The structures of six peptide mimics having different bulkiness and/or rigidity of the amino acids were investigated spectroscopically. Comparison of 1H NMR, IR spectra and HD exchange rate of the amide protons reveals that 2-amino-2-carboxyadamantane induces the high population of γ-turn conformation in the room temperature region and may be utilized as a promising γ-turn inducer for synthetic peptides.