title: Forbidden friends as forbidden fruit: parental supervision of friendships, contact with deviant peers, and adolescent delinquency.
abstract: Spending leisure time with deviant peers may have strong influences on adolescents' delinquency. The current 3-wave multi-informant study examined how parental control and parental prohibition of friendships relate to these undesirable peer influences. To this end, annual questionnaires were administered to 497 Dutch youths (283 boys, mean age = 13 years at baseline), their best friends, and both parents. Cross-lagged panel analyses revealed strong longitudinal links from contacts with deviant peers to adolescent delinquency, but not vice versa. Parent-reported prohibition of friendships positively predicted contacts with deviant peers and indirectly predicted higher adolescent delinquency. Similar indirect effects were not found for parental control. The results suggest that forbidden friends may become "forbidden fruit," leading to unintended increases in adolescents' own delinquency.
authors.affiliation: Utrecht University, Faculty of Social Sciences, Research Centre Adolescent Development, PO Box 80140, 3508 TC Utrecht, The Netherlands. l.keijsers@uu.nl
authors.forename: Loes
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Keijsers
authors.forename: Susan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Branje
authors.forename: Skyler T
authors.initials: ST
authors.lastname: Hawk
authors.forename: Seth J
authors.initials: SJ
authors.lastname: Schwartz
authors.forename: Tom
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Frijns
authors.forename: Hans M
authors.initials: HM
authors.lastname: Koot
authors.forename: Pol
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: van Lier
authors.forename: Wim
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Meeus
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000517:prevention & control* / Q000523:psychology*; D002755:Choice Behavior; D005260:Female; D033062:Friends / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D007604:Juvenile Delinquency / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000523:psychology*; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D009426:Netherlands; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology*; D010379:Peer Group; D012925:Social Conformity; D012928:Social Desirability; D012932:Social Facilitation; D012933:Social Identification