Indeed, although we did not anticipate gender differences with regard to
socialization of alcohol misuse, neither within friendship networks nor within dyads, results seem to imply that even if both male and female adolescents socialize their drinking behaviors, they may do so in different contexts.
Specifically, based on peer influence theories (e.g., social learning theories; Bandura 1977), we expected
socialization of alcohol misuse to occur within best friendships as well as overall within the larger friendship network.
Not exact matches
With respect to the dyadic analyses, we hypothesized
socialization effects
of alcohol misuse across different stable dyadic relationships, both unilateral and reciprocal.
Overall, these results indicate that across the two time points, female dyad members became more similar to each other in their levels
of alcohol misuse (in reciprocal dyads and in dyads that were unilateral at Time 1 and reciprocal at Time 2) and depressive symptoms (in very best friendships), providing evidence for
socialization effects.
Yet, although male adolescents may be generally somewhat more predisposed to engage in
alcohol misuse than female adolescents, unlike depressive symptoms, gender differences on peer relationships may be less relevant when it comes to
socialization of drinking behaviors.
In friendship networks, after controlling for selection effects, peer
socialization emerged for
alcohol misuse but not for depressive symptoms regardless
of the reciprocity
of the relationships.
Thus, it might be the case that for female adolescents
socialization effects
of alcohol misuse found in friendship networks mainly reflect peer influence within certain dyadic friendships (i.e., reciprocal dyads and dyads that became reciprocal over time).