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Effects of Parenting and Deviant Peers on Early to Mid-Adolescent Conduct Problems

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Abstract

We investigated the influence of effective parenting behaviors (father and mother reports) and deviant peer association (adolescent reports) on subsequent young adolescent conduct problems (teacher reports) during grades 7–9, using structural equation modeling. Data were from a sample of 226 rural adolescents (n = 112 boys; n = 107 girls; n = 7 gender unknown), their parents, and teachers. Both effective parenting and association with deviant peers influenced later conduct problems; however, the pattern of influence varied across time and between fathers and mothers, with complex patterns of interactions between effective parenting and peer deviance. From seventh to eighth grade, effective parenting by both mothers and fathers buffered the effect of higher levels of peer deviance on conduct problems across adolescent gender. From eighth to ninth grade (i.e., transition into high school), fathers’ effective parenting buffered the effects of deviant peer association on their daughters’ conduct problems, whereas both fathers’ and mothers’ influence was stronger for sons when deviant peer associations were lower. Analyses also evaluated bi-directional longitudinal effects among adolescents, parents, and peers. Although varying by parent and adolescent gender or adolescent age, results generally supported the protective effects of parenting on their children’s conduct problems during early to mid adolescence.

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Notes

  1. A supplemental model was tested comparing the control group with a combination of the two intervention groups on correlations among the variables in the ninth grade model. The model was stacked by condition, both mother and father latent variables were included in the model, and the constrained and unconstrained models were compared (factor loadings for the indicator variables were constrained across both models). A significant difference was found, indicating the relationship among the variables was not similar between the control and intervention conditions (Δχ2 (22) = 137.35, p < 0.001), supporting our decision to analyze the control group only.

  2. Correlations between parenting and conduct problems ranged between -0.01 and -0.36; deviant peer association and conduct problems ranged between 0.15 and 0.45; and parenting and deviant peer association ranged between 0.00 and -0.33. Correlations across non-adjacent time periods (e.g., T1 and T4) were lower than across either the same time period or adjacent time periods.

  3. A model that evaluated three-way interactions also was tested for the ninth grade conduct problem outcome. That model specified peer deviance and both mother and father direct effects, two-way interactions with mother-peer and father-peer effects, and three-way interactions with father-peer-gender and mother-peer-gender effects. Results supported the significant effect of the father-peer-gender three-way interaction. The interpretation of the three-way interaction was that the two-way father-peer interaction was negative for girls and positive for boys, the same result as was found in the separate parent-child gendered models. The mother-peer-gender interaction, however, did not achieve significance, likely due to controlling for father effects. Nonetheless, gender differences on the two-way interaction (parentXpeer) were not the only gender difference we were interested in exploring. We also were interested in gender differences in other model pathways, including bi-directional effects and stability coefficients.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute, Iowa State University, 2625 North Loop Drive, Suite 2400, Ames, IA, 50010, USA

    Linda Trudeau, Richard Spoth & Ekaterina Ralston

  2. National Research Institute for Child and Family Studies, Boys Town, NE, USA

    W. Alex Mason

  3. Family & Consumer Sciences, Bradley University, Peoria, IL, USA

    G. Kevin Randall

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  1. Linda Trudeau
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  2. W. Alex Mason
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  4. Richard Spoth
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Correspondence to Linda Trudeau.

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The research was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, grant DA 010815, a longitudinal study known as the Capable Families and Youth study. The authors wish to thank the individuals and communities that participated in the study and the many staff members and associates who collected the data and assisted with data management and analyses.

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Trudeau, L., Mason, W.A., Randall, G.K. et al. Effects of Parenting and Deviant Peers on Early to Mid-Adolescent Conduct Problems. J Abnorm Child Psychol 40, 1249–1264 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-012-9648-1

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