The Influence Of Active And Passive Peer Pressure On Risk-Taking Behavior In Adolescents

The adolescent period is the key period of individual socialization,and the key object of adolescent socialization is peers.Active peer pressure and passive peer pressure are the two ways that peer pressure acts on individuals.All peer pressure acts on individuals through these two ways and has an impact on them.Adolescents are the peak period of individual risk-taking behavior.Many scholars believe that peers play an important role in the occurrence of adolescent risk-taking behavior.Therefore,exploring the relationship between active and passive peer pressure and adolescent risk-taking behavior can more specifically explore how peer pressure affects adolescent risk-taking behavior.The provision of "responsible information" is an external intervention method to explore the influence of negative peer pressure on adolescent risk-taking behavior from outside the influence itself.By combing the literature related to active and passive peer pressure,"responsible information" provision and adolescent risk-taking behavior,the following three problems can be found: First,most scholars take peer pressure as a whole,and seldom discuss whether different ways of peer pressure influence different results.Secondly,the existing interventions on the negative effects of peer pressure are mostly carried out from the perspective of affected individuals.Is external factor intervention also a way of intervention?Finally,the research on adolescent risk-taking behavior situation is more single,either simulated risk-taking situation or real risk-taking situation,and whether the simulation and real risk-taking situation will have different effects on adolescent risk-taking behavior.Starting from the question,this study will conduct research from the following two aspects through four experiments: First,this study will explore the influence of two different types of peer pressure(active/passive)on adolescents’ risk-taking behavior,and also include the control group without peer pressure.In addition,there are two kinds of risk setting for teenagers: real risk setting and simulated risk setting.Secondly,on the basis of the first step,the external intervention condition of "responsible information" provision is added to the research,and the relationship between peer pressure(active peer pressure/passive peer pressure/no peer pressure),"responsible information" provision and adolescent risk-taking behavior(real risk taking situation/simulated risk taking situation)is further discussed.According to the results of the four experiments,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)In the simulated risk taking situation,the scores of adolescents’ risk taking behavior decreased successively under the conditions of no,active and passive peer pressure.Compared with no peer pressure,adolescents under passive peer pressure are significantly less likely to take risks.This shows that teenagers themselves have a great tendency to take risks in the simulated risk situation;In addition,it also shows that peer pressure may play a positive role in supervising and buffering adolescent risk-taking behavior.(2)In the real risk taking situation,the scores of adolescents’ risk taking behavior increased successively under passive,no and active peer pressure.Compared with no peer pressure,adolescents under passive peer pressure are less likely to take risks,while those under active peer pressure are more likely to take risks.This indicates that active peer pressure has a higher impact on risk-taking behavior than other peer pressure influences in real risk-taking situations.(3)In the simulated risk taking situation,the presence or absence of "responsible information" had little effect on the risk-taking behavior of adolescents under active peer pressure;But the presence of "responsible information" reduced risk-taking among adolescents without peer pressure and increased risk-taking among adolescents under passive peer pressure.This suggests that,in the simulated risk taking situation,it suggests that the provision of "responsible information" only works in the absence of peer pressure.(4)In the real risk taking situation,the provision of "responsible information" will increase the risk-taking behaviors of adolescents without peer pressure,passive peer pressure and active peer pressure.This suggests that in real risk taking situations,the availability of "responsible information" actually increases risk-taking behavior.