The Social Sources Adolescents Consult for Daily Life Choices Variations in Age and Decision Domains

Introduction: Previous research has investigated the impact of peers on adolescents' decision-making across various domains. However, adolescents are not just passive receivers of information; they actively seek advice from peers. Yet, there is limited understanding of whom adolescents turn to within their peer networks to guide their decisions.
Methods: This study explored adolescents' preferences for seeking advice within their peer network when making decisions across different decision domains: risky, prosocial, and academic. Dutch youth (N = 748, ages 11–19) were presented with hypothetical scenarios and asked which classmates they preferred to consult. Peer nominations were used to examine the characteristics of consulted peers. Results: Primarily, adolescents seek information from their (best) friends—accounting for 70%–85% of cases—and peers they like and trust, with friends serving as the most important source of guidance across all domains. We also found that consulted peers were more likely to be perceived as cool, admirable, smart, influential, or as leaders, rather than lacking these characteristics. With increasing age, adolescents demonstrated an increased reliance on friends for prosocial and risky decisions and a greater bias for smart peers when making academic decisions.
Conclusion: This study emphasises adolescents' active role in seeking advice from peers to inform their decisions related to risky-, prosocial-, and academic behaviour. Across all domains, adolescents prioritise guidance from (close) friends and peers they trust. Characteristics related to the social status of a peer, and perceived intelligence, also contribute to someone being consulted for advice. The type of peers adolescents prefer to consult appears to be more consistent across domains than highly domain-specific. However, the increased bias for friends with age was absent for academic choices. Future studies should aim to better understand adolescents' motives for consulting certain peers and should investigate the extent to which a peer's knowledge and skills play a role. These insights are essential for evaluating the suitability of peers as information sources across various decision domains.