Negative Effects of Peer Pressure

When you do not like a particular idea or when you have no inclination towards a particular field, it is obvious that you won't like to go by it. For sure, you won't like to go that way. But it is you peer group, which may compel you on doing something you hate. In such cases, there are chances that you won't do well in those things. Things you do not enjoy doing cannot fetch you success. You cannot emerge successful in something you have never liked doing. So, it is important that you do not lose happiness of your life by succumbing to peer pressure.

Many a time, it so happens, that we are forced to lead a certain kind of lifestyle due to peer pressure. You may not like partying on every weekend, you may not like night outs with friends, you may hate drinking or smoking, but peer pressure may make you do all that you had never wished to. There are many teenagers who experience great pressure from their peer group that forces them to take to drinking. You may take to something as grave as drug use, and that too, only because of peer pressure. In such cases, being overly pressurized by you peers can be detrimental to your living. Some teenagers literally spoil their lives by giving in to peer pressure.

Peer pressure can lead to a loss of individuality. Extreme peer pressure may lead you to follow what your peers feel right. Their pressure may compel you to go by everything they think right. You tend to blindly imitate the masses; you adopt their tastes of fashion, clothing, hair, music and general living. Peer pressure can actually lead you to lose you tastes of life and force yourself to begin liking what they like. Peer pressure is the human tendency to join the bandwagon, in which, the person loses his/her original way of looking at life.

Positive Effects of Peer Pressure

Peer pressure is not always bad. It can help you analyze yourself and contemplate on your ways of life. Some of the practices that the masses follow may actually teach you the way of living. You may be able to change yourself for the better. Looking at what others do, can help you bring about a positive change in your way of thinking. If you can pick selectively, peer pressure can actually result in a positive change in your way of life.

Knowing what the masses follow exposes you to the world outside your home. You understand the things going on around you. You are exposed to a wide variety in human behavior. Exposure to peer pressure gives you an opportunity to think about their tastes and their outlooks towards life. It gives you a chance to choose the best from what the masses do.

If you are fortunate to get a good peer group, your peers can play a vital role in the shaping of your personality. Their way of looking at life may influence you to change for betterment. Some of your peers are your close friends, who do not pressurize you to do things but rather inspire you to change yourself. Your peer group may actually persuade you to bring about a constructive change in your personality. Peer pressure can lead you to make the right choices in life.

Peer pressure is the phenomenon wherein we tend to get influenced by the lifestyles and the ways of thinking of our peers. The thoughts, behavior and tastes of fashion, music, television and other walks of life of the masses are often seen having a deep impact on the living of the society. We tend to get influenced by the lifestyles of our peer group. The changing ways of life of our peers often force us to change our ways of looking at life and leading it.

Peer Pressure can help us analyze ourself and contemplate on our ways of life. Some of the practices that the masses follow may actually teach us the way of living. We may be able to change ourself for the better.

Knowing what the masses follow exposes us to the world outside our home. We understand the things going on around us. We are exposed to a wide variety in human behavior. Exposure to peer pressure gives us an opportunity to think about their tastes and their outlooks towards life. It gives us a chance to choose the best from what the masses do.

If we are fortunate to get a good peer group, your peers can play a vital role in the shaping of our personality. Their way of looking at life may influence us to change for betterment. Some of our peers are our close friends, who do not pressurize us to do things but rather inspire us to change ourself. Our peer group may actually persuade us to bring about a constructive change in our personality. Peer pressure can lead us to make the right choices in life.

So, now we are going to know the positive effects of peer pressure:

Adopting Good Habits: Peer pressure is not always bad. It can help you reflect on yourself. Peers may teach you good things and encourage you to follow them. Looking at what others do, can help you bring a positive change in your way of thinking. If you can pick selectively, peer pressure can push you towards something positive. For example, when a child knows that some of his friends regularly read storybooks or that they have subscribed to a library, even he feels tempted to do so. He may get into the habit of reading because of his peers. Seeing that some of your friends exercise daily, even you may take up the habit. Positive peer pressure can lead you to adopt good habits in life.

Exposure to the World: Your peers, their choices and ways of life give you a glimpse of the world outside the four walls of your house. What they think about things in life, how they perceive situations, how they react in different circumstances can actually expose you to the world around. Being part of a larger group of peers exposes you to the diversity in human behavior. This makes you reflect on your behavior and know where you stand. Peer pressure can lead you to make right choices in life.

Giving Up Bad Habits: If you are fortunate enough to get a good peer group, your peers can influence the shaping of your personality in a positive way. Their perspective of life can lead you to change yours. It's not pressure every time; sometimes it's inspiration, which makes you change for good. For example, positive peer pressure can make you quit smoking or give up bad habits that you may have. Your peers can inspire you to become more optimistic or more confident. Your peers may influence you to change and make you a better human being.

Improvement in AcademicPerformance

If the peer group happens to be in school, you will discover a lot of positive changes happening in your teenager. Since the urge to ‘belong’ to a peer group is all about feeling included and accepted, there is also this natural tendency to behave and become ‘like’ other members of a peer group. Therefore when the members of the peer group believe in doing well in class and doing their regular lessons with care, you will find your child also following suit.

The direct effect can be observed in the grades. The teenager will not only learn to focus on his studies but will also show an inclination in getting involved and participating is several extra curricular and sports activities in school.

Improvement in Communication Skills

Whether the peer group comprises of school friends, neighborhood friends or cousins of an extended family, the effect can always be seen on your child. Amongst the other apparent effects, you will find that the communication skills of the teen improving significantly. His approach, attitude and behavior will always be positive.

Development of Human Skills

He will learn to value relationships and will learn that it is important to become and responsible individual. This way you will find him making informed choices, where is aware of the fact that values needs to be protected and upheld. Their natural confidence helps them to grow up with strong leadership skills as well.

A student whose friends excel in academics may be compelled to study harder and get good grades. Players on a sports team may feel driven to play harder in order to help the team win. This type of influence can also be exerted to get a friend off drugs, or to help an adult take up a good habit or drop a bad one. Study groups, class projects, and even book clubs are examples of positive peer groups that encourage people to better themselves. Friends also help teens learn good social skills and better ways to communicate and work out problems, and give teens good advice.

Even pressure to do good things can be bad for teens, however, if they don't learn to say no when they need to. For instance, a teen may need to say no to going to a movie if he or she has homework that needs to be done. Always going along with what others want can cause a teen to have lower self esteem, and to give up things that are important to him or her.

Some things a teen can do to handle peer pressure include:

• Decide before you get into situation what your values and standards are.

• Choose good friends who share your values. Good friends use positive peer pressure to help you be your best self.

• Avoid situations where people are doing things you don't want to do.

• Think about your reasons for doing things: Are they good reasons? Are you being true to yourself and your values? Think about what the consequences will be of your decisions and actions, such as if an activity might harm your health or get you into trouble.

• Practice ways to say no - come up with excuses if necessary, such as that you don't want to get in trouble, damage your body or mind, or risk blowing your involvement in sports or academics.

• Talk to your parents or a trusted adult about the kinds of peer pressure you face and listen to their advice.

• With your parents or another trusted adult, come up with a code word you can use to let the adult know that you need help getting out of a bad situation but can't talk about it.

Remember that if just one teen stands up against peer pressure, usually others will join him or her, and learning to handle peer pressure gives teens more confidence and maturity.

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