The problem with peer pressure: Hong Kong teenagers warned to ignore the influence of others
A prominent part of being a teenager is the susceptibility to peer influence – but it’s being able to make up your own mind that what matters most of all
“My daughters had heard what becoming a teenager meant long before they turned teen. One was waiting for her elder brother to get spots. Sometimes I saw her scrutinising his face from inches away. My youngest only knew that teenagers slammed doors. ‘When is B going to slam a door?’ and then when he did slam a door, because he had grown tired of up close inspection of pore activity, she screamed ‘I heard it, I heard it.’ ‘Heard what?’ I asked. ‘I heard B becoming a teenager.’”
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The above is an excerpt from a long ago diary written as my kids teetered on teenhood and none of us knew what to expect, apart, apparently, from spots and door slamming. Which certainly come into it. But it’s a whole, big, mixed, complicated bag.
A new study – by the University of Pennsylvania – suggests that a prominent part of being a teenager is susceptibility to peer influence, and concludes that teens from collectivistic cultures are more swayed by peers than those in individualistic cultures. Having friends who smoke – according to the study – doubles the risk that youngsters between 10 and 19 will pick up the habit; this influence is, evidently, more powerful in societies where relationships between people play a central role in a person’s identity (collectivistic – as China is).
Collectivistic? Individualistic? I’d venture to suggest that – just like spots and door slamming – peer pressure is universal and no matter where you’re growing up in the world you’re going to mind what your contemporaries think.
Australian psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg, who has published several books on raising teens, his most recent being The Prince Boofhead Syndrome: Surviving Adolescent Boys, agrees that teens the world over are prone to behaving recklessly. “A unique characteristic of teenagers is an inability to predict the consequences of their actions. This is because their brains are not fully developed until their mid-twenties,” he writes. “They’re hugely influenced by peers and easily encouraged to take risks; they’re wired for reward not risk assessment.”
By way of example he refers to the story of 18-year-old Lee de Paauw, who was dared to leap into a crocodile infested river and did. He sustained limb threatening injuries when a crocodile, surprise, surprise, mauled him. Imagine doing that to impress your mates at 35?