The role of self-monitoring in adolescents’ susceptibility to passive peer pressure

This paper provides the theoretical orientation as well as empirical data to support self-monitoring as a moderator of the relation between peer influence and problem behavior during adolescence. A group of nonsmoking fifth and seventh graders (N=359) were included in a longitudinal study to predict smoking one year later. Ten items from the Junior Self-Monitoring Scale were administered as well as self-reports of lifetime and current cigarette smoking, and measures of active peer pressure (direct offers) and passive peer pressure (normative beliefs). As expected, self-monitoring demonstrated a moderating influence on the relationship between passive forms of peer pressure and smoking onset, but did not influence the relationship between active forms of peer pressure and smoking due to the strength of active peer pressure situations (i.e., salient scripts for behavioral responses). Specifically, high self-monitors who believed that cigarette smoking was a normative behavior were more than three and a half times more likely to show progression from complete nonsmoker to current smoker over a one year period than were high self-monitors who did not believe that smoking was a normative behavior. In contrast, the rate of onset for low self-monitors was not dependent on normative beliefs. The implications of these findings for the design of adaptive prevention programs are discussed.