Situational Peer Dynamics for Friends and Strangers in Crime Decisions

• In Event: Situational Context, Motivation and Offender Decision Making

Abstract

Numerous studies demonstrate that the situations surrounding an individual influence their decisions to commit crimes and that this can occur through several mechanisms, such as altering the perceived likelihood of sanctions and costs. Peers play a role in this process, as shown recently by Barnum & Pogarsky (2022), who found that peers affect judgments about the certainty of punishment and social costs for a criminal act by providing new information at the time of the offense. We further investigate these situational peer dynamics by testing whether the relationship of a person (e.g. friend/stranger) to the provider of new information affects the impact of that information on key situational judgments. We also investigate this issue under conditions where multiple persons present either consistent or conflicting information. Findings are presented from a nationwide online survey that tests these ideas.

Authors

• Jacob Montgomery, SUNY at Albany

• Timothy Barnum, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law

• Greg Pogarsky, University at Albany, SUNY