Description
Book SynopsisScientists, educators, and parents of teens have long recognized the potency of peer influences on children and youth, but until recently, questions of how and why adolescents emulate their peers were largely overlooked. This book presents a comprehensive framework for understanding the processes by which peers shape each other's attitudes and behavior, and explores implications for intervention and prevention. Leading authorities share compelling findings on such topics as how drug use, risky sexual behavior, and other deviant behaviors catch on among certain peer groups or cliques; the social, cognitive, developmental, and contextual factors that strengthen or weaken the power of peer influence; and the nature of positive peer influences and how to support them.
Trade ReviewThe topic of peer influences has long been important to the field. This remarkable volume from distinguished editors and contributors proposes original and compelling conceptual models that will elucidate peer influence processes for researchers and students alike. In addition, many of the authors discuss general and specific implications of their work for prevention and intervention programs. This book would be an excellent text for advanced undergraduates, master's students, and beginning doctoral students in developmental, educational, school, and clinical psychology.--W. Andrew Collins, PhD, Morse-Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor, Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota
This volume brings together leading researchers to piece together the puzzle of peer influences, highlighting their mechanisms, moderators, contexts, and the potential for interventions that capitalize on positive peer processes. With this understanding, we can begin to consider the developmental supports that children and youth require individually and collectively to promote social adaptation. The picture of peer processes emerging from this volume is critical to informing the strategies and policies of a broad range of professionals responsible for children and youth.--Debra Pepler, PhD, LaMarsh Centre for Research on Violence and Conflict Resolution, York University
While it has long been known that adolescents influence one another, insufficient attention has been given to how, where, and when these influences occur. This first-rate volume considers the mechanisms and processes involved in peer influence from a variety of conceptual and theoretical viewpoints and presents a fascinating sampling of new research.--Willard W. Hartup, EdD, Regents' Professor Emeritus, Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota
- Each chapter stands alone and provides unique insights....Useful and informative for anyone interested in working with children and adolescents....Use this book as a resource. Look up a topic in the index, or read one chapter at a time, with sticky notes ready to flag and comment on the themes that resonate with you and your work. It is worth it. --Prevention Researcher, 3/5/2010ƒƒ Prinstein and Dodge are to be commended for bringing together chapters that jointly provide, in one short and very readable volume, an accessible overview that delivers what is promised: an understanding of how peers influence children and adolescents. --Canadian Paychology, 2/3/2010
Table of ContentsI. Introduction
1. Current Issues in Peer Influence Research, Mitchell J. Prinstein and Kenneth A. Dodge
II. Peer Influence Mechanisms
2. A Comprehensive Conceptualization of the Peer Influence Process in Adolescence, B. Bradford Brown, Jeremy P. Bakken, Suzanne W. Ameringer, and Shelly D. Mahon
3. Cognitive Social Influence: Moderation, Mediation, Modification, and...the Media, Frederick X. Gibbons, Elizabeth A. Pomery, and Meg Gerrard
4. Dynamics and Ecology of Adolescent Peer Influence, Thomas J. Dishion, Timothy F. Piehler, and Michael W. Myers
5. Deviance Regulation Theory: Applications to Adolescent Social Influence, Hart Blanton and Melissa Burkley
III. Altering Peer Influence Effects: Moderators and Interventions
6. Variation in Patterns of Peer Influence: Considerations of Self and Other, William M. Bukowski, Ana Maria Velasquez, and Mara Brendgen
7. Adolescent Peer Influences: Beyond the Dark Side, Joseph P. Allen and Jill Antonishak
8. Mobilizing and Weakening Peer Influence as Mechanisms for Changing Behavior: Implications for Alcohol Intervention Programs, Deborah A. Prentice
9. Identity Signaling, Social Influence, and Social Contagion, Jonah Berger
IV. Underexplored Contexts for Potential Peer Influence Effects
10. Homophily in Adolescent Romantic Relationships, Wyndol Furman and Valerie A. Simon
11. Peer Influence in Involuntary Social Groups: Lessons from Research on Bullying, Jaana Juvonen and Adriana Galván
