Posted on October 7, 2009

The question of which came first enters into a variety of scenarios when studying activities, habits and friends of adolescents. When alcohol is entered into the mix, one of the questions asked is in relation to the people surrounding the adolescent. Are these people in the picture because of the alcohol, or are they the reason for it?

One study conducted by Van Der Zwaluw., et al 2009, examined the associations between adolescent alcohol use and participating adolescents’ perception of their partners’ alcohol use. The primary focus of this study was determining whether friends and partners tend to become like each other in relation to alcohol use, or do people instead tend to gravitate toward similar friends or partners.

To find the answer to these questions, researchers interviewed parents and adolescents from 428 Dutch families. These interviews were conducted once a year for four years. Each family participating consisted of two parents and two siblings with a retention rate of 81 percent across the study.

Across the study, both siblings participated in the process. For younger siblings, the mean age was 13.4 years; for older siblings, the mean age was 15.2 years. Those participants who reported romantic involvement at a given time within the study were used in the analysis. This included 36 percent of the older siblings and 26 percent of the younger siblings.

Through methods of self-reporting, researchers were able to capture information on the frequency of alcohol use during the past four weeks from the point of interview; whether or not the individual was in a steady romantic relationship at the time; and their own estimation of their partner’s frequency of alcohol use over the same four week time period.

The findings from this study indicate that when evaluating a participant’s estimation of their own alcohol use, as well as the frequency of their partner’s, participants and their romantic partners appeared to have relatively similar alcohol use habits and patterns. At the same time, a partners’ alcohol use did not appear to significantly predict later participant alcohol use if prior participant alcohol use was taken into account.

By contrast, the study did reveal that adolescents tend to select partners with similar drinking habits. Based on data gathered, a participant’s use of alcohol at a given time rather accurately predicted their partner’s alcohol use one year later.

This study did present certain limitations, the most glaring was the fact that data collected was dependent upon self-reporting, both for an individual’s own and a partner’s alcohol consumption. In some cases, the adolescent may have started dating earlier than most, which could skew the results.

Researchers concluded that adolescents and their romantic partners are similar in the amount of alcohol they consume. Based on study results, researchers suggest that this similarity is the result of initial selection of a partner and not the influence of a partner’s drinking habits on another adolescent.