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Peer pressure among teenagers
Effects of peer pressure on teens
Effects of peer pressure on teens
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On a late Friday or Saturday night, loud thumping music is heard from down the street and one can assume that the racket is caused by a group of teenagers having a house party. This party is their form of experimenting, mostly with drugs, alcohol, and various sexual partners. This experimenting is part of a long lasting tradition of teenaged risk taking, a tradition where teens tend to walk on very thin ice. In the book Divergent by Veronica Roth the main character, Beatrice or Tris for short, takes many risks in her new faction and home called the Dauntless. She jumps and zip lines off buildings, volunteers to have knives thrown at her face, fights boys nearly twice her muscle mass, and so much more. For her the effect of risk taking is positive: it leads to a sense of belonging and welcome into the Dauntless community as the highest ranked initiate, but the effects of skating on such thin ice do not always work out so well. Teenaged risk taking can have various causes and consequences. Risks like binge drinking, smoking, unsafe sex, and wild partying obviously have negative connotations because of their detrimental effects, but there are many lesser known positive effects of risk taking. Risk taking is often thought to be simply due to peer pressure, but it can be caused by both physiological and psychological changes and other outside influences. The deepest, most profound reason for a daring action is the physiological basis of teenaged risk taking. In the teenaged brain the “blossoming and pruning” phase of development in the prefrontal cortex, the PFC for short, is not yet complete when the child is entering puberty, as experts once thought it was, and the prefrontal cortex is what controls the ability to think ahead and con... ... middle of paper ... ...hough, not the drugs and the alcohol. Risks and gambles are a part of life and cannot be avoided, only compromised with. Works Cited Kittleson, Mark J. “Teen Drug Abuse Risk Factors and Risk Taking.” The Truth About Drugs, (n.d.). Facts on File Health Reference Center. Web. 18 Feb. 2014. Kittleson, Mark J. “Teens, Risk Taking, and Alcohol Abuse.” The Truth About Alcohol, (n.d.). Facts on File Health Reference Center.Web. 18 Feb. 2014. Pickhardt, Carl. “Surviving (Your Child’s) Adolescence: Risk Prevention in Adolescence.” Psychology Today. Psychology Today, 27 Dec. 2009. Web. 18 Feb. 2014. Price-Mitchell, Marilyn. “The Moment of Youth.” Psychology Today. Psychology Today, 15 July 2013. Web. 18 Feb. 2014. Roth, Veronica. Divergent. New York: HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 2011. Print. Walsh, David. Why Do They Act That Way? New York: Free Press, 2004. Print.
The main character in the book Divergent is a girl named Beatrice. Beatrice is developed throughout the book by having to do things that push her out of her comfort zone. Beatrice was born in the faction of Abnegation, where everything is simple and alike. Abnegation values selflessness, but Beatrice doesn’t feel like she is selfless. She decides to change to the faction of Dauntless, who values courage. Beatrice has to do things like jump off trains, and fight people to show she is courageous. She decides to start going byTris, because Beatrice won’t fit in with the dauntless. When Beatrice makes the decision to be a dauntless she says “My fathers eyes burn into mine with a look of accusation’. This is because it was selfish of her to choose to be a Dauntless. Beatrice doesn’t like to be told what to do, and will stand up for what she thinks is right. Beatrice tries to be kind to others, but sometimes she just can’t control herself.
Steinberg, Laurence & Morris, Amanda Sheffield. “Adolescent Development.” Annual Review of Psychology, (Annual 2001): 83-110. [E Journal]
The author of Divergent ,Veronica Roth, analyzes as to why people act and thinks the way they do and to why they defy the system. She uses the psychological aspects of behavior genetics, neuroscience, and social cultural. The norms are what allow societies to thrive, without the norms society would go into chaos as no one would be able to be kept in line. Divergent follows the life of a young girl who is faced with the choice to decide in which faction to spend the rest of her days. Unlike her peers and fellow city, she is not in the norm she can not be just one personal trait nor could she be manipulated through simulations. In this utopian society everyone is classified into five factions based on mental state; However, Beatrice Prior’s mental state can not be classified into just one faction as her brain structure and genetics are not damaged, like the vast majority of the city.
From pastures to unsupervised blowouts at home, the social calendars of most teens are full of alcohol. Other drugs rise and fall in popularity from generation to generation, but alcohol never really goes out of style. From being worshiped by the ancient Babylonians to being forbidden to teenagers, alcohol has caused many problems. Today, drinking is the drug of choice by teens and causes most wrecks and deaths today. To understand alcohol people must first know the history of alcohol, the effects of teen drinking, and the solutions to teen drinking.
As Paul Thompson states in his article Startling Finds on Teenage Brains from the Sacramento Bee, published on May 25, 2001, “.These frontal lobes,which inhibit our violent passions, rash action and regulate our emotions, are vastly immature throughout the teenage years.” He also says that “The loss[of brain tissue] was like a wildfire, and you see it in every teenager.”. This loss of brain tissue plays a role in the erratic behavior of teens, who cannot properly assess their emotions and thoughts. During this period of brain tissue loss, teens are unpredictable, adults do not know what their teen’s next move will be, teens themselves do not even know what their next move will be. As we grow our brains develop, therefore teen brains are not fully developed, so they cannot be held to the same standards as adults.
Dolmetsch, P, and Mauricette, G. (Ed). (1987). Teens Talk About Alcohol and Alcoholism. New York: Dolphin Book.
McMahon’s “Inside Your Teenager’s Scary Brain” discusses how adolescent’s brains are delicate and can easily affect their development in a good or bad way, depending on the individual’s experiences. According to Jensen, a Harvard neuroscientist and senior neurologist at two Boston hospitals, “teenage years comprise one of the brain’s most critical periods of development”. She parallels her experiences with her own children with observations of teens in general. With new research continuing to surface, studies illustrate how susceptible juvenile’s brain are and how this could generate different techniques on how society, parents, and teachers handle them.
Further, brain imaging studies noted differences in scans of adolescents and adults while performing tasks. It was theorized that the differences in teens’ brains were the cause of the turmoil and the myth evolved to the belief that teenagers are less motivated and put less effort into tasks (Epstein, 2007)--some see them as rebellious and irresponsible. It is now known that turmoil is not an inevitable part of human development. The author argued that differences between the teen brain and adult brain scans are not necessarily evidence of immaturity, deficits in reasoning, intelligence, cognition, or in any other function of the brain. He states that the studies may indicate a correlation, but there is no evidence of causation. Further evidence that turmoil is not inevitable can be seen in studies of other industrialized nations.
"Teen Alcohol and Drug Abuse." Cigna, a Global Health Insurance and Health Service Company. N.p., n.d. Web. 25 Nov. 2013.
This article speaks of adolescent alcohol use and abuse. It examines the lack of research done on adolescent health issues and the current knowledge of the consequences of adolescent alcohol consumption. The article also presents strategies on how to inform and clarify the issues of adolescent alcohol abuse.
Within psychology adolescence is described as a period of transition from childhood to adulthood. It is a period between year twelve and late teens, when the physical growth is complete, the person becomes sexually mature and establishes identity (Nolen-Hoeksema, Friedricson, Loftus & Wagenaar, 2009). During this period of development, the individual has to face several risk factors, which are considered as a hazard on normal psychological development of an individual (Colman, 2009). This means, that experiencing them is associated with vulnerability, developing mental health problems and problematic behaviors such as for instance greater risk taking, school related deviance and school failure, teen pregnancy, substance misuse, aggression, violence or vandalism or in other words delinquency and antisocial behavior (Perkins & Borden, 2003). Therefore risk factors have a potential not just endanger the present developmental period, but also jeopardize the future biological and psychological development (Beam, Gill-Rivas, Greenberger & Chen, 2002; Perkins & Borden, 2003). However, not all young individual will respond to risk factors by developing negative outcomes. Some develop resilience and adapt to changes and stressors (Crawford, 2006; Perkins & Borden, 2003). Furthermore it has been suggested, that risk factors are desirable for developing this kind of positive outcome (Fergus & Zimmerman, 2005). According to Fonagy et. al. (1994) (cited in Crawford, 2006) resilience can be defined as normal development under difficult conditions. It leads to overcoming and coping with the negative effects of exposure to risk factors (Fergus & Zimmerman, 2005). To maintain this, protective factors need to be put in place (Fergus & Zimmerman, 2...
Papalia, D. E., Olds, S. W., & Feldman, R. D. (2008). A Child's World: Infancy through Adolescence. (11th ed.). Asheville, NC: McGraw-Hill Primis.
New Releases. (n.d.). The adolescent brain: Beyond raging hormones. Retrieved November 30, 2013, from http://www.health.harvard.edu/blog-extra/the-adolescent-brain-beyond-raging-hormones
middle of paper ... ... We must educate the adolescents on respectable behavior and consequences of drug seeking behaviors and addiction. Works Cited Wong, W. Ford, K. Pagels, E. McCutcheon, J. Marinelli, M. (2013) Adolescents Are More Vulnerable to Cocaine Addiction: Behavioral and Electrophysiological Evidence.
Adolescents today are growing up in a totally different setting than the generation before them. New problems and choices are entering these young, and influential kids' lives. There are a lot of different factors in children’s lives that weren’t as common one generation ago. Adolescents today are filled with stress due to everyday problems in their lives.