As with research on peer influence mechanisms, research in the past decade has begun to address important questions regarding moderators of the socialization process. Because preventing affiliation among teens is both improbable and potentially detrimental to healthy psychosocial development (see Hall & Valente, 2007), avoiding negative effects of peer affiliation depends on understanding the factors that increase susceptibility or vulnerability to peer influence. Although research on peer influence moderators remains relatively rare, this has been a rapidly growing area of work in the past decade.
