Peer Influences on Adolescent Risk Behavior
Evidence overwhelmingly points to adolescence as a period of heightened risk-taking in multiple domains, including experimentation with alcohol, tobacco, and drugs, unprotected sexual activity, and reckless driving (Reyna & Farley, 2006). Although risk-taking behavior declines as youth transition into mature adult roles, the public health consequences of the adolescent spike in risky decision-making are severe. Motor-vehicle accidents are the leading cause of mortality for 15 to 20 year-olds and, despite extensive efforts to educate adolescents about the dangers of unsafe sex, rates of sexually transmitted diseases remain alarmingly high (Steinberg, 2008). Although not all individuals who initiate substance use in adolescence will progress along trajectories of abuse and addiction, most adult addicts began using substances as adolescents (Chassin, Hussong, & Beltran, 2009). In sum, the most severe threats to adolescent health and well-being come not from natural causes, but rather from behavior-contingent outcomes like automobile accidents, suicide and homicide, substance abuse, and sexually transmitted diseases.
A long tradition of research in developmental psychology points to adolescents’ peer groups as important contributors to trajectories of risk-taking behavior. It is well known that one of the strongest predictors of deviant behavior in adolescence is affiliation with deviant peers, and this relationship is particularly strong for adolescent substance use and abuse (Chassin et al., 2009). Crime statistics indicate that adolescents typically commit crimes, ranging from vandalism and drug use to homicide, in peer groups, whereas adults typically do so alone (Zimring, 1998). Furthermore, adolescents are at greater risk of being involved in an automobile accident when riding in a car with multiple adolescent passengers (Simons-Morton, Lerner, & Springer, 2005).
Several possible explanations have been advanced to account for the association between deviant peer affiliation – or even the mere presence of peers – and adolescent risk-taking behavior. First, a literal account of peer influence suggests that peer groups socialize adolescents in specific risk-taking behaviors. Research from social learning approaches like Problem Behavior Theory (Jessor & Jessor, 1977) delineates potential pathways by which modeling and reinforcement of deviant behavior may initiate adolescents into a culture of risk-taking. Although the social learning perspective is consistent with extensive correlational evidence linking adolescent risk-taking to deviant peer affiliation, a second approach suggests that most of this association may be accounted for by selection effects or confounding variables; that is, adolescents with inclinations toward risk-taking behavior are likely to find one another, and these shared personality dispositions account for the correlations in behavior between the individual and peer group (e.g., Jaccard, Blanton, & Dodge, 2005). A third approach accounts for the more frequent presence of peers in adolescent risk-taking situations by arguing that adolescents merely spend more time with their peers than do adults, thus increasing the probability that risk-taking tendencies are expressed in peer contexts (Brown, 2004). In the present chapter, we propose an alternative, albeit compatible, account based on experimental evidence that the mere presence of peers differentially biases adolescents toward increased risk-taking behavior (Gardner & Steinberg, 2005). Specifically, we propose a dual systems model of neurobehavioral development that views adolescence as a developmental window wherein the presence of peers may “prime” a reward-sensitive motivational state that frequently overwhelms the adolescent’s immature capacity for inhibitory control (Steinberg, 2008).
Before presenting the rationale and evidence to support our model of peer influences on risk-taking, we first provide a brief review of traditional decision-making approaches to understanding increased risk behavior in adolescence. We then describe a new class of dual process theories that contrast relatively automatic (“hot”) with more deliberative (“cool”) modes of processing risk information, highlighting the role of affective states as inputs to the risk evaluation process. In the final section of this chapter, we review behavioral and neuroscientific evidence pointing to relatively independent trajectories of development for two core systems influencing risk-taking behavior in adolescence. The first, referred to as the socio-emotional reward system, undergoes dramatic remodeling around the time of puberty, resulting in normative increases in sensation seeking and sensitivity to socio-emotional stimuli. The second, the cognitive control system, develops in a gradual, linear pattern, and supports improvements in self-regulation observed in late adolescence and young adulthood. We present a model of adolescent risk-taking that highlights the window of vulnerability created by a maturational gap between these two systems. We conclude by discussing ongoing research exploring developmental differences in the influence of peer presence on the relative engagement of the two systems in decision-making situations. . . .
(Click on the link and scroll down to page 6, “The Decision-Making Framework,” to continue reading.)
The link to this “pre-print” version is provided with permission from W. Dustin Albert, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Psychology, Bryn Mawr College.