In particular, research aimed toward understanding the broad applicability of peer influence effects may benefit from more creative and expansive models of socialization. To date, most of all the research on peer influence has adopted a modeling or imitation perspective, using peers’ engagement in a specific behavior (i.e., behavior X) as a predictor of adolescents’ own engagement in the same behavior (i.e., behavior X). However, it is likely that adolescents’ socialization occurs not only through modeling or imitation, but also through social comparison and/or behavior approximation effects. It is likely that adolescents who believe their peers engage in a specific behavior (i.e., behavior X) are more likely to engage in a related or thematically similar behavior (i.e., behavior Y). For instance, in our lab preliminary data suggested that adolescents’ best friends’ engagement in binge eating behavior was associated with adolescents’ own adoption of negative body-related cognitions (e.g., body dissatisfaction), but not binge eating per se (Rancourt & Prinstein, 2008). Alternatively, it may be that adolescents influence one another’s behavior due to comparison on related attributes. In the same study, our
