Premium
Pals, Problems, and Personality: The Moderating Role of Personality in the Longitudinal Association Between Adolescents’ and Best Friends’ Delinquency
Author(s) -
Yu Rongqin,
Branje Susan,
Keijsers Loes,
Koot Hans M.,
Meeus Wim
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/jopy.12027
Subject(s) - juvenile delinquency , psychology , personality , developmental psychology , association (psychology) , longitudinal study , poison control , clinical psychology , social psychology , medical emergency , medicine , psychotherapist , pathology
We examined the potential moderating role of B lock's personality types (i.e., overcontrollers, undercontrollers, and resilients) on the longitudinal associations between adolescents’ and their best friends’ delinquency. Across three annual waves, 497 D utch adolescents (283 boys, M Age = 13 years at Wave 1) and their best friends reported on their delinquent behaviors. Adolescents’ three personality types were obtained by latent class growth analysis on their annual reports on B ig F ive personality. A three‐group cross‐lagged panel analysis was performed on three waves of data. Delinquency of overcontrollers was predicted by their best friends’ delinquency, whereas delinquency of undercontrollers and resilients was not. Delinquency of undercontrollers and resilients predicted their best friends’ delinquency, but overcontrollers’ delinquency did not. These findings suggest that personality may play an important role in adolescents’ susceptibility to the influence of friends’ delinquency, as well as in youths’ ability to influence friends through their own delinquency.