Does the Residential Landscape Contextualize Friendships? Examining the Causes and Consequences of Affiliating with Older Friends

Citation

Yohros, Alexis & Zimmerman, Gregory M. (2020). Does the Residential Landscape Contextualize Friendships? Examining the Causes and Consequences of Affiliating with Older Friends. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency.

Abstract

Examine the relationships among structural disadvantage, friendship network age composition, and violent offending by investigating the contextual and individual etiology of affiliating with older friends and exploring the mechanisms that link friendship network age composition to violent offending. Method:Hierarchical linear models analyze 8,481 respondents distributed across 1,485 census tracts from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health. Social network data are used to construct a measure of the proportion of a respondent’s friendship network that is at least one grade older than the respondent. Results:Consistent with hypotheses, structural disadvantage increases affiliations with older friends, older friendship networks report higher levels of violence, and affiliating with older friends increases violence among respondents. Contrary to expectations, the influence of affiliating with older friends on respondent violence decreases, rather than increases, as levels of violence in the friendship network increase. Conclusions:The results shed light on the inextricable linkages among social context, friendship network composition, and sociobehavioral outcomes among youth. The findings inform peer mentoring program evaluations observing iatrogenic effects via peer deviancy.

URL

https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427819900644

Keyword(s)

peer delinquency

Reference Type

Journal Article

Journal Title

Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency

Author(s)

Yohros, Alexis
Zimmerman, Gregory M.

Year Published

2020

DOI

10.1177/0022427819900644

Reference ID

5905