Essay Sample about Peer Pressure

Adolescents face pressure in many forms on a daily basis. Many pressures faced by adolescence stem from Erik Erikson’s idea of “Identity versus Role Confusion”. In forming an identity, an adolescent selectively accepts or rejects the many different aspects of herself that she acquired as a child and forms a more coherent and integrated sense of unique identity. During middle childhood, an individual may form separate views of his/herself bases on his/her school success or athletic abilities, and most significantly, on how his/her friends viewed his/her. However, in adolescence, he/she deliberates over the significance of all these impressions taken together and integrates them into a single identity encompassing all his/her strengths and weaknesses and an awareness of what this all means. As adolescents’ experiment with different roles in their search to create a coherent sense of identity, many experience a sense of false self-that is, the sense that one is acting in ways that do not accurately reflect that individual. Some of the most common forms of negative pressure faced in adolescence are peer pressure and substance use and abuse. Peer pressure and substance use and abuse go hand-in-hand.

Peer plays a large role in the social and emotional development of children and adolescents. The influence of an individual’s peers begins at an early age and gradually increases as the individual ages. Peers can have a negative influence. They can encourage one another to skip classes, steal, cheat, use drugs or alcohol, post inappropriate material online, or engage in harmful actions. As a result of peer pressure, many teens with substance abuse begin using drugs and alcohol. This type of peer pressure can occur in person or through social media. Adolescents’ peer groups play even more important than younger children’s peer groups in their daily lives. Peers provide a teenager with critical information about who he/she is, how he/she should act, what he/she is like, and so forth. They offer his/her an environment for making social comparisons between his own actions, attitudes, and feelings and those of others. These are important ingredients in an adolescent’s development of self-concept and identity. Peer groups can also exert powerful pressures to conform. 

Adolescent substance use and misuse can range from harmless experimentation to severe addiction. Adolescents who use substances, even if only experimentally, are at risk for short-term difficulties such as accidents, conflicts, unwanted sexual activity, and overdoses. Adolescent brain development is hindered by substance abuse. Substance abuse among adolescents has not only short-term, but also long-term implications. Mental health illnesses, underachievement in school, substance use disorders, and greater rates of addiction are some of the long-term repercussions. As teenagers grow older, they are more likely to experiment with substances, with about seventy percent of them attempting to do so. 

In conclusion, adolescents face pressures in many forms. Pressures are commonly associated with negative thoughts; they tend to always have negative impacts on an adolescent’s life. These pressures stem from Erikson’s idea of “Identity versus Role Confusion”. Adolescents tend to allow their peers to influence his/her decisions and identity. This is where peer pressure comes into play in an adolescent’s life. Along with peer pressure, comes substance use and abuse. Adolescents can suffer from serious repercussions just by experimenting with any substance. Peer pressure and substance use and abuse go hand-in-hand with one another and negatively impact an adolescent’s life.