The Influence of Deviant Friends on Adolescent Behavior: Testing the Role of Parental Control

Friendships are very influential during the adolescent period (Emmerich, 1978). As adolescents spend more time away from home, many parents wonder how to prevent them from forming friendships with deviant peers who may encourage the development of problem behavior. Many of the strategies they enact can be captured by the parental monitoring construct, which is comprised of the parental control, parental solicitation, and child disclosure components. This study focuses on the parental control component, which refers to the extent to which parents impose rules and restrictions on their adolescents’ behaviors (Kerr et al., 1999). In contrast to the other components of parental monitoring, the aim of parental control is to control behavior in a restrictive manner, and although it is not thought to be the most efficient type of monitoring in general, it might be a common parental response to adolescents who already affiliate with deviant peers. Our goal is to test whether parental control, as perceived by the adolescent, may explain the relation between adolescents’ association with deviant friends and an increase in problem behaviors over time. Our sample (105 participants) was recruited in a suburban area of the province of Quebec (Canada). Participants were assessed with an online questionnaire administered during regular class time in Grades 9 and 10. The conduct problems and rule-breaking behaviors subscales of the Children Behavior Checklist (Achenbach, 2001) were used to measure adolescent problem behavior, and items from these subscales were rephrased to ask participants about their perception of their friends’ problem behavior. We also used the parental control subscale of Kerr et al.’s (1999) parental monitoring questionnaire. A mediation analysis was conducted using the PROCESS Macro in SPSS v.22. The three variables involved in the mediation model were measured in Grade 10, and we also controlled for adolescents’ antisocial behavior in Grade 9. Adolescents who have deviant friends are more likely to increase their engagement in deviant behaviors from Grade 9 to Grade 10 (b = .28, SE = .08, p < .05). Contrary to expectations, having deviant friends predicts adolescents’ perception of lower parental control (b = -.71, SE = .36, p < .05). Furthermore, there was no significant relation between parental control and adolescent antisocial behavior; therefore, it was impossible for perceived parental control to mediate the relation between deviant friendships and increases in adolescent deviant behavior. These results may inform the creation of prevention programs that aim to reduce adolescent antisocial behavior through parenting interventions as they suggest that other components of parental monitoring are probably better targets for such programs.