Thuydung Le Eng 1102 Annotated Bibliography Mercken L, Steglich C, Sinclair P, Holliday J, and Moore L.

A Longitudinal Social Network analysis of Peer Influence, Peer Selection, and Smoking Behavior Among Adolescents in British Schools. Web. 02 March 2013. The article is about the study of roughly about 2000 adolescents in the average age of 12-17 years and how their smoking behavior is influenced by their peers. It shows that people who start smoking at an early age are more likely to get addicted than those who start later in life as adults. In fact, smoking in adolescence is caused by peer pressure, the group of those who they encounter with during the developing stage. I believe this article is an useful source for my research since it is about behavior that is shaped from environment, which is consistent with my topic. The information is very reliable because it is study based. Van der Horst, Mariska Coffe, Hilde. Social Indicators Research. How Friendship Network Characteristics Influence Subjective Self-Being. July 2012. Web. 13 March 2013. The characteristics of friendship that have been included in the article are: the amount of friends, the frequency of contact, and different personalities coming together. This study proved that one with more friends, more frequency of contact but low in personality deviation is more likely to have more social trust, less stress, and be more healthy both emotionally and physically. I choose to use this source because the positive effects of friendship are discussed in details in this article. The source is a research article and therefore very reliable. Caluori, Damian. Thinking about Friendship. Historical and Contemporary Philosophical Perspectives. New York : Palgrave Macmillan, 2013. Print. Damian Caluori has included various aspects of friendship in this book. It consists of five lectures on the philosophy of the topic. In Friendship in a good life, Sheila Lintott discusses how friendship affects our mind like art and how it maintains a beautiful life. According to her, we appreciate friendship like we do with art. Friendship offers us ways to escape alienation and take us to our creativity and playfulness. Although recent results show that people choose their friends based on appearance and taste, Shela Lintotta has once again highlighted that the value of friendship should not be ignored. This source is credible because it is included among with the other philosophies or studies under the topic of friendship. I picked this part out of five because I can relate this with the second source that I have found. Science Teacher. Best Friends Affect Teen Drinking. March 2013. Web. 13 March 2013. The article discusses a study of a group of researchers at UI published in Pediatrics. Their study indicates that adolescents have their first drinks from friends, and those

Thuydung Le Eng 1102 who get their first drinks from a friend are more likely to abuse alcohol later in life. Striking results show that one third of US eighth graders have tried alcohol, and seventy percent of twelfth graders say that they had their first drink. Those who have best friends that use alcohol are three times as likely to start drinking by themselves. This source is very interesting for my research topic and also very similar to my other source about adolescence smoking behavior. Both of them explain how their social connection affects their behavior. This source is credible because it is a well-known national study and has backed up with recent study. Delp, Valorie. How Peers Influence Academic Performance. Web. 13 March 2013. Delp explains in her post that a peer group can influence ones academic performance but other factors are also needed to be considered. Peer groups can have negative influences on students. Some groups believe that doing well in school is nerdy or making money earlier is better than attending college. Kids are easier to get influenced by their peers at early age, and are prone to try risky behaviors. In the opposite, positive influences include kids that want to hang out with others who share the same aspirations such as studying hard in school or going to college. In summary, there is no specific data to show if social environment has more negative effect or more positive effect on academic performance. This source seems to be credible because it is written by an advisor and she has mentioned statistic data in her writing. Parker, Tara. What Are Friends For? A Longer Life. The New York Times. 20 April 2009. Web. 13 March 2013. Parker discusses what she calls a powerful weapon that could help them fight illness and depression, speed recovery, slow aging and prolong life: their friends. One study shows that older people during a study period live longer and are twenty-two percent less likely to die if they have large connection with friends. In another study at Harvard, researchers reported that strong social connection could promote brain health in the aging process. In addition to how friends affect human beings, a sociology professor at UNCG said that friendship has a bigger impact on our psychological well-being than family relationships. An interesting study at University of Virginia last year of having thirty four students standing on a steep hill and asking them to estimate the steepness of the hill. Those who stood with friends gave much lower estimates than those who stood alone. Karen A. Roberto said people with stronger friendship networks feel like there is someone they can turn to. This source is very reliable because Tara Parker has included not just her point of view but also facts and actual studies.