the power of peers

Family of Origin (FOO), as it is often referred to in psychological circles, has been a bedrock of psychological theory for decades (going back, perhaps, as far as the 1950s). The idea is simple, and it is deeply embedded in popular culture. Your family of origin was where you first learned how to communicate, manage emotions, and make sense of the world. Your personality, your mental models, and so on, were all set by your FOO, and any issues you have can (and should) be traced back to them.

There is one glaring problem with this view: it completely ignores the influence of society and your peers.

In the West, most children are not primarily raised by their parents. They go to schools where, for six to eight hours per day, they are raised by teachers, faculty—and their peers. Of these, peers often hold the most significant influence.

There is one area in counselling and therapy where we see the power of peers recognised: bullying. If there can be significant negative influences from a bully, why cannot there be other significant influences from peers? Why is the influence limited to bullying? Is it impossible to have other negative (or positive) influences? It only takes a moment's attention to realise how powerful peers have been and are in our lives. However, why ignore all other inputs and influences? For that matter, why place all your attention on FOO, when you also have media, culture, significant events, books, and more?

Any understanding of or relating to the forming of ourselves must take into account the world we grew up in—and the world we live in today. We did not grow up in controlled lab conditions.

We know, for a fact, that even the food we ate this morning can have an impact on everything from our moods to how we decide to cast our vote (Danziger et al., 2011). Why would we not be mindful of these aspects when working to improve our lives?

For the curious, to wrap up Harris's argument: if it is not your parents, then who does have the biggest impact on you? Your social category. This is basically the category you associate yourself with. Harris (2009) says the following:

A social category—for example, girl—may be an actual group of people, but it doesn't have to be. By identifying with the social category girl, a young human is socialised as a female child. She learns how children are expected to behave (not exactly like grown-ups). She learns how girls are expected to behave (not exactly like boys). She can identify with the social category girl even if she has never seen more than two or three other girls together in one place. She can categorise herself as a girl even if the other girls don't like her and don't want to play with her. Even if she doesn't like them. (pp. 143–144)

Now, as to whether or not you agree with that...