Peer Influence in Flux: Do Changes in Peers’ Emotional and Behavioral Risk Predict Individual Student Risk?

Children’s mental health is strongly associated with their school and classroom environment, especially their peers’ mental health. In this study, we tested whether changes in peer mental health account for individuals’ mental health over and above initial peer effects. We used teacher reports on 14,533 K–5 students’ risk of externalizing and internalizing concerns in the fall and spring. We found that for both externalizing and internalizing, increases in the percentage of classmates at risk over time were significantly associated with higher risk for individual students by the end of the year, even after accounting for initial risk at the individual and classmates levels. Initial classmates’ risk had more detrimental effects on those not initially at risk, but no such interaction effects were found for changes in classmates’ risk. Overall, the results suggest that identifying changes in students’ externalizing and internalizing risk levels over time and intervening quickly to address them can be associated with benefits not only to the targeted students but also to their classmates.