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The Development of Delinquency and Perceived Friendship Quality in Adolescent Best Friendship Dyads

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Abstract

The present study examines both the unique and the combined role of best friends’ delinquency and perceived friendship quality in the development of adolescent delinquency. Questionnaire data were gathered from 435 Dutch adolescent best friends (mean age at first wave = 12.97) over a period of 5 years with annual assessments. Results showed that mean levels of delinquency and perceived friendship quality increased over time. Adolescent best friends were highly similar in both mean levels and changes in delinquency over time. For boys, similarity in mean level delinquency between best friends was higher than for girls. In addition, only for boys, friends’ delinquency is associated with increases in adolescent delinquency over time, and adolescents’ delinquency is associated with increases in friends’ delinquency over time. No bidirectional longitudinal associations were found between perceived friendship quality and adolescent delinquency. No interaction effects between friendship quality and friends’ delinquency on adolescent delinquency were found. Thus, findings were more in support of the differential association theory than of the social control theory.

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Notes

  1. To control for the so-called stereotype effect, that is, similarity between individuals because of shared cultural values, social desirability, and response biases (Cohen 1977; Luo and Klohnen 2005), we compared all associations of delinquency between best friends to corresponding associations between random dyads and test whether associations between friends are higher than between random dyads. Results showed that all random adolescents’ intercept and slopes of delinquency were not significantly associated with adolescents’ intercepts and slopes of delinquency. Moreover, multigroup tests of models of best friends and models of random dyads showed that all significant correlations between friends were significantly different (p < 0.05) from the same correlations between random dyads. This indicates that these associations found between friends are unique to the best friendship, and are not due to the stereotype effect.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Centre Adolescent Development, Utrecht University, P.O. Box 80140, 3508 TC, Utrecht, The Netherlands

    Maarten H. W. Selfhout, Susan J. T. Branje & Wim H. J. Meeus

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  1. Maarten H. W. Selfhout
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  2. Susan J. T. Branje
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  3. Wim H. J. Meeus
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Correspondence to Maarten H. W. Selfhout.

Appendix

Appendix

Items of the Support scale of the Network of Relationship Inventory (Furman and Buhrmester 1985).

  1. 1.

    How much does your best friend treat you like you’re admired and respected?

  2. 2.

    How often do you turn to your best friend for support with personal problems?

  3. 3.

    How much do you play around and have fun with your best friend?

  4. 4.

    How often do you go places and do enjoyable things with your best friend?

  5. 5.

    How sure are you that your friendship will last no matter what?

  6. 6.

    How much does your best friend teach you how to do things that you don’t know?

  7. 7.

    How much do you share your secrets and private feelings with your best friend?

  8. 8.

    How much does your best friend like or approve of the things you do?

  9. 9.

    How much do you take care of your best friend?

  10. 10.

    How much does your best friend treat you like you’re good at many things?

    Two new items:

  11. 11.

    How much does your best friend consider you worth listening to?

  12. 12.

    How much does your best friend think he or she can learn from you?

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Selfhout, M.H.W., Branje, S.J.T. & Meeus, W.H.J. The Development of Delinquency and Perceived Friendship Quality in Adolescent Best Friendship Dyads. J Abnorm Child Psychol 36, 471–485 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-007-9193-5

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