Effects of Peer Pressure on Students;

The people or friends you associate with usually affect your behaviour or mode of thinking.
You tend to behave in a certain way based on the things that your peer group or friends consider to be acceptable.
The pressure could either be from your friends or even yourself. because you would like to fit in with the latest trends or things that your peers are currently doing.

Peer pressure is the direct or indirect influence on peers, i.e, members of social groups with similar interests.
In addition, Members of a peer group are more likely to influence a person’s beliefs, values, and behavior.
A group or individual may be encouraged and want to follow their peers by changing their attitudes and behaviors.

For the individual affected by peer pressure, this can have both a positive or negative effect on them.
An individual may be in a crowd, a group of many cliques, and still feel peer pressure. Also,Research suggests that organizations as well as individuals are susceptible to peer pressure. For example, an organization may base a decision off of the current trends to receive more affection or grow a following group.

Peer pressure can affect individuals of all ethnic groups, genders and ages.
Researchers have frequently studied the effects of peer pressure on children and on adolescents, and in popular discourse the term “peer pressure” is most often in reference to those age-groups. It’s important to understand that for children of adolescent age, they are faced with finding their identity.

Furthermore, Erikson, a sociopsychologist, explains that identity is faced with role confusion.
In other words, these children are trying to find a sense of belonging and are the most susceptible to peer pressure as a form of acceptance.

For children, they study their abilities in independent decision-making. For adolescents, peer pressure’s relationships to sexual intercourse and substance abuse.
Also, Peer pressure can be experienced through both face-to-face interaction and through digital interaction. Social media offers opportunities for adolescents and adults alike to instill and/or experience pressure every day.

Studies of social networks examine connections between members of social groups, including their use of social media, to better understand mechanisms such as information sharing and peer sanctioning. Sanctions can range from subtle glances that suggest disapproval, to threats and physical violence.
Furthermore,Peer sanctioning may enhance either positive or negative behaviors.

Whether peer sanctioning will have an effect depends strongly on members’ expectations and the possible sanctions available. It can also depend on a person’s position in a social network. Those who are more central in a social network seem more likely to be cooperative, perhaps as a result of how networks form.However, this goes both ways and so they are also more likely to participate in negative behaviors. This may be the result of  social pressures they experience in their networks.

In this article, you will get to know some of the negative effects of peer pressure on students;

1. It can affect the student’s mental health:
Students who are not as bright or brilliant as the rest of their classmates can start to feel inferior. They can also feel like they are not good enough. Although they can still get better but such students can become disturbed which can even lead to anxiety, depression or other related mental illnesses.

2. It can lead to distraction:
Negative peer pressure in the classroom is a common cause for distraction. This is because some students can decide to join their friends who probably enjoys sitting at the back of the class. Moreover, This can affect them in a way that they can form their own group or circle thereby not paying attention to the teacher. Thereby they become distracted from what the teacher is teaching them in the classroom.

3. It can affect their academic performance:
The constant urge to try to fit into a circle or peer group in the classroom. This could lead to a rapid decrease in the concentration level or focus in the class. such that the student may not always pay attention to the teacher which can affect their grades or overall academic performance.

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