Recent human and animal studies suggest that the rewarding value of drugs of abuse may be influenced by social context, with this interaction being more pronounced in adolescence than in adulthood. The impact of social context on drinking during adolescence is viewed as particularly important (Read et al., 2005), with drinking rates highest among adolescents who strongly endorse social motives for drinking (Mohr et al., 2005). Social influences are among the most robust predictors of adolescent substance use, with drug use of peers and friends being a major risk factor for adolescent drug use (Epstein et al., 2007; Skara & Sussman, 2003). The propensity for elevated drug use and the particular relevance of social context during adolescence may be, in part, biological. Reminiscent of their human counterparts, adolescent rats are notably more sensitive to the social facilitating effects of ethanol than adults (Varlinskaya & Spear, 2002). Moreover, drug exposure in a social context has been shown to enhance the rewarding value of cocaine (Thiel et al., 2008) and nicotine (Thiel et al., 2009) in adolescent rats when tested in the
