Beating peer pressure

It doesn't matter how much people like you, how popular you are or how many friends you have because all people will have to face peer pressure at least once in their life. The way you deal with this pressure depends on the person itself and the way he/she thinks about their life.

If you have a low self esteem, bully friends or low confidence you are more likely to give in to peer pressure than others. There are many ways to deal with peer pressure: never bully people, let your friends know what you think about bad things like drugs and the most important thing to do is to let your environment know you are a leader and that they should listen to you and not the other way around.

The secret to beat peer pressure is to be stand your ground when someone tries to drag you in to something, but you have to be careful not to lose your friends along with it.

Max Vandormael

Link: http://teenadvice.about.com/cs/peerpressure/a/blpeerpressure.htm

Shopping with friends

Research has found that when adults go shopping with friends they like to spend more time in stores and even spend more money. But does this also count for teens? Or are there more negative than positive elements with “co-shopping”?

Retailers don’t often see the advantages of teenagers, who come to the mall in group. They are scared that those teens, who hang out at the mall, will scare the other customers away.
They think that those groups will cause trouble or are more likely to shoplift (as Angelie told in her blog).

But that’s not entirely true. Teens who love to shop with friends spend more money with those friends than they do alone. They’re not likely to cause any trouble or to shoplift in front of their friends.

I agree with that, because when I go shopping with friends I’m enjoying myself more than when I have to do this on my own. And for that reason I can admit that I spend more money when I go shopping with friends. But that’s maybe just because I’m a boy.

Retailers should even encourage teens to shop with friends, perhaps by “bring a friend with you” promotions or to think of ways to deliver better information to teen consumers.

Martijn Schelstraete

http://www3.babson.edu/Publications/JR/PastIssues/Volume80Issue2/peerinfluence.cfm

Teenagers influenced by celebrities

As I said in my second blog, teenagers want to have the same look as their idols.

Today,  celebrities have a strong influence on the fashion ideas of teenagers.

One in four teenagers admit that they see actors or popular singers like Miley Cyrus as their role models.

Television,  internet and magazines show pictures and information about the way they dress and about their personal life.

Even if teenagers have a strong attraction to their idols, they won’t change their own behaviour to look like them.

However, 60% of teenagers said that celebrities had influenced their personal values, attitudes and feelings.  For example their idols inspired them to become a vegetarian or to start playing some kind of sport.

A lot of parents worry about the obsession of their children with stars. As Jolien said in her  blog, celebrities also have a negative influence on teenagers,  for example some teenagers can have eating disorders.

So I think celebrities like Miley Cyrus has a strong impact on teenagers in the way they dress and the way they feel.

Angelie Vancoillie

(source: http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/200201/fan-club-confessions-teens-underestimate-influence-celebrity).

The role parents play in peer pressure?

Max mentioned in his blog that parents can play a role in peer pressure issues. My article gives six tips for parents so they can help their child to be responsible and to find his or her own style.

Parents can be very judgemental sometimes about the behaviour of their children, which is not good. In my opinion, these judgements will make sure that teenagers will no longer talk to their parents about their problems or ask them their questions. The article also says it is much better to explain why you are against something and talk to your child. I think there should definitely be authority, but parents should also listen to their child’s opinion.

Parents should not underestimate the role of peers in a teenager’s life, but should try to encourage their child to have his own ideas and his own fashion style, even if you, as a parent, do not agree with this style.

In my opinion the last tip is a bit extreme. I don’t think that teenagers should pay for all of their clothes, but it might be a good thing to let them pay a piece of clothing once in a while.

source: http://www.sheknows.com/living/articles/809985/6-tips-to-help-your-teens-deal-with-fashion-peer-pressure

Jolien Sichien

Peer pressure and teens

There is one thing that teens have in common : peer pressure. Whether it is peer pressure in shopping, in smoking, in drinking or other activities, everyone gets to deal with it. It is important for parents to make sure their children find friends with similar interests because it can contribute to their development in becoming a responsible adult. There are 2 types of peer pressure: positive and negative. When most people think of peer pressure, they associate it with bad behavior, but it can also have a good influence on teens. It all depends on age and gender100. Especially young boys in a big group are sensitive to peer pressure. Also teens who got neglected by their parents and teens with low social skills are likely to get into risky situations by their peers. In these situations, peer pressure can lure teens into the dark side of society.

Max Vandormael

Link: http://www.adoptionarticlesdirectory.com/Article/Peer-Pressure-and-Teens/2866

Negative peer pressure: Shoplifting

Martijn said in his first blog that there exists positive and negative peer pressure. An extreme example of negative peer pressure is shoplifting. Stealing products while you are shopping is a crime.

One reason why teenagers  steal things is because they don’t have anything else to do. This is a way to ask for attention from their friends and family.  When a child has an experience with shoplifting, it’s not easy to stop them.

But also peer pressure plays an important role in shoplifting. As Jolien said before teenagers want to have designer clothes because their friends have them. They also want new and improving products like MP3 players, games,…

I think some of them are confronted with a lack of money, so they see only one option: stealing.

Others have enough money, but do it for the thrill or to impress their friends.

In my opinion some teenagers start to steal things because their best friends do it and they don’t want to be a loser.

(Source : http://www.familyfirstaid.org/shoplifting-statistics.html)

Angelie Vancoillie

Low Self Esteem and its Impact on a Child's Psyche

As I told in my last blog and which Jolien and Angelie their blogs also agreed with, is that peer pressure is mainly about self esteem.

The next article that I read, told me something more about the impact that a low self esteem can cause to a child.
When we are young, we are more vulnerable to threats and those could affect our self esteem. Without knowing it, we often suffer from these old threats when being a teenager.

Low self esteem turns teenagers often to an addiction such as drug addiction, smoking and alcoholism. They are also much more susceptible to peer pressure in their search for acceptance.  And all of this could eventually lead to a depression or even eating disorders (such as Jolien said in her blog) and in the worst case end with suicide (suicide rates are still increasing over the last years among young people because they can’t tolerate the high pressure they are feeling to achieve higher goals).
The best way is to overcome right at the beginning!

Martijn Schelstraete

http://searchwarp.com/swa120212.htm

How fashion sites can influence a young girl's self esteem.

In Angelie’s blog, she is talking about how teenage girls shop to create their own identity. What their friends think, fashion sites, TV shows, all have an influence on them. These fashion sites and the media can also negatively influence women’s self esteem and their self image, especially young, vulnerable girls. Because there is a constant focus on thin women, girls get the idea that you have to be skinny to be beautiful, successful, etc. Angelie’s article teaches us that teenage girls want to have the same look as their favourite celebrities or as the models on their favourite fashion sites. Therefore, girls are often suffering from eating disorders like anorexia, bulimia or compulsive overeating.

I’m convinced that the influence of these fashion sites and the media can really twist the idea young girls have of what the average woman looks like. More and more young girls try to control their weight. In my opinion, dieting and sporting can be good for a young girl’s self esteem and for her health, but anorexia, bulimia or of course extreme dieting can seriously damage it, for example fertility issues can occur.

Source: http://www.casapalmera.com/articles/media%E2%80%99s-influence-on-eating-disorders/

Jolien Sichien

Create your own personality

I found an interview with Jason Rivera, who is the director of Consumer Insights and Planning.  This interview gives us more information about the shopping behaviour of teenagers.

When teenagers are sixteen years old, they want to create their own identity, so they buy shoes, clothes and other stuff.

The advantage of shopping with friends is that teenagers get feedback from their friends on the products they want to buy.

On TV shows, videos on YouTube,… they see celebrities and sports figures and they want to have the same specific look . Girls, in general, like to communicate and share information about shopping on Facebook or Twitter.

Most of the teens are spending their parents’ money when they are shopping. They have an agreement with them about the amount of money they are allowed to spend.

However, parents don’t lose their influence on their children.  For younger teens, parents say specifically what they want their children to wear. When their children are older they only give them a general direction, so the teenagers are free to choose their own style.

Angelie Vancoillie

(Source: http://www.ampagency.com/the_agency/eMarketer_Interview_with_Jason_Rivera.pdf)

Peer pressure affects a teenager's entire life.

As Martijn said in his last blog, adults should have a boundary when shopping with their friends. However they should not only limit their own budget when shopping, but also their teenager’s budget.

Teenagers nowadays know what they want, designer clothes and expensive products from Tiffany’s, Coach and Armani. Wearing the “right” brands is a form of peer pressure that also affects parents with smaller budgets. Of course many teenagers work for their money, but others are just used to getting everything they want, whenever they want it. This is not possible anymore when they are adults, so peer pressure will not only affect their lives when they are younger but might negatively influence their way of living when they grow older. This is why they need to learn to manage there own spending money when they are young.

I don’t think that involving kids in charity work is the best solution for this problem. They might realize that they spend too much on clothing, but won’t they forget all this when they see the latest coach bag? In my opinion, giving them a fixed allowance is a better solution.

 

Source: http://abcnews.go.com/2020/story?id=124346&page=1

Jolien Sichien

Peer Pressure and Money: Do You Spend Differently with Friends?

 

I’ve read a blog of a certain Neal Frankle who asked himself the question: Do you spend differently with friends?  When you go shopping with a friend do you buy stuff which is actually too expensive for you?
Neal found out that many people struggle with these problems. He says that people don’t want their friends to think less of them and they want to make an impression while shopping.
This kind of negative peer pressure can also be very dangerous. Once you made a little mistake by not being honest with yourself and your friends about your budget, it could continue to a lie and a bigger mistake.
As a solution you should stay in your comfort zone while shopping, be honest and this will save you a lot of money and boost up your self-esteem.

Martijn Schelstraete

http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/08/11/peer-pressure-and-money-do-you-spend-differently-with-friends/

Consumer socialization research revealed three sources of adolescent influences in teen apparel shopping: peers, media and parents. Teen apparel includes clothing, shoes, cosmetics and jewelry. These three influences have been studied separately, but never together. Interpersonal influences derived from 2 other studies: interpersonal influence susceptibility and consumer socialization.

Six 'Teen Interpersonal Influence' scales were developed to see what impact the three sources of influence have on teen apparel shopping. Parents get less influence when the teen grows older, money-related variables also have an effect on the spendings of teens. Gender, social class and social risk of the product 100 determine the height of influence.

In conclusion, many studies confirm that when teens grow older, they get less influenced by parents and peers. This can be explained by the fact that teens want to establish their own norms, even if these norms relate with stereotypes.

Max Vandormael

Link: http://www.springerlink.com/content/u685p50l8238n012/fulltext.pdf

I have found an article about the shopping behaviour of teenagers from different regions and different ages. Sixty teenage girls and one boy responded to the notice, on the Washington Post Website, looking for volunteers to shop. It’s clear that shopping is a girl’s thing.

This article obviously shows the peer pressure in teen shopping. Teenage girls do mind what their parents might think of their clothes, but what their peers think is even more important so they call their friends for some advice while shopping. The purchasing power of teenagers is enormous, but for retailers they are a dangerous public, because this season your brand might be ‘cool’, but next season it might be out.

Teenage girls are very sensitive to prices. When a price is too high, they take it as a personal insult. Of course they like shopping with their parents because their wallet is fatter.

source:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/03/AR2007060300964.html

Jolien Sichien

Peer pressure: general

First of all I would like to start with a general explanation of ‘peer pressure’.

As Wikipedia says: ‘Peer pressure refers to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms.’ (wikipedia.org),  it is more likely that peer pressure occurs with teenagers than with adults.
It is even clear that any child or teenager will face this sort of pressure. 

It all starts when teens spend more time with their friends than they do with their parents (for example when teenagers start shopping with friends instead of with their ‘mom’).
Those young people have a big influence on each other because they’re at an age where they have a need for acceptance and don’t want to end up alone.

According to the individual characteristics of yourself and your friends and the situation you’re in, there are two types of peer pressure: positive (trying to have good results in school) and negative (encouraging each other to use drugs, smoke, drink…).  

Parents are often scared that their child will make bad decisions because of peer pressure, but as Bob Marley once said: ‘Don’t worry about a thing, cause every little thing gonna be alright’.  Or almost everything.

Martijn Schelstraete

http://www.adoptionarticlesdirectory.com/Article/Peer-Pressure-and-Teens/2866

Valerie Streif, a student from the United States, went shopping a lot when she was a teen and spent over 150$ a month on it. Nowadays she only visits the mall once in 2 months, a big difference that can be explained by peer pressure, big costs and the economic crisis.

 A survey released that teens these days mostly spend their money on value brands and overall cheaper items. It seems everyone is spending less. Teens' fashion budgets were very low since the spring. Dan Jasper, spokesman of Mall of America, says he wasn't aware 100 of the fact that teens shop less, on the contrary sales have increased by 9%.

Cassie Hendricks realizes people spend less in the moment and think more of the future. The crisis made people spend less and think twice when they go shopping and don't buy as much as they used to.

Max Vandormael

Link: http://www.mndaily.com/2010/10/25/survey-shows-teens%E2%80%99-shopping-habits

Teen shopping

Hello everyone

I found a good survey for our topic “peer pressure in teen shopping”. I think this is a useful survey because it contains a lot of graphs and conclusions about teen shopping.

The study results that teenagers spend a lot of time at the mall, this is not only a place for shopping but also for eating and socializing with their friends.  Having fun with their friends is very important for them.

Teenagers are also influenced by advertising. Most of them have positive reactions on it, they find it’s “fun to look at”.  The result is that 58% of the teenagers choose the products they see on TV, posters, promotional events,… .

There is also a gender difference : girls like to shop for clothes while boys prefer to buy CD’s, DVD’s and games. When teenagers visit the mall, they spend an average of 75 dollars.

We can conclude that because teenagers prefer to shop with their friends, they are influenced by peer pressure in what they buy.

Angelie Vancoillie

(Source: http://www.scarborough.com/press_releases/Mall%20Free%20Study%20FINAL%206.18.09.pdf)