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Peer Pressure Influences Older Adult Alcohol Consumption

Medically reviewed by Carmen Pope, BPharm. Last updated on Jan 3, 2025.

By Dennis Thompson HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, Jan. 3, 2025 -- Think you’re too old to cave to peer pressure when it comes to boozing?

That’s probably not so, a new study says.

An adult’s network of social connections plays a crucial role in how heavily they tend to drink, researchers reported Jan. 1 in the journal Alcohol: Clinical and Experimental Research.

“Our results highlight the pivotal role of the social environment in shaping individual drinking behavior,” regardless of a person’s age, concluded the research team led by Maarten van den Ende, a postdoctoral researcher with the University of Amsterdam.

The researchers found there are “feedback loops” between people and their social contacts when it comes to drinking, with everyone influenced by the imbibing around them.

“An individual's drinking behavior is both influenced by and contributes to the dynamics within their social environment,” researchers wrote.

For the study, researchers analyzed data on more than 1,700 participants in a long-term study of heart health taking place in the town of Framingham, MA.

The data included information on peoples’ drinking habits, smoking behavior and job success, as well as others to whom each individual had a social connection through family or friendship.

Results showed that a person’s drinking tended to reflect the drinking behavior of the people around them, regardless of age.

People who drank more had more connections with heavier drinkers, while those who drank less had more connections with people who abstain from alcohol, researchers found.

What’s more, those who befriended more drinking buddies tended to increase their imbibing over time, while those who gained more teetotaling comrades wound up drinking less.

“However, there were no clear associations over time between smoking habits, job prestige, and drinking, suggesting that the social environment is a more influential factor in modifying drinking behavior than smoking or socioeconomic status,” researchers concluded in a news release from the Research Society on Alcoholism.

Sources

  • Research Society on Alcoholism, news release, Dec. 31, 2024

Disclaimer: Statistical data in medical articles provide general trends and do not pertain to individuals. Individual factors can vary greatly. Always seek personalized medical advice for individual healthcare decisions.

© 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

Posted January 2025

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