According to Rosenberg, Mckeon, and Dinero (1999), the strongest influence on teenagers today were their peer groups, or their social circle outside of their family. Since more and more mothers take day jobs to help support the family (Schwartz, 2005), teenagers spend most of their time with their peers rather than with their family. As a result, teens develop intimate relationship with friends, leading to a higher probability of their conformity towards them.
Almost all teenagers have conformed to peer pressure, mostly because they long to feel like they belong in a certain group of people, regardless of how they really feel inside. Some respondents stated that they were afraid of isolation and they did not want to be left alone, which catapulted their conformity to their peers.
Peer pressure had its good and bad sides. The good side being it allowed the person to go out of his/her comfort zone and try new things. This led to experiences from which an individual can learn from, regardless if it was happy or sad. Also, peer pressure sometimes help people to recognize whom they really were without the stigma of other people defining them. They developed a sense of personal identity. Individuals began to appreciate themselves more for who they really were rather than for who they were pretending to be, or who their peers were.
However, majority of the participants have stated that peer pressure negatively impacted their lives. Most believe that they were manipulated by
Pressure is experienced by many kids, and their parents are a primary source of it. The narrator in The Boat by Alistair MacLeod faces a tremendous amount of pressure from his parents. My parents also put a lot of pressure on me because they want me to be successful in their own way, and I do not find it helpful. To start, this pressure could lead to stress, which could then lead to long term problems such as anxiety and depression. Ever since I was young, my parents have wanted me to pursue a career in medicine.
We live in a society in which conformity is not only encouraged but often rewarded. As my grandfather used to always say, “It’s the [penguin] who is different that gets left out in the cold.” Sure, many try to push the narrative that we ought to lead, and that being divergent is what makes one “special.” But while this may be true in a purely academic sense, socially, those who do not abide by unspoken norms are typically outcast as pariahs; they are considered the “undesirables.” As such, many teenagers change their personality by emulating others in attempt to gain acceptance into certain social cliques.
Teens can greatly relate to this because school is a place where they are all expected to be in the same boat, with all the same grades, and the all the same things we
Expectations. A simple set of norms that kids often lack, both academically and socially. In “The Catcher and the Rye”, by J.D. Salinger, the main character Holden Caulfield, is struggling to grow up. Holden doesn’t want to grow up, but rather stay a kid because he doesn’t want responsibility. For the sake that Holden struggles to following social and academic conformity, he experiences a difficult crossroad between his childhood and adulthood.
“One time I saw a tiny Joshua sapling growing not too far from the old tree. I wanted to dig it up and replant it near our house. I told Mom that I would protect it from the wind and water it every day so that it could grow nice and tall and straight. Mom frowned at me. ‘You’d be destroying what makes it special,’ she said.
He believes that a teen’s primary motivation for behavior is their social affiliation with others. During adolescent years, development of personality and behavior is at its most prominent. The ultimate goal of this theory is for teenagers to establish a personal
Peer pressure is a very disturbing thing in our culture today. In the book ScrewTape Letters, ScrewTape informs Wormwood about peer pressure. Of how this pressure can lead one astray for going into the wrong crowd. People change people. It is easier to pull someone off a chair than to pull someone up onto the chair.
A personal experience i had, is as a child in middle school i was put under so much pressure to be the same as my peers. Even though I wasn’t the same, or didn’t fit into their category. Yet I tried hard to be and always worried about what people would say. Later in High school i developed a Panic Attack disorder from the stress of middle school. I was forced to try and be someone i wasn’t that I didn’t know who i wanted to be, or who i really
At a young age, parents tend to teach their child right from wrong. They teach you this to become responsible, so when your an adult you do not have to rely on them while making decisions. In George Orwell's Shooting an Elephant, we notice he wanted to do the right thing by not shooting the elephant but gave into peer pressure to fit in. The narrator felt the need he had to shoot the elephant because the people of Burma were frightened and he wanted to be their hero. Peer pressure can lead people to do bad things for what they think are good reasons but are actually not.
Too much self-expression can cause unnecessary tension both physically and mentally. Individuals must learn to show some personal character but also abide by moral standards. This will allow one to live a balanced life between individuality and
Suicide. The action of killings oneself intentionally. A word synonymous with despair and tragedy, this act may be taken due to several reasons but if focused on a particular demographic, such as college students, the reasons may be clearer. It is widely accepted that causes of suicides are largely (if not completely) mentally related. With high amounts of stress and pressure coupled with ever amounting expectations on still developing minds, it does not seem difficult to correlate why the rates of suicide among college students is steadily increasing.
An accepting and healthy environment is needed. Many people face peer pressure because they are deemed uncool and are pressured to do uncomfortable things and things that they believe are not right. If everyone accepts everyone around them for their real selves and will not judge them, people will not commit unhealthy acts and develop undesirable bad habits. People need to surround themselves around healthy and positive company that will accept each other and have healthy core values.
My peers have less of an influence on my identity because I have learned to care less of what others think of me. I am unapologetically my own person. Contradicting to societal stereotypes, I am an adolescent that appreciates boundaries and constraints. Like Walker, I find that an excessive amount of freedom can be overwhelming. Freedom becomes a
Experiencing peer pressure is a way to learn how to overcome pressure and to discover ourselves. We can not become perfect, but we definitely become stronger, more confident and are willing to cope with difficulties. Exposure to peer pressure also gives us an opportunity to think about other people’s outlooks towards life. It is a chance for us to choose the best from what the masses do as well as lead us to make right choices in life. To minimize the bad effects of peer pressure, parential involvement plays a very important part – it promote healthy behaviors and decrease the chance to engage in risky behavior.
Is Social Problems Among Teenagers An Increasingly Worrying Phenomenon? Nowadays, social problems are one of the major concerns in society and the condition got worsen year by year, mainly contributed by teenagers. Social problems emerged due to influences of the bad cultures from other countries. Teenagers cannot identify and differentiate between good and bad conducts.