Synonyms
Definition
Peers are defined as individuals of the same age and status.
Introduction
Peers play a prominent role in adolescence, the time between the onset of puberty and achieving independence from one’s family of origin, roughly mapping into the second decade of life. Compared to children and adults, adolescents spend more time with peers, enjoy peers’ company more, and consider peer norms as more important. This heightened importance of peers is highly conserved across species. For example, adolescent rats spend more time investigating and interacting with peers, and peer behavior is instrumental in learning and practice of adaptive and adult-like behaviors. Although peer influences can be positive (e.g., academically successful friends can motivate youth to work harder at school), more prevalent are concerns about peers’ role in adolescents’ problem behaviors. Indeed, peer influence is a key contributor to a variety of risky behaviors occurring in...
References
Albert, D., Chein, J., & Steinberg, L. (2013). The teenage brain: Peer influences on adolescent decision making. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 22, 114–120.
Crone, E. A., Duijvenvoorde, A. C. K., & Peper, J. S. (2016). Annual research review: Neural contributions to risk-taking in adolescence – Developmental changes and individual differences. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 57, 353–368.
Ellis, B.J., Del Giudice, M., Dishion, T.J., Figueredo, A.J., Gray, P., Griskevicius, V., …, & Wilson, D.S. (2012). The evolutionary basis of risky adolescent behavior: Implications for science, policy, and practice. Developmental Psychology, 48, 598–623.
Steinberg, L. (2014). Age of opportunity: Lessons learned from the new science of adolescence. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Mrug, S. (2021). Peers. In: Shackelford, T.K., Weekes-Shackelford, V.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_2461
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-19650-3_2461
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-19649-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-19650-3
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences