Peer pressure

Peer pressure is a type of social influence that produces conformity to a particular way of acting to thinking. Peer pressure or influence increases progressively through childhood to adolescence. This is not surprising given the increasing amount of time teenagers spend with peers and that one of the tasks of adolescence is separating emotionally from parents. We often think of peer pressure as being overt and coercive, whereas the power of peer pressure is in the allure of being part of the group. Parents often believe, if their child has done something wrong, that a peer may have pressured their child into doing it. It is more likely that the child chose to do it as they wanted to be part of 'the group'. A second mistake made by many parents is to think that the power of the group is easy to resist. Research shows that even for adults, only one in three are able to actively speak out and resist the power of a false group opinion. The desire to conform increases if a person feels incompetent or insecure or if they admire the status of the group. Children and particularly adolescents act differently when with a group of their peers. In such a group children can act less responsibly and present as less empathic than when by themselves. They may also take more risks, justifying this by saying but everyone was doing it Only 4% of adolescents are able to make moral decisions by looking inward rather than to the group. Children need to be part of a group; it is part of their (and our) constitution as social beings. The real issue with peer pressure is that parents want to control the type of group and pressure that their child will be part of. Many parents at some stage will try to engineer friendships and a child's entry into a group, if the parent sees the qualities of that group as desirable (eg. playing with the 'nice' children or with the 'bright' children). The important thing is to acknowledge the power of peer pressure and to talk with your children about these issues. Children with high social status tend to form the positive peer groups or cliques. Children with low self esteem and low social status also form groups. These groups will find their own place and sometimes gain their status by doing things that get them attention or notoriety. Remember that for your child, being part of any group is better than not being part of a group. Telling them to stay away from the 'naughty' children won't work if everyone else rejects them. Work on assisting your child to become more confident and gain the social skills needed to be part of a more desirable group. Important message: Children who lack friends needs adults to help them learn the skills to form friendships . Parent Easy Guide #42 Peer Pressure
Last updated: 01 Dec 2011

How does peer pressure affect many teens health

Tuesday, September 7, 2010

How can peer pressure affect a person's life?

Have you ever gone to a party with your friends and drink alcohol because they did? Or have you ever skipped school because you believed that your friends would think of you as "un cool" if you didn't? Or have you ever done something because you you thought that everyone else was doing it? These are all examples of peer pressure. Peer pressure can affect a person's health in many ways. Peer pressure can cause physical, emotional, and mental distress. First, peer pressure can affect a person's health. Many students on the collegiate level begin to test drugs because their friends or classmates encourage them to do so. Most of these drugs are extreme and very dangerous, such as, methamphetamine, cocaine, heroin, etc. When students begin to experiment with drugs, they sometimes get addicted, which could result in serious side effects. These side effects could include: hair loss, extreme weight loss, nausea, etc. The side effects of drugs are endless and can affect a person's physical health tremendously. Equally important, peer pressure can not only affect a person's health physically but also emotionally. Many young ladies and gentlemen decide to be sexually active because they that everyone is doing "it". A lot of times young ladies are pressured into having sex with their partners because they feel as though they have to "prove" that they love that person. Accidents such as pregnancy orcontraction of a sexually transimitted disease or infection could cause enormous emotional distress. This could cause a person to contemplate suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, and could cause serious depression. Peer pressure is not only dangerous to a person's body health; peer pressure also has a lot to do with a person's wellbeing. Finally, peer pressure can have a negative influence of a person's mental health. Many people believe that if "everyone" is doing something then it's ok to do it. For this reason, many people steal, kill, and commit many treacherous crimes. by committing these crimes, a person could be incarcerated and in turn lose their sanity. Moreover, experimentation with drugs causes memory loss, death of brain cells, drowsiness, etc. Peer pressure is extremely deadly to a person's mental health. Peer pressure occurs worldwide. Kathi Hudson once said, "No child is immune to peer pressure". Peer pressure can affect a person's health physically, emotionally, and mentally. Peer pressure is, in many ways, ignored or overshadowed. Peer pressure is a a globalwide problem and must be dealt with; it is dangerous and can destroy a child's wellbeing and can even result in death. Peer pressure can no longer be overlooked; we must do something about it before it's too late!

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Peer Pressure Affects Mental Health Of Girls More Than Boys

By National Institutes of Health, Wed, July 15, 2009

What is going on in teenagers brains as their drive for peer approval begins to eclipse their family affiliations? Brain scans of teens sizing each other up reveal an emotion circuit activating more in girls as they grow older, but not in boys. The study by Daniel Pine, M.D., of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of National Institutes of Health, and colleagues, shows how emotion circuitry diverges in the male and female brain during a developmental stage in which girls are at increased risk for developing mood and anxiety disorders. "During this time of heightened sensitivity to interpersonal stress and peers perceptions, girls are becoming increasingly preoccupied with how individual peers view them, while boys tend to become more focused on their status within group pecking orders," explained Pine. "However, in the study, the prospect of interacting with peers activated brain circuitry involved in approaching others, rather than circuitry responsible for withdrawal and fear, which is associated with anxiety and depression." Pine, Amanda Guyer, Ph.D., Eric Nelson, Ph.D., and colleagues at NIMH and Georgia State University, report on one of the first studies to reveal the workings of the teen brain in a simulated real-world social interaction, in the July, 2009 issue of the journal Child Development. Thirty-four psychiatrically healthy males and females, aged 9 to 17, were ostensibly participating in a study of teenagers communications via Internet chat rooms. They were told that after an fMRI (functional magnetic resonance imaging) scan, which visualizes brain activity, they would chat online with another teen from a collaborating study site. Each participant was asked to rate his or her interest in communicating with each of 40 teens presented on a computer screen, so they could be matched with a high interest participant (see picture below). Two weeks later, the teens viewed the same faces while in an fMRI scanner. But this time they were asked to instead rate how interested they surmised each of the other prospective chatters would be in interacting with them. Only after they exited the scanner did they learn that, in fact, the faces were of actors, not study participants, and that there would be no Internet chat. The scenario was intended to keep the teens engaged maintain a high level of anticipation/motivation during the tasks. This helped to ensure that the scanner would detect contrasts in brain circuit responses to high interest versus low interest peers. Although the faces were selected by the researchers for their happy expressions, their attractiveness was random, so that they appeared to be a mix of typical peers encountered by teens. As expected, the teen participants deemed the same faces they initially chose as high interest to be the peers most interested in interacting with them. Older participants tended to choose

more faces of the opposite sex than younger ones. When they appraised anticipated interest from peers of high interest compared with low interest, older females showed more brain activity than younger females in circuitry that processes social emotion. "This developmental shift suggested a change in socio-emotional calculus from avoidance to approach," noted Pine. The circuit is made up of the nucleus accumbens (reward and motivation), hypothalamus (hormonal activation), hippocampus (social memory) and insula (visceral/subjective feelings). By contrast, males showed little change in the activity of most of these circuit areas with age, except for a decrease in activation of the insula. This may reflect a waning of interpersonal emotional ties over time in teenage males, as they shift their interest to groups, suggest Pine and colleagues. "In females, absence of activation in areas associated with mood and anxiety disorders, such as the amygdala, suggests that emotional responses to peers may be driven more by a brain network related to approach than to one related to fear and withdrawal," said Pine. "This reflects resilience to psychosocial stress among healthy female adolescents during this vulnerable period."