deficits in social skills can interfere with the development of appropriate peer relationships, and repetitive behaviors can be obsessive and interfere with a child's daily activities.
  • Section 504 states that schools must ensure that a student with a disability is educated among peers without disabilities.

• Socioemotional Development in Adolescence

  • Some adolescents adopt the values and roles that their parents provide them with; other teens develop identities that are in opposition to their parents but align with a peer group.
  • This is common, as peer relationships become a central focus in adolescents’ lives.
  • Adolescents tend to be rather egocentric; they often experience a self-conscious desire to feel important in peer groups and receive social acceptance.
  • When adolescents have advanced cognitive development and maturity, they tend to resolve identity issues more easily than peers who are less cognitively developed.
  • As adolescents work to form their identities, they pull away from their parents, and the peer group becomes very important (Shanahan, McHale, Osgood, & Crouter, 2007).

• The Intellectually Gifted

  • A child whose cognitive abilities are markedly more advanced than those of his or her peers is considered intellectually gifted.
  • Gifted children often learn faster than their peers, and work more independently.
  • The potential disadvantages, however, are substantial: younger students will experience physical development later than their grade-level peers and may experience emotional development later as well.
  • This may lead them to feel self-conscious about being different or to be bullied by their peers.

• Physical Development in Adolescence

  • Early maturing boys tend to be physically stronger, taller, and more athletic than their later maturing peers; this can contribute to differences in popularity among peers, which can in turn influence the teenager's confidence.
  • Girls and boys who develop more slowly than their peers may feel self-conscious about their lack of physical development; some research has found that negative feelings are particularly a problem for late maturing boys, who are at a higher risk for depression and conflict with parents (Graber et al., 1997) and more likely to be bullied (Pollack & Shuster, 2000).