TY - JOUR
T1 - Reconsidering peers and delinquency
T2 - How do peers matter?
AU - Haynie, Dana L.
AU - Wayne Osgood, D.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank Paul Bellair, Rich Felson, David Jacobs, Jim Moody, Jennifer Shaffer, Eric Silver, Crystal Stephens and Jeff Ulmer for helpful comments about the manuscript. This research uses data from Add Health, a project designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman and Kathleen Mullan Harris, and funded by a grant (P01-HD31921) from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development with cooperative funding from 17 other agencies. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Persons interested in obtaining data from Add Health should contact Add Health, Carolina Population Center, 123 W. Franklin Street, Chapel Hill, NC 27516-2524 (www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth/contract.html). Direct correspondence to Dana L. Haynie, Department of Sociology, Ohio State University, 300 Bricker Hall, 190 N. Oval Mall, Columbus, OH, 43210. E-mail: [email protected].
PY - 2005/12
Y1 - 2005/12
N2 - This paper examines the contribution of peer relations to delinquency from the perspective of two sociological traditions: socialization/normative influence and opportunity. Earlier studies have likely overestimated normative influence by relying on respondents' reports about their friends' behaviors rather than obtaining independent assessments and by inadequately controlling for the tendency to select peers who are similar to oneself. Using detailed social network data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we find support for both the socialization and opportunity models. Adolescents engage in higher rates of delinquency if they have highly delinquent friends and if they spend a great deal of time in unstructured socializing with friends. Yet our results also indicate that (1) the normative influence of peers on delinquency is more limited than indicated by most previous studies, (2) normative influence is not increased by being more closely attached to friends or spending more time with them, (3) the contribution of opportunity is independent from normative influence and of comparable importance, and (4) influences from the peer domain do not mediate the influences of age, gender, family or school.
AB - This paper examines the contribution of peer relations to delinquency from the perspective of two sociological traditions: socialization/normative influence and opportunity. Earlier studies have likely overestimated normative influence by relying on respondents' reports about their friends' behaviors rather than obtaining independent assessments and by inadequately controlling for the tendency to select peers who are similar to oneself. Using detailed social network data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, we find support for both the socialization and opportunity models. Adolescents engage in higher rates of delinquency if they have highly delinquent friends and if they spend a great deal of time in unstructured socializing with friends. Yet our results also indicate that (1) the normative influence of peers on delinquency is more limited than indicated by most previous studies, (2) normative influence is not increased by being more closely attached to friends or spending more time with them, (3) the contribution of opportunity is independent from normative influence and of comparable importance, and (4) influences from the peer domain do not mediate the influences of age, gender, family or school.
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U2 - 10.1353/sof.2006.0018
DO - 10.1353/sof.2006.0018
M3 - Review article
AN - SCOPUS:30744464084
SN - 0037-7732
VL - 84
SP - 1109
EP - 1130
JO - Social Forces
JF - Social Forces
IS - 2
ER -