ime example is the influence of smoking. Maybe friends in your group smoke and you are the only one who is not and the pressure of seeing yourself different from your friends and wanting to fit in at that point in time influences you to smoke. If you feel comfortable with your friends and what they do, following the rules of the group will be natural to you. But following the rules of a group does not mean it is right for you. When you conform to a group you are allowing them to make decisions for you and you give up control of yourself.
             Positive peer pressure is an encouragement by your peers to do something good. It may consist of joining an athletic team, helping out someone, influence of better grades, convincing someone to stop smoking, drinking, or doing drugs. Students who influence other students bring out positive peer pressure. This may work better than parental involvement because students listen to what their friends say. Peer pressure can work both ways but the trick is to find out which pressures are healthy.
             Your peers influence your values. As you grow older you try to discover values and opinions that that are meaningful to you. For instance if your friends think good grades are important they may reinforce the idea for you, but if they think that studying is not necessary you might let your grades drop in order to fit in with them. Another example is community service. If you never considered volunteering before and your friends think it is a good thing to do you might feel inclined to participate. In this sense your peers are influencing your values in a positive way. 2It is important to recognize when pressure from your friends becomes negative. At that point you must decide what values are important regardless of what your friends think. Your peers become very important when it comes to shaping the adolescent life. It is normal to be influenced by your social groups but it is also important to become strong ...