Peer Pressure
Peer pressure often refers to the act of choosing to do something because someone else decides to do it. Sometimes people don’t want to feel as if they are not included, or that they are afraid to do things they see other groups of people doing.
Peer pressure has a much huger effect on youth than on older people. As a child you might experience situations where your friends are encouraging you to join an activity you really don’t want to. For instance, if a person sees a group of his fellow classmates, including his or her best friend, join the basketball team because in a way” it’s the cool thing to do,”, that person would then choose to join even if he or she really thinks otherwise.
Behavior changes are another cause of peer pressure among youth and teens. If a person has been invited into the house of his or her friend, and this person experiences an argument between the friend and his or her friend’s mother, an argument in which the child is expressing his or her anger using verbal use and profanity, this would probably give the child the idea that he or she could go home and do the same with his or her parents if they make him or her angry.
The most popular effect of peer pressure is people’s tendencies to use drugs if they are constantly around others who choose to. The use of marijuana has vastly increased in America in the last five years, and from my experience the pressure from your peers has a massive effect.
Even though peer pressure tends to bring out the bad in people there is also a good side to it. Some of the brighter causes are that some peers push their friends to achieve things which they might not have enough confidence to endure. For example, a shy student who is really good at spelling words is leaning toward not joining the spelling bee, but their friends encourage them to do so.