PARENTAL PSYCHOLOGICAL CONTROL AND SUSCEPTIBILITY TO PEER PRESSURE AMONG ADOLESCENTS: THE MEDIATING ROLE OF IDENTITY COMMITMENT

Abstract

Peer pressure is most significant for adolescents, while the processes in the family that account for why some adolescents are more susceptible to peer pressure than others are still unknown, particularly in the context of Pakistan. In the present study, the relationship between parental psychological control and susceptibility to peer pressure in adolescence and the mediating role of identity commitment were examined. The convenience sampling technique was used to recruit 243 adolescent students between the age of 13-18 years from government and private schools and colleges of Lahore, Punjab after applying the exclusion criteria, it came out to be 243 adolescents (52.7% girls). The participants were asked to fill out the Psychological Control Scale – Youth Self-Report, the commitment subscale of the Utrecht-Management of Identity Commitments Scale, and the Peer Pressure Scale. A positive correlation was found between parental psychological control and susceptibility to peer pressure (r = .41, p < .001) and the negative relationship between parental psychological control and identity commitment (r = −.48, p < .001). Identity commitment was negatively correlated with susceptibility to peer pressure (r = −.42, p < .001). A mediation analysis with 5,000 bootstrap samples revealed a significant indirect effect of parental psychological control on susceptibility to peer pressure via identity commitment (B = 0.15, 95% Boot CI [0.07, 0.25]), and the direct effect remained significant, suggesting about 34% of the total effect is mediated. Psychological control parenting, therefore, seemed to have undermined adolescents' commitments and increased their susceptibility to peer pressure. A parenting program that decreases psychological control and supports adolescents in making their own commitments might then be effective at decreasing vulnerability to peer pressure.