Shaping Identities: Peer Pressure and Gender Role Attitude among Urban Adolescents

Description

Page: 497-500

Mehakdeep Kaur, Deepika Vig, and Asha Chawla Thakral (Department of Human Development & Family Studies, Punjab Agricultural University, Ludhiana, Punjab)

The research aimed to examine the relationship between gender role attitude and peer influence among 400 adolescents, comprising 200 boys and 200 girls, randomly chosen from government senior secondary schools across four zones of Ludhiana city. A Self-constructed Demographic Information Sheet was used to assess the personal information. The Modified Gender Role Attitude Scale (Pareek & Jain, 2019) and Peer Influence Scale (2023) were used to assess the different levels of gender role attitudes and peer pressure of adolescents. The findings indicated that most adolescents were in a transitional stage regarding their gender role attitudes and experienced a moderate level of peer pressure. Additionally, significant gender differences emerged across all three categories of gender role attitudes. A larger proportion of boys fell into the transitional category, while a greater number of girls exhibited modern gender role attitudes. Notably, no girls were found to have traditional gender role attitudes. Regarding peer pressure, more boys reported low levels, while more girls reported experiencing moderate levels. A significant correlation was identified between gender role attitudes and peer pressure, indicating that higher peer pressure was associated with a greater shift towards transitional gender role attitudes.