Peer pressure usually is thought of as active, overt enticing, encouraging, or daring someone to do something. The pressure is most irresistible when it’s coming from a peer, especially for teenagers. That’s why I so often hear parents complain that they’ve told their teenage son or daughter that they don’t like this friend and want them to stay away from him or her.

I ask the parent to describe the conversation that ensued. It invariably sounds like this:

Teen: Why? What do you have against Dini?

Mom: I don’t have anything against Dini, I just don’t think she’s a good influence on you.

Teen: But if you don’t have anything against her, how could she be a bad influence on me?

Mom: You know that her family does things differently from ours, and I would rather you not be friends with her.

Teen: But maybe I’m a good influence on her. Maybe she learns things from me. Why do you think I would learn anything bad from her. Don’t you trust me?

Mom: Of course I trust you, I just don’t want you to be influenced by Dini.

Teen: If you trust me, then you should trust me not to be influenced by Dini.

Mom: This isn’t about trust, it’s about how you choose your friends.

Of course it’s about trust. Mom doesn’t trust her daughter to withstand the peer pressure that Dini exerts, and she shouldn’t trust her to withstand it. Teenagers are exquisitely sensitive to peer pressure and parents cannot screen their children’s peers. What parents can do is talk with their teens about the effects of peer pressure and how to be alert to them.

“Parents cannot screen their children’s peers.” Why not? If you know your teen is friends with someone you consider inappropriate, why can’t you tell her not to associate with her? The answer is that you certainly can tell your teen not to associate with her, but that will not eliminate the peer pressure exerted by that friend even if your teen complies and spends less time with her. There may be less active peer pressure but there will still be passive peer pressure.

The effects of passive peer pressure have been documented recently in studies by Professor Laurence Steinberg at Temple University and described by the Meiri in his commentary to Avos (1:7).

In the Mishna in Avos, Nitai ha-Arbaili teaches us to distance ourselves from a bad neighbor and not to be a chaver with a wicked person. The Meiri explains that we are exhorted to distance ourselves from a bad neighbor for two reasons: to avoid being harmed when harm comes to him, and to avoid learning from his ways. Given these cautions about a neighbor, need we be told not to befriend a rasha? The Meiri explains that the term al tischaber here does not mean “don’t become friends with.” It means “do not associate with” a wicked person, even casually or occasionally for business or commercial reasons.

We see from the Meiri’s analysis of the Mishna that even reducing the peer pressure from the continuous and close contact of a neighbor to the sporadic and passive association of strictly business interactions does not shield us from the risk of peer pressure. And we assume that the Mishna is addressing adults. How much more so is the concern for teenagers!

Good question. How much more so is the concern for teenagers? That’s where Professor Steinberg’s research comes in. He reported on it first hand in the April 27, 2014 edition of the New York Times, page 12, in an article entitled “Friends Can Be Dangerous.” Here are some excerpts:

“…we randomly assigned subjects to play a video driving game, either alone or with two same-age friends watching them. The mere presence of peers made teenagers take more risks and crash more often, but no such effect was observed among adults…

“Data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation indicate that many more juvenile crimes than adult crimes are committed in groups. And driving statistics conclusively show that having same-age passengers in the car substantially increases the risk of a teen driver’s crashing but has no similar impact when an adult is behind the wheel.

“…our study… showed that the influence of peers on adolescent risk taking doesn’t rely solely on explicit encouragement to behave recklessly. Our findings also undercut the popular idea that the higher rate of real-world risk taking in adolescent peer groups is a result of reckless teenagers’ being more likely to surround themselves with like-minded others.

“[Our studies have shown] that the reason teenagers take more chances when their peers are around is partly because of the impact of peers on the adolescent brain’s sensitivity to rewards. …when teens were with people their own age, their brains’ reward centers became hyperactivated, which made them more easily aroused by the prospect of a potentially pleasurable experience. This, in turn, inclined teenagers to pay more attention to the possible benefits of a risky choice than to the likely costs, and to make risky decisions rather than play it safe. Peers had no such effect on adults’ reward centers, though.”

As pointed out by the Meiri, it is the mere passive proximity that creates the peer pressure effect. And it appears to be placed into us by Hashem rather than learned; “hard-wired” to use Professor Steinberg’s term. He bases this assumption on a study he did to see the effect of passive peer pressure on alcohol consumption, and he found passive peer effect once again. How did he know it was passive? Because this study was done with mice, and as far as we know they didn’t dare each other to drink more. Fully grown mice didn’t drink any more when surrounded by peers, teenage mice, tested shortly after reaching puberty, did.

Your responsibility is to talk with your teenager about the effects of passive peer pressure and the need to be extra cautious when with any friends or acquaintances.