For example, you may feel pressure to do unsafe things that have risks you may not fully know. Resisting peer pressure can involve avoiding it, saying no, and surrounding yourself with more positive influences. Peer pressure is any type of influence, positive or negative, that comes from a peer group. This peer group may be of similar age (e.g., children in the same classroom) but can also be defined by other commonalities, including motherhood, professional affiliations, and your local neighborhood. Peer pressure occurs throughout the lifespan, but learning to cope by building self-confidence and surrounding yourself with positive influences may help prevent problems with peer pressure from arising later.
Very often, the drive to engage in this kind of behavior is a result of peer pressure. Adolescents who have larger circles of friends appear to be less influenced by the suggestions or actions of their peers, but the pressure to conform is very real at this age. One common social media misrepresentation is when people post the “best” of their lives, creating a false sense of reality.
What Is Peer Pressure?
Just as in-person interactions can be both positive and negative, communication through social media can also have a positive or negative effect. Social media is constantly available, enabling teens to receive those messages 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This means social media has great potential to amplify feelings of peer pressure, both negative and positive. There are several different types of peer pressure that kids and adolescents may experience.
A community is a group of individuals who are more tightly connected among themselves than with the other actors in the network25. Actors in one of these communities reach consensus among themselves easily, but it is difficult to reach consensus between different communities. Most central actors in such networks are frequently located in a single community. When they emerge as leaders, they drive consensus only in their community but not in the global network.
Indirect Negative Peer Pressure
For this reason, it is important to find peers who either do not use drugs or alcohol or accept those who do not. The same study also found that students with higher resistance to peer influence were which of the following is a type of indirect peer pressure? less likely to modify their behavior to match the perceived behavior of their peers. Positive peer pressure can be a valuable part of learning how to socialize and even growing as a person.
