Peer Effects on Adolescent Development

The starting point of violence takes place in communities and at home--not at school. Youth take what they hear and see at home and in their communities to school. The environment in some communities and households are positive and the presences of protective factors outweigh the high risk factors. However, there are communities and households where there is a lack of informal social control and high risk factors exist more than protective factors--, which affect youth in a negative manner.

In recent years, data has been conducted and studied to examine the increasing difficulties in juvenile delinquencies. Since 2002, a team of researchers conducted a study to examine the statistical outcomes of juveniles partaking in or the ones who have been affected by crime. Data has shown that approximately 1 in 4 students have been tangled into a violent encounter and 1 in 6 have reported carrying a weapon to school (Salas-Wright, Nelson, Vaughn, Gonzalez, & Córdova, 2017). Juvenile delinquency can occur at any place and a large majority of juvenile delinquency begins in school. Juveniles rely greatly on their peers because they are influenced and tend to follow what their peers usually do or say.

When it comes to juvenile delinquency an adolescent personality is usually impacted from different factors such as early child hood experiences of witnessing a crime, seeing a violent act, being the victim of a crime, or being around others or family who engaged in criminal activity, these factors can either create an adolescent with a positive or negative attitude, or an anti-social behavior which could create a path for a delinquent behavior (Wilson, p. 34). A study has shown that family interactions accounts for about 40 percent of the cause of an adolescent with an anti-social behavior, the study also shown that aggressiveness which is a common trait of adolescent who engage in delinquent acts is usually created from peer influences (Wilson, p. 34).

It is also known that when a child develops a conduct disorder earlier on in childhood, this is associated with a lower than average IQ in future years of school. Some psychological factors that may contribute to the development of conduct disorders include the child’s moral awareness, parenting styles, theories based on modeling and operant conditioning, and Dodge’s social-cognitive perspective. Sociocultural factors that are likely predisposing factors to conduct disorders are poor neighborhoods, lack of parental supervision, and hyperactivity. It should be noted that ethnicity does not increase a child’s risk, but poor neighborhoods that tend to be heavily populated by minorities do. Finally, peer influences such as being rejected by peers or interacting with like-minded peers can be predictive of a conduct

For example, a British newspaper from the 1980s, asked 1,000 adults what they think the main causes of crime are. The majority of people, 53%, answered that the lack of parental discipline was the most dominant cause of crime, whilst others, 20% considered poverty as a factor of crime and 20% for television violence. Therefore, this highlights that poor parenting is a significant factor of criminal behaviour. Similarly, not a lot of parental involvement in the child's life has also been found to influence criminal behaviour. For example, a father who was never involved in his son's social events increased his risk of offending, this tends to happen generally after the age of 21. Another similar factor is poor communication between a parent and child which can contribute to bad behaviour. One important theory known as the ‘social learning theory’ highlighted that the role of the family and peer group are key factors of criminal behaviour and the role of ‘reinforcement and punishment’ determines whether a person take part in criminality. Therefore a person learns how to behave from the people around them. For an example, students who show hostile behaviour towards their friends are more likely to rejected, this creates poor relationships and leads to the students making friends with those who have similar behaviours to them. If the relationship continued into adulthood then it could result in an environment where they influence and encourage one another to lean towards criminal behaviour (Holmes et al., 2001). This is supported by Matthews (2001) who found that young criminals were more likely to have friends who also take part in inappropriate or illegal acts than non-criminals. These studies show that other than TBI, family and friends are important factors of offending

Much of the behavior found in adolescence is rooted in biology combine with environmental influences that causes teens to have conflicts with their parents, take more risks, and in some cases experience low self-control. By understanding what is going on biologically during adolescence we can prevent some of that antisocial behavior in kids. Parents have a greater deal of control over their kid’s behavior but little or none beyond the genes they have pass on to them over their personality traits. Those personality traits could be fearlessness, aggressiveness, sensation seeking, empathy, and impulsiveness which could be associated with delinquent, and criminal behavior early in life. The environmental influences meaning what kind of people have

The time period from late adolescence to the late 20s thus relates to both social-role changes and biological development (Djordjevic, 2010). Additionally, how capable an individual is able to manage these transitions is most likely to influence and be influenced by, mental health (Schulenberg & Zarett, 2006). The greater self-selection and reduction of institutional support during emerging adulthood seem to be good for most individuals, but may also be debilitating for those of who it jeopardizes to overwhelm their coping-capacity (Schulenberg & Zarett, 2006). However, possible strain from the major transitions of emerging adulthood do not necessarily have long term effects and may result only in momentary disturbances (Schulenberg & Zarett,

There is little to question about youth who socialize with peers who engage in deviant behavior. They are at a bigger risk for criminal behavior and substance abuse–related activities. In addition, there is more research suggesting that interventions that aggregate the at-risk peer go hand and hand with one another. They Examined data from two peer-group intervention studies and found that youth in the experimental group had increased adolescent problem behavior and negative life outcomes in adulthood, whereas youth in the control conditions did not show such effects. I suggest that, youth may be particularly vulnerable to negative outcomes as a result of peer aggression. The youth in the juvenile justice system have to deal with peer

Research over the past few decades on normal child development and on development of delinquent behavior has shown that individual, social, and community conditions as well as their interactions influence behavior. Researchers have yet to confirm that neighborhoods characterized by structural disadvantage evidence high rates of juvenile crime and youth violence. According to Hjalmarsson, and Pozen (2009) juvenile offenders serving time in the same correctional facility obtain subsequent criminal behavior which provides evidence that peer effects are aggravated if individuals have past experience in the same crime category. In addition, it may be considered possible that disadvantaged neighborhoods may have a negative effect on the development of children many years or even generations later which can ultimately result in devastating consequences.

Parents have the ability to directly influence whom their child associates with. Through effective monitoring and discipline, a youth’s access to an affiliation with deviant peers is affected (Simons et al 1991). Through effective monitoring, a parent keeps track of their child’s whereabouts. In doing this a parent can limit where the child goes and who they associate with. Along with monitoring and disciplining, a strong parent-child bond is also influential. An adolescent who is closer to their parents is more likely to care about their parent’s opinions regarding their friends. Coercive parenting can weaken this bond. When this bond is weakened through parental conflict, there are higher levels of the youth externalizing their problems (Buehler

During the study Moffitt found that, social network is a crucial part of an individual’s life when trying to shape the outcome of their future. Adolescence in the limited group, start their life out as normal and then, as they grow older and undergo a gap in their maturity level, that is when they start to antisocially behave. Adolescence that are part of the life course persistent group, Moffitt has made the suggestion that due to children suffering from neuropsychological impairment at an early age, it could be the cause of antisocial behavior later in life and it continues throughout their life (Leaw et al, 2015). When Moffitt first developed her theory, she highlights several things to focus on. There has been evidence to

Moreover, the study of Pimentel, Arndorfer, & Malloy (2015) suggests that adolescents are more likely to say they did something wrong to cover up a peer. This study was conducted to see, if a peer did something intentionally the participants would cover them by saying they were the ones who did it, this is known as reciprocity (Pimentel et al., 2015). The purpose of the study was to test and compare adolescents and adults to their reciprocity with their peer confederates and see if this took part in influencing the decision making of the participants (Pimentel et al., 2015). Furthermore, the researchers expected that adolescents would have a higher percentage than adults in protecting the peer confederate by saying that they were the ones

To what extent does community structure contribute to negative outcomes for high-risk youngsters? We know that growing up in an adverse environment greatly increases the likelihood that a young person will become involved in delinquent activity during adolescence and existing research points strongly to the relationship between certain kinds of community structures and high levels of crime among young people.

Not knowing what to do. Not knowing what to say. Even worst if all your friends are there. Wanting to say one thing, but saying another. Wanting to do something, but doing another. How can teenagers being peer pressured by their friends affect their future? This is a very serious topic that teenagers should be aware of. If we make teenagers attentive of how they are easily influenced by their friends, then they will be able to make good decisions for their future. In the novel “Paper Towns” by John Green, Quentin is peer pressured very frequently. Margo makes him do things Quentin really doesn’t want to do but he does them to be more popular. When Quentin was with Margo he was a completely different person. He broke down into houses, and committed crimes which he

The social environment of teens holds an enormous influence on how the teens act and behave. Teens are easily influenced by their surroundings and they look to others for guidance. Their behavior results from that of the parent and peer influences. Parents play a particularly influential role in their child’s life and it is up to them to make sure that they are leading their sons or daughters in the right directions. A teen’s peers also play a large role in how the teen behaves when the parents are not around. A teen’s social environment, consisting of family and peers, plays a vital role in their life, therefore becoming the ultimate cause of juvenile delinquency.