Taking a Look at Peer Pressure

Pressure can put smart people into dumb situations, but it also can get them out of it too. Pressure is weird, it can bring people to their highest of highs, and then sudden take them to their lowest of lows. Pressure is often looked at as a bad thing, but in reality the pressures are what push people to be better in their life. Whether it is being better in a sport or better in a class, it drives people to reach their goals. Pressure is more often good than bad.

First, teens need to keep themselves safe from peer pressure. In the first article I read it states that teens who belong to a group of people that they like tend to veer away from negative peer pressure. “Teens who belong to a positive group -- and share a sense of belonging with group members -- are often better able to resist negative peer pressure from outside sources than

Peer pressure is defined as “influence from members of one's peer group” according to dictionary.com. To this day being popular or well liked is one of the biggest problems on high schoolers minds. Humans are creatures of habit. We seek to be well liked and to have lots of friends. When we are not invested in what someone we are interested in is, we often pretend to like it. Even going so far as to participate in certain things we would normally not. High school is often difficult for many young adults. We are trying to find where we fit in and who we really are. When one graduates high school, they often do not have the same friends that they started high school with. When I started high school I was struggling a lot with who I was. My mom had just moved to another state, I had just moved into a new house with my dad whom I had not lived with for years and I was about to start a new school with almost no friends. The first people who talked to me were the kids who looked like me. Dyed hair, wearing all black, and generally not very well liked. I was scared of the new world I was living in and would take any friends I could get. At first it was not so bad. They were nice to me and wanted to be my friend. Later in the year as we all became more comfortable they wanted to ditch class. I knew it was wrong so I told them to go without me. The more they skipped class and did other things without me, the more they stopped talking with me. They would go out and illegally smoke and

The main reason that people fall to peer pressure is either because they have a lower self-esteem and they want to fit in or because at the time, they believed that it wasn’t going to end poorly. Even though saying no to peer pressure might not be the popular choice, you’d be setting a positive example for others and people could see you as a strong-willed leader. Just by saying no one time, you could change how someone else responds to peer pressure, which could prevent future irresponsible decisions. Peer pressure doesn’t just have to be verbally transmitted, one popular form is by cyberbullying because they are too scared to actually speak face-to-face. If someone decides to cyber-bully a fellow peer, it it usually because they have experienced it in the past and they feel as if someone else should feel the pain as well. Bullies are often times bullies because they are the familiar to the feelings of being picked on and broken down. The formation of bullying may stem from a student not conforming to a popular choice or “chickening out” on a task. If someone doesn’t follow the ultimatum given by another peer, the word could spread, while also possibly being altered, promoting the bullying.

Hannah Gray is an unpopular sixteen-year-old girl who absolutely loves going to school; she attends Central High, a large urban school in the middle a fast-paced city. As Hannah walks out of class, a group of popular students approach her, staring her up and down with crooked smiles. They tell Hannah that they’re going to skip the next class so they can sneak off behind the high school to smoke. One of the popular girls tells Hannah that she would be cool and fit in better if she snuck off with them. Hannah doesn’t want to break the rules at school, but she really wants to be accepted by the other students. She eventually politely declines their offer knowing that she could get in trouble if she were to leave with them and get caught. The situation that Hannah is in is a prime example of peer pressure; they tell her that she would fit in better if she snuck off with them. She was smart and made the right decision by saying no to them and going to her next class; however, many people can’t or won’t resist this pressure. What most people don’t realize is that others feel peer pressure more intensely from their close friends because they value their opinions more and don’t want to lose them as a friend. Peer pressure, which can be both good and bad, affects most people at one time or another and has a variety of either positive or negative effects.

Dealing with peer pressure as a teenager can be stressful since you want to be accepted but it might lead you to do negative things you feel uncomfortable with. Peer pressure is the influence of those similar to you, such as classmates or friends, that encourages you to change your behavior or values to meet theirs. This is a problem for teenagers since at their age, they are becoming more independent from their parents which can expose them to drugs, alcohol and sex. According to a study conducted by The Foundation for a Drug-Free World, 55% of teenagers said they used drugs for the first time because of being pressured by their friends. Learning to avoid and say “No” to Peer Pressure can help a lot of teenagers avoid these negative lifestyles and influences.

By definition, peer pressure is described as social pressure by members of one’s peer group to take a certain action, adopt certain values, or otherwise confirm in order to be accepted. Considering peer pressure is something that everyone experiences, whether they wish to admit it or not, there are numerous definitions for it; especially since it affects everyone so differently.

Even though risky behavior and peer pressure can have a variety of different meanings for people, typically, it is a relation to drugs or alcohol. Most of the time, it seems that the most well-known types of peer pressure come from friends partaking in a substance such as drugs or alcohol and trying to persuade someone else in the group. According to the article “Peer pressure and risk-taking behaviors in children” by Lewis and Lewis (1984), peer pressure is a major factor in the development of risk-taking behaviors such as alcohol, drug, and tobacco use. (Lewis & Lewis, 1984) Not only are these risk-taking behaviors prevalent throughout life, but most specifically throughout college. In their book Monitoring the future national survey results on drug use Johnston, O’Malley, Bachman, and Schulenberg (2009), all suggest that the biggest difference between college students and their non-college peers is largely due to the environment at college. (Johnston et al., 2009)

When kids are going through peer pressure in middle school they tend to get hurt or get in trouble.People go through Peer Pressure because kids are new to a school and they want to fit in. “We need to work hard, just like the any other side.”(parg6) “We didn’t play well on the night.”(parg8) In school kids have peer pressure because they want to have friends and they don’t want to feel left out.When kids are going through peer pressure they also go through depression because kids want to be perfect and be popular in their school so they don’t feel left out.

Bullying and peer pressure are issues that most every student in school has to deal with. Because this is such a pertinent issue, movies are made based on these problems. This is the teen genre. Movies from this genre are from a teenagers point of view so they can relate to them. Heathers is a dark teen movie where the bullies are killed off in an attempt to clean out the school. Peer pressure and bullying are a necessary part of the teen genre because of how big a part it takes in teen society.

The purpose of this literature review paper is to navigate and explore different effects in society towards peer pressure, conformity and rebellion. This study attempts to answer the following research questions: How does peer pressure, conformity, and rebellion affects adolescents in society? The main goal of this review is to have knowledge of the effects of this three concepts such as: peer pressure, conformity and rebellion.

Peer pressure. Bad decisions. Close calls. Consequences. In the reflective song “The Art of Peer Pressure”, Kendrick Lamar details a day where he was under peer pressure, made bad decisions, had close calls, and narrowly escaped the consequence of his actions. Lamar was with some friends smoking blunts that ended up to be laced with PCP. The combination of the PCP and peer pressure from his friends caused Lamar to agree to go along with his friends plan to rob a house. Throughout the song “The Art of Peer Pressure”, Kendrick Lamar creates a moralistically conflicted voice with a combination of diction choices, imagery and syntax choices.

We all have been young adolescents before and experienced all the things junior high and high school has to offer. Being a teenager is something everyone has or will experience in our life times. Teenagers go through a crucial time in their lives where they really figure out who they are and how to make more adult decisions. Peer pressure has always been a regular part of teenage life. American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry state's “Peers play a large role in the social and emotional development of children and adolescents. Their influence begins at an early age and increases through the teenage years. It is natural, healthy and important for children to have and rely on friends as they grow and

Peer pressure is most commonly found in the ages of 12-19 years old. Some teens have the tendency to let their peers talk them into doing things they wouldn’t normally do. The most common experiences of peer pressure happen throughout high school and college. They want to be accepted by their peers so they will often do several things to impress them. Some feel like since others are doing it they have to do it too in order to fit it. There are many varieties of peer pressure it could be how you walk or talk, what clothes you wear, and the type of music you listen to. Most teens are still learning to adapt to

Apart from that, peer pressure is definitely one of the reasons why students are involved in disciplinary cases. Nowadays, there is a current trend where ‘good is bad’ and ‘bad is good’. The bad guys in school are seen as ‘cool’ and the good guys are seen as ‘nerds’. Thus, some students join these bad gangs to be well-known and if they do not join or do not carry out disciplinary problems, they may be labeled as ‘losers’. This will demotivate them thus in the end, they feel that they have no choice except for being a follower of the ‘gangsters’. If not, they may lose friends and power.