The Importance Of Peer Pressure

Peer pressure is something that all people go through at some point or other in their lives. The Merriam Webster dictionary describes peer pressure as; “a feeling that you must do the same things as other people of your age and social group in order to be liked or respected by them” (Merriam Webster, 2014). Research has shown that it is natural that humans tend to follow certain fashions and base their opinions on the majority in certain situations (Gesellschaft, 2011). Peer pressure is a fundamental part of a person’s life whether they’re old and auditing their lives or young and still finding themselves, it will always be there as an indication of one’s traits and characteristics (Wayne State University Physician Group, 2011).

There have been quite a number of studies done on peer pressure and its effect, why it is a good or bad thing, or the reasons behind why people succumb to it, however there is a gap in recent information about peer pressure in a Christian, private high school and peer pressure is still relevant even within this setting (Gehrke, date unknown). According to previous research, the plotting of a graph representing the relationship between peer pressure and age would be parabolic. The studies showed that peer pressure would increase -as the subjects entered adolescence- until the age of 14 at which point the influence of peers would be at its peak and decrease from thereafter (Steinberg & Monahan, 2007).

It was discovered that there are 5 main areas from where adolescence most commonly receive pressure and these areas are namely; “… involvement with peers, school involvement, family involvement, conformity to peer norms, and misconduct” (Clasen & Brown, 1985). Popular belief supports the idea that peer pressu...

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...ere producing the consent forms on time. My own dilemma was that the school was playing dodge ball during the breaks that I had scheduled for the interview, and due to time constraints I was unable to postpone to a later date. In future it would be best to have more time to perform the test for accurate results.

Recommendations:

I would recommend that any further studies done on this topic should be conducted over a longer period of time, involving a larger sample of participants. The method of data gathering should rather be video footage so that the researcher can see who raised their hands during the interview. My phone ran out of memory when I was recording at some stage of the interview; it would be advisable that the future researcher uses either a video camera or make sure that their phone has enough memory to record and store as much information as need.