Does Peer Influence Have An Impact On Young People’s Drinking Patterns?

A healthy part of every young person’s development is involvement with their peers. This is really evident during adolescence as teenagers develop a sense of independence from their families. As they grow older they are inclined to be re warded by the recognition and acceptance of their peers than their parents and other adults. Young people would regard this recognition and acceptance by their peers as being very important and it is this type of recognition and acceptance that will be the strongest reward that they can get. Members of a peer group usually have the same dress sense, share the same taste of music, talk about similar things and share the same jokes and secrets. Friends do supply young people with a sounding board to test their ideas and a standard by which to judge their behaviour away from home. Whether they are at pubs,clubs or friends’ houses, a major source of young people’s security is usually found in the approval of their network of A lot of young people behave in a particular way as they believe that their friends expect this behaviour from them. For young people social drinking with their peers is a form of pleasure. Young Adults drinking behaviour is examined in the context of the peer network in which it occurs in order to examine the meaning of drinking for these young adults and the process how which it occurs.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

masters

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

National University of Ireland Maynooth

Year dc:date.issued

2003

Author dc:creator

• Neary, Lisa Marie

• Sociology

Language dc:language

en