Resident interactions when affirming and correcting peers in a therapeutic community for women

Abstract

Purpose While recent years have seen a number of studies of social networks in therapeutic communities (TCs) and other residential settings, these have primarily focused on male residents. This paper aims to conduct a longitudinal social network analysis of interpersonal interactions in a TC for women. Design/methodology/approach The data consists of a longitudinal directed social network of instances of feedback between 56 residents of a 16 bed TC for women over a period of 611 days. Mean age of the participants was 33.1 years, mean length of stay was 133.9 days and 91% of the participants were female. Feedback consisted of written affirmations for prosocial behavior and written corrections for contravening TC norms. Data was analyzed using a latent factor longitudinal social network model. Findings Residents react to peer intervention in complex ways. Residents reciprocated affirmations (B = 0.14, 95% confidence interval = 0.10, 0.18) and corrections (B = 0.20, 95% CI = 0.13, 0.25). Controlling for reciprocity, participants who received affirmations were more likely to affirm and correct peers (B = 0.10, 95% CI = 0.06, 0.15; B = 0.17, 95% CI = 0.10, 0.23), suggesting that the encouragement offered by affirmations leads to increased activity. Homophily by admission time occurred in both affirmations and corrections (B = 0.23, 95% CI = 0.10, 0.37; B = 0.51, 95% CI = 0.29, 0.74). Originality/value While affirmations and corrections serve as vehicles for behavioral reinforcement and social learning, they also allow residents to interact in ways that strengthen social bonds.

Network Influence with Latent Homophily and Measurement Error

“…This analysis suggests that more research into those aspects of social networks that predict outcomes in TCs is warranted. The social learning emphasis of TC clinical theory [84] would imply that social networks play their classic role as conduits of information, which would explain the direct effect of network connections on graduation. But this does not explain why individuals who connect with weaker peers have a better outcome.…”

“…A critical characteristic of TCs is that peer affirmations are commonly used for mutual monitoring. We use electronic records of over 61,000 such peer affirmations to form a residents' social network [11,84,82,81]).…”

“…Moreover, the officials implemented a system of mutual monitoring among the residents. This monitoring took the form of positive affirmations to appreciate good behavior among the peers ( [11,84,82,81]). Our data includes a little over 61,000 instances of affirmations over a three year period.…”