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By the time they reach voting age most individuals in the US have already formed loyalties to one of the 2 major pol'al parties. Past res has shown that the climate of opinion of the nuclear fam during adolescence is the best predictor of what party the new voter will choose. However, there is still some variation in such choices, & 2 possible sources of such variation are examined: the opinion climate of the peer group, &that of the country as a whole during the adolescent period. Data were taken from a larger study of adolescent subcultures. Written questionaire's were administered to every student in each of 10 HSch's in Illinois at 2 diff time periods - the Fall of 1957 &the Spr of 1958. Their parents were also polled by means of a mailed questionaire during the Fall wave. Using multivariate analysis, parents' party affiliation was found to explain 68% of the variation in the party preference of the adolescent. A 2nd result was interpreted to demonstrate the existence of interpersonal pressures within the adolescent soc system to identify with that party chosen bythe majority of members of the system. Further, it was noted that the Republican Party tended to get more than its due, even in the primarily Democratic Sch's, suggesting that the nat'l opinion climate, which was Republican at the time of the first wave, also influenced the choice of a party by the adolescent. This latter notion was supported by showing that from the first to the 2nd wave there was a small shift to the Democratic Party, at the same time the nat'l climate started to shift in the same direction in anticipation of the Congressional election of 1958. Finally, it was shown that boys were more influenced by the opinion climate of the peer group than were girls; while girls were more influenced by both their parents & the nat'l climate. A tentative explanation of this finding based upon the relationship between the saliency of an attitude to the individual & his utilization of various communication channels was offer^, AA.