Fostering Constructive Action by Peers and Bystanders in Organizations and Communities

Peers and bystanders play important roles in organizational and community conflict management. Bystanders often learn relevant information and have opportunities to act in ways that can affect three of the basic functions of a conflict management system (CMS.) They can help (or not help) to identify, assess, and manage behaviors that the organization or community deems to be “unacceptable.” Examples in which bystanders play important roles include sexual and racial harassment, safety violations, unethical research, national security violations and insider threats, cyber‐bullying and cyber‐sabotage, violence, fraud, theft, intimidation and retaliation, and gross negligence. Bystanders often are a missing link in conflict systems. For the purposes of this article, I define peers and bystanders as people who observe or learn about unacceptable behavior by others, but who are not the relevant supervisors, or who knowingly engage in planning or executing that behavior. I define CMS managers as all those people, including line managers, who have responsibility for managing conflicts. Conflict managers face many challenges in fostering constructive behavior from bystanders. The interests of bystanders may or may not coincide with the interests of conflict systems managers in an organization or community. Bystanders often have multiple, idiosyncratic, and conflicting interests, and experience painful dilemmas. In addition, peers and bystanders, and their contexts – often differ greatly from each other. Blanket rules about how all bystanders should behave, such as requirements for mandatory reporting, are often ineffective or lead to perverse results. Bystanders are regularly equated with “do‐nothings,” in the popular press. In real life, however, helpful bystander actions are common. Many bystanders report a wide variety of constructive initiatives, including private, informal interventions. In this article, I report on forty‐five years of observations on bystanders in many milieus. I present what bystanders have said are the reasons that they did not – or did – take action, and what can be learned to help organizations and communities to support bystanders to be more effective when faced with unacceptable behavior.     

Parenting Behaviors,Association with Deviant Peers,and Delinquency in African American Adolescents: A Mediated-Moderation Model

The aim of the present study was to examine a model positing that association with deviant peers mediates the relation between adolescent perceived parenting behaviors (maternal monitoring and involvement), the interaction of these parenting behaviors, and delinquency in a sample of 135 urban African American adolescents (13–19 years of age). Regression analyses revealed a monitoring by involvement interaction among African American females, suggesting that maternal monitoring may effectively reduce delinquency among African American female adolescents, and that this reduction may be enhanced by increased maternal involvement. Among African American males, only the relation between association with deviant peers and delinquency was supported, suggesting that maternal parenting behaviors may, in isolation, be insufficient in the prevention of delinquent behaviors in African American male adolescents. The results suggest that the pathways from parenting to association with deviant peers and delinquency may differ in males and females, and the salience of certain parenting behaviors may differ across gender. This article is based on research that was submitted by the first author in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the master’s degree in psychology at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Support for this research was provided by a Faculty Research Award to the second author. Doctoral student in the Clinical Psychology Program at the University at Albany, State University of New York. Her major research interests include risk and resiliency processes in minority youth and measurement equivalence of risk and resiliency constructs. Assistant professor in the Department of Psychology at the University at Albany, State University of New York. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of North Texas. Her major research interests are ecocultural models of risk and resiliency in minority youth and measurement equivalence of risk and resiliency constructs. Post-doctoral fellow with the Prevention Research Center at Arizona State University. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University at Albany, State University of New York. His major research interests are ecocultural models of risk and resiliency in children, preventive intervention development for diverse children, and quantitative methodology and applications in developmental and cross-cultural psychology.     

Developmental Benefits of Extracurricular Involvement: Do Peer Characteristics Mediate the Link Between Activities and Youth Outcomes?

In this article, we test: (a) the relation between school-based extracurricular participation and indicators of positive and negative development across a range of activity contexts, and (b) a mediation model linking activity participation, prosocial peers, and development. Extensive survey information was collected from a predominately White sample of middle class adolescents in 9th, 10th, and 12th grades. Extracurricular participation was related to more favorable academic, psychological, and behavioral adjustment; the pattern of findings differed by activity and outcome. In addition, we documented some support for the hypothesis that the link between extracurricular participation and positive adjustment is partly a function of associating with a prosocial peer group. Implications of these findings and suggestions for future research are presented. Assistant Professor of Human Development, Connecticut College. Received her PhD in 1999 from the University of Michigan. Major research interests include motivation, school engagement, extracurricular participation, and adolescent development. MacKeachie Collegiate Psychology Professor, University of Michigan. Received PhD in 1974 from the UCLA. Recent work focuses on ethnicity and the transitions from middle childhood to adolescence and into adulthood.     

Strain,Crime, and Contingencies

Hypotheses from General Strain theory are addressed using data from a random sample of adults in Raleigh, NC. Analyses examine three issues: (1) whether strain predicts self‐projected criminal behavior; controlling for past self‐reported crime; (2) whether negative emotions mediate the relationship between strain and projected crime; and (3) whether social support and criminal peers serve as contingencies or mediators for strain in predicting criminality. Results are generally consistent with previous studies focusing on youth. Three of four measures of strain are found to predict the crime measures. However, that relationship is not mediated by negative emotion and the measures of social support and criminal peers do not act as contingencies or mediators. The results suggest that strain may not operate through negative emotions and that theoretical refinement is needed to identify which potential contingencies are likely to be operating under various circumstances.     

UNPACKING THE BLACK BOX OF PEER SIMILARITY IN DEVIANCE: UNDERSTANDING THE MECHANISMS LINKING PERSONAL BEHAVIOR,PEER BEHAVIOR,AND PERCEPTIONS

The strong correlation between measures of personal and peer deviance occurs with near “law‐like” regularity. Yet, as with other manifestations of peer similarity (often referred to as homophily), the mechanisms generating this relationship are widely debated. Specific to the deviance literature, most studies have failed to examine, simultaneously, the degree to which similarity is the consequence of multiple causes. The current study addresses this gap by using longitudinal network data for 1,151 individuals from the Netherlands Institute for the Study of Crime and Law Enforcement (NSCR) School Project. Structural equation modeling is used to address these issues by adapting Jussim and Osgood's ( 1989 ) model of deviant attitudes in dyadic pairs to the current data. Across two separate behavioral domains (substance use and property offending), the results provide strong support for the prediction that individuals project their own deviant tendencies inaccurately onto their peers. Conversely, the results provide little or no support for the predictions that respondents accurately perceive their peers’ deviance or that their perceptions of peer deviance influence their own behavior. Implications for understanding the role of peer behavior in the etiology of adolescent deviance are discussed.     

REVISITING “WHAT THEY THINK”: ADOLESCENT DRINKING AND THE IMPORTANCE OF PEER BELIEFS

The association between delinquent peers and delinquent behavior is among the most consistent findings in the criminological literature, and several recent studies have raised the standards for determining the nature and extent of peer influence. Despite these advances, however, key questions about how deviant behavior is socially transmitted remain unresolved. In particular, much of the research examining peer influence has been limited to peer behavior, despite a rich literature supporting the salience of beliefs, such as expectations and moral approval, in shaping behaviors. In the current study, I model the peer influence and selection processes with longitudinal social network analysis to reexamine the contributions of peer beliefs and behaviors to adolescent drinking. I find evidence that beliefs related to peer drinking have both a direct and an indirect impact on behavior and play an important role in the friendship selection process. These results highlight the importance of understanding how peers influence deviant behavior and suggest that peer beliefs are an important part of this relationship.     

The First Delinquent Peers Are the Most Important: Examining Nonlinearity in the Peer Effect

Criminologists have long recognized the importance of peers in the etiology of delinquency. Yet, the bulk of empirical studies on this topic make the implicit assumption that the peer effect to be conditioned is linear. With few notable exceptions, prior criminological research has not thought deeply about possible nonlinearity in the peer effect. To address this issue, the present study examines whether the functional form of the relationship between peer and respondent smoking, getting drunk, and fighting is nonlinear, and whether this nonlinearity is moderated by lagged respondent delinquency. Logistic regression models on adolescents from The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health indicate that the marginal effect of peer delinquency on respondent delinquency decreases as the count of delinquent friends increases, consistent with a satiation effect. Moreover, the models indicate that the nonlinear effect of peer delinquency on respondent delinquency is moderated by prior respondent delinquency.     

DELINQUENT PEERS IN CONTEXT: A LONGITUDINAL NETWORK ANALYSIS OF SELECTION AND INFLUENCE EFFECTS*

In this article, longitudinal social network data are analyzed to get a better understanding of the interplay between delinquent peers and delinquent behavior. These data contain detailed information about the social networks of secondary school students from the same grade, their delinquent behavior, and many relevant correlates of network formation and delinquency. To distinguish selection and influence processes, a method (Simulation Investigation for Empirical Network Analyses, SIENA) is used in which network formation and changes in delinquency are simulated simultaneously within the context of other network processes and correlates of delinquency. The data and the method used make it possible to investigate an unusually wide array of effects on peer selection and delinquent behavior. The results indicate that similarity in delinquency has no significant effect on the selection of school friends when other network dynamics are taken into account. However, the average delinquency level of someone's friends in the school network does have a significant, although relatively small, effect on delinquent behavior of the respondents, beyond significant effects of changes in the level of self‐control and morality. Another peer‐related change, leaving or joining informal street‐oriented youth groups, also appears to have a substantial effect on changes in delinquency.     

Juvenile Delinquency in Japan

SUMMARY

Juvenile delinquency in Japan is examined with respect to Japanese culture. The cultural changes in Japan since World War II, and especially since 1970, have affected family, school, neighborhood, and peer relationships. Changes in juvenile delinquency are presented and discussed within the context of these historical and cultural changes in Japanese society.