Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington.
Center on Alcoholism, Substance Abuse, and Addictions, University of New Mexico.
Psychol Addict Behav. 2017 Nov;31(7):763-774. doi: 10.1037/adb0000308. Epub 2017 Sep 18.
Adolescent drinking influences, and is influenced by, peer alcohol use. Several efficacious adolescent alcohol interventions include elements aimed at reducing susceptibility to peer influence. Modeling these interventions within dynamically changing social networks may improve our understanding of how such interventions work and for whom they work best. We used stochastic actor-based models to simulate longitudinal drinking and friendship formation within social networks using parameters obtained from a meta-analysis of real-world 10th grade adolescent social networks. Levels of social influence (i.e., friends affecting changes in one's drinking) and social selection (i.e., drinking affecting changes in one's friendships) were manipulated at several levels, which directly impacted the degree of clustering in friendships based on similarity in drinking behavior. Midway through each simulation, one randomly selected heavy-drinking actor from each network received an "intervention" that either (a) reduced their susceptibility to social influence, (b) reduced their susceptibility to social selection, (c) eliminated a friendship with a heavy drinker, or (d) initiated a friendship with a nondrinker. Only the intervention that eliminated targeted actors' susceptibility to social influence consistently reduced that actor's drinking. Moreover, this was only effective in networks with social influence and social selection that were at higher levels than what was found in the real-world reference study. Social influence and social selection are dynamic processes that can lead to complex systems that may moderate the effectiveness of network-based interventions. Interventions that reduce susceptibility to social influence may be most effective among adolescents with high susceptibility to social influence and heavier-drinking friends. (PsycINFO Database Record
青少年饮酒会受到同伴饮酒的影响，同时也会影响同伴饮酒。一些有效的青少年饮酒干预措施包括旨在降低对同伴影响的易感性的元素。在不断变化的社交网络中模拟这些干预措施可以帮助我们更好地理解这些干预措施的工作原理以及对哪些人最有效。我们使用基于随机主体的模型，使用从现实世界 10 年级青少年社交网络的荟萃分析中获得的参数，模拟社交网络中随时间推移的饮酒和友谊形成。在几个水平上操纵社交影响（即朋友影响一个人饮酒习惯的变化）和社交选择（即饮酒影响一个人友谊的变化）的水平，这直接影响基于饮酒行为相似性的友谊聚类程度。在每个模拟的中途，从每个网络中随机选择一名重度饮酒者接受干预，干预措施包括：(a)降低其对社交影响的易感性，(b)降低其对社交选择的易感性，(c)消除与重度饮酒者的友谊，或 (d)与不饮酒者建立友谊。只有消除目标参与者对社交影响的易感性的干预措施才能持续降低该参与者的饮酒量。此外，这种干预措施只有在社交影响和社交选择的水平高于真实世界参考研究中发现的水平时才有效。社交影响和社交选择是动态过程，可能会导致复杂的系统，从而影响基于网络的干预措施的有效性。降低社交影响易感性的干预措施可能对社交影响易感性较高且饮酒较多的青少年最有效。
