Citation

Cohen GL, Prinstein MJ. Child Dev. 2006; 77(4): 967-983.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, University of Colorado at Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309-0345, USA. geoffrey.cohen@colorado.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2006, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1111/j.1467-8624.2006.00913.x

PMID

16942500

Abstract

Peer contagion of adolescent males' aggressive/health risk behaviors was examined using a computerized "chat room" experimental paradigm. Forty-three 11th-grade White adolescents (16-17 years old) were led to believe that they were interacting with other students (i.e., "e-confederates"), who endorsed aggressive/health risk behaviors and whose ostensible peer status was experimentally manipulated. Adolescents displayed greater public conformity, more internalization of aggressive/health risk attitudes, and a higher frequency of actual exclusionary behavior when the e-confederates were high in peer status than low. Participants' level of social anxiety moderated peer contagion. Nonsocially anxious participants conformed only to high-status peers, whereas socially anxious participants were equally influenced by low- and high-status peers. The role of status-maintenance motivations in aggression and risk behavior, and implications for preventive intervention, are discussed.

Language: en