Peer Group Pressure, Young People and Smoking: new developments and policy implications

Abstract

Peer group pressure is widely regarded as a crucial factor affecting young people's early experimentation with tobacco and their subsequent willingness to continue smoking. Indeed, the prevailing wisdom among health professionals and policy makers is that young people are victims of pressures to conformity exerted over them by their peer group. In recent years health education programmes have reflected this belief by focusing on ways of enabling young people to resist peer group pressure and boosting their confidence to say 'No'. Research with 15-16-year-olds in the East Midlands of England, however, has raised serious doubts about the explanatory value of the peer group pressure thesis in terms of the contemporary experiences of young people. In focus group discussions and interviews the young people largely rejected the idea that they were victims of peer pressure. There were three themes behind the rejection. First, from the perspective of the young people, the notion of peer pressure was at odds with the idea of individual autonomy and self-determination, which they valued highly. Second, in their opinion the notion of peer pressure wrongly portrayed the young people as 'victims', thus underplaying their active and conscious collaboration in joining in with the group. Third, the notion of peer pressure did not take into account the multiplicity of peer groups and the flexibility of their composition. The findings suggest that, as we enter the new millennium, the notion of peer group pressure needs to be reconsidered in view of the growing heterogeneity of peer group relationships experienced by young people and the growing emphasis on individualism and self-identity associated with late modern society.