The DDS model emphasizes the importance of influences in close social relationships that are specific to the behavior under study and the variation in sources of such influence by developmental stage. Whereas parents are influential in childhood, and parental alcohol use is related to adolescent substance use (e.g., Chassin et al., 1993), peers have arguably the strongest influence on problem behaviors at adolescence (e.g., Dishion et al., 1996). Duncan et al. (2006) found that higher levels of parental alcohol use were associated with higher initial levels of use, whereas higher levels of peer deviance and friends’ encouragement of alcohol use were related to increases in alcohol use from ages 9–16 years, controlling for general risk factors.
