The conversation about Peer pressure is so commonplace and a familiar topic that it can become more like a joke especially when you are a teenager. However, the actual experience of peer pressure can be so uncomfortable.
Like, did you really want to play that game with your friend who is a super talented gamer? Maybe not, but he just asked so many times that it was easier to just do it than listen to them ask again. Most teenagers have been told that to resist peer pressure, you should “just say no,” but surprise: you might have noticed that it does not always seem to work.
Make Your Own Choices
A lot of choices taken by teens are influenced by “Peer Pressure”. Recent social experiments showed that, when faced with making decisions, teenagers weigh both the risks and rewards of their actions and behaviors. However, unlike adults, teenagers are more likely to ignore the risk in favor of the reward.
In a funded study, teenagers driving with their friends in the car were more likely to take risks like speeding through yellow lights if they knew that two or more of their friends were watching. Teenagers were also significantly more likely to act this way than adults in the same experiment. The researchers also monitored the brain activity of all the teenage drivers in the study. Results showed that just knowing friends were watching activated brain regions linked with reward, especially when the teen drivers made risky decisions.
So, be aware: Your desire to impress your friends may overrule your fear of taking risks. This also relates to deciding whether to try drugs, alcohol or other risky behaviours. Be conscious that your decision might be influenced by who is around and if you think they will be impressed.
Psychologically
Psychologically speaking, it totally makes sense that teenagers will want to give in to social norms (A perceived acceptable behavior expected in a group) Psychologists believe that humans are programmed to want to feel like we belong. Taking facts from history, cooperating with groups was critical for the survival of the human race as they hunt together, grow crops together, and stood a better chance of surviving together.
Given these facts, social norms exact a huge influence on how we behave, especially those called injunctive norms, which shows us how society expects us to behave in certain circumstances. These norms are not always bad. For example, these norms are why you stop at a red light or repay a friend that loaned you money.
However, following them can also make us act in risky or dangerous ways to fit in. In an early demonstration of the impact of these norms the following observation was done of 58 male university undergraduates (Teenagers)
The students were asked to fill out questionnaires about going to an urban school. Then, while they did, the room they were in started to fill with smoke. When the participants were in the room alone, most of them went to get help. But when they were put in groups, they were much less likely to speak up or go for help. Which seems… pretty weird. A possible explanation for this is that the participants looked at other people’s behavior to try and figure out how they should respond. If the other people didn’t seem stressed by the smoke, they might have decided that it wasn’t something they had to worry about. Now, this was just an experiment, but things like this happen all the time in real life with teenagers and even with young adults.
For example, imagine you are relaxing with your friends, and someone turns on the worst, most horrible-sounding music you can possibly imagine. However, you do not make your opinion known or say anything at that, and neither does anybody else. As a result, you are all just sort of politely sitting there listening to the horrible music, and you might come to the conclusion that your friends actually enjoy this terrible music, and maybe the problem is with you. Meanwhile, almost all of them dislike the music the same way you do.
Stand Your Ground
Psychologists actually recognize the above behaviour as “Pluralistic Ignorance”. This is the fact that a group might feel in a certain way, however, nobody in the group realizes it because they are all keeping their true feelings to themselves. As a result of this, members of the group may come to believe a certain social norm exists; just like that smoky rooms are totally normal (In the experiment above) even if everybody else is secretly just as uncomfortable with the situation.
Pluralistic ignorance can play a major role in peer pressure, and psychologists have also connected it with drugs, alcohol, and substance abuse that often occur on university campuses.
In a study at a popular American university, researchers asked 132 undergrads how they felt about drinking alcohol. They also asked them how they thought the average student felt about it. Most of the participants generally said that they were not comfortable with heavy drinking at the university. In other words, most students in the university believed that their fellow students were more comfortable with heavy drinking, but the reverse was the case.
Recent studies have also confirmed that pluralistic ignorance plays a role in all kinds of other situations, too, from cigarette smoking and drug use to beliefs about intimate relationships among teenagers. The good thing is that knowledge of this concept (pluralistic ignorance) can also help you resist peer pressure letting you know that you have to speak up and defend your values or choices and not necessarily what the group thinks is right or how the group expects you to behave in certain situations.
Conclusion
Most times, people often give in to something because they assume everyone agrees it is right or everyone is doing it, so you will be seen as an outsider. So psychologists have recognized that knowledge of pluralistic ignorance may reduce the pressure you feel to conform to the group and become aware that there is nothing wrong with your choices even when they are not the same with the group and research has backed this up.
In a 1998 study with 143 college students, knowing about pluralistic ignorance helped one group reduce alcohol abuse, compared to students who did not learn about it. And a 2018 study about gender norms showed similar results. When men were shown that most people were in favor of gender equality, they were more likely to say they supported it as well, compared to groups who were told something else.
While there may have been other variables at play in both of these studies, this suggests that having a little psychology knowledge can totally help you out in the real world. It is like having a secret window into your friends’ brains. So, the next time someone tells you that common statement “Everyone is doing it, its normal” SPEAK UP! Let them know you are not “everyone”.
You may discover that other people were just as uncomfortable as you were, but did not want to be the first person to admit it.
Today is “International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking” and the theme for the 2020 edition of this special day is “Better Knowledge For Better Care”.
My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children. Hosea 4:6
Say no to drugs and abuse of other substances to preserve your dreams, future, and life.
