I wrote a group research paper alongside other students in which we researched peer influence and its affect on adolescent identity development.

1. PEER PRESSURE AND ADOLESCENT IDENTITY DEVELOPMENT 1
Peer Pressure and its Direct Effect on Adolescent Identity Development
Reagan Brownfield, Molly Brown, Katie Crenshaw, and Kaylee Breedlove
The University of Georgia

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Introduction
This paper examines adolescent peer pressure and the extent at which it affects identity
development. More specifically, this paper focuses on the importance of adolescent peer
relationships, the impact of selected peer relationships, as well as resistance to negative peer
influences. Each topic discussed will be based on scholarly, peer reviewed, evidence.
Furthermore, this paper will examine policies, present and proposed, that are associated with
peer pressure during adolescence. The totality of the research presented within this paper is
aimed towards obtaining a better understanding of peer pressure and how it affects adolescents’
lives.
Discussion
The Importance of Peer Relations in Adolescence
Once children reach adolescence, they become increasingly involved with their
peers. They start to spend less time in their homes with their families and more time hanging out
with their friends. This is very important, as peers truly do affect adolescents so deeply and
influence their lives in so many ways. Close friendships can be a major area of emotional
growth and maturity for adolescents. It provides a learning foundation for understanding others’
emotions on a more complex level, and it also provides early relational experience, which is
something that will continuously benefit them for the rest of their lives. Friendships can also
assist in showing adolescents’ important qualities about themselves (Brown and Larson, 2009).
For example, one typically is attracted to a certain friendship because of some type of similarity
or common interest that they share with that person, which will further bring out and affirm those
certain characteristics. This will then prompt adolescent friendships to increase in emotional
depth and they start to truly value emotional connectivity in their friendships (Flynn, 2018).

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Closeness actually becomes defined by this certain level of emotional connectivity, as well as
trust levels. Friendships are also important because of all of the learning potential that exists
when two minds come together rather than only one. Friends are constantly bouncing ideas off
of one another and helping one another think through difficult processes (Flynn, 2018). It is very
important for adolescents to have friends that help shed positive light on the many difficulties
that they will go through during their adolescent years. Adolescent friendships also strengthen
that individual’s ability to resolve conflict and learn sustainability. Friendships will always
transform, so it is very beneficial to have close friendships in adolescence to encourage
flexibility in these transformations. Although adolescent friendships are immensely important,
friendships in adolescence are not always positive. They can be just as destructive as they can be
helpful. In this case, it is very important for adolescents to have a support system surrounding
them that goes beyond their peer relationships (Karakos, 2014). Adolescents need people in their
lives, mentors, school counselors, ministry leaders, etc., that are going to be there for them and
that will be readily available to walk with them through the ups and downs of peer relationships.
This is something that has become increasingly evident while being a wellness coach in
iPrevail. Teenagers often feel the need to enter the chat room on iPrevail when they feel they
have negative peer support and desire an outside source to talk them through something. In one
circumstance, there was an adolescent who explained his anxiety disorder that was brought on by
the fact that he had constantly felt let down by his peers and was always experiencing a sense of
loneliness as a result. Another adolescent mentioned repetitively that they struggled deeply with
pleasing their friends, although these friends made very bad decisions that often led to putting
people in danger. This coincides with a research study conducted by Ciairano, Rabaglietti,
Rogero, and Bonino that tested the hypothesis of whether or not greater friendship quality is

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associated with less antisocial behavior and friendship reciprocity, as well as how family stress
contributes to friendship quality. The sample consisted of 622 Italian adolescents of both
genders in high school. A questionnaire called “me, my friends, and health” was administered
twice in six months. This questionnaire consisted of multiple parts: one that measured friendship
quality, one that measured well-being, discomfort, and antisocial behavior, one that measured
stress in family life, and another that measured reciprocity of friendships. The results
constructed four categories for friendship patterns: high quality and stable, low quality and
stable, unstable from low to high and unstable from high to low. The results were also consistent
with the hypothesis that high quality friendships led to a better self-concept and less alienating
behavior. When the family stress level was low, the friendship quality was increased (Ciairano
et al., 2007). The environment surrounding an adolescent is essential in the process of
navigating friendships and the influence that can be pressed onto them by their friends. Given
that peer acceptance is something that humans strive for all throughout their lifetime, the need
for this particular acceptance will only be heightened during the identity exploration years of
adolescence, which paves the way for negative peer influence to infiltrate their lives.
Negative Effects of Peer Pressure in Adolescence
It is very important for adolescents to be surrounded by peers because it is how they are
able to socialize and identify with groups of kids their age. This is how kids are able to develop
social interactional skills that will be very beneficial to them as opposed to social isolation which
can have a very negative impact on an adolescent. However, friends and peers can also have a
negative influence on adolescent behavior and attitudes. Many consider peer pressure to be “the
price of group membership” (Tome, 2012). When one joins a group, conformity is required and
this can and will affect the adolescent’s ideas about substance use, taking risks, and certain

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sexual behaviors (Tome, 2012). There were many examples of peer pressure during the service
learning experience. The most prominent was a young girl who reported feeling lonely and sad
because all of her friends had boyfriends, and she did not. She said her friends acted in a way
that made her feel as if she did not fit in because she did not have a boyfriend. Even though she
did not have any feelings for any boys in particular, she said she found herself throwing herself
at boys and partaking in some risky sexual behaviors. This seemed to be a perfect example of
how the attitude of a group can affect a person, even if they are not necessarily pushed into doing
something. An interesting point to acknowledge is that peer pressure is often depicted as an
adolescent’s friends pushing or urging them to do something when, many times, it is actually an
overall attitude a group has about certain things as well as their overall conduct (Santor,
Messervey, & Kusumaker, 1999) . However, this has just as much of an effect on adolescents
and it can be detrimental. Another example of this would be the fact that when an adolescent’s
main motive is binge drinking, it is usually during a social event while in the company of friends
(Kuntsche, Knibbe, Gmel, & Engels, 2005). Not only that, but the risk taking behaviors are
often mimicked more when in a social setting. Fortunately, there are strong correlates between
good communication with parents and the overall well-being of an adolescent. Positive parental
involvement can result in less involvement in risky behaviors that an adolescent may experience
with their peers (Tome, 2012). As adolescents get older they become more resilient, and are able
to be more assertive with their friends.
Identity Development and SelectedPeer Relationships
The interconnection between self-identity and chosen peer relationships during
adolescence is often overlooked. Researchers tend to emphasize the effects that parental
influence and upbringing have on self-identity. During adolescence, identity development is

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influenced by one’s peer groups (Wang, Kiuru, Degol, & Samela-Aro, 2018). More specifically,
it is important to acknowledge the idea that peer groups are voluntarily chosen by individuals
(Wang et al., 2018). A study conducted on adolescents in Finland, a country with a strikingly
similar education system to the United States, examines the roles that peer groups play in the
socialization of adolescent motivation, engagement, and achievement in school by using a social
network approach (Wang et al., 2018). This study shows that during adolescence, an
individual's’ characteristics are changed or reinforced during the socialization process (Wang et
al., 2018). Ming-Te Wang and colleagues present evidence that there is a significant relationship
between adolescent’s test scores and perceived competence, showing that the higher achievement
levels of one’s peers produces greater scholarly achievement and academic confidence in
individuals (Wang et al., 2018). The researchers continue to discuss how dimensions of
similarity and value between peers play into the results. Adolescents tend to choose their peer
groups based on similarity in personal values which impacts the formation of their identity
significantly (Wang et al., 2018).
The development of identity and the factors that affect identity development during
adolescence are abundant and fundamentally impactful throughout humans’ lives. The process
of developing one’s own identity is longitudinal and derived from many sources during the
period of adolescence. A study conducted at Arizona State University found that gender identity,
specifically, is developed through the process of personal reflection along with input from one’s
social environment (Kornienko, Santos, Martin, & Granger, 2016). Kornienko and colleagues
further identify the association between gender and identity with levels of popularity, acceptance,
teasing, and victimization (Kornienko et al., 2016). The researchers conducting this study
ultimately found significant evidence that adolescents select their social networks largely based

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on gender (Kornienko et al., 2016). Another interesting finding from this study is that the
intergroup attitudes of selected peer groups are intensely influential on the individuals entering
peer groups both immediately and over an extended period of time (Kornienko et al., 2016).
These results combined emphasize the extent to which adolescents’ peers and peer groups can
influence their current emotional selves, behavioral selves, and the entirety of their lives.
Resistance to Negative Peer Influences
Adolescence is a developmental time when peer relationships can have a major influence
on one’s identity development whether it is positive or negative. The susceptibility to peer
influences in adolescence is caused by a combination of heightened reactivity to emotions and
reduced regulatory capacities. This also results from an increased sense of importance of
conforming to peer group norms, and a growing divergence of peer and family values. In other
words, peers begin to approve of more negative behaviors during adolescence (Pfeifer, Masten,
Moore, Oswald, Mazziotta, Iacoboni, & Dapretto, 2011). Studies have shown that resistance to
this negative influence ultimately increases throughout the later stages of adolescence (Sumter,
Bokhorst, Steinberg, & Westenberg, 2009). One particular study was done by Sindy R. Sumter
and colleagues in 2009 in which a community sample of 10 to 18-year-old Dutch school children
were given neutral situations to respond to, in order to measure their resistance to peer
influences. One of the situations included in the questionnaire was, “Some people change the
way they act so much when they are with their friends that they wonder who they ‘really are,’”
as opposed to, “Other people act the same way when they are alone as they do when they are
with their friends.” The respondents were told to choose which situation applies most accurately
to themselves, and the responses were then evaluated using the psychometric properties of the
Resistance to Peer Influence scale (Sumter et al., 2009). The results to this study supported the

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idea that older adolescents are more resistant to peer influences than younger ones. As
adolescence continues, individuals develop a more stable identity and an increased sense of
autonomy from their peers. This occurs because of an increase in psychosocial maturity in
which they gain impulse control, self-awareness, and responsibility (Sumter et al., 2009).
Sumter and colleagues also found that this resistance occurs earlier in females because they
mature faster than males during mid-adolescence. The increased ability to resist negative peer
influences as adolescence continues can be explained from a study done by Jennifer H. Pfeifer
and colleagues in 2011. They wanted to gain information about the roles of subcortical systems
that are still developing in adolescence and discover the impact of peers’ emotional expressions
on adolescent behavior. Thirty-eight neurotypical adolescents of different ages were given
fMRI’s, and their responses to affective facial displays were evaluated. The study found that
general and emotion-specific changes occurred in the adolescents’ ventral striatum (VS). The
VS deals with reward-related processing in the brain. Because the prefrontal cortex, which is
used to regulate affective responses in adults, is not fully developed yet in adolescence, the VS
can be used as a support system by compensating for the underdeveloped parts of the brain that
are involved in the ability to resist peer pressure. An increase in VS activity occurred in the
older participants and correlated with decreased susceptibility to peer influence and risk-taking
(Pfeifer et al., 2011). The increased VS responses to all facial displays, especially happiness and
sadness, serve as a protective function for successful regulation that older adolescents can use
against negative peer influences. Mass media displays teenagers as being detrimentally
impulsive, but this study indicates that this is not always the case because the VS can cause
successful emotional responses to one’s environment as they continue to develop through

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adolescence (Pfeifer et al., 2011). Teenagers can ultimately resist negative external influences if
they learn to successfully adjust their emotional responses in peer relationships.
Conclusion
In order to obtain a full understanding of peer pressure and it’s connection with
adolescent identity development, it is necessary to further examine all aspects associated with
teenage social culture. This paper has provided an overview of research based on findings that
have been directly associated with the connection between peers, peer selection, and the
development of identities throughout adolescence. Through the study done by Jennifer H. and
colleagues discussed earlier, it was found that the development of the ventral striatum in the
brain enables older adolescents to be able to resist the negative peer pressure through successful
regulation. Basic training in emotion regulation techniques could in fact be helpful to emerging
adolescents, especially if they are at-risk or have a history of behavioral misconduct (Pfeifer et
al., 2011). A practical strategy for adolescents to resist negative external influences is to practice
adjusting their responses to their peers. This could be in the form of nonverbal emotional
expression or developing the ability to simply walk away from a risky situation. Challenges
could arise naturally if the adolescent is not yet secure in their own identity. Having
conversations with adolescents about safely finding themselves and successfully avoiding the
risks involved in giving in to peer pressure could make them aware of consequences and grant
them proper guidance. This is where IPrevail Wellness Coaching becomes effective, if an
individual does not feel comfortable talking to an adult face-to-face about the problems they are
facing with peers. It is beneficial for more knowledgeable and experienced people to help guide
adolescents through their journey of achieving their identity, while helping to prevent
delinquency in these vulnerable times.

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