Peer Contagion and Social Norms: Testing Social-Cognitive Mechanisms Underlying Adolescent Academic Adjustment

At the transition to middle school, changes in social relationships can affect students’ academic adjustment. On the one hand, friendships become very important and influence students in positive or negative ways (Dishion, Nelson, & Bullock, 2004; Altermatt & Pomerantz, 2005). On the other hand, cognitive maturation may influence adolescents’ social cognition (Blakemore & Choudury, 2006), including a greater awareness of peer norms. Students’ beliefs about peer norms and their desire to fit in the peer group may work together to influence their academic adjustment.

We hypothesized that the mechanisms through which friendships affect academic adjustment involve student’s perceptions of peer norms. We suggest that students may experience “peer contagion”, and come to think that their friends’ behaviors and attitudes are representative of their overall peer group’s norms. If these behaviors and attitudes are positive, then students will comply to those and become better adjusted, but the opposite will occur if friends’ behaviors and attitudes are negative.

Participants include 1278 students from public middle schools in the U.S. Northwest who were assessed in Grades 6, 7, and 8. We developed a measure of perceived peer norms that includes distinct subscales for positive (α = .84) and negative (α = .88) social norms. Self-reports of school engagement and disengagement, and teacher report of problem behavior were combined into one latent construct measuring school adjustment. Best friends (maximum 3) were identified with reciprocated nominations and we tracked down friends’ data to measure their adjustment.

Our final SEM model (χ² (59) = 170, CFI = .96, RMSEA = .03) shows that contrary to hypotheses, best friends’ academic adjustment did not predict change in students’ perceptions of peer norms from Grades 6 to 7. Nevertheless, students’ own adjustment predicted an increase in their perceptions of positive peer norms. In turn, a positive perception of peer norms in Grade 7 predicted an increase in students’ adjustment by Grade 8. In contrast, perception of negative peer group norms remained unaffected by student or best friends’ adjustment and did not predict changes in student adjustment.

In conclusion, we found some support for students’ perception of peer norms as a social-cognitive mechanism that contributes to their academic adjustment. Our results suggest that publicly highlighting positive achievements from middle school students to enhance students’ perception that positive behaviors are the norm is likely to be more efficient in promoting middle school students’ school success than bringing attention to adolescents’ negative behaviors (e.g., substance use, unsafe driving habits) by well-intentioned advertisement campaigns.