There is a lot of research that has been conducted on the science of peer pressure. It is often the case that people's behavior will echo that of their peers, which in some cases can be a slippery slope. New research suggests that the number of drinks a person has directly correlates with the number of friends in their drinking group, The Huffington Post reports.
Instead of recreating a bar scene within a lab setting or collecting data on past drinking activity, this new study is one of the first to collect real-time data on social drinking behaviors. The study findings come from almost 200 young adults in Switzerland, who took part in a smartphone survey which asked questions regarding alcohol consumption. Participants checked in hourly reporting how many drinks they had consumed, and how many friends they were drinking with, according to the article. The researchers found that people who were out with more friends consumed more alcohol per hour. They also found that men were more apt to consume more, if they were out with a larger group of people.
The study's findings suggest that messages aimed at reducing risk among young drinkers may want to focus on this tendency, the researchers write in a news release. Just because a peer has another drink does not mean that everyone should, yet this is a common occurrence among young drinkers.
The findings were published in the journal Addiction.
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