The article I chose summarizes the affect peer pressure has on teenagers, being written in the year of 2008, the numbers and statistics might be slightly different, but for the most part I doubt that the final outcome will differ due to these changes. With a title that does not completely cover the full extent of its contents, “Do Friends Matter?: The Role of Peer Influence on Adolescent Risk Behavior” is a lengthy article that looks at five different high risk behaviors and the social conformity college students are subjecting themselves to. The writer of the article defines peer influence as “the effect of peer affiliation (either mutual or non-reciprocated) on adolescent behavior.” Basically, the actions of your friends impact your decisions whether the affect is only on you or circles back.
The article consists of a good amount of literature review, opinions, and statistics which makes for a balanced and well-rounded article, which also being interesting. The experiment that this article is based solely on tested the peer influence that teenagers had on the use of marijuana usage, tobacco chewing, alcohol consumption, sexual activity, and cigarette smoking. It tracked the behavior of teenagers affected by different groups of peers; a group of friends and a best friend. The study also included and considered variables like age, ethnicity, gender, the mutuality between the teen and their friend(/s), their self-esteem level, the teen’s relationship with their parents, and the attitude of the teen towards sexual behavior. The participants were tested by AddHealth to measure the level of the experiment subjects already present in their lives (i.e, substance abuse, sexual activity, friendships, social relationships, and character).
The reason I picked this article was because of my own interest in the effects of peer influence. I was homeschooled for the majority of my life up until my senior year of high school. I wasn’t subject to the middle school and beginning of high school peer pressure situations and was sheltered for most of my life. As a senior in high school I was in a long-term relationship with a boyfriend who was completely against drugs and alcohol, and invested in a friend group who was very interested in the use of drugs and alcohol, Although it was a bit of culture shock for me I think I was mature in the decisions I made and do not regret the experience and knowledge I gained from participating in partying with my peers. Peer influence was definitely a factor for me, and so was peer pressure I was okay with drinking alcohol, but I probably would not have used marijuana if it wasn‘t for so many people trying to convince me to.
127 our experts are availableright now
If you arrive at a new job and everyone in the building is wearingjeans, then you most likely will as well. If every one of your friends posts a throwback picture as a little kid, you probably consider posting one as well, if not actually going through with it. The way that people behave nowadays is even more subject to peer influence because social media makes every little move available to the internet full of peers. The whole concept of social influence amazes me because it’s not easy to pinpoint why people actually act the way they do. I learned a lot from this article about the actual affects peers have on us On average, if one of our friends engages in a hazardous behavior one time, we are twice as likely to engage as well the next time. When it comes to marijuana and tobacco specifically, we are more likely to begin using when a friend is using than to stop if a friend is stopping.
However, for alcohol we are more likely to stop or start depending on whatever our friends are doing. So our friends influence us so strongly that we follow their positive and negative ways. Another interesting fact in the article was about the influence best friends have on us, and that we are twice as likely to engage in an activity our best friend is. As for sexual intercourse, teens are a lot more likely to transfer to a non»virginity status if their group of friends were sexually active. But having a sexually active best friend influenced the virginity status a lot less than the group of friends. In conclusion, peer influence is a really strong force in the behavior of teenagers. While friends and best friends have different degrees of influence in different areas of risk behavior, they both affect the actions of teens in good and bad ways. What really proves the amount of impact peers have is that they can affect us positively and negatively. Socially, our peers are the most influential force on our behaviors.
