Derek A Kreager, Kelly Rulison, and James Moody set up an experiment to look at the structural and behavioral characteristics in teenage peer groups to see how these two features affect delinquency. Their goal was to find the correlation between levels of delinquency to the cohesiveness, stability, popularity and centrality of adolescent peer groups. They based their research on four prior researched competing theories and hypotheses. One theory argued that groups with higher delinquency and substance use would be less cohesive than other peer groups. Another theory states that delinquent groups are very similar in their influential powers than other peer groups and therefore more cohesive. The third theory is based off of Hagan’s (1991) theory
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Kreager, Rulison, and Moody used data from the PROSPER (Promoting School-Community-University Partnerships to Enhance Resilience) study which evaluates students from 28 Pennsylvania and Iowa schools on many different topics including substance use and family intervention. The PROSPER study also evaluates students over a span of about 7 years allowing Kreager, Rulison, and Moody to observe the development in delinquency over time, however, the mainly focused their efforts on the “fifth wave of data collection, when the students were in ninth grade” (Kreager et al., 2011). The first thing Kreager, Rulison, and Moody had to do with the PROSPER schools survey each student to figure out what friend group they belonged to. Each student “nominated one or two best friends and up to five other close friends in the same grade who attended the same school” and then Kreager, Rulison, and Moody assigned each student to a group that they were the most connected to (Kreager et al., 2011). By doing this, our researchers were able to identify 900 different friend groups in the PROSPER schools ninth-grade class. They were also able to identify how the groups had changed over a one-year period by using the PROSPER data. After identifying the different groups, they then were able to analyze the groups cohesiveness characteristics, the groups stability, the …show more content…
Now relating this back to the four competing theories and hypotheses, we see that our findings align really well to three of theories and hypotheses above. The trends we see in the data are that delinquent groups tend to be less cohesive, less stable, and have a lower status which is what the first theory mentioned predicts. We also see that groups who drink have the complete opposite characteristics than delinquent groups, and this supports Hagan’s theory. Lastly, we see a great impact of a student’s background on delinquency and drinking which is what the last theory mentioned predicts. Overall, the theories and hypotheses that were already being observed about these peer groups hold true throughout this experiment. The last thing Kreager, Rulison, and Moody comment on about delinquency in adolescent peer groups is this: “Once demographic characteristics are controlled, groups with more delinquent member are of similar size, transitivity, structural cohesion, stability, and centrality as non-delinquent group” (Kreager et al., 2011). This again shows the importance of a student’s background in values and characteristics of a specific friend
Kreager, Rulison, and Moody used data from the PROSPER (Promoting School-Community-University Partnerships to Enhance Resilience) study which evaluates students from 28 Pennsylvania and Iowa schools on many different topics including substance use and family intervention. The PROSPER study also evaluates students over a span of about 7 years allowing Kreager, Rulison, and Moody to observe the development in delinquency over time, however, the mainly focused their efforts on the “fifth wave of data collection, when the students were in ninth grade” (Kreager et al., 2011). The first thing Kreager, Rulison, and Moody had to do with the PROSPER schools survey each student to figure out what friend group they belonged to. Each student “nominated one or two best friends and up to five other close friends in the same grade who attended the same school” and then Kreager, Rulison, and Moody assigned each student to a group that they were the most connected to (Kreager et al., 2011). By doing this, our researchers were able to identify 900 different friend groups in the PROSPER schools ninth-grade class. They were also able to identify how the groups had changed over a one-year period by using the PROSPER data. After identifying the different groups, they then were able to analyze the groups cohesiveness characteristics, the groups stability, the …show more content…
Now relating this back to the four competing theories and hypotheses, we see that our findings align really well to three of theories and hypotheses above. The trends we see in the data are that delinquent groups tend to be less cohesive, less stable, and have a lower status which is what the first theory mentioned predicts. We also see that groups who drink have the complete opposite characteristics than delinquent groups, and this supports Hagan’s theory. Lastly, we see a great impact of a student’s background on delinquency and drinking which is what the last theory mentioned predicts. Overall, the theories and hypotheses that were already being observed about these peer groups hold true throughout this experiment. The last thing Kreager, Rulison, and Moody comment on about delinquency in adolescent peer groups is this: “Once demographic characteristics are controlled, groups with more delinquent member are of similar size, transitivity, structural cohesion, stability, and centrality as non-delinquent group” (Kreager et al., 2011). This again shows the importance of a student’s background in values and characteristics of a specific friend