Peer pressure can be caused by various factors – from the desire for approval and social acceptance to even media influence (Prinstein & Dodge, 2010). This form of pressure is clear and easy to recognize because it involves direct interactions between people who influence others through persuasion, coercion, or threats (Paul, 2011). Adults experience similar scenarios in professional environments where they aim for acceptance by colleagues in order to achieve advantages such as promotions or favoritism. In other words, peer pressure is when someone is influenced by their peers to do something they may not be comfortable with.
A peer is a person within a specific social group, or someone connected to a person based on age or similar interests. Peers can include people who go to school together, How To Flush Alcohol from Your Urine? friend groups, people who work together, or people attending the same social event. In turn, your friend might reconsider criticizing people based on their appearance.
Peer pressure and risky driving: Development of a new scale
Thus, it is essential to ensure the corporate culture is driven by positive peer pressure that nurtures a productive working environment. Take fashion choices such as tattoos and body piercings as an example of passive peer pressure. Whether these are positive effects of peer pressure or negative effects of peer pressure becomes a matter of perspective. Sanjay’s workplace friends began to exert positive peer pressure on him to improve his lifestyle and nagged him to join a yoga class. The stress of having to make drastic changes to his lifestyle could very quickly have made Sanjay give in to the negative effects of peer pressure.
Negative and positive influences deploy the same types of peer pressure mechanisms but result in vastly different outcomes. Negative peer pressure challenges moral code and beliefs, which can drastically impact a person’s mental and physical health, and emotional stability. Additionally, it can cause turmoil with personal relationships, undermine self-confidence, and increase the chances of developing dangerous habits like substance abuse. Negative peer pressure usually involves influence that sways people toward risky activity such as criminal behavior, underage drinking, drug use, and an overall unhealthy lifestyle.
Establish Positive Friendships
Drug use is a necessary prerequisite to drug misuse and substance use disorders, making it a key risk factor. A 2020 study estimates that in 2016, 11.6% of adult drug users had problematic drug use or an addiction. Not only is this evident in the short term, but it has also been observed in the long term. Negative https://trading-market.org/essential-tremor-alcohol-treatment/ Peer Pressure — being pressured to do something that goes beyond your moral beliefs or against your core values. It can lead you to adopt a lifestyle beyond your means or change the way you think. If peer pressure has negatively impacted your life, a therapist can offer compassionate and confidential help.
Even if no one tells the teenager to smoke a cigarette in the example above, the teen may still feel pressured by their peers to partake in the activity because it seems like everyone is doing it. Teens with high self-esteem accepts themselves and the way they are, as well as respect themselves. Building good self-esteem will help them stay away from groups with negative influences. It’s natural for people to identify with and compare themselves to their peers as they consider how they wish to be (or think they should be), or what they want to achieve. People are influenced by peers because they want to fit in, be like peers they admire, do what others are doing, or have what others have. Heart pounding, Leah leaned against the store’s unattended makeup display and slid two tubes of lipstick into her purse.