Dynamic associations of network isolation and smoking behavior

Molly Copeland, Bryce Bartlett and Jacob C. Fisher

Network Science, 2017, vol. 5, issue 3, 257-277

Abstract: Prevailing social network frameworks examine the association between peer ties and behaviors, such as smoking, but the role of social isolates is poorly understood. Some theories predict isolated adolescents are protected from peer influence that increases smoking, while others suggest isolates are more likely to initiate smoking because they lack the social control provided by peer friendships. Building on a growing literature that seeks to explain these contradictions by moving beyond a homogeneous understanding of isolation, we identify the relationship between smoking and three distinct dimensions of isolation: avoided (adolescents who do not receive ties), withdrawn (adolescents who do not send ties), and externally oriented (adolescents who claim close out-of-grade friends). We examine the co-evolutionary effects of these dimensions and cigarette smoking using an autoregressive latent trajectory model with PROSPER Peers, a unique, longitudinal network dataset. These data include students (47% male and 86% white) from rural Iowa and Pennsylvania, ranging successively from grades 6–12 in eight waves of data. We find avoided isolation is associated with decreased subsequent smoking in high school. Smoking increases subsequent avoided and withdrawn isolation, but decreases external orientation.

Date: 2017
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:netsci:v:5:y:2017:i:03:p:257-277_00

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Network Science from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().