The Predictive Influence of Peer Pressure and School Environment on Social Anxiety Disorder Among Adolescents

Abstract

Social anxiety disorder is the most prevalent and chronic type of anxiety disorder worldwide. It affects the educational and social affairs of adolescents. Adolescents spend a lot of time in school, necessitating a considerable amount of social interaction with peer group and teachers. The present study attempts to find the predictive influence of peer pressure and school environment on social anxiety disorder among adolescents. Data was collected from 500 adolescents studying in government and self-financed schools in Punjab. The sample was drawn from ten randomly selected districts of Punjab state. The data was collected using the social anxiety disorder scale by Nagpal (2018), the Peer pressure scale by Singh and Saini (2010) and the School environment scale by Misra (2012). The findings reveal that social anxiety disorder is negatively related to peer pressure. A significant negative relationship exists between social anxiety disorder and the school environment. It is apparent from the regression model summary that the conjoint effect of peer pressure and school environment on social anxiety disorder among adolescents is higher than their individual effects. It implies that peer pressure and school environment would contribute towards predicting social anxiety disorder both independently and conjointly.