Changing Friend Selection in Middle School: A Social Network Analysis of a Randomized Intervention Study Designed to Prevent Adolescent Problem Behavior

Abstract

Adolescent friendships that promote problem behavior are often chosen in middle school. The current study examines the unintended impact of a randomized school based intervention on the selection of friends in middle school, as well as on observations of deviant talk with friends five years later. Participants included 998 middle school students (526 boys and 472 girls) recruited at the onset of middle school (age 11-12 years) from three public middle schools participating in the Family Check-up model intervention. The current study focuses only on the effects of the SHAPe curriculum—one level of the Family Check-up model—on friendship choices. Participants nominated friends and completed measures of deviant peer affiliation. Approximately half of the sample (n=500) was randomly assigned to the intervention and the other half (n=498) comprised the control group within each school. The results indicate that the SHAPe curriculum affected friend selection within School 1, but not within Schools 2 or 3. The effects of friend selection in School 1 translated into reductions in observed deviancy training five years later (age 16-17 years). By coupling longitudinal social network analysis with a randomized intervention study the current findings provide initial evidence that a randomized public middle school intervention can disrupt the formation of deviant peer groups and diminish levels of adolescent deviance five years later.

A Developmental Perspective on Reentry: Understanding the Causes and Consequences of Family Conflict and Peer Delinquency during Adolescence and Emerging Adulthood

“…This finding may be of importance for recent research that suggests that people’s friendship choices can be altered (see DeLay et al 2016). If peer selection can be fluidly changed so that people befriend more “normative” peers instead of friends who are criminally-inclined, this would truthfully represent a huge step forward in research on social groups and deviance.…”

“…Since then, theories (e.g., Burgess and Akers 1966) and research (e.g., DeLay et al 2016) have further developed and have produced a rich knowledge on how, when, and why peers are influential for crime. In the midst of these various contributions, however, Sutherland’s (1947) differential association theory stands out.…”

The Co-development of Extraversion and Friendships: Bonding and Behavioral Mechanisms in Friendship Networks

“…We decided to include five network effects recommended from prior network studies (Ripley et al, 2018): Outdegree, reciprocity, GWESP-FF, transitive triplets, and the interaction between reciprocity and transitive triplets (Block, 2015). Network effects were included (a) because their exclusion, when estimating friendship changes, leads to biases in effect estimates (Snijders et al, 2007; these network interdependencies are explained in detail in the Result section "Selection and Extraversion") and (b) because a series of prior studies on friendship networks showed that, when modeling friendship network changes, these effects significantly explain friendship network changes and, therefore, represent important confounding effects (e.g., Block & Grund, 2014;DeLay, Ha, Van Ryzin, Winter, & Dishion, 2016;Van de Bunt et al, 1999;Van Zalk et al, 2010;Van Zalk et al, 2014;Veenstra et al, 2013). We refer to the Result section for specific interpretations of each effect and the model fit section for how we assessed their model fit to the data.…”

Adolescents’ externalizing behaviors and antisocial text messaging across the broader peer network: Implications for socialization and selection effects

“…However, these designs do not allow researchers to examine the proportion of the adolescent's naturalistic peer group with which they discuss these topics. 1 Similarly, studies that examine selection of antisocial friends generally ask adolescents to report on the delinquent behavior of a few "best friends" (DeLay et al, 2015;Osgood et al, 2013). These restrictions on whom the adolescent is rating may further limit researchers' abilities to assess the delinquency of the broader peer network.…”

“…Studies in which peer communication is directly observed have greatly advanced knowledge about adolescents’ antisocial communication and how it relates to deviant behavior (Dishion & Andrews, 1995; Dishion et al, 1996; Gottfredson, 2010). These studies, however, have often been limited to observing dyads (DeLay et al, 2015; Dishion et al, 1996; Piehler & Dishion, 2007; Piehler & Dishion, 2014) or observing adolescents in artificially assigned groups (Dishion & Andrews, 1995; Gottfredson, 2010; Rorie et al, 2011). Such designs allow researchers to measure the amount of communication about antisocial topics (in a particular dyad or group).…”