Peer Pressure and Adolescent Delinquency

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Magnusson (1988) and Brofenbrenner (1979) state that social environment in which a person is embedded is essential in the study of their behavior. The theoretical framework of developmental and life course theories of crime allow for the addition of the dynamic element of time and places an emphasis on the longitudinal processes of how the interaction between the individual and his or her social environments constrain and influence behavior. This longitudinal perspective opens up the possibility that the peer social environment is one that is dynamic. Friendships can be added and terminated resulting in the number of friends reported changes from childhood into and through adolescence. Children moving from intimate elementary classroom settings into a broader age range of adolescents in junior high and high school increases the potential for developing friendships with older adolescents. At the same time, the quality of the relationships with these friends may also be changing. Adolescent relationships are becoming more intimate than those of childhood with the sharing of intimate feelings and being aware of the needs of others becoming a prominent feature of friendship during adolescence. However, even though several aspects of the peer social environment may be undergoing transition and change during adolescence it is also during this time that friendships are hypothesized as becoming the most important social context in which an adolescent functions. Accordingly, time spent in the peer social environment occupies the greatest part of an adolescent’s day (Csikszentmihalyi and Larson 1984). If this is the case, a natural question to ask is what happens to the pattern of influence peers have on delinquent outcomes during adolescence? According to life course theory, peers will have a significant influence on delinquent behavior in early adolescence and this influence grows as the primary social environment in which an adolescent functions shifts from parents to peer networks but then diminishes in late adolescence as it shifts to an increased commitment to conventional activities. This explicitly points to a changing pattern of influence within the social institution of peers. Peer Influence on Delinquency During Adolescence Much of the prior research on the age varying influence of peers on delinquency during adolescence is based on cross-sectional studies which do not explore influence variation across the entire adolescent time frame. It is thus difficult to identify a discernable pattern of influence.

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