The Psychological Theory of Addiction (AQA GCSE Psychology): Revision Note

The influence of nurture: peer influence

• Nurture refers to behaviour learned via experience

  • Peer influence (your equals, e.g. in age or education) is one of the most important factors in shaping young people's behaviour

Social learning theory

• Social learning theory (SLT), proposed by Bandura (1972) takes the ‘nurture’ side of the debate

• SLT focuses on how children are shaped by their environment via observation of  role models

• We imitate behaviours especially when it seems the model was rewarded for them (e.g. gained respect or some other benefit), which can happen unconsciously

• We're most likely to imitate someone we admire and identify with, e.g. a celebrity, a teacher, or a peer we look up to

  • Identification with peers is especially strong in adolescence

• Reinforcement plays a role in SLT, for example:

  • Rob observes a specific behaviour: his friend Bob smuggles alcohol into school

  • Bob is rewarded for bringing in alcohol and sharing it at school - their classmates think that Bob is ‘cool’ (direct reinforcement)

  • Rob internalises what he has observed e.g. 'I want people to think I’m cool as well’ (vicarious reinforcement)

  • The next day Rob brings in alcohol and drinks it with his classmates

• Thus, SLT can be a mechanism whereby the influence of a peer role model sets the wheels of addiction in motion

• Teenagers are particularly sensitive to peer influence as they are at a time in their life when they are trying to establish a distinct identity for themselves:

  • Peers offer a way to forge a new social identity e.g. ‘one of the gang’ rather than someone’s son/daughter

Social norms

• Social norms are the 'rules about behaviour' we learn from the people around us

  • They're 'social' because they come from other people

• In terms of addiction, social norms tell us what's acceptable within our social group

• Individuals often overestimate how much their group actually drinks/uses substances, so what matters most is the perceived social norm, not the true one

Social identity theory

• Adolescents feel pressure to conform to their peer group's social norms because a significant part of who you are is defined by the social groups you belong to (friends, sports teams, etc.)

• To maintain group membership and stay accepted, you're drawn to behave and think like the group, which explains the pressure to conform, e.g.

  • 'In our group it's normal to smoke cannabis'

  • 'If you want to keep in with us then you'd better get used to shoplifting'

Creating opportunities for addictive behaviour

• Peers also influence addiction by creating the opportunity for it

  • E.g. buying alcohol for underage group members, providing a safe place to take drugs, or giving direct instruction on what to do

Evaluation of the psychological theory of addiction

Strengths

• There is supporting research: Simons-Morton and Farhat (2010) reviewed 40 studies on the relationship between peers and smoking and found all but one showed a positive association

  • An association doesn't prove peer influence causes addictive behaviour, but at the very least it suggests peer influence is a risk factor

• Real-world application: Hansen and Graham (1991) compared two substance-abuse prevention programmes; one teaching resistance skills, the other normative education (correcting perceived norms about peer acceptability)

  • They found the normative education programme more successful, demonstrating the practical value of the social norms explanation

Weaknesses

• It may be peer selection rather than peer influence: individuals with addictive tendencies may actively select friendship groups whose members already behave as they do, rather than the group's norms causing the addiction

  • This means shared addictive behaviour in a friendship group could be a consequence of addiction rather than its cause