Peer Influences on Development
Peer Influence
Peer influence is greater than the influence of parents. If we hear our parents talking with a certain accent at home but then we hear some of our friends talking with a different accent we will usually adopt the accent our friends have to "fit in." Parents are more important to help their kids when it comes to education, discipline, responsibility, orderliness, charitableness, and interaction with authority. Peers are more important when it comes to learning cooperation, finding the road to popularity, and inventing new styles of interaction with people of the same age. Peers can also have a negative impact though. For example, if your peers smoke and they ask you if you want to smoke you have a much higher chance of smoking then you would if your parents smoked.