We use 9 Add Health high
schools with longitudinal network data to assess whether adolescent drinkers
choose friends who drink, prefer friends whose friends drink, if selection
differs between new and existing friendships, and between schools.
Utilizing
dynamic social network models that control for friend influences on individual
alcohol use, the results show that drinkers do not strongly prefer friends who
drink. Instead, they favor close friends whose friends’ drink, suggesting that
alcohol matters for selection on the social groups and environments that
friends connect each other to.
The role of alcohol use differs by whether
friendships are new or existing, however, with bridging connections being less
stable. Moreover, selection processes, and the implications of alcohol use for
friendship, vary in important ways between schools.
...First, in contrast to most prior studies, we approached
friendship selection from the view that it comprises both creation and
durability processes that could differ from one another. The findings from 9
schools of varying sizes and composition support this contention. Approaching
alcohol use from the perspective that its role in new and existing friendships
is equivalent clearly masks heterogeneity in the role it plays in fostering
friendships.
Second, drinking selection appears to be less a
property of dyads, as has typically been assumed, and more about indirect
selection that promotes access to other drinkers. Adolescent drinkers prefer
friends that connect them to other drinkers, which suggests that friendship in
adolescence has much to do with the social environments that adolescents
provide one another through their social contacts. This was found to promote
the creation of new friendships across networks, but these friendships were
simultaneously found to be less stable. Network and other selection processes
contribute to creating stability in these bridging connections, but they still
tend to turnover more quickly. The result is that alcohol use is a pathway by
which adolescents connect with one another, but it tends to create new ties at
the expense of the old. Despite the small dyadic effect on friendship
durability in the mid-sized school, the overall trend is that alcohol use sets
the stage for integration but does not create deeper forms of social connection.
Selection on other factors is necessary to create deeper forms of integration.
Our third point is that these processes vary across
settings in important ways that are not yet fully understood: in some cases,
alcohol use is associated with the loss of ties that bridge drinkers, but this
is not always the case, as shown by the large minority school. Interestingly,
differences across schools would not have been evident had we merely looked at
the ego-alter interaction parameter, which is a baseline measure of homophilous
selection. This effect was quite similar across schools, and differrences only
emerged when we disaggregated the parameter for the creation of new and
durability of existing ties. In essence, the conflicting role of alcohol in
these processes drives the parameter towards zero and thereby lessens
variations across networks...
Full article at:
By:
The University of
Nebraska-Lincoln, Lincoln, America
#Corresponding Author: Email: moc.liamg@eldaehc.e.j
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