Is there a Relationship Between Peer Pressure and Students’ Self-development?

Self-development refers to an individual's actions to better behaviour through learning new skills or through looking for a mode of overcoming undesirable behaviours in society (Oinonen, 2018). More of the research has shown that the definition of the self-development is the effort that one tends to acquire self-fulfillment through a formal kind of study program (Rezaei & Jeddi, 2020). Based on such, there are various forms of studies that have been done purposely to depict different forms of college student’s self-development. Some researchers have argued that college students' self-development is positively related to peer pressure, whereas others have tried to reject the idea (Oinonen, 2018). In this essay, the primary emphasis would be based on supporting the idea that there is a close relationship between peer pressure and the student’s self-development. 

In the perception of the relationship between the college student’s self-development and peer pressure, it has been noted that the students’ ability to acquire moral values depends on the diversity in cultural beliefs that various individuals hold in society (Rezaei & Jeddi, 2020). It is argued that the acquisition of the skills and elimination of the bad habit by students depends on the social platforms and the individuals they are relating themselves to. The pressure that comes from the individuals that they are dealing with ends up making them perceive different aspects differently. The reason behind such is that their peers usually spent most of the time with them, an issue that brings about high convincing power. With the increase in convincing power, the students end up coping with certain moral values that are not desirable in society (Rezaei & Jeddi, 2020). In this case, the researchers concluded that there is a strong relationship that usually exists between peer pressure and the student’s self-development. 

On the other hand, another form of research rejected the findings elaborated in the section above. With the research, it was found that there is no relationship between the students’ development and peer pressure (Zawadi, 2019). To affirm such, the researchers eluded that student’s development is a cognitive form of process. In this connection, individuals with a high level of cognitivism usually maintain their IQ and it usually is hard for such individuals to be changed by peer pressure. The reason behind such is that the students have a high ability to synthesis whatever is good and bad. To reinforce such, parents usually play an important role in order to reinforce their development through narrating to them on whatever is expected in society (Oga-Baldwin et al., 2017). Due to such, peer pressure has no room for contributing to the student’s self-development. The research thus disapproved the fact that there is a relationship between peer pressure and student’s self-development. 

In my perception, I concur with the finding that there is a relationship between a college student’s development and peer influence. It is clear college students normally tend to copy behaviour from the peer as they normally think that their parents deny them the pleasures of the world. Therefore, they end up behaving as their peer and reject whatever their parents regard as the right thing to do in the world. Thus, it is clear that there is a relationship between peer pressure and student’s self-development. 

References

Oga-Baldwin, W. Q., Nakata, Y., Parker, P., & Ryan, R. M. (2017). Motivating young language    learners: A longitudinal model of self-determined motivation in elementary school foreign language classes. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 49, 140-150. 

Oinonen, E. (2018). Under pressure to become–from a student to entrepreneurial self. Journal   of Youth Studies, 21(10), 1344-1360. 

Rezaei, A., & Jeddi, E. M. (2020). Relationship between wisdom, perceived control of internal   states, perceived stress, social intelligence, information processing styles and life   satisfaction among college students. Current Psychology, 39(3), 927-933. 

Zawadi, A. (2019). Peer pressure, self-esteem and depression among adolescents (Doctoral dissertation, Makerere university).