Measuring peer influence susceptibility to alcohol use: Convergent and predictive validity of a new analogue assessment

Abstract

Research on peer socialization rarely examines individual differences in adolescents’ susceptibility to peer influence, perhaps because few theories or methods have elucidated how susceptibility is operationalized. This study offers a new analogue measure of peer influence susceptibility in adolescence that is adapted from sociological theory. A preliminary examination of this new paradigm included the study of individual differences in susceptibility to peer influence, convergent validity correlates, and predictive validity by examining decision-making on the task as a moderator of the prospective association between friends’ and adolescents’ engagement in one form of real-world risk-taking. Participants included 714 adolescents (54% female; 46.1% White, 20.9% Black, 24.2% Hispanic/Latinx, 6.2% mixed race or other) aged 15–18 years ( M = 16.1). Participants completed the Peer Analogue Susceptibility Task, peer nominations, and self-report measures at Time 1 and repeated an assessment of their own alcohol use 1 year later. Participants’ friends also reported their own alcohol use. Results indicated concurrent associations with peer influence susceptibility, rejection sensitivity, perceived importance of peer status, peer-nominated popularity, and self-reported resistance to peer influence. Furthermore, among adolescents demonstrating average and high levels of peer influence susceptibility on the task, greater perceived alcohol use among friends was associated with their own alcohol use 1 year later. Findings offer preliminary evidence for the convergent and predictive validity of a new approach to study peer influence susceptibility.