Peer Pressure: Why We Feel It, How to Overcome it, Can It Be Positive?

Some forms of sexual harassment and online sexual abuse have become so normalised for children that they do not see the point in reporting and challenging this behaviour. In the focus groups, many children and young people talked about teachers not ‘knowing the reality’ of their lives, or being ‘out of date’. In general, they reported much higher incidences of sexual harassment, online sexual abuse and bullying behaviours than teachers and leaders tended to be aware of. During our visits, we gathered the views of approximately 900 children and young people in focus groups. Of those, we surveyed just over 800 children and young people aged 13 and above about their perceptions of sexual harassment and sexual violence, including online sexual abuse. Therefore, when schools and colleges[footnote 10] are made aware of sexual activity involving a child under the age of 13, they should always refer this to the police and children’s social care.

Government activity

• Some children and young people were moved permanently to a different class or form.
• Individual incidents of peer abuse and sexual behaviour (the sharing of nudes and semi-nudes can fall under this category) can lead to unhealthy or damaging cultures within the school community.
• Instead of making snap decisions think through the scenario as well as the positive and negative impact each outcome can have on your life.
• The extent to which leaders evaluate whether sanctions and/or interventions are effective varies, as does the evidence of ongoing monitoring of children and young people who have perpetrated harmful sexual behaviour.

Research suggests simply having friends who choose not to smoke, use drugs, or drink alcohol can make it less likely young people will use substances. Research has long shown peer pressure can increase the risk someone will try drugs, alcohol, or cigarettes. Some people are more affected by peer pressure than others, just as some people are more likely to experience addiction than others. While some people may experiment with alcohol or drugs once or twice and decide it’s not for them, others who begin using a substance may find it difficult to quit. In some cases, people may continue using the substance as part of social activity, such as drinking at parties or smoking because everyone else is taking a smoke break. Making healthy decisions is a crucial part of growing up to be a healthy and happy individual.

3. Peer Pressure and Sexual Intercourse

Here is an activity you can do to become aware of the different types of peer pressure. Review the following scenarios and ask if each one is an example of direct negative peer pressure, indirect negative peer pressure or positive peer pressure. Different areas of life have been explored concerning the effects of peer pressure, such as which of the following is a type of indirect peer pressure? substance use, academic performance, aggression, risky sexual behavior, and conformity, amongst others. A group dynamic can be a positive peer influence if the behaviors are healthy, age-appropriate and socially acceptable. For instance, if a peer group wants to make good grades, a young teen can be positively influenced to study.

Recommendations for school and college leaders

They were also worried about being labelled as a ‘snitch’ who got their peers into trouble. Some said that by the time incidents were shared on social media it was too late for leaders to address reputational damage. As one pupil put it, although leaders were trying to help, they ‘wouldn’t be able to – it’d be too late’. In focus groups, children and young people told us that deciding whether to report an incident depends on the perceived severity of the incident. This is largely because they feel that some of the incidents are so commonplace ‘there’s no point’ reporting them.

Learn To Make Their Own Decisions

Peer pressure has the potential to be either positive or negative in impact. At this age, research suggests, group dynamics begin to form among children, and some may be excluded from the larger group. Children may begin to worry about balancing a sense of loyalty to their friends with compassion and fairness to others. Not only is this evident in the short term, but it has also been observed in the long term. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), teen substance use affects brain development and can contribute to adult health problems, including heart disease, high blood pressure, and sleep disorders. We’re on a mission to unlock the potential of space to improve life on Earth, but that’s not an easy task.

• Just having clear procedures and visible staff are not sufficient to support children and young people to talk about these issues.
• Resisting peer pressure can involve avoiding it, saying no, and surrounding yourself with more positive influences.
• They were also worried they would have to show images to staff members and that they would feel embarrassed and ashamed when talking to someone from a different generation about sex.
• Social media is constantly available, enabling teens to receive those messages 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• There might be many cases in which you have experienced peer pressure, but you don’t want to respond to it, so you can think of a response which can help you to escape from that situation.
• These children and young people do not feel confident that staff would ‘deal with things sensitively’.

Many leaders confirmed that staff were generally not very confident to deliver the curriculum in areas related to sexual harassment and sexual violence, including online. On this basis, there was in-school variation in the consistency of how RSHE was delivered. Children and young people from the same schools reported both positive and negative experiences, depending on teachers’ level of subject knowledge and confidence.

To seek social acceptance they end up imitating behaviors of the same social group, i.e wearing the same clothes as their friends, listening to the same music, and watching the same tv shows. Nonetheless, the unspoken peer pressure that happens in schools can be a cause of depression in teens, and that’s why we are going to discuss how parents can help reduce pressure in teens. S Hackett, J Phillips, H Masson and M Balfe, ‘Individual, family and abuse characteristics of 700 British child and adolescent sexual abusers’, in ‘Child Abuse Review’, Volume 22, Issue 4, 2013, pages 232 to 245. E Runarsdottir, E Smith and A Arnarsson1, ‘The effects of gender and family wealth on sexual abuse of adolescents’, in ‘International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health’, Volume 16, Issue 10, 2019, article 1788. In the visits, we held up to 4 focus groups with children and young people on each visit. In total, we had over 125 focus groups with approximately 900 children and young people participating.

Share this post:

In the 1940s, Nazi Germany , led by Adolf Hitler, began a systematic purge against the Jewish people living in Europe, killing around six million Jews by the end of World War II. When bringing the concept of peer pressure into the Holocaust, German culpability is even harder to decide. The striatum is located in the forebrain and is critical to motor and action planning and reward perceptions. In the context of peer pressure, the medial prefrontal cortex determines which objects or actions peers have an expressed opinion about, while the striatum determines the value and potential rewards of these actions.

When ISI receives complaints about the schools it inspects, it currently refers to the DfE only those that relate to the independent school standards. ISI has told us that all complaints about sexual abuse are referred to the DfE. ISI has recently reviewed its policy and from September 2021, all complaints (whether they refer to the independent school standards or not) will be referred to the DfE. ISI also carried out a similar review of complaints https://ecosoberhouse.com/ it has received that focused on sexual harassment and sexual violence, including online, which it shared with the review team. However, inspectors also noted that in many of these schools, despite a well-planned curriculum, there were often constraints in place that impacted on its implementation. Being a DSL requires regular training and additional support to help with the emotional impact of the role and the expertise that is required.

Can Peer Pressure Have Long-Term Effects on Mental Health?

It’s not uncommon for teens with strong morals to find themselves engaging in behavior that goes against their beliefs, simply because they want acceptance. Young people often lack the skills to come up with an excuse or reason to say no to negative peer pressure. Similar to unspoken peer pressure, indirect peer pressure is subtle but can still exert a strong influence on an impressionable young person. When a teen overhears a friend gossiping about another person and then reacts to the gossip, that is indirect peer pressure.