Peer Delinquency - Subject Follow-up

This measure appears in the following time-points: Follow06, Follow12, Follow18, Follow24, Follow30, Follow36, Follow48, Follow60, Follow72, Follow84.

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Related Construct

Peer Delinquency and Gang Involvement

Description of Measure

The Peer Delinquent Behavior items are a subset of those used by the Rochester Youth Study (Thornberry et al., 1994) to assess the degree of antisocial activity among the adolescent's peers. There are two dimensions to this scale: Antisocial Behavior (e.g., "During the recall period how many of your friends have sold drugs?") and Antisocial Influence (e.g., "During the recall period how many of your friends have suggested that you should sell drugs?"). The scale contains 19 items to which participants respond on a 5-point Likert scale ranging from "None of them" to "All of them". Two additional scales assessing the antisocial activity among the adolescents romantic partner are also computed. Refer to the 'Quality of Romantic Relationships' codebook for descriptive information about these scales.

A one-factor CFA model was fit to the Pathways baseline data for each of these two subscales. In each case the fit of the model was acceptable. The following values were produced:

Peer Delinquency-Antisocial behavior (alpha: .92; NFI: .93; NNFI: .92; CFI: .94; RMSEA: .09)
Peer Delinquency-Antisocial influence (alpha: .89; NFI: .95; NNFI: .93; CFI: .96; RMSEA: .07)

There was also found to be adequate internal consistency at the follow-up time points. The alphas for these scales for 6 through 84 months are as follows:

Peer Delinquency-Antisocial behavior: Cronbach's alpha follow-up: 6-months: .89, 12- months: .89, 18- months: .89, 24-months: .91, 30-months: .90, 36-months: .88, 48-months: .88, 60-months: .89, 72-months: .88, 84-months: .87)
Peer Delinquency-Antisocial influence (Cronbach's alpha follow-up: 6-months: .93, 12- months: .94, 18-months: .94, 24 –months: .94, 30-months: .93, 36-months: .93, 48-months: .94, 60-months: .94, 72-months: .94, 84-months: .93)

There are two computed scores for this measure:

Peer Delinquency-Antisocial behavior [S#PRBEHV]; the mean rating of the prevalence of friends who engage in the 12 behaviors listed in this section. Data must be contained in nine of the 12 items in order to compute a valid mean.
Peer Delinquency-Antisocial influence [S#PRINFL]; the mean rating of the prevalence of friends who encourage the youth to engage in the seven items listed in this section. Data must be contained in five of the seven items in order to compute a valid mean.

The Resistance to Peer Influence measure contains additional items regarding the subject's peers. Refer to "Psychological Development" construct for more information about the peer influence measure.

Data Issues

Items in this measure capture antisocial behavior within the recall period. This differs from the subject baseline measure (where the items are limited to antisocial behavior within the past six months), the collateral follow-up (which captures antisocial behavior within the past year), and the release interview (which captures lifetime antisocial behavior).
Items s#pdel19 through s#pdel27 were only asked if the subject was in a steady relationship during the recall period. This status is established in the Romance Calendar; refer to this codebook section for a detailed definition of a steady partner. These items are not used in any summary scores in this measure but are used as part of the Quality of Romantic Relationships measure.
Items s#pdel_sdel1 to s#pdel_sdel10 were added to the interview in version 01.16 and were also skipped if the subject was not in a steady relationship. These variables are used in the Quality of Romantic Relationship meausure.
Some cases are missing data for this measure as a result of a bug in the programming code. Cases with this issue are noted with a missing value code of -700.
Some cases are missing data for this measure as a result of data cleaning changes done in order to correct an interviewer mistake. Cases with this issue are noted with a missing value code of -800.

References

Thornberry, T.P., Lizotte, A.J., Krohn, M.D., Farnworth, M. & Jang, S.J. (1994). Delinquent peers, beliefs, and delinquent behavior: A longitudinal test of interactional theory. Criminology, 32: 47-83.
Menard, S. and Elliott, D. S. (1996). Prediction of adult success using stepwise logistic regression analysis. A report prepared for the MacArthur Foundation by the MacArthur Chicago-Denver Neighborhood Project.
Elliott, D.S., (1990). National Youth Survey. Institute of Behavioral Science. University of Colorado.