AO3-Role of peer influences in addiction

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  • Created by: h33na
  • Created on: 14-01-24 11:53

AO3-Role of peer influences in addiction

Advantages

  • Supporting evidence=Simons-Morton+Farhat(2010),reviewed 40 prospective study into the relationship between peers and smoking and found that all but one showed a positive correlation between the two=Supports the link between the behaviour of peers and engagement in addictive behaviours
  • Application to methods of modification=social norms marketing advertising-aims to change students' perception of their peers drinking habits through the use of mass media and the other communication techniques, focus on advertising information such as statistics about how much students typically drink ,the hope is that by giving students more accurate information it will help combat the overestimation of social norms

Disadvantages

  • Ennett and Bauman(1994)=Highlighted the importance of both peer influences and selection.foud that participants who were non smokers at the start of the study and who had smoking friends were more likely to smoke at follow up.Evidence that individuals had changed membership of friendship groups in line with moking/non smoking behaviour=both peer influence and selection are important processes in addictive behaviours
  • The role of other psychological factors=reductionist-too simplistic to say that peers are the only social factor that influence the development of addictive behaviours =Kobus (2003) suggests we need to consider larger social contexts like family and neighbourhood, may be other processes such as conformity and social identity

Evaluation

lack of cause and effect-lots of evidence that peer group behaviour and addictive behaviour are linked-most  of the research done has been non-experiment. Difficult to distinguish between the effects of peer influence and peer selection .Do peers influence the individual to engage in addictive behaviour or do individuals choose friends because they also engage in behaviour 

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