Self-help Articles

by Jill V. Hamm, Ph.D.

Findings of an extensive research study involving 6,500 teenagers suggested that teens drugs and friends do all go together. The study found that African-American, Asian-American, European-American teenagers and their friends shared highly similar levels of illegal drug use. Teens choose to be friends about various shared interests, and this study helped tease apart the interaction between those interests.

How Do Teens Choose Friends?

Interestingly, similarity was greatest among teens and their friends who reported lower levels of illegal drug use, particularly when ethnic differences were stronger than ethnic similarity.

Trying to make sense of her findings, the study's author, Jill V. Hamm, Ph.D., said similarity between drug choice is probably higher than ethnicity of friends because of the different consequences for using different drugs.

In other words, teens of different ethnic backgrounds who choose to smoke pot might tend to hang together; and teens of similar ethnic backgrounds who shoot heroine might hang together. But the two groups of different drug users would not tend to hang with each other.

Drug Consequences Seem to Be a Determining Factor

Dr. Hamm suggested that the reason for this seems to be that since the consequences of smoking pot, for example, are not as severe as shooting heroine, and the choice of drug (marijuana) would be made by teens with different more than same ethnic backgrounds.

That may seem complicated…but in essence she is suggesting that when harder drugs were preferred by teens in her study, they tended to choose ethnically similar friends with high risk-tolerance.

It would make sense that higher risk-taking teens are likely to hang around with teens who are willing to take higher risks, and not with those who are unwilling to take similar risks. And in those higher risk taking circles, teens seem to prefer to mix with teens who share their ethnic background, particularly when they were Asian-American and European-American.

Her study was quite extensive, and involved 6,500 9th-grade through 12th-grade students attending seven ethnically diverse high schools in California and Wisconsin. Her findings, then, are likely to withstand further examination by other researchers trying to replicate her work.

Academic Commonality Not As Significant As Drug Preference

Another interesting finding reported in her study is that teen subjects and their friends sharing highly similar levels of illegal drug use showed only moderately similar academic orientations. Drug use then, could be said to be a factor that brings kids together more than academic interests.

Teens who share an interest in a particular type of drug use would tend to bond more with other teens who share drug-related interests than shared academic ic interests. All this is to say that if your college-bound teen is hanging around with kids headed to technical school, keep your eyes open. Something is drawing them together, and it isn’t likely to be academic interests as much as a shared drug interest.

Diversity

Another interesting point is that teens do not appear to seek friends who are identical to themselves. Dr. Hamm says this finding has important implications for teens' adjustment. "Locating friends who are relatively similar yet not identical," she says, "may satisfy the need to find commonality with others and at the same time establish a unique sense of self." This may also allow teenagers room to negotiate views and explore values within the security of compatible relationships. It also speaks to the issue of diversity and how teens today are more accepting of each other as people than previous generations have been.

Reference:

"Do Birds of a Feather Flock Together? The Variable Bases for African American, Asian American, and European American Adolescents' Selection of Similar Friends," Jill V. Hamm, Ph.D.; Developmental Psychology, Vol. 36, No. 2.

This information received from the American Psychological Association (APA) in Washington, DC.