Can playing weak opponents to much be harmful when playing someone that's actually around your stregnth. I know it sounds like a dumb question but I did a little invesigation on  my own and it turns out pro's are actually weakeaned when they play weak opponent's to much simply because they don't learn move's and stratiegies they should learn from playing there own or stronger streght sometime's but I posted this just to confirm what I studeied.

Just even it out,

if you play weaker opponents for several weeks then it may harm you.. but a couple games wont hurt.. especially if you play stronger opponents with some equal and some weaker opponents, then no harm done.

I sometimes play very bad against weaker opponents simply because their rating is lower. The difference in rating makes me play more sloppy than I would have had it been  against someone at my own rating..

I have realized that sometimes this sloppy play carries over when I actually play someone at my own or higher rating level, after I have played a couple of weaker players. Especially during the opening. Here I sort of develop without an eye on what is really going on the board, and all of the sudden I am outplayed.

So I guess there is some truth to it - though I would never consider myself a pro...

What we sometimes miss in our thought processes in chess is that when we play a stronger player, they're the ones playing a weaker player.  In my opinion, playing a variety of ratings in relation to your own can teach you a lot in different ways.  Playing someone lower teaches you how to pick up on blunders or mistakes and capitalize on them, playing someone higher teaches you not to make blunders or mistakes because of how they can be taken advantage of.  Then when you play someone around your same skill level (according to ratings), you see if you learned anything by whether you can beat them or not. 

I don't know, I could just be rambling...

I totally agree, you should play a range of opponents.

If you're a young player attempting to improve, you probably should seek out stronger opponents so you can learn a thing or two.  But I don't think that playing weaker opponents is harmful in and of itself.

Let's say you just need an ego boost one day...  Not only does the weaker player learn a lot from playing you, but you feel better for beating them.  Doesn't seem so harmful, unless you happen to lose.  In that scenario I suppose you just deserve it, lol.

I don't know if it weakens your game, maybe better to look at it as a chance to be experimental, don't fear to lose, its the only way to grow.  Try not to lose the fun aspect of Chess because when you do the game becomes something else more akin to a complex mathematical equation and it's not fun anymore.  I'm not a professional or anything like that.  I am however at a really annoying stage of development where I find myself looking and worrying about situations that my opponents can't see.  I don't know this at the time of course, 90% of the time I go on to win the game but I'm always left wondering how I would have faired had my opponent spotted my mistakes.  Sometimes this leaves me confused as to how good at Chess I actually am.