Goodnight et al 2006 - Prof: Alice Schermerhorn PDF

Preview

Summary

Prof: Alice Schermerhorn...

Description

Goodnight et al. 2006 The Interactive Influences of Friend Deviance and Reward Dominance on the Development of the Externalizing Behavior During Middle Adolescence 







Hypotheses o The relationship between friend deviance and externalizing behavior would be an interactive function of reward dominance on the CP (card preservation) task  Kids who played many cards  strongly influenced by friend deviance than those who played few cards  The moderating effect of reward dominance would be more evident for males than females o Interested in seeing if kids might select deviant peers, based on their own externalizing tendencies  Deviant peers at one age might influence the levels of externalized behavior in kids at later ages Card Preservation Task (CP Task): demonstrates a relationship between reward dominance and externalizing forms of punishments o Reward dominance: continued card playing in the face of increasing punishment o Reward dominant behavior may be related to impulsivity in both boys and girls (Hartung et al.)  May be more central to the development of externalizing behavior for boys o Helps understand the interaction between friend deviance and cards played (procedure of Jaccard and Tuttisi, 2003) o Involved estimating the effect of friend deviance on externalizing behavior for kids who were punishment-dominant  Punishment-dominant: playing a low number of cards  Non-reward dominant: playing a moderate number of cards  Reward dominant: playing high number of cards o Deviancy Training Theory (Dishion, Eddy, Haas, Li & Spracklen, 1997, Dishion et al., 1996) (studied a group of 14-year-old boys) o Deviant friend groups provide selective, positive reinforcement for deviant behavior o Friends’ positive responses resulted in an increased in the same kind of behavior, and non-responses led to a reduction of said behavior Exploring an interactive relationship between reward dominance and friend deviance (the subject of the current study) o Goal: to investigate whether friend deviance and reward dominance interact in a way to predict externalizing behavior beyond the effects of previously observed externalizing behavior (will friends backing encouraging each other to engage in







deviant behaviors predict more of externalizing behaviors than before the encouragement for deviant behavior? o Individual differences in susceptibility to punishment/reward  could affect the way in which people respond to social cues (Rothbart and Bates, 1998)  Identical social cues could be interpreted and acted upon differently depending on motivational sensitivity  Individual differences could influence long-term development Poor neighborhoods may be more accepting/rewarding of what is considered “antisocial behavior” (disruptive acts characterized by covert and overt hostility and intentional aggression toward others) o May present fewer rewards for antisocial behavior, and fewer punishments for antisocial behavior than in affluent neighborhoods Results of study o Girls played more cards than boys in the CP Task o Friend deviance measures were significantly positively correlated with externalizing behavior measures across the longitudinal study o Weak evidence for an association between their measure for reward dominance and externalizing behavior Conclusions o Reward dominant children could be more compliant when their parents mainly use positive reinforcement strategies, instead of punishments to guide their behavior o Relatively fearless toddlers showed more signs of conscience when they had warm, positive relations with mothers (Kochanska, 1997) o How about prosocial behavior instead of deviant behavior?  (assume that) they are socialized through positive reinforcement  reward dominant adolescents could be more responsive to the positive influence of prosocial friends than more inhibited adolescents o Results of this study suggest that the influence of deviant friends in the development of a child’s externalizing behavior, are enhanced by the child’s reward dominant tendencies

Possible Discussion Questions  Why might poorer neighborhoods be more excepting/rewarding of antisocial behavior than affluent/well off neighborhoods?  The “Deviancy Training Theory” presented by Dishion et al. (1996,1997) was created after studying a group of 14 year old boys, in which their responses were observed to either reinforce or discourage a particular behavior. How might the results of this study



differ if the primary participants were 14 year old girls instead of boys, who engage in more relational actions differ from the more observable actions of the boys? Why might girls have played more cards than boys in the CP task?...