Deviant Friends and Early Adolescents' Emotional and Behavioral Adjustment

Abstract

This study investigated whether friendships with deviant peers, in addition to being related to adolescents' behavioral adjustment problems, would also be negatively related to adolescents' emotional adjustment. Three hundred five adolescents who had either no mutual friends, nondeviant friends, or deviant friends were compared, with respect to their levels of delinquent behavior, depression, and loneliness at age 13. As expected, adolescents with deviant friends were more delinquent than the other 2 groups. In addition, adolescents with deviant friends showed similarly problematic levels of depression as friendless youth, but they were less lonely than the latter. The results are discussed in terms of the possible mechanisms underlying the relation between the association with deviant friends and adolescents' behavioral and emotional adjustment.