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peer pressure

American

[peer presh-er] / ˈpɪər ˈprɛʃ ər /

noun

social pressure by members of one's peer group to take a certain action, adopt certain values, or otherwise conform in order to be accepted.

peer pressure Cultural

The social influence a peer group exerts on its individual members, as each member attempts to conform to the expectations of the group. (See conformity.)

Example Sentences

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See Examples For:

peer pressure

He added that "peer pressure played a large part in what went on".

From BBC ● May 21, 2026

One of my mom group chats recently turned to strength training, and I copped to finally succumbing to peer pressure and buying weights on Amazon—5 pounders, to be exact.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Feb. 27, 2026

"It's some form of peer pressure," 24-year-old Haskell Austin tells the BBC.

From BBC ● Feb. 13, 2026

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has painted social media as "a platform for peer pressure, a driver of anxiety, a vehicle for scammers and, worst of all, a tool for online predators".

From Barron's ● Dec. 2, 2025

That almost everyone, in the end, fell in line is something that we would normally credit to peer pressure.

From "The Tipping Point" by Malcolm Gladwell

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023