Funded Research
Friendship Networks and Emergence of Substance Use
Source: NIH/NIDA
Active: 08/01/2007 - 07/31/2011
Investigator(s):
D. Wayne Osgood
Mark Feinberg
This project will advance knowledge about the role of peer influence in substance use and other problem behaviors through an extensive longitudinal study of adolescent peer networks from 6th through 9th grades, the primary period of emergence for substance use. The importance attributed to peer influence on substance use and related risky behaviors (Burgess & Akers, 1966; Dishion, Andrews, & Crosby, 1995; Jessor & Jessor, 1977; Oetting & Beauvais, 1986) has led to a central focus on peer resistance skills and the use of peer leaders in school-based prevention programs (see Price, et al., l993). Yet attempts to address peer influence effectively in prevention programs are hampered by gaping holes in our understanding of this phenomenon. Filling these holes requires increased sophistication in measurement and research design, as well as a multidisciplinary conceptualization of potential influence processes. The project team of specialists in adolescent problem behavior, human development, and network analysis brings together the distinct strengths of our separate research traditions to raise the standards of research on peer influence in substance use.
The proposed study will process and analyze longitudinal data on peer networks that are being collected in an ongoing, large-scale prevention trial involving 28 communities in two states (the PROSPER project). The datasets of this study include sociometric nominations and a variety of self-report measures for all individual students in two grade cohorts at 28 schools (N=11,000+), measures for the families of a representative subsample of those students (N=1,200), and measures of school and community-level characteristics. The start date of the proposed study will permit completion of the critical task of matching friendship nominations to school name lists soon after the data are collected. This will increase the rate of successful matches by allowing researchers to work with the schools to determine nicknames, name changes, etc.
