Table 5.

Behavioral Mechanisms Underlying the Effects of Social Contact on Drug Use

Behavioral Mechanism	Influence on Drug Use
Imitation & Modeling	Initiation of drug use by mimicking others; mimicking drug-use topographies of others
Social Reinforcement	Participation in group is dependent on drug use; social attention or praise encourages drug use
Social Facilitation	Increase in high-probability drug-use behaviors in the presence of others using drugs
Local Enhancement	Increase in time spent in environments where drug use is common and likely to be reinforced
Stimulus Enhancement	Increase attention paid to drugs, drug-related paraphernalia, and drug-associated stimuli
Emulation	Novel drug-use behaviors are acquired to achieve similar states of intoxication of others
Peer as Discriminative Stimuli	Peers provide a signal that drugs are available and that drug use will be reinforced
Peers as Conditioned Reinforcers	Peers act as secondary reinforcers to strengthen social contact with groups that use drugs
Reinforcement Enhancement	Bidirectional increase in the reinforcing efficacy of social contact and drug use