Perceptions of Alcohol Use by Friends Compared to Peers: Associations with Middle Adolescents' Own Use
BACKGROUND:
In
this study we a) distinguished between adolescents' perceptions of their peers'
and friends' alcohol use to examine their unique associations with adolescents
own alcohol use and b) tested if the ability to resist peer influence moderated
those associations.
METHODS:
Data were
from the Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 876, all age 15).
Adolescents reported a) perceptions of alcohol use by their peers, b)
perceptions of alcohol use by their friends, c) their own alcohol use in the
last year, and d) a measure of their ability to resist peer influence. Data
were analyzed with hierarchical logistic regression (HLR), controlling for
demographic variables and parental knowledge.
RESULTS:
Three HLR
models were computed: one for the full sample, one for only males, and one for
only females. In all models, perceptions of alcohol use by friends (ORFull = 10.17, ORFemale =
15.51, ORMale = 7.25) was associated with a greater
likelihood of adolescents using alcohol themselves. Perceptions of alcohol use
by peers (ORFull = 1.13, ORFemale =
1.11, ORMale = 1.14) were not significantly associated with
adolescents' own alcohol use. The ability to resist peer influence did not
moderate any of those associations.
CONCLUSIONS:
It
appears when adolescents' perceive more of their friends, but not their peers,
consume alcohol they themselves are at greater risk for alcohol use and those
associations do not depend upon their ability to resist peer influence.
- 1 Department of Applied Health Science , Indiana University School of Public Health-Bloomington , Bloomington , IN , USA.
- 2 Department of Human Development , Washington State University , Pullman , WA , USA.
- Subst Abus. 2015 Dec 29:0.
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