Friend Influence on Prosocial Behavior: The Role of Motivational ...

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154 It is likely that these significant relations partly reflect the fact that adolescents who demonstrate one type of social competence (i.e., making friends) often display other types as well. Of additional interest, however, is whether these relations also reflect a process of friend influence (Berndt, 1999; Hartup, 1996). As noted by Hartup and Stevens (1997), theoretical models to explain the process of friend influence are scant. However, some scholars (e.g., Berndt, 1999; Wentzel et al., 2004) have adopted a sociallearning perspective to explain this process. For instance, individuals might develop specific behavioral styles or interests because these are considered to be desirable characteristics of their close friends (Bukowski & Hoza, 1989; Hartup, 1996; Hartup & Stevens, 1997). Specifically, the tenets of observational learning (e.g., Bandura, 1986) support the notion that if a friend models certain types of behavior, an individual is likely to behave like the friend subsequently, because exposure to modeled behavior is frequent and affectively charged. Adolescents report greater frequency in observing their friends’ behavior than their nonfriends’ behavior (Crockett et al., 1984). Moreover, friendships typically are characterized by strong emotional bonds, thereby increasing the likelihood that friends will imitate each other’s behavior (Berndt & Perry, 1986). Given the strong emotional bonds between friends (Berndt & Perry, 1986), especially during adolescence, it is plausible that friends might mimic each other’s behavior. Therefore, friend influence by way of observational learning is most likely to occur when (a) the affective quality of a friendship is high, such that a friend provides an important source of nurturance to the individual, and (b) the interaction frequency and friendship stability between an individual and a friend is high, such that they spend a significant amount of time together. Bandura (1986) further argued that although behavior can be learned by observing others, it is likely to be enacted to the extent that an individual is motivated to do so. Therefore, an individual’s behavior might become more similar to a friend’s behavior because of a change in underlying motivational processes, such as goals and values. In the current study, therefore, we predicted that the affective quality, interaction frequency, and stability of a friendship would moderate the relation between a friend’s prosocial behavior and an individual’s goal pursuit. In turn, an individual’s prosocial goal pursuit was predicted to relate to an individual’s prosocial behavior, thereby providing a pathway between friends’ and individuals’ prosocial behavior. A prosocial goal was defined as a cognitive representation of the extent to which an individual would like to display prosocial behavior in a given situation (Ford, 1992; Wentzel, 1994); goal pursuit marks the frequency with which individuals see themselves as trying to achieve the goal. Personal goals are one component of a larger system of motivation that includes the direction (personal goals), energization (emotional arousal), and regulation (personal agency) of behavior (see Eccles, Wigfield, & Schiefele, 1998; Ford, 1992). In summary, although the similarity of friends’ behavior has been noted for some time (Kandel, 1978a, 1978b), the process by which friends influence one another is less well understood. In the current study, we examined how friendship stability and the affective quality and interaction frequency between friends increased the likelihood that a friend’s prosocial behavior would motivate an individual to behave prosocially. In turn, motivation to behave prosocially was posited to be related directly to displays of proso- BARRY AND WENTZEL cial behavior (e.g., Wentzel, 1994), as shown in Figure 1. According to Kandel (1978a), the similar behavior exhibited by friends is likely the result of two distinct processes: selection and influence. Similarity among friends explains, in part, why individuals become friends (Hallinan & Williams, 1990); however, friends’ characteristics explain change in adolescents’ behavior over time (Berndt & Keefe, 1995). Research designs typically have confounded selection with influence by not accounting for the extent to which two friends are similar at the point of friendship formation. Therefore, to study influence, one must control for selection. In the current longitudinal study, we did this by examining the extent to which friends’ behavior at Time 1 predicted individuals’ behavior at Time 2 while taking into account individuals’ behavior at Time 1. Research Questions In the current study, we examined the processes by which a friend’s prosocial behavior is related to change in an individual’s prosocial behavior over 1 year. Two specific questions were addressed: 1. Does prosocial goal pursuit provide a pathway that links a friend’s prosocial behavior and an individual’s (i.e., target’s) prosocial behavior? Target’s prosocial goal pursuit was believed to explain the association between a friend’s prosocial behavior at Time 1 and change in target’s prosocial behavior over 1 year. 2. To what extent do friendship characteristics of affective quality, interaction frequency, and friendship stability moderate the relation of a friend’s prosocial behavior to an individual’s prosocial goal pursuit? These relations (depicted in Figure 1) were examined while taking into account sex, grade, and ethnicity; research has documented that prosocial behavior varies as a function of these variables (Carlo, Hausmann, Christiansen, & Randall, 2003; Eisenberg & Fabes, 1998; Fabes & Eisenberg, 1996 [as cited in Fabes, Carlo, Kupanoff, & Laible, 1999]). Participants Method Students attending a suburban public high school in the New York metropolitan area participated in the 2-year longitudinal study. The median annual household incomes for the two towns that comprised the high school student population were $106,208 and $101,991 (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000). The Time 1 sample consisted of 287 9th-grade (n 145) and 10th-grade (n 142) students, and the longitudinal sample consisted of 265 9th-grade (n 134) and 10th-grade (n 131) students. Data were collected in the spring of each consecutive year. All students participated unless parental permission was denied (n 26), the students were absent Figure 1. Proposed conceptual model of friend influence.
on the day of data collection (n 24), or the students themselves chose not to participate on the day of data collection (n 1). At both time points, the demographic characteristics of the sample were as follows: 58% female, 42% male, 90% Caucasian, 6% Asian, 2% Hispanic, and 1% members of other minority groups. Students who did not participate in the second data collection because of attrition or absence (n 21) did not differ significantly from those in the longitudinal sample with respect to demographic characteristics or study variables. Procedure At each of the two data collections, C.M.B. collected data from all participating 9th-grade and 10th-grade students in their 43-min social studies classes (18 classes for Time 1, 17 classes for Time 2) in the spring of each year. Data collection that occurs later in the school year is advantageous, because students’ familiarity with their peers is maximized. Students were assured confidentiality for all responses and informed that they did not have to answer any question that they did not want to answer. The researcher remained in the classroom and clarified instructions as needed. Classroom teachers (N 6 at Time 1 and Time 2) remained in the classroom throughout the data collection. Measures All measures were administered at both time points. Background information. Students were asked to complete a demographic questionnaire that specified their sex (0 male, 1 female), grade level (9 or 10 for Time 1, 10 or 11 for Time 2), and ethnicity (1 Caucasian, 2 African American, 3 Asian, 4 Hispanic, 5 American Indian, 6 other). <strong>Friend</strong>ship. Students were instructed to write the first and last names of their three best friends from their high school; however, they were informed that they could choose fewer names if they so desired. Only same-sex friendships were investigated in the current study because these capture the majority of best friendships for adolescents (Hartup, 1992), and they differ in quality from opposite-sex friendships (Sharabany, Gershoni, & Hofman, 1981). Samegrade friendships were examined to maximize the interaction frequency in these school-based relationships. From the names provided, reciprocated friendships were determined by matching students’ school-based best friend nominations with each other. At Time 1, 21% of the students had no reciprocated friendships, 34% had one reciprocated friendship, 30% had two reciprocated friendships, and 15% had three reciprocated friendships. At Time 2, 16% of the students had no reciprocated friendships, 31% had one reciprocated friendship, 36% had two reciprocated friendships, and 17% had three reciprocated friendships. Data from students who had at least one reciprocated friendship were used in all analyses (n 228, Time 1; n 221, Time 2); cases in which nominated best friendships were not reciprocated (n 59, Time 1; n 44, Time 2) were disregarded. All data corresponding to a target individual’s reciprocated friends were obtained from either the sole reciprocated friendship or a randomly selected reciprocated friend (if the target had more than one). For all analyses, listwise deletion was used, resulting in a final longitudinal sample of 208. Among the original sample of ethnic minority students at Time 1, 42% did not have a reciprocated friendship. Among ethnic minority students with a reciprocated friendship, only 4 (i.e., 29%) had a same-race friendship, and all of these were between Asian Americans. The remaining 71% of the reciprocated friendships among ethnic minorities were cross-race, with most (50%) of those friendships between Asian American and Caucasian students. Affective quality. Two measures were used to assess affective quality: friendship closeness and friendship importance. <strong>Friend</strong>ship closeness was assessed with the Affective Bond and Reflected Appraisal subscales of the <strong>Friend</strong>ship Qualities Scale (Bukowski, Hoza, & Boivin, 1994). Students were asked to indicate how true five statements were about each of their nominated friendships on a scale of 1 (not true) to5(really true). Because PROSOCIAL BEHAVIOR students could nominate up to three friends, three copies of this questionnaire were provided to each student. Students were asked to write the name of their respective friend on a line labeled <strong>Friend</strong> #1, <strong>Friend</strong> #2, or<strong>Friend</strong> #3; each item referred to <strong>Friend</strong> #1, #2, or #3, respectively. A sample item from the Affective Bond subscale is “I feel happy when I am with <strong>Friend</strong> #1,” and a sample item from the Reflected Appraisal subscale is “When I do a good job at something, <strong>Friend</strong> #1 is happy for me.” The five scores for each friend were averaged to form a single closeness score; only Time 1 scores were used for analyses (M 4.00, SD 0.75, Cronbach’s .85). According to Bukowski et al. (1994), reciprocated friendships have higher closeness scores than do unreciprocated friendships, and stable friendships over a 6-month period have been associated with significantly higher ( p .05) closeness scores than have unstable friendships. Affective quality was also assessed by a target individual’s perceived importance of a friendship. After students indicated the names of their three school-based best friends, they were instructed to rate each friendship on a scale of 1 (important) to3(extremely important); only Time 1 scores were used for analyses (M 2.48, SD 0.65). The two indicators of affective quality were related significantly (r .55, p .001), and thus, scores were averaged to form a composite (M 3.24, SD 0.62). Interaction frequency. Students completed the Interaction Frequency subscale of Berndt and Keefe’s friendship features questionnaire (T. J. Berndt, personal communication, October 1997). Students were asked to indicate how frequently they interacted with their friend by rating six items (see the Appendix) on a scale of 1 (never) to5(every day). (With Berndt’s permission, we made a minor modification to the wording of the scale such that “this friend” was replaced with “<strong>Friend</strong> #1,” “<strong>Friend</strong> #2,” or “<strong>Friend</strong> #3” so as to remind the students of the particular friendship about which they were answering questions.) The six scores for each friend were then averaged to form a single interaction-frequency score; only Time 1 scores were used for analyses (M 3.44, SD 0.70, Cronbach’s .78). <strong>Friend</strong>ship stability. As noted above, the longitudinal sample consisted only of individuals with a reciprocated friend at Time 1. <strong>Friend</strong>ship-stability scores reflected whether the target maintained a reciprocated friendship over time. If target’s reciprocated friendship at Time 1 was also reciprocated at Time 2, then friendship stability was coded as 3; if target’s reciprocated friendship at Time 1 was unreciprocated (but mentioned) at Time 2, friendship stability was coded as 2; if target’s reciprocated friendship at Time 1 was not mentioned as a friend at Time 2, then friendship stability was coded as 1. On the basis of the sample of only those with reciprocated friendships at Time 1, the frequencies for friendship stability were as follows: 31.8% for 1, 9.8% for 2, and 58.4% for 3. Prosocial goal pursuit. Students were asked to complete the Prosocial Goal Pursuit scale (Wentzel, 1991), which consists of academic (e.g., “How often do you try to share what you’ve learned with your classmates?”) and social (e.g., “How often do you try to cheer someone up when something has gone wrong?”) subscales. Students rated on a scale of 1 (rarely) to5(almost always) how often they tried to accomplish various prosocial behaviors. The two subscales were correlated significantly (r .46, p .001), and thus, scores were averaged to form a composite (M 3.78, SD 0.56, Cronbach’s .75). Target’s prosocial behavior. Peer nominations were used to assess target’s prosocial behavior (see Wentzel, 1994). Students were given three sheets of paper, with a different behavioral description on each, along with a list of 15 randomly generated names of same-sex students from their grade. Lists of names were randomly generated to obtain independent nominations for each behavior, to gain the perspective of the peer group at large, and to minimize the amount of time necessary for data collection. The three questions were as follows: 1. Who cooperates and shares? 2. Who helps other kids when they have a problem? 3. Who shares things with you when you need something? 155
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