Negative and positive peer influence: Relations to positive and negative behaviors for African American, European American, and Hispanic adolescents

The purpose of the current study was to examine adolescentsʹ perceptions of negative and positive peer influence (i.e., indirect peer association and direct peer pressure) as they related to adolescent behavior. Regression analyses were conducted using a sample of African American, European American, and Hispanic adolescents (N = 1659, M age = 16.06, SD = 1.10). The study found differences and similarities in relation to respondentsʹ ethnicity vis-à-vis indirect peer association and adolescent behavior. Although few ethnic-based differences occurred as a function of indirect negative peer association, indirect positive peer association was not as consistently or as strongly related to behaviors for minority youth as it was for European American youth.