The Cost of Being Cool: How Adolescent Peer Crowds Map onto Adult Adjustment

• In Event: The Role of Peers in Crime and Deviance over the Life Course

Abstract

Few studies have examined the way that belonging to a particular social group maps onto adult adjustment. We used longitudinal data collected from a sample of 339 African American males to address this issue. Latent class analysis identified four crowds during adolescence: Elites, academics, deviants and others. Our results indicated that elites, the most popular group in adolescence, were committed to school but engaged in early sex and minor substance use. In early adulthood, they made precocious transitions to serious romantic relationships and parenthood, and rarely graduated college. The academics, the most conventional and least popular group in adolescence, postponed such family transitions and were four times more likely than the pseudomatures to graduate college. The deviants showed high involvement with delinquent friends and behavior coupled with rejection of school activities during adolescence and in adulthood they engaged in high crime, substance use, and showed a commitment to the street code. Finally, the others were unpopular, uncommitted to school, and uninvolved in early sex, substance use, and delinquency. As adults, they displayed low levels of social competence, college completion, parenthood, and involvement with romantic partners. Our findings are an indication that the adolescent peer crowd is a construct of consequence.

Authors

• Leslie Gordon Simons, University of Georgia

• Tara Elizabeth Sutton, University of Georgia