Peer Influence on Aggressive Behavior, Smoking, and Sexual Behavior

2016/09/01 by Yi Li, Guang Guo · 11 citations
Health Professions · Social Sciences · #Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health #Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies #Media Influence and Politics

paper · doi:10.1177/0022146516661594

Abstract

Identifying casual peer influence is a long-standing challenge to social scientists. Using data from a natural experiment of randomly-assigned college roommates (N = 2,059), which removes the threat of friend selection, we investigate peer effects on aggressive behavior, smoking, and concurrent sexual partnering. The findings suggest that the magnitude and direction of peer influence depend on predisposition, gender, and the nature of the behavior. Peer effects on individuals predisposed toward a given behavior tend to be larger than peer effects on individuals without such a predisposition. We find that the influence of roommates on aggressive behavior is more pronounced among male students than among female students; roommate effects on smoking are negative among female students and male students who did not smoke before college. For concurrent sexual partnering, a highly private behavior, we find no evidence of peer effects.

Citations

• Longitudinal data analysis using generalized linear models

Cited by

• Prospective Analysis of the Influence of Sport and Educational Factors on the Prevalence and Initiation of Smoking in Older Adolescents from Croatia. [europepmc]
• Association Between the Location of Secondhand Smoke Exposure and Depressive Symptoms among South Korean Adolescents. [europepmc]
• Effect of living arrangement on anthropometric traits in first-year university students from Canada: The GENEiUS study. [europepmc]
• First-year college students' weight change is influenced by their randomly assigned roommates' BMI. [europepmc]
• Peer influence on obesity: Evidence from a natural experiment of a gene-environment interaction. [europepmc]
• Evaluating interactions between emotion regulation strategies through the interpersonal context of female friends. [europepmc]
• The Relationship between Peer Attachment and Aggressive Behavior among Chinese Adolescents: The Mediating Effect of Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy. [europepmc]
• Partners in Health: Investigating Social Genetic Effects Among Married and Cohabiting Couples. [europepmc]
• Peer effects on organizational commitment: Evidence from military cadets. [europepmc]
• Parental supervision, children's self-control and smartphone dependence in rural children: a qualitative comparative analysis from China. [europepmc]
• The Influence of Socioeconomic Status on Adolescent Aggressive Behavior: The Mediating Roles of Normative Beliefs About Aggression and Aggressive Affect. [europepmc]

Related

• Beyond Homophily: A Decade of Advances in Understanding Peer Influence Processes
• DECOMPOSING THE PEER EFFECT ON ADOLESCENT SUBSTANCE USE: MEDIATION, NONLINEARITY, AND DIFFERENTIAL NONLINEARITY*
• A DUAL‐SYSTEMS APPROACH FOR UNDERSTANDING DIFFERENTIAL SUSCEPTIBILITY TO PROCESSES OF PEER INFLUENCE
• With a Little Help from My Friends? Asymmetrical Social Influence on Adolescent Smoking Initiation and Cessation
• Affinity, Affiliation, and Guilt: Examining Between- and Within-Person Variability in Delinquent Peer Influence