(77) Friendship and Consumption

As human beings develop in age, there is an impulsive feeling to explore and try new things--development is inherent in humans (Arnett, 2005). Friends can be formed both through social selection, which is defined as formation... [ view full abstract ]

As human beings develop in age, there is an impulsive feeling to explore and try new things--development is inherent in humans (Arnett, 2005). Friends can be formed both through social selection, which is defined as formation from similarities, and social influence, or known as becoming similar throughout the relationship (De Klepper, Sleebos, Van de Bunt, & Agneessens, 2010). For many emerging adults, specifically college students, this impulse becomes a normative culture and brings about social behaviors. Since smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol can be a large part of someone’s college experiences, having the same habits within these areas between friends could play an important role in perception of friendship quality. Thus this study seeks to find a correlation between shared alcohol and tobacco consumption habits and level of perceived quality of friendship particularly focused on college students. Participants (N=207, 73.4 % women,M_age = 20.17) took the same Tobacco and Alcohol Use Scale in three different cycles: 1) about their self, 2) about their best friend, and 3) about an acquaintance as well as a Friendship Quality Scale about their best friend and an acquaintance which were counterbalanced. We will report on correlations between the participant’s tobacco and alcohol consumption and those of their close friend and acquaintance. Additionally, we will correlate perceived friendship quality between the participant’s close friend and their acquaintance. We will also report differences between sex in alcohol and tobacco consumption. Once results have been completely analyzed we expect to find a significant correlation between the participant’s alcohol and tobacco consumption and their close friend while not having a significant correlation between the participant and their acquaintance. This suggests that closer friends will have more similarity in their consumption patterns thus promoting higher friendship quality in their relationship.