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

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 conditional 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 adolescents (mean age = 15.33 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.