Hanging Out with the Wrong Crowd? Unstructured Socializing, Delinquency and Characteristics of the Present Peers

• In Event: Peers, Peer Groups, and Delinquency

Abstract

Unstructured socializing is a known predictor of delinquency and substance use. Previous studies have found that peers play an important role in this association, but those studies did not investigate the characteristics of the friends with whom adolescents actually engage in unstructured socializing. The current study derives hypotheses from the literature about what friend characteristics facilitate situational peer processes. Data were derived from the PROSPER Peers Project, a longitudinal study among 11,089 rural adolescents (aged 10 to 17) that collected sociometric data as well as data on the time that respondents reported spending ‘hanging out’ with their nominated friends. Negative binomial multilevel models were estimated to examine whether unstructured socializing with friends with particular characteristics was more strongly associated with delinquency than unstructured socializing with other friends. Specifically, the study investigated friends’ involvement in type-specific delinquency, friends’ risk seeking tendency, friends’ tolerance toward rule breaking and age differences between friends and the target adolescents. Our results provide support for the idea that unstructured socializing with substance using, stealing, vandalizing, and violent friends enhances adolescents’ risks for engagement in similar behaviors. Results for the other examined friend characteristics (their risk seeking tendency, attitudes and age) were more ambiguous.

Authors

• Evelien Hoeben, University of Amsterdam

• Wayne Osgood, Pennsylvania State University

• Sonja E. Siennick, Florida State University

• Frank Weerman, Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement