Peers can be your friends who are about your age and have similar interests and experiences. Peers can also be other kids who are about your age and are involved in the same activities with you or are part of a community or group you belong to. You may not how to deal with peer pressure consider all of your peers to be friends, but they can all influence you. Peer pressure can lead a person to engage in sexual activity before they are ready. It may also influence the person to participate in unsafe, risky, or dangerous sexual activities.
- To effectively deal with adult peer pressure, developing self-awareness and assertiveness is essential.
- It can create anxiety and stress as we grapple with the pressure to conform to societal or group expectations.
- Peer pressure is the influence exerted by the majority on a person, to the point of it being capable of modifying their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
- It is crucial to recognize and understand these effects in order to effectively navigate and resist its influence.
Many of us experience wanting to fit in with everyone else and be liked. Sign up for the weekly CPTC newsletter and get parenting tips delivered right to your inbox. Reading your story can help other young people deal with the tough times.
In Sexual Situations
This finding suggests that a person’s perception of their environment acts as a form of peer pressure, even when peers do not directly exert any pressure. 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.
- As the name suggests, spoken peer pressure is when someone verbally influences another person to do something.
- It’s a tall order for anyone, let alone a teen who is still trying to fit in and discover themselves.
- Someone’s peers can pressure them into making positive changes, or avoiding bad situations.
Because avoiding fun or peers altogether is advice that will never be followed, we need to encourage young people to instead look for like-minded friends or classmates that also avoid unsafe or unwise situations. Adolescence is a time when peer pressure, in particular, may seem the hardest to deal with. That’s because, in attempting to fit https://ecosoberhouse.com/ in with peers, teens want to please. Being subject to peer rejection can be very painful, and a person who feels unable to tolerate rejection may find it very difficult to resist using drugs and alcohol if their peers do so. For this reason, it is important to find peers who either do not use drugs or alcohol or accept those who do not.
You might be scared they won’t like you or want to be your friend anymore.
Maybe you admire a friend who is a good sport, and you try to be more like them. Maybe you got others excited about your new favorite book and now everyone’s reading it. For example, you might see what kids in your class are wearing, like it, and wear something like that, too. It’s possible that a friend who is peer pressuring you simply wants to spend more time with you or connect with you, but they don’t know how else to ask. For instance, you might say something like, “It upsets me when you offer me a cigarette when you know I don’t smoke. I won’t be able to keep hanging out with you if you don’t respect my answer.”
