Selection and Socialization Effects in Early Adolescent Alcohol Use: A Propensity Score Analysis

Abstract

The robust correlation between peer and adolescent alcohol use (AU) has been taken as evidence for both socialization and selection processes in the etiology of adolescent AU. Accumulating evidence from studies using a diverse range of methodological and statistical approaches suggests that both processes are involved. A major challenge in testing whether peer AU predicts an adolescent's drinking (socialization) or whether an adolescent's drinking predicts peer AU (selection) is the myriad of potentially confounding factors that might lead to an overestimation of socialization and selection effects. After creating AU transition groups based on peer and adolescent AU across two waves (N = 765; age = 10-15; 53% female), we test whether transitions into AU by adolescents and peers predict later peer and adolescent AU respectively, using (1) propensity score analysis to balance transition groups on 26 potential confounds, (2) a longitudinal design with three waves to establish temporal precedence, and (3) both adolescent (target) and peer self-report of peer AU to disentangle effects attributable to shared reporter bias. Both selection and socialization were supported using both peer self-report of AU and adolescent-report of peer AU. Although cross-sectional analyses suggested peer self-reported models were associated with smaller effects than perceived peer AU, longitudinal analyses suggest a similar sized effect across reporter of peer AU for both selection and socialization. The implications of these findings for the etiology and treatment of adolescent AU are discussed.

Peer Group Patterns of Alcohol‐Using Behaviors Among Early Adolescents in Victoria, Australia, and Washington State, United States

“…Contrary to the findings by Scalco et al. () that the effect for selection and socialization were similar, we estimated the effect of the peer process in terms of cohort sample proportions and demonstrated that a greater proportion of Victorian adolescents were affected by peer selection processes. Our findings confirmed hypotheses from the PPM in identifying that peer selection effects first emerged in the Grade 5 cohort in Victoria and were not evident in both cohorts in Washington State.…”

“…() found that selection effects played a significant role in the creation of peer clusters of similar alcohol use and found little support for influence effects in a sample of students in Grades 10 and 11. In a more recent longitudinal study using propensity score analysis to balance selection and socialization transition groups on 26 potential confounders, Scalco, Trucco, Coffman, and Colder () reported a similar sized effect for both selection and socialization among adolescents aged between 10 and 15 years.…”

“…While adolescents may overestimate their peers' alcohol use, previous studies have suggested that perceptions of peer behavior are a stronger predictor of adolescents' behavior than peers' actual behavior (Farhat et al., ). Using advanced modeling techniques such as propensity score analysis adjusting for a large number of confounders it is possible to reduce the discrepancies between adolescent self‐reports and peer reports of peer process transition groups related to alcohol (Scalco et al., ). Future research is necessary to use and compare a variety of measures of peer group behavior to better understand peer effects on adolescent alcohol use while studying interrelated peer characteristics such as peer approval of drinking, type of friends, and friendship quality (Cruz, Emery, & Turkheimer, ; Trucco, Colder, & Wieczorek, ).…”

Trajectories of marijuana use from late childhood to late adolescence: Can Temperament × Experience interactions discriminate different trajectories of marijuana use?

“…Peers are considered proximal influences on adolescent SU behavior (Cruz, Emery, & Turkheimer, 2012; Dishion & Medici Skaggs, 2000; Scalco, Trucco, Coffman, & Colder, 2015), and peer relationships become increasingly important to adolescents around the onset of puberty (Spear, 2011). Peers model SU, provide positive reinforcement for SU behaviors, and provide access to drugs and alcohol (Dishion & Medici Skaggs, 2000; Dishion, Spracklen, Andrews, & Patterson, 1996).…”

Person-Situation Transactions across the Lifespan

“…These accounts share the idea that dispositional and situational factors are inexorably linked to behavior through transactive processes such as when individuals evoke situational responses because of their traits and when individuals select certain situations because of their personality attributes. For instance, children can evoke particular parental reactions and thereby influence the parenting they receive from caregivers (e.g., Bell & Chapman, 1986), and youth prone to alcohol use may select into groups of likeminded peers thereby coupling social selection and social influence processes (e.g., Scalco, Trucco, Coffman, & Colder, 2015). Indeed, examples of evocative person-situation transactions and selection effects are prevalent in developmental science.…”