Communication within peer groups allows adolescents to explore their feelings and identity as well as develop and evaluate their social skills. Peer groups offer members the opportunity to develop social skills such as empathy, sharing, and leadership. Adolescents choose peer groups based on characteristics similarly found in themselves. By utilizing these relationships, adolescents become more accepting of who they are becoming. Group norms and values are incorporated into an adolescent’s own self-concept. Through developing new communication skills and reflecting upon those of their peers, as well as self-opinions and values, an adolescent can share and express emotions and other concerns without fear of rejection or judgment. Peer groups can have positive influences on an individual, such as on academic motivation and performance. However, while peers may facilitate social development for one another they may also hinder it. Peers can have negative influences, such as encouraging experimentation with drugs, drinking, vandalism, and stealing through peer pressure. Susceptibility to peer pressure increases during early adolescence, peaks around age 14, and declines thereafter. Further evidence of peers hindering social development has been found in Spanish teenagers, where emotional (rather than solution-based) reactions to problems and emotional instability have been linked with physical aggression against peers. Both physical and relational aggression are linked to a vast number of enduring psychological difficulties, especially depression, as is social rejection. Because of this, bullied adolescents often develop problems that lead to further victimization. Bullied adolescents are both more likely to continued to be bullied and to bully others in the future. However, this relationship is less stable in cases of cyberbullying, a relatively new issue among adolescents.

What is one area in which peer groups can have positive influences on an individual?