It’s friends of friends that count for teens

A disturbing increase in the number of young women binge drinkers is coming to light.

A disturbing increase in the number of young women binge drinkers is coming to light.

Published Oct 10, 2011

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London - If you’re worried about your teenage daughter binge drinking, you might want to keep an eye on the company her boyfriend keeps.

For it is not him, but rather his friends whom she is trying to impress.

A study suggests adolescents are far more swayed by the drinking habits of their partner’s friends than even their own friends.

Those whose boyfriend or girlfriends’ friends drank heavily were more than twice as likely to do as those whose own social group or significant other did, according to the study from Pennsylvania State University.

Lead author Derek Kreager, associate professor of crime, law, and justice, said dating introduced a youngster to a new group of people, often very different from their own friends.

He said: “Dating someone whose friends are big drinkers is more likely to cause an adolescent to engage in dangerous drinking behaviours than are the drinking habits of the adolescent’s own friends or romantic partner.

“This applies to both binge drinking and drinking frequency.’

“The friends of a partner are likely to be very different from the adolescent and his or her friends and they might also be, at least a little, different from the partner.

“'Adolescents are motivated to be more like their partner’s friends in an effort to strengthen their relationship with their partner.”

The researchers looked at data from 449 teenage couples from year seven to year 12 of high school, once in 1994 and the next time in 1996.

The authors also found that before getting together, teenage boyfriends and girlfriends did not share many of the same friends, and their friends were likely to be of the same gender as them.

They noted that dating exposed them to friendship with the opposite sex, and this tended to have a big influence on their drinking behaviour.

It was not necessarily a negative effect, as if their partner’s friends tended not to drink heavily they would not develop the habit either.

Girls are significantly less likely than their male partners to binge drink, they found.

But men were more susceptible to a significant other’s influence than girls, suggesting they may be set a good example by a girl whose friends did not drink heavily.

The researchers said: “The study demonstrates the need for educators and policy-makers to more closely examine dating and the people dating puts adolescents in contact with when they consider interventions to address drinking behaviours, attitudes, and opportunities.” - Daily Mail

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