International Journal of Latest Research in Humanities and Social Science (IJLRHSS)
Volume 05 - Issue 08, 2022
www.ijlrhss.com || PP. 115-121
Peer Pressure: A study of how teenagers in Delhi are affected by
peer pressure
Tina Tuteja
Abstract: At school, it's common for teenagers to go through peer pressure. Often, peer pressure can affect
individuals in multiple ways including academic performance. This paper attempts to explore how peer pressure
unfolds for teenagers in an urban city like Delhi. The researcher conducted a survey of 110 students to
understand how peer pressure affects them in multiple ways and particularly analyse the impact of peer pressure
on academic performance.
Keywords: Peer pressure, Delhi, academics, performance, achievement, grades
Introduction
Schools are considered to be safe spaces for children. It is assumed that students learn immensely in
educational institutions, they build their life on these experiences and learn various life skills. However this is
true that children build upon their experiences in school, we also need to comprehensively understand the kinds
of experiences that children have in school. Various social factors impact children. The environment at home
and school, the kinds of interactions they have with adults and peers and the relationships they form in the
process. In such a case, children are also bound to be influenced by a lot of these factors in both positive and
negative ways. It is very common for teenagers especially to feel different emotions about their social
experiences. Peers can affect fluent individuals in different manners. One might get encouraged or completely
discouraged to do certain things in various social settings. The way children perform in academics is not just an
individual process. This is also in contrast with how the modern world is perceived. While we focus on the
individualistic ideas of modern learning, the collective and social aspects are equally important. They are
affected by multiple things and the people around them. The academic performance of students in schools is
also much affected by their peers. While there is no one dimension of looking at how these aspects impact
academic performance, this research particularly looks at the impact of peer pressure.
Literature Review
To be able to understand how teenagers are affected by peer pressure in schools, it is first extremely
important to look at what exactly a peer group is and it ends up exerting pressure on the teenager in school.
Castrogiovanni (2002) has tried to define a peer group by arguing that it consists of people belonging to a small
group with similar interests in certain activities, close to the same age bar and can also be a group of friends. It
is very common to see people functioning in groups in general as it is a human tendency to seek support be it
emotional, mental or physical. A Peer group may also be that supportive group of people that one has in life.
However, a peer group is not merely limited to that.
Sometimes, we may not be very good friends with people of the same age, area or interests but are bound
together through some institutional or formal obligations. It is interesting to see how these peers end up building
pressure on a person. In a society, people are bound to look up to, judge or get influenced by other people. What
is important to note is that other people’s performance, their attitude and their ways of ending up create a certain
impact on our minds. As a result, a person ends up doing something that the peer is doing without any personal
interest. If we want to define peer pressure more technically, we can argue that it is that attribute which
influences and encourages people belonging to more or less similar age groups to do anything that the person
might not have done if he\she did not belong to this peer group(Santor, Messervey&Kusumakar, 2000).
There are various ways in which teenagers are influenced by their peers. As people start looking up to
others in the peer group, they become conscious of what they are doing. There has been enough circumspection
on the fact that one way in which people take peer pressure is that they become extremely worried and
conscious of what their peers would think of them if their actions do not end up being desirable (Burns and
Darling, 2002). In such a scenario, the decision-making of the teenagers is also impacted by the peer group.
When they are more concerned about what others would think, the individualized approach to decision-making
is completely lost. A peer group can be extremely influential. It can determine various behavioural aspects of
teenagers. However, how peer group affects a person has drastically changed over time (Steinberg, 2005). To
put it in a more contextual sense, while the growing modern practices emphasize the individual approach to
learning, looking at the causes and impacts of peer pressure depicts a very different story. There is absolutely no
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International Journal of Latest Research in Humanities and Social Science (IJLRHSS)
Volume 05 - Issue 08, 2022
www.ijlrhss.com || PP. 115-121
doubt that in the more globalized world today, the focus has been on individualized learning and individualism
has grown tremendously, yet the collective nature of learning cannot be ignored.
To have a better understanding of what we have been arguing, we would try to look at the impact that
peer pressure has on the academic performance of a person. The academic performance of a child is considered
to be the most individualized way of looking at their progress. However, research shows that there are various
factors which impact the performance of a child in any field. If a child has been able to live through school
experiences, we analyze the academic performance of the child. To be able to understand this aspect, one also
needs to be mindful of what exactly we mean by academic performance. It is not just the competitive scoring of
students in schools but also their future achievements in terms of financial dependency, living and building with
the community and taking up adulthood in a most flourishing way (Hodgkinson, 1991). While students are
influenced in various social settings, they are mostly subjected to a lot of influence in schools and due to various
other social aspects, their academic performance is also affected (Juvonen, 2006).
While sometimes the situations in one's household or life have a deep impact on their academic
performance, peer groups end up influencing a person very powerfully (Rowe, 1994). Now, this happens
because people around a person start associating various expectations with teenagers. While it is argued that
most of the time, parents expect certain things from their children, it is not the entire case. The peer group and
other people also start expecting certain things from a person. Whatever the expectations from a person and their
intrinsic motivation are something that keeps the person moving. But if any of these are not very positive, then
there may be chances of poor academic performance.
Another important thing that we need to look at is the types of peer pressure. Since we live in a diverse
society and encounter a diverse range of people in the society, our experiences tend to differ which means that
peers don't need to affect a person in only a particular way. To better understand this, we need to look at the
types of peer pressure. Many researchers also suggest that peer groups influence academic and social
performance so deeply that it ends up changing into initiations of formal education also (Anthony Pellegrini,
1992).
Peer pressure can be positive. This is, in a sense, one type of peer pressure. Morrison, Kalin, & Morrison
(2004) argue that sometimes peers might be encouraged to take part in certain activities, point out your mistakes
to encourage you to work upon them and do certain things which are good for your self-development. This kind
of peer pressure is positive. However, peer pressure may not always be positive. It can create a negative impact
as well. So, another major type of power pressure is negative peer pressure. Peer pressure is negative when the
power group influences a person into doing something that is not right for them or something that they would
not normally do if they did not belong to a particular group of peers, examples of drug addiction with friends or
bullying can be used to understand this better (Morrison, Kalin, & Morrison 2004).
We have already discussed that peer pressure impacts the academic performance of a person along with
multiple other aspects related to one's social life. The various types of behaviours by peers leave a long-lasting
and deep impact on the person. When the peers are not avidly accepted among their group, they even stop
attending school, the attendance rates fall drastically and there is a massive behavioural change (DeRosier,
Kupersmidt, and Patterson, 1994). It is very simple to understand that one needs to feel accepted in society to
remain actively engaged in it. The elections end up creating a gap between people and sometimes they are not
able to do good in life. Especially in the teenage years, people are more inclined towards their peer group. They
are more influenced by people of their age while others seem very indifferent. Fuligni (2001) sharply points out
that academic performances have sharply gone down when the peers show higher inclinations towards their peer
group, ignorance of parents and other work and they end up doing things only to be popular in their peer group.
However, as we discussed that peer pressure can also have positive impacts, we need to consider that
academic performance can also be good if the peer pressure is positive. One common perception amongst
parents is that when teenagers spend more time with their peers they end up screwing their lives. But spending
more of their time with the power group does not necessarily mean that it is going to have a negative impact
only (Lingren, 1995). When the peers spend time together, they are also able to share their experiences, plans,
problems, doubts and sometimes even the things that they are not able to share with their parents. Moreover,
peers also learn from each other's experiences. In such a case, the peer group must be accepting and supportive.
Being constantly rejected by peers can have a severe impact on the mental health of a person causing issues like
anxiety also which leads to a lack of connectedness and concentration in the classroom (Sharp, 1995).
We have repeatedly envisaged the importance of peer support for better academic performance.
Teenagers who can seek emotional support from peers and other people in society, tend to be motivated and
driven toward valuing learning in school (Roeser, Eccles & Strobel, 1998). They can enhance various skills
when positively supported by peers. When the interaction with peers has an optimistic impact on a person, they
acquire various skills be it academic or practical which also boosts their self-esteem (Kuh 1993). Apart from
learning certain things and having an impact on mental structures, there is an impact on well-being too. There
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International Journal of Latest Research in Humanities and Social Science (IJLRHSS)
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www.ijlrhss.com || PP. 115-121
has been enough evidence to support that peers who are active within their group tend to be more healthy
(Vilhjalmsson, 1994). Active engagement in the lower group is extremely important to learn and positively
affect and get affected in a peer group. Researchers suggest that Lees who are very less active in various
activities in a peer group score lower marks than the ones who are actively engaged ( Manski, 1993).
Peer group serves various purposes in one's life. They can act as a companion one needs, a person to
have fun with, get entertained, seek validation and support each other mentally and emotionally (Hamm &
Zhang, 2010). This is important to understand that students' relationships with peers play an extremely
important role in various aspects. There has been a consensus in the development of psychology that
relationships that peers play a key role in child development (Cairns & Cairns, 1994). The psychological
impacts of peer pressure and peer learning also need to be understood very deeply. The interaction with peers is
looked at as the most crucial aspect of the cognitive development of a child and his/her identity formation in the
growing years (Wentzel, 2005). How a child perceives himself is not independent of the society around him.
The way peers and teachers motivate and support a child also plays a key role in building a self-identity for a
child. The various concepts related to motivation form their basis on how the children engage and affect, how
motivation exists in a classroom and it is disseminated to the teachers, parents, and peers (Skinner & Pitzer,
2012).
For a positive peer interaction, there needs to be a certain connectedness and closeness amongst the
peers. However, this does not mean entering someone's personal space but merely interacting and approaching
healthily. When there is a certain nearness and approachability in a classroom, students can interact more freely
(van den Berg, Segers, & Cillessen, 2012). One important aspect that arises from this point is that the kinds of
interaction one have with the peer group and relationships they form also have a certain value in their
experience. People have tried to look at the varying influence arising from the dynamic nature of peer relations
(Rodkin &Ahn, 2008). One thing is that a child may belong to various peer groups and might have relations
outside these peer groups as well. Then, the influence of peers changes and varies according to different
relations of one person with people in different groups, be it internal or external to the peer group.
Moreover, peers also worry about their social status and end up creating pressure. Studies resulting in
acceptance in peers suggest that the status held by a person within a classroom relates immensely to the feeling
of belongingness with the school, how children engage actively in academics and also their achievements (Ladd,
Herald-Brown, & Kochel, 2009). However, we need not mix the idea of popularity with peer acceptance and
social status. If the children strive to become popular amongst their peers, they end up jeopardising their
academic achievements (Kiefer & Ryan, 2008).
Methodology
The study adopted a quantitative research methodology. Through extensive literature review, a
questionnaire was prepared that was put on a google form and then circulated among students of different age
groups, particularly targeting teenagers. There were 110 students who responded. The responses were then
analyzed to understand the impact of peer pressure.
Data Analysis
Gender Distribution
56.4% of the students who participated were females, 42.7% were males and 1 student belonged to the
third gender.
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International Journal of Latest Research in Humanities and Social Science (IJLRHSS)
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Age
80.7% of the students belonged to 17-18 years of age. 10.1% of the students were in the age group of 15-
16 years. 8.3% students were of 12-14 years of age and 1 student belonged to the 6-11 years age group.
Grade
80.8% students were from 12th standard. 6.7% students were from 11th standard. 1.9% from 10th standard.
8.7% students were from 9th standard and 2 students from 8th standard.
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International Journal of Latest Research in Humanities and Social Science (IJLRHSS)
Volume 05 - Issue 08, 2022
www.ijlrhss.com || PP. 115-121
Pressure from Peers
11.8% students said that they hardly felt peer pressure. 27.3% of the students felt little bit of peer
pressure. 30.9% of students were neutral. 20.9% of the students felt there was peer pressure and 9.1% students
felt enormous amount of peer pressure.
Effect of peer pressure on studies
16.4% students admitted that peer pressure highly affects their studies. 21.8% students felt that peer
pressure mildly affected their studies. 25.5% students were neutral about. And rest of the students were hardly
affected by peer pressure.
Impact of lack of peer pressure
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International Journal of Latest Research in Humanities and Social Science (IJLRHSS)
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A whopping 41% students admitted that they would perform better in studies if there was no peer
pressure. 19.1% of the students said that peer pressure doesn’t impact them. 24.5% students said that they don’t
feel peer pressure. And only 15.5% students said that lack of peer pressure will not impact their studies.
Peer pressure – Whom to approach?
Most of the times, students don’t even realize that they are facing peer pressure and fail to acknowledge
it to someone else. This is patent through the above graph. More than half of the students don’t approach anyone
when faced with peer pressure. 16.8% approach parents and 13.1% students approach siblings.
Should school take steps to combat peer pressure
78.7% of the students felt the need that schools should take more stringent steps to combat peer pressure.
This signifies how students are facing peer pressure in schools often and school management should do due
diligence to curb the peer pressure. Only 15.7% of the students felt that schools need not take more steps.
Conclusion
The study demonstrates how peer pressure is still a widespread issue among teenagers. It reflects how
students feel the need for more steps required by the school authorities and how deeply peer pressure impacts
them and their academic performance. In light of National Education Policy 2020, a cohesive environment is
important for students to prosper and excel, and hence school management and stakeholders should take due
adherence of the impact of peer pressure and take necessary action. This study can serve as the basis for doing
more rigorous research for understanding different facets of peer pressure.
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