Age Differences in Academic Suasion: Friends are More Influential During Early Adolescence than During Late Childhood

Abstract

Friends are assumed to be particularly influential at the onset of adolescence, as adult oversight declines and the salience of peers increases. The present longitudinal study tests this claim, comparing the strength of friend influence over academic achievement during late childhood (grades 4–5, ages 8 to 11) to that in early adolescence (grades 6–7, ages 11 to 14) in youth from Florida (USA) and Lithuania. Participants included 278 children (151 girls, 127 boys) in 139 stable reciprocated best friend dyads and 266 young adolescents (133 girls, 133 boys) in 133 stable reciprocated best friend dyads. Three measures of academic achievement were collected at the beginning and end of a single school year: Peer-nominations and self-reports of school performance, and academic grades from school records. Results from longitudinal dyadic analyses revealed age group differences in all three indices of academic achievement. In both groups, friends influenced one another, becoming more similar on peer-, self-, and school reports of academic achievement over time. In each case, however, the magnitude of friend influence was greater in the early adolescent sample than in the late childhood sample. Replication is a strength of the study: Similar results emerged across locations, suggesting that the findings are robust and generalize across different contemporary Western contexts.