Top

Published in:

01-03-2007 | Original Paper

Peer Standing and Substance Use in Early-Adolescent Grade-Level Networks: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study

Authors: Ley A. Killeya-Jones, Ryo Nakajima, Philip R. Costanzo

Published in: Prevention Science | Issue 1/2007

Abstract

Two competing hypotheses were tested concerning the associations between current alcohol and cigarette use and measures of individual, group and network peer standing in an ethnically-diverse sample of 156 male and female adolescents sampled at two time points in the seventh grade. Findings lent greater support to the person hypothesis, with early regular substance users enjoying elevated standing amongst their peers and maintaining this standing regardless of their maintenance of or desistance from current use later in the school year. In the fall semester, users (n=20, 13%) had greater social impact, were described by their peers as more popular, and were more central to the peer network than abstainers (i.e., those who did not report current use).

Conversely, in the spring semester, there were no differences between users (n=22, 13%) and abstainers in peer ratings of popularity or social impact. Notably, the spring semester users group retained fewer than half of the users from the fall semester. Further, students who had reported current use in the fall, as a group, retained their positions of elevated peer standing in the spring, compared to all other students, and continued to be rated by their peers as more popular and as having greater social impact.

We discuss the findings in terms of the benefit of employing simultaneous systemic and individual measures of peer standing or group prominence, which in the case of peer-based prevention programs, can help clarify the truly influential from the “pretenders” in the case of diffusion of risk-related behaviors.

Users in the fall were somewhat older than abstainers, means=12.50 and 12.19, t(154)=2.634, p < .01. However, age was minimally related to just two variables in the fall and one in the spring, and the correlations, while significant, were small (rs < .20). Moreover, partialling age from the bivariate correlations had only a very small effect on the size of the coefficients, leading us to discount the influence of age on our main study variables and findings.

Adler, P. A., & Adler, P. (1998). Peer power: Preadolescent culture and identity. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Alexander, C., Piazza, M., Mekos, D., & Valente, T. (2001). Peers, school and adolescent cigarette smoking. Journal of Adolescent Health, 29, 22–30.PubMedCrossRef

Allen, J. P., Porter, M. R., McFarland, F. C., Marsh, P., & McElhaney, K. B. (2005). The two faces of adolescents’ success with peers: Adolescent popularity, social adaptation, and deviant behavior. Child Development, 76, 747–760.PubMedCrossRef

Aloise-Young, P. A., & Kaeppner, C. J. (2005). Sociometric status as a predictor of onset and progression in adolescent cigarette smoking. Nicotine and Tobacco Research, 7, 199–206.PubMedCrossRef

Black, D. R., Tobler, N., & Sciacca, J. (1998). Peer helping/involvement: An efficacious way to meet the challenge of reducing alcohol, tobacco, and other drug use among youth? Journal of School Health, 68, 87–93.PubMed

Bonacich, P. (1987). Power and centrality: A family of measures. American Journal of Sociology, 92, 1170–1182.CrossRef

Borgatti, S. P. (1995). Centrality and AIDS. Connections, 18(1), 112–115. Retrieved 10/10/2005, from http://www.analytictech.com/networks/centaids.htm

Bot, S. M., Engels, R. C. M. E., Knibbe, R. A., & Meeus, W. H.-J. (2005). Friend’s drinking behavior and adolescent alcohol consumption: The moderating role of friendship characteristics. Addictive Behaviors, 30, 929–947.PubMedCrossRef

Cairns, R. B., & Cairns, B. D. (1994). Lifelines and Risks: Pathways of Youth in Our Time. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Cairns, R. B., Gariepy, J.-L., & Kindermann, T. A. (1989). Identifying social clusters in natural settings. Unpublished manuscript, Social Developmental Laboratory, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Cairns, R. B., Leung, M-C., Buchanan, L., & Cairns, B. D. (1995). Friendships and social networks in childhood and adolescence: Fluidity, reliability, and interrelations. Child Development, 66, 1330–1345.PubMedCrossRef

Cillessen, A. H. N., & Rose, A. J. (2005). Understanding popularity in the peer system. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14, 102–105.CrossRef

Coie, J. D., Dodge, K. A., & Copotelli, H. (1982). Dimensions and types of social status. Child Development, 59, 815–829.CrossRef

Costanzo, P., Lansford, J., Arrington, K., Chu, R., & Polanichka, N. (2005). Factors that differentiate deviant and conventional leaders of adolescent peer groups: Implications for drug use prevention efforts. Presented at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Prevention Research, Washington, DC.

de Bruyn, E. H., & van den Boom, D. C. (2005). Interpersonal behavior, peer popularity, and self-esteem in early adolescence. Social Development, 14, 555–573.CrossRef

DeRosier, M. E., & Thomas, J. M. (2003). Strengthening sociometric prediction: Scientific advances in the assessment of children’s peer relations. Child Development, 75, 1379–1392.CrossRef

Dishion, T. J., Capaldi, D., Spracklen, K. M., & Li, F. (1995). Peer ecology of male adolescent drug use. Development and Psychopathology, 7, 803–824.CrossRef

Dishion, T. J., Capaldi, D., & Yoerger, L. (1999). Middle childhood antecedents to progression in male adolescent substance use: An ecological analysis of risk and protection. Journal of Adolescent Research, 14, 175–204.

Dishion, T. J., & Medici Skaggs, N. (2000). An ecological analysis of monthly “bursts” in early adolescent substance use. Applied Developmental Science, 4, 89–97.CrossRef

Donaldson, S. I., Sussman, S., MacKinnon D. P., Severson, H. H., Glynn, T., Murray, D. M., & Stone, E. J. (1996). Drug abuse prevention programming: Do we know what works? American Behavioral Scientist, 39, 868–883.

Engels, R. C. M. E., Knibbe, R. A., Drop, M. J., & de Haan, Y. T. (2005). Homogeneity of cigarette smoking within peer groups: Influence or selection? Health Education and Behavior, 24, 801–811.

Ennett, S. E., & Baumann, K. E. (1993). Peer group structure and adolescent cigarette smoking: A social network analysis. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 34, 226–236.PubMedCrossRef

Ennett, S. E., & Baumann, K. E. (1994). The contribution of influence and selection to adolescent peer group homogeneity: The case of adolescent cigarette smoking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 653–663.PubMedCrossRef

Ennett, S. T., Bauman, K. E., Hussong, A., Faris, R., Foshee, V. A., DuRant, R. H., & Cai, L. (2006). The peer context of adolescent substance use: Findings from social network analysis. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 28, 159–186.CrossRef

Farmer, T. W., & Rodkin, P. C. (1996). Antisocial and prosocial correlates of classroom social positions: The social network centrality perspective. Social Development, 5, 174–188.CrossRef

Flom, P. L., Friedman, S. R., Jose, B., & Curtis, R. (2001). Peer norms regarding drug use and drug selling among household youth in a low-income ‘drug-supermarket’ urban neighborhood. Drugs-Education Prevention and Policy, 8, 219–232.CrossRef

Freeman, L. (1979). Centrality in social networks: Conceptual clarification. Social Networks, 1, 215–39.CrossRef

Gest, S. D., Graham-Bermann, S. A., & Hartup, W. W. (2001). Peer experience: Common and unique features of number of friendships, social network centrality, and sociometric status. Social Development, 10, 23–39.CrossRef

Granovetter, M. S. (1973). The strength of weak ties. American Journal of Sociology, 78, 1360–1380.CrossRef

Hanneman, R. A. (n.d.). Introduction to Social Networks. Retrieved 11/06/2005, from http://faculty.ucr.edu/∼hanneman/ networks/nettext.pdf

Harrison, P. A., Fulkerson, J. A., & Park, E. (2000). The relative importance of social versus commercial sources in youth access to tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs. Preventive Medicine: An International Devoted to Practice and Theory, 31, 39–48.

Hawley, P. H. (1999). The ontogenesis of social dominance: A strategy-based evolutionary perspective. Developmental Review, 19, 97–132.CrossRef

Jiang, X. L., & Cillessen, A. H. N. (2005). Stability of continuous measures of sociometric status: A meta-analysis. Developmental Review, 25, 1–25.CrossRef

Johnston, L. D., O’Malley, P. M., Bachman, J. G., & Schulenbeg, J. E. (2005). Monitoring the Future national results on adolescent drug use: Overview of key findings, 2004. (NIH Publication No. 05-5726). Bethesda, MD: National Institute on Drug Abuse.

Journal of School Health. (1994). Guidelines for school health programs to prevent tobacco use and addiction. Journal of School Health, 64, 353–360.

Kandel, D. B. (1978). Homophily, selection and socialization in adolescent friendships. American Journal of Sociology, 84, 427–436.CrossRef

Knoke, D., & Kulinski, J. H. (1982). Network Analysis. In J. L. Sullivan & R. G. Niemi (Eds.), Series: Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences. Beverley Hills, CA: Sage.

LaBrie, J., Pedersen, E., & Earleywine, M. (2005). A group-administered Timeline Followback assessment of alcohol use. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 66, 693–697.PubMed

LaFontana, K. M., & Cillessen, A. H. N. (1999). Children’s interpersonal perceptions as a function of sociometric and peer-perceived popularity. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 160, 225–242.CrossRef

Latane, B. (1981). The psychology of social impact. American Psychologist, 36, 343–356.CrossRef

Lease, A. M., Musgrove, K. T., & Axelrod, J. L. (2002). Dimensions of social status in preadolescent peer groups: likability, perceived popularity, and social dominance. Social Development, 11, 508–533.

Miller-Johnson, S., Costanzo, P. R., Coie, J. D., Rose, M. R., Browne, D. C., & Johnson, C. (2003). Peer social structure and risk-taking behaviors among African American early adolescents. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 32, 375–384.CrossRef

Newcomb, A. F., Bukowski, W. M., & Pattee, L. (1993). Children’s peer relations: A meta-analytic review of popular, rejected, neglected, controversial, and average sociometric status. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 99–128.PubMedCrossRef

Newman, M. E. J. (2003). The structure and function of complex networks. SIAM Review, 45, 167–256.CrossRef

North, S. C. (2002). Drawing graphs with NEATO. Retrieved 10/08/2005, from http://www.graphviz.org/Documentation/ neatoguide.pdf

Olds, R. S., & Thombs, D. L. (2001). The relationship of adolescent perceptions of peer norms and parent involvement to cigarette and alcohol use. Journal of School Health, 71, 223–228.PubMedCrossRef

O’Malley, P. M., Johnston, L. D., Bachman, J. G., & Schulenberg, J. (2000). A comparison of confidential versus anonymous survey procedures: Effects on reporting of drug use and related attitudes and beliefs in a national study of students. Journal of Drug Issues, 30, 35–54.

Parkhurst, J. T., & Hopmeyer, A. (1998). Sociometric popularity and peer-perceived popularity: Two distinct dimensions of peer status. Journal of Early Adolescence, 18, 125–144.

Pearson, M., & West, P. (2003). Drifting smoke rings: Social network analysis and Markov processes in a longitudinal study of friendship groups and risk-taking. Connections, 25, 59–76.

Rodkin, P. C., Farmer, T. W., Pearl, R., & Van Acker, R. (2000). Heterogeneity of popular boys: Antisocial and prosocial configurations. Developmental Psychology, 36, 14–24.PubMedCrossRef

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. (2005). Results from the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: National Findings (Office of Applied Studies, NSDUH Series H-28, DHHS Publication No. SMA 05-4062). Rockville, MD.

Tani, C. R., Chavez, E. L., Deffenbackher, J. L. et al. (2001). Peer isolation and drug use among White non-Hispanic and Mexican-American adolescents. Adolescence, 36, 127–139.PubMed

Thornberry, T. P., & Krohn, M. D. (1997). Peers, drug use, and delinquency. In D. M. Stoff, J. Breiling, & J. D. Maser (Eds.), Handbook of antisocial behavior (pp. 218–233). New York: Wiley.

Urberg, K. A., Degirmencioglu, S. D., & Pilgrim, C. (1997). Close friend and group influence on adolescent cigarette smoking and alcohol use. Developmental Psychology, 33, 834–844.PubMedCrossRef

Valente, T. W., Hoffman, B. R., Ritt-Olson, A., Lichtman, K., & Johnson, C. A. (2003). Effects of a social-network method for group assignment strategies on peer-led tobacco prevention programs in schools. American Journal of Public Health, 93, 1837–1843.PubMed

Valente, T. W., Unger, J. B., & Johnson, C. A. (2005). Do popular students smoke? The association between popularity and smoking among middle school students. Journal of Adolescent Health, 37, 323–329.PubMedCrossRef

Wallace, J. M., & Bachman, J. G. (1997). Validity of self-reports in student based studies on minority populations: Issues and concerns. Substance Use and Misuse, 32, 1949–1954.CrossRef

Wasserman, S., & Faust, K. (1994). Social Network Analysis: Methods and Applications. New York: Cambridge University press.

Title: Peer Standing and Substance Use in Early-Adolescent Grade-Level Networks: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study
Authors: Ley A. Killeya-Jones
Ryo Nakajima
Philip R. Costanzo
Publication date: 01-03-2007
Publisher: Kluwer Academic Publishers-Plenum Publishers
Published in: Prevention Science / Issue 1/2007
Print ISSN: 1389-4986
Electronic ISSN: 1573-6695
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-006-0053-2

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Peer Standing and Substance Use in Early-Adolescent Grade-Level Networks: A Short-Term Longitudinal Study

Abstract

At a glance: The STEP trials

Springer Medicine

Abstract

Please log in to get access to this content

Other articles of this Issue 1/2007

Perceived Physical Maturity, Age of Romantic Partner, and Adolescent Risk Behavior

A Controlled Trial of Web-Based Feedback for Heavy Drinking College Students

Do Competence Skills Moderate the Impact of Social Influences to Drink and Perceived Social Benefits of Drinking on Alcohol Use Among Inner-City Adolescents?

Promoting Reduced and Discontinued Substance Use among Adolescent Substance Users: Effectiveness of a Universal Prevention Program

A Focused Approach to Assessing Program Fidelity

Project ALERT with Outside Leaders: What Leader Characteristics are Important for Success?