Parents and Best Friends Perceived Reaction to Participant Deviance and Self-Reported Delinquency: Moderation by Sex and Mediation by Youth Attitude Toward Deviance in Mid- to Late Adolescence

• Author: Glenn D. Walters
• Published date: 01 September 2022
• Date: 01 September 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/07340168211015728
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Parents and Best Friends

Perceived Reaction to

Participant Deviance and

Self-Reported Delinquency:

Moderation by Sex and

Mediation by Youth Attitude

Toward Deviance in Mid- to

Late Adolescence

Glenn D. Walters

1

Abstract

The current study set out to determine whether youth perceptions of parental and best friends’

likely reactions to their involvement in deviant behavior influenced their own attitude toward

deviance (AD) and propensity for future delinquency. It also asked whether the effect was condi-

tional on participant sex. Relationships between time-ordered measures of youth perceptions of

mother, father, and best friends’ likely reactions to participant deviance, the youth’s own AD, and

the youth’s level of participation in subsequent delinquency were tested in a sample of 3,880 ado-

lescents (mean age ¼15.33 years at the start of the study, 50.6% male). A moderated mediation path

analysis revealed that perceived acceptance of participant deviance by the individual’s best friends

predicted a rise in participant positive attitudes toward deviance, which, in turn, led to a rise in

future delinquency. There was no effect, however, for mother or father perceived attitudes toward

participant deviance. These results further revealed that the effect was moderated by sex and only

significant in boys. From these results, it can be surmised that best friends’ perceived reactions to

deviance may have an indirect effect on future delinquency of male youth by shaping and influencing

the youth’s own AD.

Keywords

perceived reaction to participan t deviance, attitudes toward devia nce, delinquency, moderated

mediation

1

Department of Criminal Justice, Kutztown University, PA, USA

Corresponding Author:

Glenn D. Walters, Department of Criminal Justice, Kutztown University, Kutztown, PA 19530, USA.

Email:walters@kutztown.edu.

Criminal Justice Review

ª2021 Georgia State University

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/07340168211015728

journals.sagepub.com/home/cjr

2022, Vol. 47(3) 302–317

Social influence is a key factor in child developmen t and associated childhood and adolescent

problems and difficulties, and delinquency is a pri me example of a prob lem of childhood a nd

adolescence that owes its existence, in part, to social influence from pare nts and peers (Deutsch

et al., 2012). Several major theories of crime and delinquency, in fact, highlight these sources of

social influence. Social control theories, as representedbyReiss’s(1951)earlyworkonsocial

controls, Hirschi’s (1969) perspective on social bonding, and Gottfredson and Hirschi’s (1990)

more recent self-control model, designate parents as the primary source of so cial control, support,

and protective influence. Social learning theories, on the other hand, view peer deviance as the

main source of social influence in the development of childhood delinquency (Akers, 1998;

Sutherland, 1947). Although they conceptualize social influence differently, social control and

social learning theories and the focus of their theorizing (i.e., parents and peers, respectively) may

contribute equally to delinquency. The purpose of the current investigation was three-fold: (1)

ascertain whether peer attitudes are as strong a source of social influence as parental attitudes

during mid- to late adolescence, (2) determine whether a mechanism exists that explains the

transmission of relevant attitudes from parents and peers to participants, and (3) test whether a

contextual factor like sex is capable of altering relationships between parent/peer and participant

attitudes and behaviors.

Sources of Social Influence: Peers and Parents

Parents and peers contribute significantly to delinquency development, although the contribution

may vary from one context to the next. After reviewing the literature on parenting–peer linkages,

Brown and Bakken (2011) concluded that parenting and peer effects can either be concurrent or

consecutive, interactive or additive. An interactive effect, for instance, was observed by Lansford

et al. (2003). In this study, low-quality friendships with highly antisocial peers measured during the

summer months between Grades 6 and 7 amplified the criminogenic effect of unilateral parental

decision making measured in the winter of Grade 7 on adolescent externalizing behavior assessed

during the spring of Grade 7. An additive effect surfaced in another study, the results of which

showed that parental support led to reduced levels of subsequent deviant peer associations, followed

by decreased delinquent involvement in a group of early adolescent schoolchildren (Walters, 2020).

In this same study, however, deviant peer associations had no effect on subsequent parental support.

Testing the effectiveness of parent management training as an intervention for aggressive children,

Forgatch et al. (2016) discovered that parenting influences preceded peer influences in the devel-

opment of problem behavior. The results of all three studies suggest that parenting effects may

precede peer effects and congruent with the Brown and Bakken (2011) review, that parenting may be

the predominate influence during childhood, but peers become incr easingly more important as

children make their way into adolescence.

Mechanism: Attitudes Toward Deviance

A mechanism is required to explain the relationship between parenting and peer forms of social

influence and the actions of youth subjected to these influences. For instance, it has been proposed

that peer deviance negatively impacts participant decision making, which then leads to participant

delinquency (Hoeben & Thomas, 2019). Another possibility is that attitudes are transmitted from

parents and peers to participan ts. According to this perspectiv e, parental and peer attitudes o n

various subjects help shape participant attitudes on these same subjects and that these attitudes,

in turn, give rise to participant delinquency. This may be how moral values and attitudes are

acquired, particularly when it comes to learning about the wrongfulness of deviant and delinquent

behavior. Prior research has shown that both parents and peers contribute to the child’s development

303

Walters