engleski

Adolescents’ susceptibility to peer pressure: teach them to say no is not enough

A conceptual model of peer influence process (Brown et al., 2008) proposes the existence of different individual and contextual factors that may affect adolescent behavior in a situation of peer pressure. There are different approaches to 46 measuring the susceptibility to pressure so this study will compare results from correlational and experimental approach. The aim of this study was to determine predictors of self-reported susceptibility to peer pressure for misconduct and predictors of adolescents’ behavior in situation of peer pressure. In the first part of the study, 477 second grade high school students (both genders) participated. Anxiety and avoidance in relations with friends, self-discrepancies, compliance and desirability of risk behaviors were measured as determinants of susceptibility to peer pressure. Also, Susceptibility to Peer Pressure Questionnaire (SPPQ) was applied. One month later, 80 boys and 80 girls participated in the second part of the study, where they completed the same the parallel form of SPPQ in a chat-room simulation, convinced that they can see other students’ answers and that their own answers could be seen by others. The results have shown that the adolescents are more susceptible when they were exposed to real peer pressure in experimental situation then they report in self-report measure. Desirability of risk behaviors proved to be the best predictor of susceptibility to peer pressure. It explains 19% of self-reported susceptibility to peer pressure and only 6% of susceptibility to peer pressure in experimental situation. When subjected to peer pressure, adolescents make a decision about their behavior considering how desirable expected behavior is to them but they think about it more when asked what would they do exposed to peer pressure. They conform to different risk behaviors to avoid negative consequences or gain a positive reinforcement from peers.

susceptibility to peer pressure, self-report, behavior, adolescents

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