Peer Pressure

I read an interesting research article called "Measuring Peer Pressure, Popularity, and Conformity in Adolescent Boys and Girls: Predicting School Performance, Sexual Attitudes, and Substance Abuse" by Darcy Santor, Deanna Messervey, and Vivek Kusumakar. Although peer pressure, popularity, and conformity all seem to overlap each other, Santor et al. make a good assessment of each one and specify the differences between them. They write that "peer pressure implies one is being urged to do something" and is "motivated to act and think in certain ways because (he or she) have been urged, encouraged, or pressured by a peer to do so" (2000). Along with that, they mention that "peer pressure was defined explicitly as 'when people your own age encourage you to do something or to keep from doing something else, no matter if you personally want to or not'" (2000). The difference between peer pressure and popularity is that "peer pressure refers to more specific situations in which individuals feel they are being pressured, whereas the need to be popular refers to a broader class of situation which individuals may or may not be directly pressured to act or think in a certain way" (Santor et al. 2000). In other words, popularity does not involve "feeling pressured by a peer", rather it involves a desire to be "recognized or liked by a group of individuals" (Santor et al. 2000). The conformity aspect of this study related to peer conformity, which, according to Santor et al., "assesses whether or not individuals adopt a certain course of action sanctioned by their peer group" (2000).

For this study, questionnaires, which "included measures of well-being, school performance, sexual attitudes and behavior, as well as measures of substance use and the measures of peer pressure", were given to students (Santor et al. 2000). As someone who always wanted to be popular growing up I figured that popularity would weigh heaviest upon the results in this study, because it weighed heaviest in my own life. I was wrong however. It turns out that peer pressure and peer conformity are what influence kids to make the decisions that they do in their adolescent lives. Based on the study results, Santor et al. concluded "that peer pressure and peer conformity can be reliably and effeciently assessed in young adolescents, that doing things in order to be popular with others is strongly related to feeling pressured by others to engage in certain activities, and that peep pressure is a far stronger predictor of risk behaviors and potential psychosocial difficulties than popularity" (2000).

I always thought that wanting to be popular and being populuar was how I was conforming to what everyone else was doing. In fact, being well liked is not a problem and wanting to be liked by others is not wrong either. Changing who I was to fit in, hiding truths about me in order to ramain off the radar for any ridicule, or pretending to like things that I did not like at all was me giving in to peer conformity and I lost sense of who I was and my individuality.

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Santor, Darcy; Messervey, Deanna; Kusumakar, Vivek. Measuring Peer Pressure, Popularity, and Conformity in Adolescent Boys and Girls: Predicting School Performance, Sexual Attitudes, and Substance Abuse. Journal of Youth and Adolescence (2000) Vol. 29:2.