Discussion Senior Seminar

According to the Wiki page for Adolescent Health II, what is the hypothesis for the participants after they partake in the intervention? How will they test if it made a difference? How long do they have to be actively participating in the intervention? Have you ever taken part in mediation? If so, how has that influenced your overall mental health? What positive influence has mediation given you? If you haven’t, think about how you can fit meditation into your daily routine and what you hypothesize will be the outcome in six months?

Read the following and watch the video in order to answer the questions

The Influence of Peer Pressure on Self-Esteem in Adolescents and Positive Psychology As Therapeutic Remedy
Introduction
As an adolescent, it is assumed that one should know their worth and capabilities (based on what they were taught). Various factors will shape an adolescent’s perspective in which they start to build memories and experiences in life. Whether these experiences are inside or outside a teen’s home, once a teen starts to have questions it would be safe to assume that they are mentally growing. Growing mentally is a never-ending process that each individual should take time for. The transition from elementary to middle school is only the beginning of the road of the unknown.
During the ages of about 13-17, children experience adolescent development. Through these years, exposure to a variety of factors such as brain development and social influences becomes prominent and directly impacts their emotional well-being and performance. A topic that becomes widely introduced is self-esteem.
Self-esteem is defined as an overall reflection of an individual’s self-worth encompassing their personal beliefs in addition to an emotional response to these beliefs (McClure et. al, 2010). As adolescents experience these emotional and developmental changes, peer influence has shown relations to how an individual’s self-esteem progresses. Peer influence, or peer pressure, is defined as the influence exerted by a peer group on an individual to allow that individual to conform to the group’s norms and expectations. Positive influences can exist, where teens engage in prosocial behavior or report higher levels, more positive levels of emotional state (Bergin et. al, 2003). However, just as positive influences exist, so do negative. Negative influences have a direct impact on the emotional state and development of an adolescent (Homel et. al, 2020).
Positive Psychology offers remediation for adolescents who experience depressive symptoms and low self-esteem. The perspective, or goal, of this therapy, is to provide interventions that promote strengths, well-being, and other positive outcomes (Owens & Waters, 2020). Overall, the purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the effects peer pressure has on self-esteem in adolescents and how positive psychology can be used as a remedy.
Literature Review
In adolescent development, individuals between the ages of 10 to 19 (Homel et. al, 2020) are confronted with relational stressors. These relational stressors are regarded as peer rejection and can instill many challenges with emotional regulation. Throughout these ages, teens find themselves being introduced to social influences as they are beginning to build relationships with other peers. In addition to social influences becoming prominent during these years, another factor is introduced. During this phase of development, adolescents also experience an increase in neuroplasticity (Owens & Waters, 2020), allowing them to better adapt to the changes they experience. Along with this increase in neuroplasticity, adolescence introduces a period of increased reward sensitivity and immature impulse restraint (Stautz & Cooper, 2014). This is attributed to the development of neural regions responsible for cognitive control. It is important to note that adolescents are also subject to depressive symptomatology and research has stated that the prevalence of depressive disorders is highest in late adolescence and young adulthood (Homel et. al, 2020).
At this point in development, adolescents become more emotionally intrinsic and susceptible in their relations with peers, which manipulates their social and emotional development (Ha et al., 2019). Teen neural development coupled with exposure to social influences, directly impact their behavior and mental well-being. Moreover, self-esteem becomes a widely detrimental factor to their psychological, physical, and social maturation. In a study conducted by McClure et. al (2010), it was suggested that low-esteem has been connected to consequences influencing adolescent development and their transition into adulthood. This study included 6522 participants ranging from ages 12 to 16 years. The purpose of this study was to examine the characteristics associated with low self-esteem. Results concluded that risk factors such as obesity, TV time, team sports participation, school performance, and parenting styles are directly related to low self-esteem (McClure et. al, 2010). In mentioning school performance, it should be stated that peer influence plays a significant role in how the adolescent progresses in school as well. Youth with positive influences who participate in prosocial behavior, report fewer depressive symptoms (Homel et. al, 2020).
A form of treatment that exists currently is positive psychology. Positive psychology is unlike conventional forms of therapy because its sole purpose is to focus on the positive aspects of the patients’ lives and does not use pharmacological intervention. In an article written by Peterson & Park (2014), it is stated that “scientific psychology has neglected the study of what can go right with people” and positive psychology aims to focus on that. This form of therapy, when offered in early adolescent life, has shown to significantly improve academic performance, adjustment to school and friendships, and experience fewer detrimental clinical symptoms later in life (Owens & Waters, 2019). In a study conducted by Owens & Waters (2019), a form of clinically-based positive psychology intervention known as balanced interventions was introduced. This form of intervention introduces the students to remedially focused content and processes coupled with positive content and processes, both of which aim to avert or treat negative feelings and enhance well-being. Results from this study indicated that balanced interventions improved self-esteem, social functioning, and resilience and found a reduction in depression, anxiety, and other related mental health concerns.
As adolescents enter this uncomfortable phase of development, many influences, especially neural and social, have a direct impact on their emotional well-being. Through early intervention with the use of positive psychology, adolescents can avoid feelings of low self-esteem and depressive experiences and flourish through their development into adulthood. Self-esteem and confidence are a big part of an adolescent’s phase. This topic has sparked many because most have familiarity with it either first hand personally or has seen someone else face adolescent trouble. People must be aware of the difficulties one can face to diminish self-harm in adolescents. This also gives people the opportunity to better enhance their education on the topic and gives the teen a head start in life by being mentally aware of how happiness can work. If individuals learn this at a young age, there is a possibility that the overall quality of life will increase.
Outside of the home, individuals intensify their social skills through their peers at school and/or work as well as internet influences. One character is building, it may be hard for one to stop in their tracks however, it is never too late to change the things you don’t like about yourself. These influences aren’t always the greatest when trying to learn your place as a young person in the world. A teen can encounter red flags firsthand when something needs to change. Depression, self-harm, anxiety, and disorders are all scary but have been normalized concerns that teens try to flee from since the beginning of time. These are public health concerns for teens and statistics show the highest rate of self-harm falls under the “cutting” category. There is no reason why young people are experiencing these events this early in life and these numbers need to change.
Positive reinforcement will assist upcoming teens (as well as others) in mental health and ensure that they know how to face trials without negativity. It is said that “positive psychology is not an ideological movement nor a secular religion”. (pg.19). Meaning a bad company can tarnish the credibility of positive psychology by skipping over the leading topic at hand. A positive psychologist was not created to give false hope or frown upon profit motives.
Intervention