Self-esteem, peer pressure and alcohol use in high-school students

Balenović, Mateja. (2015). Self-esteem, peer pressure and alcohol use in high-school students. Diploma Thesis. Filozofski fakultet u Zagrebu, Department of Psychology. [mentor Arambašić, Lidija].

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Abstract

Alcohol abuse is getting a more and more significant problem in our society. The youth begin to experiment with alcohol at an increasingly younger age and they often take part in binge drinking which exceeds the limits of moderate alcohol use. Motives behind such risky behaviour are extremely complex and they include the quality of family relations, peer relations, school behaviour and individual factors. This study aimed to examine the correlations between peer pressure as a social factor, the level of self-esteem as an individual factor and the frequency of alcohol use in high-school students; and also to examine age and gender differences in all of the variables. A total of 479 first and fourth grade students of two high-schools in Zagreb participated in the study, including 69% female and 31% male participants. Only peer pressure showed to have a significant, although weak, correlation with alcohol use. A gender difference in the level of self-esteem was also confirmed, showing that boys have higher results on the measure of self-esteem. The age difference in frequency of alcohol use was also significant and confirmed the hypothesis that older students drink more. Descriptives show that binge drinking is not that common among first-graders, but 40% of the fourth graders binge drink at least once a week. Possible explanations of the results and unconfirmed hypotheses are discussed.

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