Traditional masculinity, peer pressure, and sensation seeking as correlates of risky behaviours

ABSTRACT

The relationship between traditional masculinity, peer pressure, sensation seeking and undergraduate students’ involvement in risky behaviours was examined using correlational research design. Results indicated higher levels of each predictor variable correlated significantly and positively with undergraduate students’ involvement in risk behaviours. Conformity to traditional masculinity contributed significantly to the variance in involvement in risky behaviours in the positive direction, and male undergraduate students involved more in risky behaviours than females. However, contributions of peer pressure and sensation seeking were non-significant. Traditional masculinities should be challenged and replaced by alternative positive masculinities in a country’s effort to fight against STIs, unplanned pregnancies, and abuse of alcohol and other substances.

KEYWORDS:

• Emerging adults
• peer pressure
• risky behaviours
• sensation seeking
• traditional masculinity
• undergraduate students

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

Data will be available on the reasonable request from the principal investigator.

Ethical standards

The author assert that all procedures contributing to this work comply with the ethical standards of the relevant national and institutional committees on human experimentation and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2008.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sections