The Effects of Peer Pressure on Ideas About Hooking Up

Indianapolis, IN

This paper aims to look at the effects that peer pressure has on people’s general ideas towards hooking up. Hooking up has been defined in many ways but for the purposes of this paper will be known as an initial sexual encounter with no expectation of a committed relationship. The current literature has focused on actual hookup behavior, but attitudes towards hooking up may have even greater implications for an individual than hookup behaviors. Attitudes towards hooking up can alter the behavior that a person engages in, and the type of media they pay attention to. There is currently a gap in the literature dealing with perceptions of hooking up that this paper intends to fill. Participants will complete an online questionnaire that will assess both their hooking up ideas as well as their peer pressure experiences. Based on current research which shows a positive relationship between hookup behavior and one’s surrounding environment, it is predicted that there will also be a positive correlation between attitudes towards hooking up and experiences with peer pressure.