Reflecting the gender effects observed in Figure 3, an invariance analysis was performed across the genders. Formal evaluation of male/female invariance revealed no significant variability for path estimates (χ2[10] = 10.89, p = .37), for variance of exogenous variables (χ2[2] = 0.55, p = .76), or for factor loadings (χ2[14] = 23.64, p = .06). However, there was a significant gender difference for correlations (χ2[5] = 13.66, p = .02), reflecting differences across males and females regarding the relationships between error terms for peer substance use. Across these levels of invariance testing, the model fit indices were good and varied little [CFI = .94 for all levels, NNFI = .92 to .93 across the four invariances, RMSEA = .035 (.032 – .038) to .036 (.032 – .039), and SRMR (from .037 to .040).
