3-239 - Methodological Challenges and Future Directions in Social Influence Research

Session Type: Conversation Roundtable

Integrative Statement

The ability to resist social influence is a skill that develops over time, with children and adolescents being more susceptible to social influence than adults. Much research on social influence has focused on the effects of peers; however, recent research has branched out to explore additional sources of social influence. In the last decade, research on peer influence has changed considerably with the development of new statistical approaches and methodologies, allowing for a greater understanding of how social influence occurs and what contributes to individual differences in social influence susceptibility. Whereas early social influence research relied heavily on self-reports (which are prone to biases and inherently limited by individuals’ lack of self-awareness regarding their own susceptibility to influence), newer research has implemented creative approaches to overcoming these limitations. This roundtable brings together four scholars, each specializing in distinct methodologies, to consider the unique challenges of studying social influence during childhood and adolescence. Performance-based methods, social network analysis, neuroimaging techniques, and dynamic modeling approaches will be discussed as possible solutions to common methodological challenges when examining social influence effects. This panel will debate how to handle bias, tease apart selection and socialization effects, deal with multiple social contexts and competing influences, as well as distinguish between multiple sources and types of influence. Finally, this panel will deliberate the future of social influence research and how to use these methods to explore social influence within new domains (including online and virtual social situations). Moderator: Dr. April Gile Thomas

Sub Unit

• Social Relationships

Moderator

• April Gile Thomas, University of Texas El Paso

Panelists

• Mitch Prinstein, UNC Chapel Hill

• Dawn DeLay, Arizona State University

• Cheng Wang, Notre Dame

• Jennifer Pfeifer, University of Oregon