Does Risk-Taking Yield Social Reward among Adolescents? A Longitudinal Analysis

• In Event: Emotions, Social Rewards and Offending

Abstract

The present study uses two waves of data from the New Hampshire Youth Survey to examine whether adolescent risk-taking is associated with social reward among peers. Using the "risk" portion of the Grasmick et al. (1993) self-control scale, we run a series of analyses exploring whether higher self-reported levels of risk are associated with higher adolescent popularity. Net of prior popularity and controls, results suggest that risk-taking increases popularity over time for males more than for females. At the same time, however, results suggest that the relationship between risk-taking and popularity among males is curvilinear such that there exists a threshold level of risk-taking beyond which male popularity begins to decline. Implications for the reinforcement portion of modern criminological learning theories are discussed.

Authors

• Cesar J. Rebellon, University of New Hampshire

• Rick Trinkner, Yale University

• Karen T. van Gundy, University of New Hampshire

• Ellen S. Cohn, University of New Hampshire