Peer groups

Examples of Peer groups in the following topics:

• Peer Groups

  • A peer group is a social group whose members have interests, social positions, and age in common.
  • The influence of the peer group typically peaks during adolescence.
  • Peer groups have a significant influence on psychological and social adjustments for group individuals.
  • Peer groups can also serve as a venue for teaching members gender roles.
  • Peer groups cohesion is determined and maintained by such factors as group communication, group consensus, and group conformity concerning attitude and behavior.

• Gender Messages from Peers

  • Peer groups can serve as a venue for teaching gender roles, especially if conventional gender social norms are strongly held.
  • Peer groups can serve as a venue for teaching members gender roles.
  • Peer groups can consist of all males, all females, or both males and females.
  • There is much research that has been done on how gender affects learning within student peer groups.
  • One thing that is an influence on peer groups is student behavior.

• Family, Peers, Church, and School

  • A peer group is made up of people who are similar in age and social status and who share interests.
  • Peer group socialization begins in the earliest years, such as when kids on a playground teach younger children the norms about taking turns or the rules of a game or how to shoot a basket.
  • Peer groups are important to adolescents in a new way, as they begin to develop an identity separate from their parents and exert independence.
  • Additionally, peer groups provide their own opportunities for socialization since kids usually engage in different types of activities with their peers than they do with their families.
  • Peer groups provide adolescents' first major socialization experience outside the realm of their families.

• Benchmarking

  • In many cases, benchmarking involves comparisons of one company to the best companies in a comparable peer group or the average in that peer group or industry.
  • From an investor perspective, benchmarking can involve comparing a company to peer companies that can be considered alternative investment opportunities from the perspective of an investor.
  • In this process, the investor may compare the focus company to others in the peer group (leaders, averages) on certain financial ratios relevant to those companies and the investor's investment style.
  • From a management perspective, benchmarking using ratio analysis may be a way for a manager to compare their company to peers using externally recognizable, quantitative data.

• Informal Means of Control

  • Informal social control—the reactions of individuals and groups that bring about conformity to norms and laws—includes peer and community pressure, bystander intervention in a crime, and collective responses such as citizen patrol groups.
  • A peer group is a social group whose members have interests, social positions, and age in common.
  • The influence of the peer group typically peaks during adolescence.
  • However, peer groups generally only affect short-term interests, unlike the long-term influence exerted by the family.
  • Informal social control—the reactions of individuals and groups that bring about conformity to norms and laws—includes peer and community pressure, bystander intervention in a crime, and collective responses such as citizen patrol groups.

• Cultural and Societal Influences on Adolescent Development

  • As adolescents work to form their identities, they pull away from their parents, and the peer group becomes very important (Shanahan, McHale, Osgood, & Crouter, 2007).
  • Adolescents associate with friends of the opposite sex much more than in childhood and tend to identify with larger groups of peers based on shared characteristics.
  • Peer groups offer members of the group the opportunity to develop social skills such as empathy, sharing, and leadership.
  • Peer groups can have positive influences on an individual, such as academic motivation and performance; however, they can also have negative influences, such as peer pressure to engage in drug use, drinking, vandalism, stealing, or other risky behavior.
  • In the United States and many other parts of the world, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) youth face much discrimination and bullying by their peers based on the broader cultural attitudes about LGBTQ issues; many are ostracized from peer groups because they are seen to be breaking culturally based gender norms.

• Adolescence

  • Peer groups are especially important during adolescence, a period of development characterized by a dramatic increase in time spent with peers and a decrease in adult supervision.
  • Adolescents also associate with friends of the opposite sex much more than in childhood and tend to identify with larger groups of peers based on shared characteristics.
  • Peer groups offer members the opportunity to develop various social skills like empathy, sharing and leadership.
  • During early adolescence, adolescents often associate in cliques; exclusive, single-sex groups of peers with whom they are particularly close.
  • These small friend groups break down even further as socialization becomes more couple-oriented.

• Reference Groups

  • Reference groups are groups that consumers will look to for help in making purchasing decisions.
  • Reference groups are groups that consumers compare themselves to or associate with.
  • On the other hand, if a reference group disapproves of a product, those that associate with that group will probably not purchase the product.
  • Reference groups can be either formal or informal.
  • Schools, friends, and peers are examples of informal reference groups .

• Defining Boundaries

  • Social groups are defined by boundaries.
  • Cultural sociologists define symbolic boundaries as "conceptual distinctions made by social actors…that separate people into groups and generate feelings of similarity and group membership. " In-groups, or social groups to which an individual feels he or she belongs as a member, and out-groups, or groups with which an individual does not identify, would be impossible without symbolic boundaries.
  • Where group boundaries are considered permeable (e.g., a group member may pass from a low status group into a high status group), individuals are more likely to engage in individual mobility strategies.
  • Here, without changing necessarily the objective resources of in the in-group or the out-group, low status in-group members are still able to increase their positive distinctiveness.
  • This may be achieved by comparing the in-group to the out-group on some new dimension, changing the values assigned to the attributes of the group, and choosing an alternative out-group by which to compare the in-group.

• Collaboration

  • Vygotsky (1978) theorized that communication and collaborative group work can enhance individuals' thinking and learning.
  • Teachers must be aware of the performance of each student in group activities.
  • Some passive students may remain silent while more demonstrative students lead the group discussion and play the role of coach.
  • For instance, in Group A, Mary reminded group members that they could refer to some useful online information.
  • After they chose their different roles, everyone insisted they finish their own responsibilities, and they improved their performance by heeding peer comments.