Adolescent Substance Use, Aggressive Behaviors, and Peer Context Behavioral Norms

Abstract

The goal of this study was to examine behavioral norm effects in 2 peer contexts (classroom, school) on adolescent substance use (tobacco, alcohol, cannabis) and aggressive behaviors (bullying, physical fighting). Participants were 5,642 adolescents (M age 5 14.29 years, SD 5 1.26; 49% boys). There were 3 hypotheses. First, behavioral norms in both contexts affect individual behavior. Second, classroom norms have stronger effects on individual behavior than school norms. Third, classroom and school norms interact and exacerbate each other's influence. Results indicated that classroom norms had stronger effects than school norms on individual tobacco and alcohol use. Furthermore, school norms had equal or stronger effects than classroom norms on the 2 indicators of aggressive behaviors. There was no evidence for an interaction between classroom and school norms for any dependent variable. This study demonstrates that the complexity of multiple (nested) peer contexts should be considered to fully understand peer influence processes.

Individual Popularity, Peer Group Popularity Composition and Adolescents’ Alcohol Consumption

“…For example, it would be interesting to examine the unique associations between group popularity composition and individual drinking within the friendship network, in addition to the classroom context. Although this study and previous work clearly shows the significant influence of classmates on adolescents’ individual antisocial behaviors (e.g., Gommans et al 2016 ; Müller et al 2015 ), individual alcohol consumption may also be affected by comparisons of oneself to one’s close friends, in addition to one’s classmates in general. Furthermore, as alcohol use increases with age and peer networks expand beyond the classroom, individual alcohol use will also be affected by out-of-classroom and out-of-school popularity characteristics, for example, how popular one is in an after-school peer group and how popular these out-of-school peers are.…”

“…The goal of this article was to examine these three perspectives, individual, peer group, and individual-group interaction, with respect to the role of popularity in adolescent drinking. The classroom was used as the primary peer group, given previous findings indicating that the classroom as a social group is relevant for adolescent drinking (e.g., Gommans et al 2016 ; Müller et al 2015 ).…”

Differences in Aggression and Alcohol Use among Youth with Varying Levels of Victimization and Popularity Status

“…Alcohol use Participants self-reported their alcohol use with the item: "in the last 30 days, on how many days did you drink alcohol?" (e.g., Gommans et al, 2016). Responses ranged from 0 (never) to 6 (all 30 days).…”

“…Lower-status victims may not have the social resources to engage in goal-directed proactive aggression, but may instead react aggressively to perceived threats. Indeed, youth who are perpetrators and targets of bullying (“bully-victims”; Yang & Salmivalli, 2013 ), generally have low-status, poor social skills, and are rejected by peers (e.g., Guy et al, 2017 , 2019 ). Thus, whereas high-status victims may have the social skills and resources to be aggressive strategically, lower-status victims are more likely to “lash out” impulsively in response to provocations.…”