Peer Socialization of Alcohol Use and Abuse: The Moderating Effect of Sensation Seeking

Introduction: Few studies have examined whether sensation seeking moderates the influence of peers on level of substance use among youth. Results from available studies suggest that among individuals who are predisposed towards sensation seeking, affiliation with peers who use substances is more strongly associated with level of substance use (Marschall-Levesque et al., 2014). The present study examines whether sensation seeking moderates the influence of peers’ patterns of alcohol use on drinking behaviors among college students (Funding: U.S. Department of Education).

Methods: Letters of invitation to participate in a prospective study of college life at a large Midwestern university were sent to 1500 randomly selected incoming freshmen aged 18-19 years in July, 2009.The sample consisted of 153 students who were surveyed via mail prior to their arrival on campus (T1) and once a semester during the first two years of college (T2-T6). Two thirds of participants were female and the majority were white (86%). The retention rate for the final survey was 91%. At baseline, students completed the Brief Sensation Seeking Scale (Hoyle et al., 2002) and indicated the proportion of their 5 closest friends in high school who had ever (a) abstained when there was an opportunity to drink, (b) drank to get a buzz, and (c) drank to get drunk. At each time point, students indicated their drinking frequency and binge drinking frequency by completing items from the NIAAA Task Force on Recommended Alcohol Questions (2003). In addition, students completed the social pressure subscale of the Drinking Refusal Self-Efficacy Questionnaire—Revised Adolescent Version (Young et al., 2007). Growth curve analyses were conducted to examine potential interactions between the effects of sensation seeking and peer variables on drinking variables over time. Analyses adjusted for parental education, high school grades, biological sex, and race.

Results: Independent of time, sensation seeking interacted with both the proportion of high school friends who drank to get a buzz and the proportion who drank to become drunk. Associations between peer variables and students’ drinking frequency were more pronounced among those students who scored highly in sensation seeking.  Associations between peer variables and students’ binge drinking frequency appeared to be limited to those students who scored highly in sensation seeking. Over the 2-year study period, self-efficacy to refuse drinks in social situations steadily increased among those students who scored highly in sensation seeking and who had a smaller proportion of high school friends who abstained when there was an opportunity to drink. This subgroup had the lowest self-efficacy to refuse drinks at the beginning of the study and the highest self-efficacy by the end of the study.

Conclusions: Youth who are predisposed towards sensation seeking appear to be particularly vulnerable to peer socialization of alcohol use and abuse. Youth who are predisposed towards sensation seeking and whose close high school friends do not model health protective behavior (i.e., refraining from drinking) appear to be capable of learning health protective behavioral skills (i.e., refusal of drinks in social situations) over time.