What Is Peer Pressure?

If you have friends, go to class, work in a place with others, or spend time with other people, you may want to read this. Just by being around someone you can effect that guy or girl. And they can effect you. We learn things from them and they learn from us. We have good times together and we share bad times. We can talk to them and they can talk to us. We work with them on projects and assignments. We have fun with them. All of this has a big impact on our lives.

Who wants to look stupid, or who wants to be ridiculed, or who wants to be cut off from the group, or who wants to be the odd one? And who doesn’t want the approval of their friends and co-workers? Look, we all want to get along with people, and when we don’t we might feel like we are bad people, and nobody wants to feel that way. Or, we might think that we’ll be left all alone if our friends and others don’t approve of what we do.

So, peer-pressure is the name given to that situation when we are trying to decide what to do or say and everybody around us wants us to do or say a certain thing. Peer pressure is another name given to that conflict we feel when we know, or want, or like something different from all of those around us. We feel it, and we pressure others, whether we know it or not.

Others may be able to make us say or do something we don’t want to, but they can’t make us think a certain way or feel a certain way.

Truth Helps, Inc. 2003
disclaimer | privacy policy | about us | contact us