Objective
To evaluate the relationship between the parenting style of an adolescent's peers' parents and an adolescent's substance use.
Design
Longitudinal survey.
Setting
Adolescents across the United States were interviewed at school and at home.
Participants
Nationally representative sample of adolescents in the United States.
Main Exposure
Authoritative vs neglectful parenting style of adolescent's parents and adolescent's friends' parents and adolescent substance use.
Main Outcome Measures
Adolescent alcohol abuse, smoking, marijuana use, and binge drinking.
Results
If an adolescent had a friend whose mother was authoritative, that adolescent was 40% (95% CI, 12%-58%) less likely to drink to the point of drunkenness, 38% (95% CI, 5%-59%) less likely to binge drink, 39% (95% CI, 12%-58%) less likely to smoke cigarettes, and 43% (95% CI, 1%-67%) less likely to use marijuana than an adolescent whose friend's mother was neglectful, controlling for the parenting style of the adolescent's own mother, school-level fixed effects, and demographics. These results were only partially mediated by peer substance use.
Conclusions
Social network influences may extend beyond the homogeneous dimensions of own peer or own parent to include extradyadic influences of the wider network. The value of parenting interventions should be reassessed to take into account these spillover effects in the greater network.