Hoorcollege 8: Social influence dynamics of antisocial behaviour

Question 1

social dynamics and processes

Answer 1

Younger people are more susceptible to social influences; higher need to conform to group behaviour.
A story about similarity; the more time we spend with people, the more we start to look alike. ‘birds of a feather flock together’ = people who are more a like are more likely to affiliate with each other.
Selection processes:
- Gender
- Age
- Ethnicity
- Sports
- Behaviours? ; active selection = actively selection people / selection by default = because of a lack of alternatives (antisocial behaviour)
Repulsion = having an aversion for people who are dissimilar to you.
Socialization processes:
- Peer contagion or social influence = through repeated interaction people become more similar –> the dark side of friendship.
Imitation of behaviour; visible rewards = shoplifting / social rewards = behaving delinquently can boost their social standing in the group.
Kandel (1978): Balancing through adjusting behaviour and/or friendship  if their friends differ from them they:
1. Will adjust
2. Get rid of the friends
= homophily in behaviour and attitude: predictor of interpersonal attraction!
Also –> more contact leads to more similarity
Similarity attraction = select similar peers/friends and become more similar to peers
Social influence = e.g. deviancy training = imitating through reinforcement ‘deviant talk’.

Question 2

Assessment

Answer 2

Assessment: network data –> mapping and assessing relationship, information ‘flow’ and dependencies between individuals or actors.
- Dyadic analyses (actor-partner; romantic partners)
- Ego networks = individual reports about relationships of others and their relationships (your perception of your social network).
- Round robin design = each individual reports about every individual in the network (everyone knows or could know each other).
- Complete networks versus incomplete networks

Question 3

Peer relationships

Answer 3

Antisocial behaviour and adolescence ; increase in antisocial behaviour –> maturity gap (adolescence limited group). Social status processes, larger rewards antisocial behaviour.
Adolescence: increase in time spent with peers; more exposure to a larger more heterogeneous group. Social mimicry (social learning) and increased sensitivity to social stimuli.
General changes in youths; changes in personality; dark personality traits increases, peak in young adulthood, decreases in later adulthood.
Social selection vs. social influence: antisocial behaviour
- Many studies concerned with addressing this question
- Focus on (late) childhood and adolescence
- Mixed findings across different forms of antisocial behaviour
Major insights; differences between outcomes:
- Aggression: no selection / +- influence ; depends on form (instrumental aggression adopted from friends / reactive aggression / physical = no social influence effect).
- Delinquency: strong influence effects (friends) but also selection effects
- Weapon carrying: support for selection and influence
- Externalizing behaviour: mixed outcomes
3-6 months –> the most evidence for meaningful change
Moderators of selection and influence:
- Individual: personality, cognitions self-esteem (low self-esteem are more susceptible to negative peer influences)
- Contextual: parenting, social norms, social status

Question 4

Psychopathic personality

Answer 4

Psychopathic personality:
- Interpersonal grandiose – manipulative
- Callous-unemotional
- Impulsive-irresponsible
Links to antisocial behaviour; how about their social position?
Cleckley–> psychopathic traits linked to social rejection and isolation; leading a life of solitude.
Empirical work –> adolescents with high psychopathic traits not rejected by peers. Have close friendships and form close-knit social networks with peers; adolescents with psychopathic traits socially central.
Psychopaths –> won’t become friends with other psychopaths. So by whom are they than selected?;
* Violent and delinquent adolescents gain very high status with peer and form friendships with less popular peers AND influence these peers to increases in delinquent behaviour
=Magnets for youth with low self-esteem
All kinds of selection effects; similar on self-esteem/impulsive-irresponsible select each other.
Interaction effects:
* Grandiose-manipulative traits/Callous-Unemotional traits; low on self-esteem but have friends that are high on manipulative or CU traits  score higher on violent behaviour
* Influence: similarity in violence is increased for children with low self-esteem
 They are more like to be influenced by these friends
 Children with high psychopathic traits might be more influential to insecure children.

Question 5

Romantic partners

Answer 5

Traditionally being in a romantic relationship is seen as a major turning point; desistance (less offending). In line with Moffitt’s dual taxonomy; marriage and family life bring mature responsibilities that bridge ‘maturity gap’. Higher costs of offending.
–>More recently negative social influences of romantic partners; similar to peer influence effects.
Effects of spouses typically related to desistance, unless:
- Partner has a criminal record
- Relationships are short in duration
- You’ve committed an awful lot of offenses
- You’re a woman (women who are offenders tend to get in a relationship with offenders)
Similarity between partners, in particular in female offenders. Sometimes due to default selection.
What’s the attraction?  similar to peer influences
- Similarity attraction (e.g. risk taking)
- Social learning
- Status-concerns
- Need to belong
- Sometimes clear rewards
- Lack op social support supervising partner selection
Lack of alternatives when you have a criminal record; less dating market value and limited pool of dating partners.
Pressured into offending –> co-offending / exploited by male criminal partner / forced into criminal behaviour.
Importance of social needs!