Peer Pressure

Recent discussions on social media surrounding the concept of Cancel Culture brought up the use of a term that has been around for decades, that is the concept of peer pressure.  Most people have a basic understanding of what that is, namely the pressure exerted on an individual by their peers in order to goad them into behaving the same way.  Whilst that definition is widely accepted and rarely put to question, it does rely on an implicit definition which it would perhaps be wise to pick apart, that is the definition of what actually constitutes a peer.

If you ask most people who their peers are, you tend to get a mix of responses.  Some people define their peers by their age, asserting that for instance in the case of a 20 year old their peers would be those who are at or close to the same age.  Other people define peers through proximity with no regard for age, so for example if you work in an office with 12 people then those people are considered your peers due to your proximity even if their ages diverge widely.  Others go further and choose characteristics or cultural divisions, sub cultures and groups, for example some people within the LGBT community would consider members of the LGBT community as their peers but would be reluctant to use that term to refer to those that are not part of their community.

Proximity again can be used on a more provincial level with some people defining those in their neighbourhoods, towns, cities, or those in their country as a whole as their peers.  Others still use experience and expertise as their dividing line, programmers considering other programmers to be their peers for example, or shared interests such as gamers considering gamers to be their peers, youtubers considering other youtubers to be their peers, actors considering other actors as their peers.  Some divide these associations further still and place people by the time period when they "came up" that is to say when they "got their start" in their respective industries again age being discarded so in the case of youtubers this could be the year they started or the year they hit a certain threshold of subscribers, or in the case of actors it could be the year they had their first major role.

In reflection of all these definitions put forward by others, you eventually arrive at the conclusion that there is no single definition that fits as to who and what counts as one of your peers, other than to say that those who are your peers are those you choose to recognise as your peers.  Therein lies the ultimate problem with the concept of peer pressure, that if you choose who is and is not a peer then you subsequently choose who has the potential to influence your behaviour and pressure you into doing things as a collective, or whose standing and achievements you compare with your own in order to gauge your success.

The concept of peer pressure is not unique to social interaction; within corporate psychology, and political science for example this concept is known by another name, 'groupthink' or to put it more obsequiously "Being surrounded by Yes Men" - groups of individuals who prefer conformity and uniformity over individuality; these are individuals who will suppress their own thoughts and feelings on matters and agree blindly and simply say yes to every proposal.  On a macro level or on an industry wide level you also have alternative definition of peers coming from those who a company or political party choose to recognise as their competition, their market, their base, or any other method of dividing up their industry that they choose to measure through metrics to determine success.

The reason I take issue with the concept of peer pressure is that it implies the groups of people who engage in this behaviour are contiguous and that you can find a defining characteristic that will identify whether an individual will be influenced by another in this way i.e. that if you are aged X years old, have an interest in Y, and support the Z political party then the actions of someone who is also aligned to X, Y, and Z will influence you.  Evidently this isn't the case, as these behaviours are driven by other factors.  Even those devout in opposition to the idea of conformity have openly participated in it when it promises something that they want, or when it opposes something they did not agree with - this is a problem that exists too in corporate psychology and political science once again, it is self evident that those bodies who oppose certain ideologies and doctrines will actively engage and employ those same ideologies when it suits them, further still because those who participate in groupthink don't think for themselves they don't even recognise when they are doing this.  They don't acknowledge their hypocrisy when they support the actions of individuals who act in the exact same way they opposed when those actions were taken by other individuals.

This all brings us back to one key point, individuality should not be something that is expressed at times and suppressed at others, ultimately the actions of most individuals were and remain to be, motivated almost entirely by self interest, and the concept of peer pressure, groupthink, or whatever moniker you wish to apply to it serves only as a potential shield from criticism by others.  In other words, self interest drives every decision even those people make out of conformity, if they really did not want to make those decisions in the first place they would oppose them.  This does not dismiss the fact that there will often be consequences for disagreement particularly in a corporate settings, but the ease or difficulty of making a choice does not change the fact that it is a choice.  Using peer pressure as an excuse is ultimately an attempt at displacing responsibility for the choices you make onto some other authority even if that authority is one that it turns out is incredibly hard to define conclusively.

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