Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: Purpose: Studies in both health and risk behavior literature has since long suggested that peers influence adolescent’s behavior. Most research in this tradition has studied peer influence in terms of friendships relations. In network literature an alternative mechanism of influence had been put forward, based on actors similar positions in the peer network. In this paper both mechanisms of influence are tested with regard to adolescents’ sexual risk behavior and substance use.
Methods: A network autocorrelation model is used to test both influence mechanisms in a representative sample of Flemish adolescents in secondary school (N=10.525), clustered in about 122 different networks. Each network was analyzed separately and afterwards a meta-analysis was conducted.
Results: Results indicate that peers not only are influenced by their best friends, but also by their peers in structurally similar positions. Peers are more influenced in 5th grade than in 3rd grade and peer influence is stronger for substance use than for sexual risk behavior. When comparing both influence mechanisms, influence by cohesion is somewhat stronger than influence by structural equivalence, although an interaction effect was found with grade.
Conclusions: This study has shown that in a setting such as school classes, where an informal structure of positions is developed as a consequence of repeated interaction, teenagers not only are influenced by their best friends but also by peers in structural equivalent positions. Implications of these findings are discussed for health and risk behavior studies.