Abstract
School truancy remains a persistent educational and clinical challenge worldwide, particularly within marginalised communities. This study aimed to examine the role of peer influence and personality traits in predicting school truancy in Pakistani truant and punctual adolescents. Purposive sampling was used based with a cross-sectional design. Two psychological standard instruments, the Urdu versions of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Junior (EPQ-J) and the Index of Peer Influence (IPI), were administered to examine personality traits and peer influence in truant and punctual adolescents. This study’s findings revealed that truant students exhibited higher levels of extraversion and psychotic personality traits; however, punctual students exposed higher levels of neuroticism. Moreover, logistic regression analysis exhibited peer influence related to drug use was significant predicting by extraversion and psychotic personality in truant students. These results recommended that truant school students were more vulnerable to peer pressure, particularly concerning drug-related activities, as compared to punctual students. This research offers valuable insights to comprehend underlying mechanisms related to personality and peer influence and school truancy for educational and clinical contexts, with implications for the development of indigenous interventions aimed at mitigating school truancy and improving academic performance in Pakistani contexts.