Social Influence
Thomas A. Wills, Michael G. Ainette, and Carmella Walker

In this section we describe measures that have been utilized to index different aspects of social influence. Because many of these are single-item measures we do not detailed data about reliability. Validity of these measures has been demonstrated in longitudinal studies through demonstrating their ability to predict initiation and escalation of tobacco/alcohol use and other problem behaviors.

Social Modeling Measures. Many studies have used items that index smoking, alcohol use, and other behaviors by social network members. Measures of peer substance use typically ask: "How many of your friends smoke cigarettes / drink alcohol (beer, wine, liquor, or wine coolers) / use marijuana?" Answers are on ordinal scales having response points from None of My Friends to Four or More of My Friends (Wills & Cleary, 1999 xClose
Wills, T. A., & Cleary, S. D. (1999). Peer and adolescent substance use among 6th-9th graders: Latent growth analyses of influence versus selection mechanisms. Health Psychology, 18, 453-463.). Measures of tobacco and alcohol use by parents may have a dichotomous structure, for example "Does your mother/father smoke cigarettes?" with response Yes/No. Alternatives ask about parental substance use with numerical scales to index frequency of use (e.g., "During the last month how often did your father drink beer?" with responses Never to Three or More Times a Week. Measures of sibling use typically ask about sib's tobacco, alcohol, or other drug use during the past year on a frequency scale with response points such as Never to Five or More Times (Pomery, Gibbons, Gerrard, Cleveland, Brody, & Wills, 2005 xClose
Pomery, E. A., Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., Cleveland, M. J., Brody, G. H., & Wills, T. A. (2005). Prospective analyses of familial and social influences on adolescent substance use. Journal of Family Psychology, 19, 560-570.). These are presumed to represent modeling influences. Prospective studies consistently show items on peer or parental substance use to predict initiation and escalation of use among adolescents (e.g., Gibbons, Gerrard, Cleveland, Wills, & Brody, 2004 xClose
Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., Cleveland, M. J., Wills, T. A., & Brody, G. H. (2004). Perceived discrimination and substance use in African-American parents and their children: A panel study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 517-529.; Gibbons, Gerrard, Vande Lune, Wills, Brody, & Conger, 2004 xClose
Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., Vande Lune, L. S., Wills, T. A., Brody, G. H., & Conger, R. D. (2004). Context and cognitions: Environmental risk, social influence, and adolescent substance use. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 30, 1048-1061.; Wills & Cleary, 1999 xClose
Wills, T. A., & Cleary, S. D. (1999). Peer and adolescent substance use among 6th-9th graders: Latent growth analyses of influence versus selection mechanisms. Health Psychology, 18, 453-463.). There is less evidence on reliability of the single items used to measure modeling. Studies that have obtained measures of smoking from peers themselves have found that adolescents' smoking is correlated more highly with perceptions of peer smoking than with direct peer reports of their own smoking, though significant relations are found in both cases (Ennett & Bauman, 1994 xClose
Ennett, S. T., & Bauman, K. E. (1994). The contribution of influence and selection to adolescent peer group homogeneity: The case of adolescent cigarette smoking. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67, 653-663.; Urberg, Shyu, & Liang, 1990 xClose
Urberg, K. A., Shyu, S. J., & Liang, J. (1990). Peer influence in adolescent smoking. Addictive Behaviors, 15, 247-255.). Thus it is desirable to obtain independent reports of parent and peer substance use when the research context makes this feasible.

Social Pressure Measures. While measures indicating that friends smoke have been presumed to be reflected in peer pressure for use, there is actually little direct evidence on this point. Urberg et al. (1990) xClose
Urberg, K. A., Shyu, S. J., & Liang, J. (1990). Peer influence in adolescent smoking. Addictive Behaviors, 15, 247-255. developed a measure of explicit pressure with items that asked "Have you felt pressure to smoke cigarettes?" and "Have you felt pressure not to smoke?" with 4-point response scales (Never to Often). Variant items ask about whether a person has recently been offered cigarettes or other substances, for example "How many times have you been offered a drink in the past month?" with a write-in response (Graham, Marks, & Hansen, 1991 xClose
Graham, J. W., Marks, G., & Hansen, W. B. (1991). Social influence processes affecting adolescent substance use. Journal of Applied Psychology, 76, 291-298.). Data from explicit pressure items indicate that participants tend to report not having experienced much social pressure to smoke (Sussman, Hahn, Dent, & Stacy, 1993 xClose
Sussman, S., Hahn, G., Dent, C. W., & Stacy, A. W. (1993). Naturalistic observation of adolescent tobacco use. International Journal of the Addictions, 28, 803-811.; Urberg et al., 1990 xClose
Urberg, K. A., Shyu, S. J., & Liang, J. (1990). Peer influence in adolescent smoking. Addictive Behaviors, 15, 247-255.), and in multivariate analyses these measures usually do not have significant relations to adolescent smoking (Urberg et al., 1990 xClose
Urberg, K. A., Shyu, S. J., & Liang, J. (1990). Peer influence in adolescent smoking. Addictive Behaviors, 15, 247-255.). Thus reviewers have concluded that perceived normative pressure from observed peer use may be more influential than explicit social pressure (Kobus, 2003 xClose
Kobus, K. (2003). Peers and adolescent smoking. Addiction, 98(Suppl. 1), 37-55.). Still, it may be desirable to include these kinds of items in research for descriptive purposes to characterize the type of level of social pressure occurring in a given population.

Social Norm and Consensus Measures. Measures of normative influence assess the perceived prevalence of use and perceived approval for use in a respondent's social environment. A typical measure of perceived prevalence (consensus perception) provides the respondent with a ratio scale (0-10 scale or 100-point line) and asks: "What would you say is the percentage of kids in the XXth grade at your school who smoke cigarettes regularly (at least a few a week)?" The respondent then checks a point on the line to indicate his/her perception of the percentage of schoolmates who are smokers, drinkers, etc. Prospective studies show that such measures predict onset of smoking and alcohol use, controlling for other variables (Graham, Marks, & Hansen, 1992 xClose
Graham, J. W., Marks, G., & Hansen, W. B. (1992). Social projection and social conformity in adolescent alcohol use. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 18, 95-101.; Sussman et al., 1988 xClose
Sussman, S., Dent, C. W., Mestel-Rauch, J., Johnson, C. A., Hansen, W. B., & Flay, B. R. (1988). Adolescent nonsmokers, triers, and regular smokers' estimates of cigarette smoking prevalence: When do overestimations occur and by whom? Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 18, 537-551.). Measures of social norms ask about perceived reactions of network members to smoking or alcohol use (Appendix, Section 1) or ask the participant (plus parents, peers, etc.) how acceptable it would be for a youth to use tobacco or alcohol in various situations (Appendix, Section 2). Studies have indicated that measures of perceived norms show significant relations to adolescents' smoking and alcohol use controlling for actual peer use (Brody, et. al., 1998 xClose
Brody, G. H., Flor, D. L., Hollett-Wright, N., & McCoy, J. K. (1998). Children's development of alcohol use norms: Contributions of parent and sibling norms, children's temperaments, and parent-child discussions. Journal of Family Psychology, 12, 209-219.; Urberg et al., 1990 xClose
Urberg, K. A., Shyu, S. J., & Liang, J. (1990). Peer influence in adolescent smoking. Addictive Behaviors, 15, 247-255.). Findings on normative influence and consensus perceptions have led to the suggestion that peer use operates as a "silent influence" on youth smoking, because adolescents may be influenced by their perception that smoking is common and/or approach among age-mates (Kobus, 2003 xClose
Kobus, K. (2003). Peers and adolescent smoking. Addiction, 98(Suppl. 1), 37-55.). Ironically these perceptions tend to be mistaken, as adolescents typically overestimate the prevalence of substance use among teens and underestimate how common negative attitudes about smoking and alcohol use actually are in the school population (Prentice & Miller, 1993 xClose
Prentice, D. A., & Miller, D. T. (1993). Pluralistic ignorance and alcohol use on campus: Some consequences of misperceiving the social norm. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 64, 243-256.; Sussman et al., 1988 xClose
Sussman, S., Dent, C. W., Mestel-Rauch, J., Johnson, C. A., Hansen, W. B., & Flay, B. R. (1988). Adolescent nonsmokers, triers, and regular smokers' estimates of cigarette smoking prevalence: When do overestimations occur and by whom? Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 18, 537-551.). Correcting erroneous perceptions about prevalence and normative acceptability has in fact proved to be useful in prevention programs (Gerrard et al., 2002 xClose
Gerrard, M., Gibbons, F. X., Reis-Bergan, M., Trudeau, L., Vande Lune, L., & Buunk, B. P. (2002). Inhibitory effects of drinker and nondrinker prototypes on adolescent alcohol consumption. Health Psychology, 21, 601-609., 2003 xClose
Gerrard, M., Gibbons, F. X., & Gano, M. (2003). Adolescents' risk perceptions and behavioral willingness: Implications for intervention. In D. Romer (Ed.), Reducing adolescent risk: Toward an integrated approach (pp. 75-81). Newbury Park, CA: Sage, 2006 xClose
Gerrard, M., Gibbons, F.X., Brody, G.H., Murry, V.M., Cleveland, M.J., & Wills, T.A. (2006). A theory-based dual focus alcohol intervention for pre-adolescents: The Strong African American Families Program. Psychology of Addictive Behavior. 20, 185-195.; Hansen & Graham, 1991 xClose
Hansen, W. B., & Graham, J. W. (1991). Preventing alcohol, marijuana, and cigarette use among adolescents: Peer pressure resistance training versus establishing conservative norms. Preventive Medicine, 20, 414-430.; Schroeder & Prentice, 1998 xClose
Schroder, C. M., & Prentice, D. A. (1998). Exposing pluralistic ignorance to reduce alcohol use among college students. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 28, 2150-2190.).

Social Perception Measures: Adolescent "Crowds". Measures of recognized adolescent subgroups or "crowds" have been used in several studies. In these measures the adolescent is provided with a list of recognized crowds in the school and is asked which one he/she identifies with. For example Sussman et al. (1994) xClose
Sussman, S., Dent, C. W., McAdams, L. A., Stacy, A. W., Burton, D., & Flay, B. R. (1994). Group self-identification and adolescent cigarette smoking: A 1-year prospective study. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 576-580. used a measure that stated, "People often hang out in different groups at school. Please circle the one group below which most closely matches the group you belong to." Studies have found reasonable replication across geographic areas in identifying groups labeled "freaks/stoners/dirtballs," "jocks/athletes," "hotshots" (brains, socials, or populars), and "regulars" or ordinary students, with an additional group termed "skaters/surfers" found in West Coast samples (Mosbach & Leventhal, 1988 xClose
Mosbach, P., & Leventhal, H. (1988). Peer group identification and smoking. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 97, 238-245.; Sussman, Dent, Stacy, Burciaga, Raynor, Turner, Charlin, Craig, Hansen, Burton, & Flay, 1990 xClose
Sussman, S., Dent, C. W., Stacy, A. W., Burciaga, C., Raynor, A., Turner, G. E., Charlin, V., Craig, S., Hansen, W. B., Burton, D., & Flay, B. R. (1990). Peer-group association and adolescent tobacco use. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 99, 349-352.; Sussman, Simon, Stacy, Dent, Ritt, Kipke, Montgomery, Burton, & Flay xClose
Sussman, S., Simon, T. R., Stacy, A. W., Dent, C. W., Ritt, A., Kipke, M. D., Montgomery, S. B., Burton D., & Flay, B. R. (1999). The association of group self-identification and adolescent drug use in three samples varying in risk. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 29, 1555- 1581.). Measures of group identification show significant associations with current substance use, with the most use among freaks and skaters, and longitudinal studies show that group self-identifications predict onset and escalation of substance use (Sussman et al. (1994) xClose
Sussman, S., Dent, C. W., McAdams, L. A., Stacy, A. W., Burton, D., & Flay, B. R. (1994). Group self-identification and adolescent cigarette smoking: A 1-year prospective study. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 103, 576-580.).

Social Perception Measures: Prototypes of Users. Measures on prototypes of substance users assess the respondent's perception of the qualities of the typical person his/her age who smokes cigarettes, drinks alcohol, or engages in other problem behaviors. The measure gives an initial instruction to imagine a typical (same age/same sex) user and then rate the characteristics of the typical user on a set of adjective descriptors (Appendix, Section 3). A number of studies with adolescents have shown that while perceptions of users tend to be somewhat negative, persons with relatively more favorable perceptions of users are more likely to smoke or drink (e.g., Blanton et al., 1997 xClose
Blanton, H., Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., Conger, K. J., & Smith, G. E. (1997). The role of family and peers in the development of prototypes associated with health risks. Journal of Family Psychology, 11, 1-18.; Gibbons et al., 1995 xClose
Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., & Helweg Larsen, M. (1995). Prevalence estimates and adolescent risk behavior: Cross cultural differences in social influence. Journal of Applied Psychology, 80, 107-121.). Prototype measures for various aspects of sexual behavior are in Blanton et al. (2001) xClose
Blanton, H., VandenEijnden, R. J. J. M., Buunk, B. P., Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., & Bakker, A. (2001). Social images in the prediction and promotion of condom use. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 31, 274-295., Gibbons, Gerrard, and Boney-McCoy (1995) xClose
Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., & Boney McCoy, S. (1995). Prototype perceptions predict (lack of) pregnancy prevention. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 85-93., and Wills et al. (2003) xClose
Wills, T. A., Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., Murry, V., & Brody, G. (2003). Family communication and religiosity related to substance use and sexual behavior in early adolescence. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 17, 312-323.. It is important to note that prototypes for substance or sex abstainers, asking about perceptions of the typical teen who doesn't smoke, drink, etc., show a significant protective effect (Gerrard et al., 2002 xClose
Gerrard, M., Gibbons, F. X., Reis-Bergan, M., Trudeau, L., Vande Lune, L., & Buunk, B. P. (2002). Inhibitory effects of drinker and nondrinker prototypes on adolescent alcohol consumption. Health Psychology, 21, 601-609.; Wills et al., 2003 xClose
Wills, T. A., Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., Murry, V., & Brody, G. (2003). Family communication and religiosity related to substance use and sexual behavior in early adolescence. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 17, 312-323.; Wills, Murry, Brody, Gibbons, & Gerrard, 2007 xClose
Wills, T.A., Murry, V. M., Brody, G.H., Gibbons, F.X., Gerrard, M., & Walker, C. (2007). Ethnic pride and self-control related to protective and risk factors: Test of the model for the Strong African-American Families Program. Health Psychology, 26, 50-59.).

Social Communication Measures. Communication measures tap the frequency and quality of communication between parents and youth about tobacco/alcohol use and other problem behaviors. Measures on the frequency of communication across a broad spectrum of behaviors are in the Appendix, Section 4A; this can be modified as necessary by selecting items that focus on a specific behavior. Frequency items may be combined when appropriate with items on quality of communication (Appendix, Section 4B). Measures of communication have been shown to correlate with children's norms about substance use and their level of risk behavior (Brody, Flor, Hollett-Wright, McCoy, & Donovan, 1999 xClose
Brody, G. H., Flor, D. L., Hollett-Wright, N., McCoy, J. K., & Donovan, J. (1999). Parent-child relationships, child temperament profiles, and children's alcohol use norms. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, Supplement No. 13, 45-51.; Whitaker & Miller, 2000 xClose
Whitaker, D. J., & Miller, K. S. (2000). Parent adolescent discussions about sex: Impact on peer influences of sexual behavior. Journal of Adolescent Research, 15, 251-274.; Wills et al., 2003 xClose
Wills, T. A., Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., Murry, V., & Brody, G. (2003). Family communication and religiosity related to substance use and sexual behavior in early adolescence. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 17, 312-323.).

Media Exposure Measures. Measures on advertising exposure typically are single items asking about how often, in a recent time frame, the respondent has seen advertising about a given topic such as cigarette smoking (see Wakefield et al., 2003 xClose
Wakefield, M., Flay, B. R., Nichter, M., & Giovino, G. (2003). Role of the media in influencing trajectories of adolescent smoking. Addiction, 98(Supplement 1), 79-103.); an additional dimension is tapped through asking the respondent about his/her reactions to such items. Examples are included in the Appendix, Section 5. Measures of exposure to smoking and alcohol use in movies are more complicated. These involve first determining which movies (from a list of 50 or more) a respondent has seen, coding the amount of smoking/alcohol use in each movie through records made by trained coders, and then determining the total amount of movie smoking or alcohol use a given respondent has been exposed to (see Sargent et al., 2001 xClose
Sargent, J. D., Beach, M. L., et al. (2001). Effect of seeing tobacco use in films on trying smoking among adolescents: cross sectional study. British Medical Journal, 323, 1394-1397.). A variant measure involves asking the respondent about his/her favorite movie star and then determining exposure to smoking by the star in the movies the respondent has seen (see Distefan, Gilpin Sargent, & Pierce, 1999 xClose
Distefan, J. M., Gilpin, E., Sargent, J. D., & Pierce, J. P. (1999). Do movie stars encourage adolescents to start smoking? Evidence from California. Preventive Medicine, 28, 1-11., 2004 xClose
Distefan, J. M., Pierce, J. P., & Gilpin, E. A. (2004). Do favorite movie stars influence adolescent smoking initiation? American Journal of Public Health, 94, 1239-1244.). Measures of exposure to advertising and movie smoking/alcohol use have been linked in several studies to onset of smoking and drinking among adolescents (Dalton, Sargent, Beach, Titus-Ernstoff, Gibson, Ahrens, Tickle, & Heatherton, 2003 xClose
Dalton, M. A., Sargent, J. D., Beach, M. L., et al. (2003). Effects of viewing smoking in movies in adolescent smoking initation: A cohort study. Lancet, 362, 281-285.; Henriksen, Feighery, Wang, & Fortmann, 2004 xClose
Henriksen, L., Feighery, E. C., Wang, Y, & Fortmann, S. P. (2004). Association of retail tobacco marketing with adolescent smoking. American Journal of Public Health, 94, 2081-2083.; Pierce et al., 1994 xClose
Pierce, J. P., Lee, L., & Gilpin, E. A. (1994). Smoking initiation by adolescent girls, 1944 through 1988: An association with targeted advertising. Journal of the American Medical Association, 271, 608-611.; Sargent , Beach, Adachi-Meija, Gibson, Titus-Ernstoff, Carusi, Swain, Heatherton, & Dalton, 2005 xClose
Sargent, J. D., Beach, M. L., Adachi-Meija, A. M., Gibson, J. J., Titus-Ernstoff, L. T., Carusi, C. P., Swain, S. D., Heatherton, T. F., & Dalton, M. A. (2005). Exposure to movie smoking: Its relation to smoking initiation among US adolescents. Pediatrics, 116, 1183-1191.; Sargent, et al., 2006 xClose
Sargent, J. D., Wills, T. A., Stoolmiller, M., Gibson, J., & Gibbons, F. X. (2006). Alcohol use in motion pictures and its relation with early-onset teen drinking. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 67, 54-65.; Tickle, Sargent, Dalton, Beach, & Heatherton, 2001 xClose
Tickle, J. J., Sargent, J. D., Dalton, M. A., Beach, M. L., & Heatherton, T. F. (2001). Favorite movie stars, their tobacco use in contemporary movies, and its association with adolescent smoking. Tobacco Control, 10, 16-22.).

Neighborhood Context Measures. Measures of neighborhood context as utilized in previous research reflect several dimensions. Some neighborhood measures are obtained from census data through determining parameters such as average income, residential instability, or percent of families on welfare at the block-group level (Brody, Ge, Conger, Gibbons, Murry, Gerrard, & Simons, 2001 xClose
Brody, G. H., Ge, X., Conger, R., Gibbons, F. X., Murry, V. M., Gerrard, M., & Simons, R. L. (2001). The effect of neighborhood disadvantage, collective socialization, and parenting on African-American children's association with deviant peers. Child Development, 72, 1231-1246.). Measures derived from Sampson's theory of collective efficacy (Sampson, Raudenbush, & Earls, 1997 xClose
Sampson, R. J., Raudenbush, S. W., & Earls, F. (1997). Neighbors and violent crime: A multilevel study of collective efficacy. Science, 277, 918-924.) reflect dimensions of collective socialization, interpersonal trust and cohesion, and neighborhood characteristics. These are presented in the Appendix, Sections 6A-6C. Specific measures for school environments ask about attributes such as organization and discipline (Appendix, Section 6D). Measures of neighborhood and school environments have been found to be related to adolescent substance use, and/or to act as a moderator of other social influence measures, in several studies (Gibbons et al., 2004 xClose
Gibbons, F. X., Gerrard, M., Cleveland, M. J., Wills, T. A., & Brody, G. H. (2004). Perceived discrimination and substance use in African-American parents and their children: A panel study. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 86, 517-529.; Novak & Clayton, 2001 xClose
Novak, S. P., & Clayton, R. R. (2001). The influence of school environment and self-regulation on transitions between stages of cigarette smoking. Health Psychology, 20, 196-207.).