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