Adolescents' Perceptions of Their Popular Peers' Engagement in Health Risk Behaviors (2012)

Undergraduate: Caitlin Williams

Faculty Advisor: Mitchell Prinstein
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

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This study examined adolescents’ perceptions of their popular peers’ engagement in health risk behaviors. The perceptions that popular adolescents have about their popular peers’ engagement were examined, as well as the perceptions that nonpopular adolescents have about the populars’ engagement. In a sample of 375 ninth graders, participants reported their perceptions of their same-gender popular peers’ cigarette, alcohol, and marijuana use. Popular participants self-reported their actual engagement in these behaviors. Hypotheses that both popular and nonpopular boys and girls would overestimate their same-gender popular peers’ engagement in health risk behaviors were supported. Contrary to hypotheses, however, differences between the populars’ and nonpopulars’ overestimations of populars’ behaviors were nonsignificant. These results suggest the importance of studying adolescents’ perceptions of populars’ behavior engagement as a predictor of their own behavior engagement. Findings also have implications for individual- and school-based interventions targeting adolescent health risk behavior engagement.