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Allen JP, Antonishak J. Adolescent Peer Influences: Beyond the Dark Side. In: Prinstein MJ, Dodge KA, eds. Understanding Peer Influence in Children and Adolescents. New York: Guilford Press; 2008:141-160.
Adolescent Peer Influences:
Beyond the Dark Side
Joseph P. Allen, Ph.D.
Jill Antonishak, Ph.D.
University of Virginia
Acknowledgments: This chapter was supported by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (R01-MH44934, R01-MH58066 & F31-MH65711-01). Correspondence should be sent to the first author at Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Box 400400, Charlottesville, VA 22904-4400 (Email: ).
Evidence of negative peer influence in adolescence abounds. Smoking and substance use begin primarily in peer contexts (Oxford et al., 2001; Simons-Morton, 2002). Teenage boys are observed to drive faster in the presence of other teenage boys (Simons-Morton et al., 2005). Delinquent youths tend to cluster together and then enhance one another’s levels of delinquency (Patterson et al., 1989; Poulin et al., 1999). Even well-intentioned efforts to intervene to prevent adolescent problem behaviors often founder in the backwash created by negative peer influences (Dishion et al., 1999; Dishion et al., 2001).
Although some peer influence effects may be smaller than they at first appear (because some of the observed similarities among deviant teens actually reflect their selection of similar peers as friends (Kandel, 1978)), the evidence of sizeable negative real influences remains. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that peer influences supersede virtually all parental socializing efforts (Harris, 1998). While this extreme conclusion has been rightly contested (Collins et al., 2000), it serves as just one indication of the extent of our concern over negative peer influences in adolescence.
In adolescence, peer influence clearly has a bad name.
In this chapter, we would like to propose an alternative perspective. Although peer influences can often be negative and the effects of peer pressure can range from disturbing to dangerous, peer influence processes also have a far more positive side that is often overlooked. For while peers can strongly influence adolescents, these influences need not always be negative. Quite the contrary, being influenced to behave in a way that one’s peers find most acceptable and attractive is actually very close to being precisely the definition of what it means to be a well-socialized individual. In adulthood, being strongly influenced by one’s peers is virtually isomorphic with the concept of socialization. If millions of people learn from friends that they can use the internet to shop for some consumer goods, that a safety recall has been issued on a certain product, or that a new movie is hilariously funny, peer influence processes appear likely to be at work.
Being influenced by others to behave in a manner that they find broadly acceptable is generally not a concern within our society. The problem in adolescence is not that these socializing influences exist, but that they are increasingly from adolescent peers whose values at times run counter to those of parents and other adults. Even within adolescence, however, peers clearly can have positive socializing influences—teaching one another about everything from handling the give and take of group discussions to providing information about positive after school activities. And even regarding deviant behaviors, there is no logically a priori reason why influences should be negative. The existence of strong peer influence processes should make it as likely that a deviant youth would be influenced by a less deviant peer to reduce their deviance as that they would influence the less deviant peer to increase their deviant behavior. By adulthood, we expect and want individuals to be influenced by their peers so as to learn everything from workplace norms to appropriate social behavior in relationships. Thus, as we worry about peer influence, we need to recognize the extent to which it is not only inevitable, but also the extent to which it is closely tied to something much more positive, which is peer socialization.
We thus see it as relatively easy to make a theoretical case that adolescent peer influences are normal, inevitable, and at times even positive aspects of adolescent socialization. But to what extent does this view mesh with what we actually observe about adolescent behavior? Our goal in this chapter is to use data from several of our recent studies to weave together a story that illustrates the ways in which a more positive view of adolescent peer influences can help us understand a range of adolescents’ behaviors with their peers. We seek to use these data to illustrate three overarching points: First, peer influence processes are not always pathological but rather may be either adaptive or maladaptive in nature. Second, peer influence processes are continuously reinforced via normal adolescent social interaction processes in a way that ingrains them into the very fiber of adolescent peer relationships. And third, while it may be virtually impossible and probably undesirable to stop peer influence processes in adolescence, strengthening adolescents’ positive connections to both peers and adults may help us steer these influences in more positive directions.
Who Gets Socialized by Peers
If the line between being influenced by one’s peers and being well-socialized by them is as evanescent as we are suggesting, then perhaps teens who are highly influenced by their peers won’t necessarily always be the marginal, insecure adolescents depicted in popular media. On the contrary, we might expect that popular, well-socialized teens would be among the most likely to be influenced by their peers precisely because they are well-socialized. To be popular, for example, typically means being well adapted to the norms of one’s peer group. From this vantage point, popular adolescents should be open to socializing influences of peers—regardless of whether these socializing influences are in positive or in negative directions as viewed from the perspective of adult values. Popular adolescents thus pose an important test of our perspective suggesting that influence processes are closely associated with normal and frequently healthy socialization processes.
We have examined this perspective with a longitudinal data set that was specifically designed to assess peer functioning and peer influence over the course of adolescence. The Virginia Study of Adolescent Development began in 1998 by assessing a group of 184 male and female 7th and 8th graders in a public middle school in the urban ring of a small city in the eastern United States. The sample was demographically diverse and consisted of 69% European-American adolescents and 31% African-American adolescents. The sample was also diverse in terms of socio-economic status, with a median family income of $38,000/year and a significant range around this median. This sample was drawn from a somewhat unique school system in which 7th and 8th grade students had been intact within their grade level since the 5th grade, and would remain intact through the end of high school. Although physical transitions (i.e. to new buildings) occurred at the start of 7th and 9th grades, the peers within a given grade remained highly stable. In short, young people knew each other relatively well and peer dynamics had had time to unfold and become established well prior to our first assessment.
Our approach recognized that in assessing emotion-charged topics with high social-desirability quotients—such as peer interactions—it is quite difficult to get unbiased data solely via self-reports (Nisbett & Wilson, 1977). Thus, we also obtain data from adolescents’ parents, their best friends and others in their peer group, and we obtain these data repeatedly, with data collection occurring on an annual basis for most types of data.
For the present question, we wanted to identify a sub-sample of adolescents who would readily be recognized as both well-adapted and well-socialized. For this purpose, popular adolescents appeared as an ideal subgroup. The term “popular” can actually refer to either of two slightly different constructs. Adolescents can be labeled as “perceived popular” if their peers judge them to have high status within the peer group, or they can be labeled popular simply because many other teens enjoy spending time with them (LaFontana & Cillessen, 2002). Although the former group of high status adolescents has many positive traits and is respected within the peer group, these status adolescents are also often more dominant and antisocial in their behavior, and ironically, they are also often not particularly well-liked on an individual basis (Gest et al., 2001; LaFontana & Cillessen, 2002; Parkhurst & Hopmeyer, 1998; Prinstein, in press; Rodkin et al., 2000). We chose to use the second definition of popularity, which refers to young people who are named by others as being people with whom they would like to spend time. Both in childhood and adolescence, this approach to popularity appears to tap a quite well-socialized group with characteristics ranging from greater social skills to lower levels of depression (Henrich et al., 2001; Pakaslahti et al., 2002; Parkhurst & Hopmeyer, 1998).
Our own data confirmed that these popular, well-liked adolescents are indeed well-adjusted by almost any standard (Allen et al., 2005). Compared to their less popular peers for example, well-liked teens in our sample displayed higher levels of psychosocial maturity and attachment security. In comparison to less popular teens, our popular adolescents were also rated as more competent in close relationships by their best friends. And, lest we think that this success with peers reflected some type of precocious break from parents, we observed these teens interacting with their mothers and found that they displayed higher levels of warmth, engagement, and satisfaction in these interactions. In brief, when assessed in terms of concurrent functioning, popular adolescents look incredibly well-socialized in terms of just about any measure we are able to examine.
The “catch” comes when we examine the behavior of popular teens as development unfolds. If we examine early use of alcohol and marijuana, for example, we find that if we stick with our concurrent assessments, we would see little to challenge our view of popular teens as faring well. Examining sub-samples of adolescents who were above and below the mean in terms of popularity, the two groups differ little in levels of experimentation with alcohol and marijuana. Nine percent of popular adolescents report having used alcohol or marijuana in the prior six months, as compared to seven percent of less popular teens—a statistically indistinguishable difference. Our initial analyses, however, suggested that a more disturbing pattern of differences begins to emerge in the following year (Allen et al., 2005) with popular adolescents increasing significantly in levels of alcohol and marijuana use. Our most recent subsequent analyses, presented in Figure 1, indicate that these differences remain quite substantial over time (Allen, 2006).
Figure 1 indicates that in the year following our assessment of adolescents’ popularity, the percentage of popular teens that have used alcohol or marijuana in the prior six months has nearly tripled. Rather than being indistinguishable from the substance use rates of less popular teens, the popular teens’ rates of substance use are now dramatically and significantly larger. Strikingly, this gap does not decline with age, and even though less popular teens also begin using alcohol and marijuana in significant numbers over time, the magnitude of the gap between these two groups continues to expand across adolescence. By age 18, the gap between the popular and less popular groups has reached over 30 percentage points. Some research even suggests that if these teens are followed into adulthood, we may find that these differences persist well into the early adult transition (Osgood et al., 2005). Clearly something is going on.
By themselves, these differences are not necessarily evidence of peer influence processes. When we look more closely at just who popular teens have selected as friends, however, the evidence of influence processes appears more clearly. What we find, as depicted in Figure 2, is that popular teens are likely to increase most quickly in alcohol and marijuana use if at baseline they have selected friends who place more value upon engaging in such behaviors. The evidence thus suggests that these popular teens are closely attuned to and following the values of their peers. We have presented data regarding alcohol and marijuana use in detail here, though we find similar patterns of activity when we look at other forms of minor deviant behavior, including misdemeanor criminal acts such as vandalism and shoplifting (Allen et al., 2005).
These data thus support one facet of our proposed story: peer influences do not appear to be reserved solely for disturbed or maladapted teens. Rather, in at least some cases they appear strongest among the teens who are best adjusted and most well-socialized.
When Peer Socialization is a Good Thing
But if the other facets of our proposed story also hold—that socialization processes can be not just negative forces but also positive influences on development—we might expect to find evidence of this among our popular teens as well. And we do. What we see is that while popular teens are increasing in alcohol and marijuana use and minor levels of delinquency, they are not increasing in more serious forms of criminal behavior (e.g., felony offenses), which presumably are far less widely valued by peers. Even more importantly, popular peers are found to decrease over time in their levels of hostile behavior relative to their less popular counterparts (Allen et al., 2005). Notably, these hostile behaviors are clearly and widely devalued within the peer group. Hence, once again popular teens are increasingly behaving in ways consistent with the likely socializing influences of their peers.
So what’s going on here? Popularity appears to be associated with increases in both adaptive and maladaptive behaviors over time. From an adult-centered point of view, these findings seem puzzling. If we recognize, however, that well-socialized teens are in fact well-socialized by their peers then these findings begin to fit nicely together. Popular teens’ behavior appears to reflect that they are simply following the values of their peer group. For 13 year-olds, alcohol and marijuana use and even minor forms of delinquency are widely viewed as behaviors that “older” kids and adults pursue and are somewhat valued (Moffitt, 1993). Hostile behavior toward peers, in contrast, is not valued. Our popular teens are increasing in alcohol and marijuana use and decreasing in hostile behavior over time. In essence, they are behaving precisely like the well-socialized individuals that we thought them to be.
. We see our popular teens as acting like mini-politicians. They are well-regarded and may appear as leaders, but they are also carefully tracking the implicit “polls” of opinion among their peers and placing themselves out in front of the prevailing views. Popular teens need not be directly or even consciously pressured or influenced by their peers. Indeed, giving in to direct peer pressure is not valued by most adolescents (nor by most adult voters). Nevertheless, popular teens find themselves evolving in a way that keeps them in synch with the norms of their peers.
The problems with this socialization process are not that it occurs. Indeed, many positive traits, from turn-taking to improved hygiene are likely linked to peer socialization processes in adolescence. The problem is that the values toward which teens are being socialized are often less than ideal relative to the norms of adult society. To be well-socialized is one thing; to be well-socialized by a bunch of 13-year olds is a less unambiguously positive experience, at least from an adult vantage point. And while the troublesome behaviors described above, such as drinking and shoplifting, appear minor in some contexts, in many ways they are far from minor. Large numbers of teens as well as innocent bystanders, are killed each year in alcohol-related accidents (Patel et al., 2000). Recent evidence suggests that early use of alcohol may have long-term effects on brain development and may predispose at least some young brains toward a greater lifelong risk of substance abuse problems (American Medical Association, 2006). Homeowners, consumers, retail shopkeepers and others bear tremendous costs from both vandalism and shoplifting (Taylor & Mayhew, 2002). In short, so-called “minor” adolescent problem behaviors may reflect a passing stage in adolescent development for many, but they nonetheless create huge short- and long-term costs to society and to many of the adolescents involved.
But even if we wanted to stop the peer influence processes linked to these troubling behaviors, is that even possible? We take that up next.
The Hardwiring of the Peer Influence Process
In addition to perhaps subtle processes by which popular teens may absorb peers’ values, there are also explicit dominance and submissiveness processes that often take a central role in interactions between adolescents and their peers. We believe that a close look at these processes suggests two conclusions: First, although being influenced by one’s peers may be a net positive in some cases, being overtly submissive to peers probably is not. Second, and more importantly for our purposes, dominance processes may be rewarded in adolescent peer interactions in ways that increase the likelihood that peers will work hard to influence one another over time.