As research on the behaviors that may be susceptible to peer influence continues to progress, it has become evident that socialization by peers is a normative and perhaps even adaptive phenomenon that requires study from broader developmental and sociological perspectives (Allen & Antonishak, 2008; Brown, Bakken, Ameringer, & Mahon, 2008). Adolescents’ reliance on their peers to understand acceptable and desired behaviors (at least in the peer context) likely reflects successful individuation from adult values and healthy identity development (Brown, 1990; Harter, Stocker, & Robinson, 1996). Numerous public health campaigns have recognized the potential power of peers to motivate adolescents toward adaptive behavior and healthy development (e.g., “Students Against Drunk Driving”; the Office of National Drug Control Policy’s “Above the Influence” campaign; American Legacy Foundations’ “The Truth” antismoking campaign). Moreover, research in other fields has recognized that peer influence effects are complex and far-reaching (e.g., contagion of offensives among prison inmates; Bayer, Pintoff, & Pozen, 2004; e.g., pertaining to happiness, loneliness; Fowler & Christakis, 2009). Exciting work in the coming decades will continue to understand peer socialization as a normative phenomenon, with emphases on its ubiquity and the processes that contribute to peers’ broad socialization influence on adolescents’ development.
