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No description available.

The overall goal of the current study was to determine if perceptions of popular peers' relationally aggressive (PPSRA) and prosocial behaviors (PPSP) were related to engagement in these behaviors in a sample of emerging adults. This study also investigated if these associations were moderated by sympathetic nervous system (SNS) and parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) reactivity to peer stress and gender. Although a significant amount of research suggests that aggressive behaviors can be socialized by peers (e.g., Molano, Jones, Brown, & Aber, 2013), there is a dearth of work that has examined relational forms of aggression that tend to be more salient for females and more positive, prosocial behaviors. Further, given that some research suggests that perceptions about how peers behave, regardless of peers' actual behavior, influences individual behavior (e.g., Song et al., 2012), the current study investigated the impact of perceptions of peer behavior. Additionally, research suggests that some individuals are more susceptible to peer influence than others (e.g., Steinberg & Monahan, 2007). Biological Sensitivity to Context (BSC) has been offered as a potential explanation for this differential susceptibility to peer influence (e.g., Boyce & Ellis, 2005). BSC theory postulates that individuals with a heightened stress response are more malleable to environmental influence, for better or worse; therefore, the interaction between PNS reactivity to stress (measured by respiratory sinus arrhythmia [RSA-R]) and SNS reactivity (measured by skin conductance level [SCL-R]) to a relational stressor was examined as a moderator in the current study. Gender was also examined as a moderator. 200 emerging adults aged 18-23 years (70% female; Mage= 19.04) were recruited from introductory psychology courses at a Northeastern public university. Participants' SCL-R and RSA-R were assessed during a laboratory stress protocol during which they recounted an experience of relational stress. PPSRA, PPSP, and gender were gathered via self-report. Findings suggest that PPSRA was positively related to self-reported engagement in relational aggression and, similarly, PPSP was positively associated with self-reported engagement in prosocial behavior. However, neither interactions between RSA-R and SCL-R nor gender significantly moderated these relationships. Follow-up analyses indicated PPSP was significantly, negatively related to engagement in relational aggression for males only. Findings suggest that perceptions about the behavior of popular peers do have an important influence on college students' behavior and highlight future directions for research into the factors that may modify this relationship.

The present study examined the relationship between callous-unemotional (CU) traits and self-reported leadership characteristics during group crimes among 614 first-time offenders participating in a large multi-site study. Resistance to peer influence (RPI) and self-esteem (SE) were hypothesized to mediate the relationship between CU traits and leadership during group crime. The results indicated that youth with CU traits were more likely to commit crimes with others. Further, although youth with CU traits reported they came up with the idea for crimes and were leaders during group crimes, these relationships were not mediated by RPI and SE. Future research on youth with CU traits characteristics during group crimes is recommended and implications for tailored treatments of this population are discussed.

Peer influence is a well-studied and established phenomenon in the social sciences with much research focusing on peers influencing one another in negative ways. However, peers have also been shown to provide a positive influence. Research on substance treatment programs indicates that one's social network can influence one to enter treatment as well as help maintain abstinence following the completion of the program. However, little is known about the influence that peer's drug treatment can have on the substance levels of an individual. I use the peer nomination data and Waves 1 and 2 of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to study this instance of peer influence. Results indicate that having a higher proportion of peers who attend drug treatment is not associated with lower levels of respondent illicit drug, alcohol use, and binge drinking behaviors. Consistent with past findings, having a higher proportion of one's peers who reported drug use is associated with higher levels of respondent substance use. Implications for clinicians and other treatment providers are discussed with an emphasis on the role that strong parental attachment can play in offsetting negative peer influence.

There is increasing recognition that contextual aspects of social situations are important determinants of children's social information processing. While it is generally accepted that friends influence children's social behavior, the immediate influence of a friend in specific conflict situations is less understood. Contextualized vignettes depicting hypothetical peer conflict situations were developed to examine the impact of situational context, namely a friend's suggested attribution and an antagonist action cue, on students' social information processing. A repeated measures design examined the proximal influence of situational context on 4th and 5th grade students' (N=367) own intent attributions, emotional reactions, and response evaluations to hypothetical peer conflict scenarios. Results indicated that situational context is important to students' social cognition. Students adjusted their social cognition and emotion in response to cues to an antagonist's intent and were influenced by a friend's comments during peer conflict scenarios. Students' responses were more aligned with the antagonist's action than a friend's suggested attribution. However, a friends' attribution was influential in situations where it conflicted with the antagonist's action. Results of this study help to increase knowledge regarding the context of social cognition and can assist in the development of more ecologically valid social skill interventions.

Substance use during adolescence is of particular concern because it is known to be associated with many undesirable outcomes. When an adolescent discovers that a peer is using substances, he or she is faced with a decision regarding the response to be taken (e.g., use substances with the peer, report it to authorities, tell the peer to stop). Available literature has given little consideration to this issue; therefore, the current study sought to examine the response of adolescents to discovering that a peer is using substances, within an ethnically diverse sample of 139 students from a public high school located in Florida. Since responses taken likely vary based on adolescents' own personal traits and characteristics, this study investigated how adolescents' gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, grade level, and own use or non-use of substances were related to their response to discovering that a peer is using substances. Findings revealed that those students that reported personal marijuana use were more likely to report that they would respond to peer substance use in an undesirable way (e.g., use with the peer, do nothing), and less likely to take a positive action of any sort (e.g., discuss the peer's substance use with a trusted adult, tell the peer to stop). A second purpose of this study was to examine whether or not an adolescent's relationship with the peer using drugs or alcohol (specifically, close friend versus classmate) was related to the action the adolescent takes in response to the peer's substance use. Findings revealed that overall students reported a higher likelihood that they would take a positive action of some sort if the peer using substances was a close friend than a classmate. More specifically, more students reported that they would tell a close friend to stop using substances than tell a classmate the same thing. On the other hand, students also reported that they would be more likely to use substances with a close friend than with a classmate. Implications of these findings for future research and practice are discussed.

The current study aimed to simultaneously examine cognitive, social and personality development in a cross-sectional sample of 3rd, 4th and 5th grade children to explore the interplay among these processes and how they relate to changes in children's understanding of alcohol. To replicate previous work, this study comprehensively examined relative increases in types of expectancies as a function of development. Results demonstrated that children in higher grades held more positive, negative and sedating expectancies of alcohol and positive alcohol expectancies increased more than negative alcohol expectancies. Improved performance on cognitive measures were associated with positive alcohol expectancy endorsement, indicating that children's ability to incorporate positive beliefs about alcohol, which are conflicting with information typically taught to children in this age range, may be related to their ability to form and articulate concepts with age. Among male participants, sensation seeking increased with age and was strongly associated with positive ideas about alcohol use, such as wanting to experiment with alcohol or planning to drink as an adult. Social influences on alcohol expectancies included exposure to drinking. When children's parents drank more, they had higher positive, negative and sedating alcohol expectancies, indicating that they had a greater understanding of all potential consequences of drinking, while children whose friends drank had higher positive but not other types of expectancies. Additionally, children who turned to adults for advice held increasing levels of negative and sedating alcohol expectancies across age, while children who sought support from their peers showed higher levels of positive and arousing expectancies across age groups. The interplay between cognitive development and risk factors such as social awareness of alcohol, source of social influence, and sensation seeking personality begins to demonstrate key relationships to alcohol expectancies in late childhood. These social and personality risk factors are likely to play an even greater role in early adolescence as children move to middle school and experience puberty. This study provides a basis for future elaboration of the roles these constructs play in an individual's ability to understand the multifaceted expectations that are held in our society about the effects of alcohol on human behavior.