“Tell me who your friends are, and I will tell you who you are:” The contribution of peers to adolescents' values

Abstract Values serve as guiding principles, motivating specific behaviors, and actions. Peers spend a considerable amount of time together, thus offering a unique platform for the acquisition and development of values. During adolescence, a stage of life when youth are actively defining their identities, peers emerge as vital social agents, contributing significantly to the process of value formation. In this article, I examine the ways peers contribute to the development of youth's values, with a focus on basic personal values theory. This theory sheds light on how and why peers play a role in shaping the values of adolescents. It examines the phenomenon of similarity in peer values ( values similarity ) and explores how factors such as gender, age, and culture act as potential moderators in the relation between peers' and youth's values similarity. I conclude by summarizing key insights and proposing directions for research.