Mundt (2012) - Contemporary study

• What was the aim?

  > Do adolescents select friends with similar alcohol use? (Selection explanation)

  > Do adolescents adjust their loopholes consumption to fit with the alcohol consumption of their friends? (Influence explanation)
• What was the sample?

  > analysed data collected from National Longitudinal study of Adolescent Health

  > American school children, 7th to 11th grade (13-18 yrs)

  > stratified sampling - chose high + middle schools that were representative of America in terms of region, funding and ethnicity

  > wave 1: 2563 students - 51% boys + 49% girls
• What happened in wave 1?

  > students + parents completed an in-home and in-school survey (included questionnaires); asked about expectations of future, self-esteem, risk behaviours (.e.g alcohol)

  > e.g. Who their five male and five female best friends were
• What happened in wave 2?

  > dropped to 2299 students; discarded students who graduated and students whose name wasn't mentioned in the survey

  > 12 months later

  > students completed another survey with similar questions + more about alcohol use

  > e.g. How often did you consume alcohol in the past year- response: never, 1-2 times, 2012 times, more than weekly, weekly or more often
• What were the results?

  > friendship selection was associated with similarity in alcohol consumption

  > students were likely to chose friends of a similar age, gender and ethnicity

  > friend alcohol use correlated with increased personal use
• What did Mundt conclude?

  Friendship selection was associated with similarity in alcohol consumption; therefore, supporting the selection explanation
• PARAGRAPH 1


  AO1

  - aim

  - sample

  AO3

  + Internal validity: longitudinal study

  development point - cannot check validity of secondary data

  - Generalisability: ethnocentric

  development point - representative of American population
• PARAGRAPH 2

  AO1

  - wave 1

  - wave 2

  AO3

  + objective: closed questions

  - internal validity: social deniability
• PARAGRAPH 3

  AO1

  - results

  - conclusion

  AO3

  + reliability: repeated questions among wave 1 and wave 2

  development point - only provides correlational data, no cause and effect

  - issues + debates: focuses on alcohol use as a factor of friendship selection
• CONCLUSION


  AO3

  + useful applications: highlights influences of underage drinking which could help to prevent it by encouraging youths to carefully select friendships to minimise alcohol use

  - data was originally collected in the 90s: not representative of alcohol consumption in current American teenagers. Findings are time-specific so les applicable to current trends in alcohol use