For instance, friends might encourage each other to study hard, avoid substances, stick up to bullies, or give back through community service. The end goal is to reinforce constructive behaviours while avoiding peer pressure. The teen years and young adult life often intensify susceptibility while avoiding peer pressure. As youth explore independence and identity, peer validation grows more important. Simultaneously, the brain’s impulse control centre is still developing. This combination can make it quite challenging to resist on how to tackle peer pressure and you may need some coping skills for the same.
Talking about Peer Pressure in Fort Collins, Denver, & Boulder, Colorado
While dealing with peer pressure, you can start documenting your emotions in a journal that provides a healthy approach after submitting to negative peer influence. Start asking yourself reflective questions without judgment to understand what happened. Track your which of the following is a type of indirect peer pressure? feelings over days and weeks to witness personal growth unfolding through difficult lessons learned about human psychology. Refer to the below questions, which you can ask yourself while dealing with peer pressure and witness your well-being getting restored.
- Eating and drinking is the place most of us, even the most indecisive, know what we actually do and don’t like.
- According to child and adolescent psychiatrist Akeem Marsh, MD, “it’s very easy to be influenced by peer pressure as we humans are wired as social creatures.”
- For example, if you hang out with a group of people who take school seriously, you may be more likely to prioritize academics too.
- Young people may be more susceptible to peer pressure because their identities are still forming; they desire to fit in and not be bullied and have less risk aversion than adults.
Take Your Time
Dealing with peer pressure can be difficult, but below are some ways to help address it. For adolescents, peer relationships are the most important of all thus leading to an increased susceptibility to peer pressure. We connect you with at team of highly experienced and rated London psychotherapists and psychologists. Use our booking site to find a UK-wide registered therapist or online counsellor you can chat to from anywhere.
In Sexual Situations
You probably wouldn’t just sit down to dinner with random people you see eating healthy. But you can more easily surround yourself with a fitness-based community. If you know there’s going to be alcohol or drugs at a party, make other plans. Or, if you’re going out with a guy, avoid being alone with him… anywhere he might pressure you to get more physical than you want to be. Parents’ positive feedback turns out to be a booster for their children when they are facing any kind of peer pressure.
- Peer pressure can not only bring about changes in behavior, but also thoughts, opinions, and feelings.
- The truth is that many fewer college students drink or use drugs than people assume.
- Unspoken pressure to conform can play a significant role in substance use.
- A 2020 study estimates that in 2016, 11.6% of adult drug users had problematic drug use or an addiction.
- Discover effective strategies for parenting adolescents, managing academic stress, and balancing independence while prioritizing self-care for a healthier family dynamic.