Influence of Parent Values and Friend Norms on Adolescent Risky Decision Making

Abstract

Extensive work has been done in the field of adolescent risky decision making, as a component of adolescent development. Developmentalists have debated the influence of peer and family norms and values on adolescent development and decision making practices for some time. In my work, I examined the relations between both parent values and friend norms and adolescent decision making. Additionally, I investigated the interactions between fuzzy-trace constructs of gist and verbatim thinking and parent values and friend norms. The results support the notion that family and peers both have salient influences on decision making in adolescents. Peers and parents also appear to influence the level of gist-based thinking that adolescents engage in, an indication that certain interactions with friends and parents can influence decision making maturity. Finally, the interaction between fuzzy-trace constructs and values reflects variance in several past behaviors and future intentions. The implications for this research are that interventions to promote reduced risky decision making in adolescents can be aimed at influencing their perception of family and peer norms, as well as increasing their capacity for more protective gist-based thinking