The Resistance to Peer Influence Scale

This scale measures an individual’s capacity to stand up to peer pressure and behave as he or she wishes. This 10-item measure uses the item format developed for the Self Perception Profile for Adolescents (Harter, 1985). Each item contains two opposing statements, and the respondent is asked to designate which statement is more like him or her and indicate the degree of the item’s applicability. For example, one item reads as follows: “Some people think it’s more important to be an individual than to fit in with the crowd BUT other people think it is more important to fit in with the crowd than to stand out as an individual.” The respondent is asked which statement is true about himself or herself, and whether it is “really true” or “sort of true.” Each item is scored on a 4-point scale, with a score of 1 designating that the respondent has indicated that the statement reflecting the least resistance to peer pressure is “really true” and a score of 4 designating that the respondent has indicated that the statement reflecting the greatest resistance to peer pressure is “really true.” Statements are written so that in some cases, the pressure-resistant statement is presented first and in others it is presented last.

• Steinberg, L. & Monahan, K. 2007. Age Difference in Resistence to Peer Influence. Development Psychology, 43(6) 1531-1543

• Icenogle, G., Steinberg, L., Duell, N., Chein, J., Chang, L., Chaudhary, N., Di Giunta, L., Dodge, K. A., Fanti, K. A., Lansford, J. E., Oburu, P., Pastorelli, C., Skinner, A. T., Sorbring, E., Tapanya, S., Uribe Tirado, L. M., Alampay, L. P., Al-Hassan, S. M., Takash, H. M. S., & Bacchini, D. (2019). Adolescents’ cognitive capacity reaches adult levels prior to their psychosocial maturity: Evidence for a “maturity gap” in a multinational, cross-sectional sample. Law and Human Behavior, 43, 69-85.

• Rothenberg, W. A., Lansford, J. E., Chang, L., Deater-Deckard, K., Di Giunta, L., Dodge, K. A., Malone, P. S., Oburu, P., Pastorelli, C., Skinner, A. T., Sorbring, E., Steinberg, L., Tapany, S., Uribe Tirado, L. M., Yotanyamaneewong, S., Alampay, L. P., Al-Hassan, S. M., Bacchini, D., & Bornstein, M. H. (2020). Examining the internalizing pathway to substance use frequency in 10 cultural groups. Addictive Behaviors, 102, 106214.