Friend Influence Essay

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Introduction When asked what makes someone a true friend, many people will respond by stating that a true friend is someone who listens, who can be trusted with deep and dark secrets, and of course someone who you can both be serious with and have plenty of fun with. Friends represent a group of people that relate to each other in one way or another; for example, sharing common interests, or coming from similar cultural backgrounds. Research has shown that during adolescence and emerging adulthood, the emotional center of the lives of young people shifts from their immediate families to people who are not a part of their family; namely, friends. Parental influence still remains prominent, but in most households, it takes a backseat as independence …show more content…

After decades of prevention campaigns and research, alcohol and drug use among adolescents still remains a problem today. There has been a myriad of research done on adolescent alcohol and other drug use regarding a plethora of theoretical standpoints that consistently shows that having friends who use alcohol or other drugs is an important factor in whether or not teens will use and to what extent. Friend influence is an important factor to consider when looking at adolescent alcohol and drug use, and can be studied in depth when broken down into relationship quality, adolescent’s substance use, and friend’s substance use to examine the effect of friend influence on adolescent substance …show more content…

M., & Dwyer, D. S. (2010). Social network effects in alcohol consumption among adolescents. Addictive Behaviors, 35(4), 337–342.
Ramirez, R., Hinman, A., Sterling, S., Weisner, C., & Campbell, C. (2012). Peer Influences on Adolescent Alcohol and Other Drug Use Outcomes. Journal Of Nursing Scholarship, 44(1), 36-44 9p. doi:10.1111/j.1547-5069.2011.01437.x
Branstetter, S. A., Low, S., & Furman, W. (2011). The influence of parents and friends on adolescent substance use: A multidimensional approach. Journal of Substance Use, 16(2), 150–160.
FALCK, R. S., NAHHAS, R. W., L. I., L., & CARLSON, P. G. (2012). Surveying Teens in School to Assess the Prevalence of Problematic Drug Use. Journal Of School Health, 82(5), 217-224.
Johnston, L. D., O’Malley, P. M., Bachman, J. G., & Schulenberg, J. E. (2012). Monitoring the future national results on adolescent drug use: Overview of key findings, 2011. Ann Arbor, MI: Institute for Social Research, The University of Michigan.
M. Kremer, V. Levy. (2008). Peer effects and alcohol use among college students. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 22 (3) (2008), pp.

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