Does It Matter What Friends Think, Say, or Do? The Role of Friends’ Smoking Attitudes and Behavior for Dutch Adolescents’ Smoking Behavior

Abstract

Using stochastic actor-based models for longitudinal network analysis, this study examines the role of friends’ smoking attitudes and behavior for Dutch adolescents’ smoking behavior in four secondary schools (N = 875). The data were collected in two waves in two small suburban towns under second graders in 2008 to 2009 by means of a standardized questionnaire. Stochastic actor-based models for longitudinal network analysis can control for friendship selection while examining the effect of friends’ attitudes and smoking behavior on the smoking behavior of a student. The findings suggest that friends tend to select each other on similar smoking behavior. Influence of friends’ smoking behavior seems to play no role. In one school, an effect of friends’ attitudes towards smoking on the smoking behavior is found. The implications for future research are to consider attitudes when examining the influence of friendship network on smoking behavior. The main limitation of this study lies in the limited sample, which makes generalizations to the general population difficult.

Keywords :

• smoking
• adolescents
• friendship
• social networks
• education
• SIENA
• attitudes

THE AUTHORS

Chip Huisman, Ph.D., in sociology and is a lecturer and researcher at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands. His main research interests are social network analysis, adolescent substance use, drug policy, and sociology of education. His doctoral dissertation (2013) was about the relation between adolescent smoking behavior and secondary school friendship networks in The Netherlands.