Department of Psychology, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
J Res Adolesc. 2024 Sep;34(3):721-733. doi: 10.1111/jora.12933. Epub 2024 Mar 27.
As students transition to university, they experience significant social changes that can affect their behaviors, including self-damaging behaviors like disordered eating, problematic alcohol/drug use, suicidal thoughts, and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). Building on prior work, we examined the associations between (1) perceptions of peers' engagement in self-damaging behaviors predicting one's own subsequent engagement in such behaviors (i.e., socialization) and (2) one's own engagement in self-damaging behaviors predicting perceptions of peers' subsequent engagement in such behaviors (i.e., selection). We also examined whether these associations were moderated by the source of influence (close peer/acquaintance) and degree of social disconnection experienced by the student. First-year university students (N = 704) were asked to complete seven monthly surveys. Multilevel models indicated that when students perceived their close peers had engaged in NSSI or suicidal thinking, they had seven times greater odds of future engagement in the same behavior, implying that socialization increases the risk of these behaviors among university students. Perception of acquaintances' NSSI also predicted greater odds of a student's own NSSI the following month. Social disconnection increased the likelihood of matching own behaviors to perceptions of acquaintances' alcohol abuse, highlighting the importance of fostering connections/mentors to reduce self-damaging behaviors on college campuses. Furthermore, when students engaged in alcohol abuse, they had almost four times greater odds of reporting that their acquaintances abused alcohol the following month, emphasizing the importance of the wider social network in alcohol use behaviors.
随着学生进入大学，他们会经历重大的社会变化，这些变化会影响他们的行为，包括饮食紊乱、滥用酒精/药物、自杀念头和非自杀性自伤（NSSI）等自我伤害行为。基于先前的研究，我们探讨了以下两种情况之间的关联：（1）同伴参与自我伤害行为的感知预测个体自身随后参与此类行为的可能性（即社会化）；（2）个体自身参与自我伤害行为的感知预测同伴随后参与此类行为的可能性（即选择）。我们还检验了这些关联是否受到影响源（亲密同伴/熟人）和学生经历的社交脱节程度的调节。首先，我们要求一年级大学生（N=704）完成七项月度调查。多层次模型表明，当学生感知到他们的亲密同伴有过 NSSI 或自杀念头时，他们未来从事同样行为的可能性增加了七倍，这表明社会化增加了大学生从事这些行为的风险。熟人的 NSSI 感知也预测了学生自身 NSSI 的可能性增加，下个月也会发生同样的行为。社交脱节增加了学生自身行为与熟人酗酒行为感知相匹配的可能性，这凸显了培养联系/导师以减少大学校园自我伤害行为的重要性。此外，当学生酗酒时，他们报告下一个月熟人酗酒的可能性几乎增加了四倍，这强调了更广泛的社交网络在酒精使用行为中的重要性。
