Peer Pressure Research Paper

Your peers are the people with whom you identify and spend time. In children and teens, they are usually, but not always, of the same age group. In adults, peers may be determined less by age and more by shared interests or professions. Peer pressure occurs when an individual experiences implied or expressed persuasion to adopt similar values, beliefs, and goals, or to participate in the same activities as those in the peer group.

What Is Peer Pressure?
Peer pressure exists for all ages. Three-year-old Robert insists that his mother take him to the store right away and buy him the latest fad toy because his friends have it. When she doesn't, he has a temper tantrum. Nine-year-old Sarah wears a new shirt to school once, then refuses to wear it again because her friends made fun if it. Jeff, at sixteen, works out three hours a day to have a "perfect" body. When one of his friends at the gym offers him some anabolic steroids, he accepts, sacrificing his health for his image. Meanwhile, Jeff's forty-year-old father just took out a loan he couldn't afford to buy a new BMW because most of his neighbors drive luxury cars, and he didn't want them to think he couldn't afford one too. No one is immune from peer pressure.

The level of peer influence generally increases as children grow, and resistance to peer influence often declines as children gain independence from the family or caregivers, and before they fully form an adult identity. Pre-schoolchildren tend to be the least aware of peer pressure, and are the least influenced by the need to conform. However with more social interactions outside the home and more awareness of others, the influence of peers increases.

Pre-teens and teenagers face many issues related to conformity and peer pressure. They are pulled between the desire to be seen as individuals of unique value and the desire to belong to a group where they feel secure and accepted. The result is that often teens reject family or general society values,