“It wasn’t me, it was them!” Social influence in risky behavior by adolescents

Abstract

Many years of concerted policy effort in Western countries has not prevented young people from experimenting with cigarettes, alcohol and marijuana. One potential explanation is that social interactions make consumption "sticky". We use detailed panel data from the Add Health survey to examine risky behavior (the consumption of tobacco, alcohol and marijuana) by American adolescents. We find that, even controlling for school fixed effects, these behaviors are correlated with lagged peer group behavior. Peer group effects are strongest for alcohol use, and young males are more influential than young females. Last, we present some evidence of non-linearities in social interactions.

Cross-section and panel estimates of peer effects in early adolescent cannabis use: With a little help from my ‘friends once removed’

“…Using lagged friends' cannabis use (defined either as the cannabis use at t of friends nominated at t-1, or like Clark and Lohéac (2007) as the cannabis use at t-1 of friends nominated at t) in the fixed effects model gives a small positive and statistically significant coefficient, though in each case we see a dilution of the effect compared to that estimated for current friends' current use. Clark and Lohéac (2007) argue that using the lag of peer behaviour in place of current peer behaviour avoids Manski's reflection problem, so obviating the need for the no contextual effects assumption.…”

“…Along the lines of Clark and Lohéac (2007), Ali and Dwyer (2009), Ali et al (2011) and Halliday and Kwak (2012), we first specify a linear-in-means model, estimated by OLS, as follows:…”

“…Clark and Lohéac (2007) argue that using the lag of peer behaviour in place of current peer behaviour avoids Manski's reflection problem, so obviating the need for the no contextual effects assumption. On the other hand peer outcomes are likely to be correlated over time so that lagged peer behaviours proxy for current behaviours and may therefore still be subject to the reflection problem (Manski, 1993).…”

“…Clark and Lohéac, 2007), by using various peer characteristics -such as percentage of peers whose parents smoke, who live with both biological parents, or who report having easy access to cigarettes or alcohol at home -to instrument for peer behaviour (e.g. Ali and Dwyer, 2009;Ali et al, 2011;Card and Giuliano, 2013;Halliday and Kwak, 2012), or by exploiting the mobility of school friends, either from switching schools or from graduating (Eisenberg, 2004).…”

“…We also estimate a version of the model on the balanced panel with peer cannabis use lagged one year (along the lines of Clark and Lohéac, 2007), and on the balanced panel with lagged rather than current friendship nominations, i.e. friendship measured at time t-1.…”