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Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Youth and Adolescence 12/2015

02-11-2015 | Empirical Research

Peer Influence, Peer Status, and Prosocial Behavior: An Experimental Investigation of Peer Socialization of Adolescents’ Intentions to Volunteer

Auteurs: Sophia Choukas-Bradley, Matteo Giletta, Geoffrey L. Cohen, Mitchell J. Prinstein

Gepubliceerd in: Journal of Youth and Adolescence | Uitgave 12/2015

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Abstract

Peer influence processes have been documented extensively for a wide range of maladaptive adolescent behaviors. However, peer socialization is not inherently deleterious, and little is known about whether adolescents influence each other’s prosocial behaviors, or whether some peers are more influential than others towards positive youth outcomes. This study addressed these questions using an experimental “chat room” paradigm to examine in vivo peer influence of prosocial behavior endorsement. A school-based sample of 304 early adolescents (55 % female, 45 % male; M age = 12.68) believed they were interacting electronically with same-gender grademates (i.e., “e-confederates”), whose peer status was experimentally manipulated. The participants’ intent to engage in prosocial behaviors was measured pre-experiment and in subsequent “public” and “private” experimental sessions. Overall, the adolescents conformed to the e-confederates’ prosocial responses in public; yet, these peer influence effects were moderated by the peer status of the e-confederates, such that youth more strongly conformed to the high-status e-confederates than to the low-status ones. There also was some evidence that these peer influence effects were maintained in the private session, indicating potential internalization of prosocial peer norms. These findings help bridge the positive youth development and peer influence literatures, with potential implications for campaigns to increase prosocial behaviors.
Voetnoten
1
The selection of participants who were in seventh grade at baseline—and the exclusion of those in eighth grade—was necessary, given that the chat room would occur during the start of the following school year. It was crucial for the chat room participants to be enrolled in the same school (and with the same group of grademates) during both the baseline questionnaire data collection and the chat room paradigm phases of the study, and participants who were in eighth grade at baseline had transitioned to high school. Additionally, given the time-intensive nature of the administration of the chat room paradigm, it was not possible to include all three schools; two were selected based on compatible scheduling. Importantly, there were no significant differences in student characteristics across the three schools (with regard to gender, ethnicity, or SES).
 
2
As noted previously, two of the girls’ chat room conditions were combined for the primary analyses. However, a highly similar pattern of results was revealed when examining all three conditions separately. Specifically, a 3 × 3 repeated measures ANOVA was conducted, and a significant time of assessment by condition effect was found, Wilks’ λ = .94; F(4, 324) = 2.45, p = .046; \( \eta_{p}^{2} = .03 \). To better understand this interaction effect, a series of followup univariate ANOVAs and Tukey’s HSD post hoc tests were performed with prosocial behavior at the preexperiment, public chat room, or private chat room assessments as the dependent variable. No differences were observed in prosocial behavior across the three experimental conditions (high-popularity/low-likeability, low-popularity/high-likeability, low-popularity/low-likeability) at pre-experiment or in the private chat room condition. However, marginally significant differences were observed when examining prosocial behavior assessed during the public chat room assessment, (F(2) = 2.85, p = .06, \( \eta_{p}^{2} = .03 \)). Tukey’s HSD post-hoc indicated that during the public chat room assessment, girls in the popular/unliked condition reported (on average) somewhat higher levels of prosocial behavior, as compared to girls in the unpopular/unliked condition (untransformed means: M = 8.33, SD = 0.94 vs. M = 7.76, SD = 1.45; p = .05).
 
3
The main study analyses also were conducted while covarying the participants’ popularity and likeability. For both the boys and girls, the results from the repeated measures ANOVAs remained unchanged, showing a significant interaction effect between the time of assessment and the experimental condition, for boys, Wilks’ λ = .95; F(2, 133) = 3.18, p < .05; \( \eta_{p}^{2} = .05 \), and for girls, Wilks’ λ = .95; F(2, 161) = 4.67, p < .05; \( \eta_{p}^{2} = .06 \).
 
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Metagegevens
Titel
Peer Influence, Peer Status, and Prosocial Behavior: An Experimental Investigation of Peer Socialization of Adolescents’ Intentions to Volunteer
Auteurs
Sophia Choukas-Bradley
Matteo Giletta
Geoffrey L. Cohen
Mitchell J. Prinstein
Publicatiedatum
02-11-2015
Uitgeverij
Springer US
Gepubliceerd in
Journal of Youth and Adolescence / Uitgave 12/2015
Print ISSN: 0047-2891
Elektronisch ISSN: 1573-6601
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-015-0373-2

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