The Peer Effect: How Your Peers Shape Who You Are and Who You Will Become

The peer effect is the influence of peers on individual behavior and future success. Sociologists Syed Ali and Margaret M. Chin explore how peers shape our behavior in schools and the workplace, including creating a culture of influence to achieve success. They also investigate the long-lasting effects of high school peer culture and offer ways to understand and apply this understanding to resolving issues such as school, college graduation rates, workplace culture, and police violence.

Format: Hardback
Length: 240 pages
Publication date: 14 November 2023
Publisher: New York University Press

Peers, as parents are well aware, have a significant impact on who their children are and what they will become. And even while they insist otherwise, parents know that they are largely powerless to change this. But the effect of peers is not just a story about kids; peers can also affect adult behavior—they affect what we do and who we are well into old age. Noted sociologists Syed Ali and Margaret M. Chin call this "the peer effect." In their book, they take readers on a tour of how our peers, and the peer cultures they create, shape our behavior in schools and the workplace.

Ali and Chin begin their look at the peer effect at the high school from which they both graduated: New York City's prestigious Stuyvesant High School, arguably the best public high school in the nation. Through a fascinating and often humorous narrative, they show how peers can influence each other—in this case, how highly motivated students can create a culture of influence to achieve success in learning and in admission to elite colleges. They also show the many other ways that peers can influence one another beyond school performance, from hookup culture to school bullying and youth suicide.

Ali and Chin are also interested in the extent to which the peer effect can last. Through interviews with adult graduates of Stuyvesant, they investigate the long-lasting effects of high school peer culture. They also examine the peer effect in post–high school settings, notably around workplace misconduct, including the steroid culture in baseball and the use of excessive force by the police.

The peer effect is a powerful force that shapes our behavior and our future success. By understanding how peers influence us, we can work to create positive peer cultures that promote learning, success, and well-being.

Weight: 546g
Dimension: 161 x 237 x 24 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781479805044