Cross-Gender Social Normative Effects for Violence in Middle School: Do Girls Carry a Social Multiplier Effect for At-Risk Boys?

Abstract

A social multiplier effect is a social interaction in which the behavior of a person in a social network varies with the normative behavior of others in the network, also known as an endogenous interaction. Policies and intervention efforts can harness social multiplier effects because, in theory, interventions on a subset of individuals will have “spillover effects” on other individuals in the network. This study investigates potential social multiplier effects for violence in middle schools, and whether there is evidence for a social multiplier effect transmitted from girls to boys. Three years of longitudinal data (2003–2005) from Project Northland Chicago (PNC) were used to investigate this question, with a sample consisting of youth in Grades 6 through 8 in 61 Chicago Public Schools (N = 4233 at Grade 6, N = 3771 at Grade 7, and N = 3793 at Grade 8). The sample was 49.3% female, and primarily African American (41.9%) and Latino/a (28.7%), with smaller proportions of whites (12.9%), Asians (5.2%) and other ethnicities. Results from two sets of regression models estimating the effects of 20th (low), 50th (average), and 80th (high) percentile scores for girls and boys on levels of violence in each gender group revealed evidence for social multiplier effects. Specifically, boys and girls were both influenced by social multiplier effects within their own gender group, and boys were also affected by normative violence scores among girls, typically those of the best-behaved (20th percentile) girls. The finding that girls may have positive social influence on boys’ levels of violent behavior extends prior findings of beneficial social effects of girls on boys in the domains of education and risky driving. Further, this social normative effect presents a potential opportunity to improve school-based intervention efforts for reducing violence among youth by leveraging girls as carriers of a social multiplier effect for reduced violence in the middle school environmental context, particularly among boys, who are at greater risk.

The Girls Set the Tone

“…Thus, it appears that the girls' aggression-related normative beliefs define the scope for showing aggressive behavior for their classmates of either sex. This finding supports the notion of the social multiplier theory (Fletcher, 2007) that during adolescence girls influence the behavior of boys as well as girls, which was confirmed by a recent study with a similar age group (Yarnell et al, 2014). Our results suggest that normative beliefs of the girls play a central role as a process underlying this effect.…”

The Contagious Effect of Deviant Behavior in Adolescence

“…By contrast, classes with a higher normative acceptance of aggression had a stronger impact on the initially nonaggressive students than on class members who were more aggressive from the start. A similar finding was reported by the study of Yarnell, Pasch, Brown, Perry, and Komro (2014).…”

Student-Teacher Racial Match and Its Association With Black Student Achievement: An Exploration Using Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling

“…However, revising classroom structure and curriculum requires resources for materials and preparation time such that the unique needs and resources of individual schools should be considered in local implementation. In some schools, co-educational classrooms in fact may be more feasible or preferred, including due to school and classroom size or potentially to balance classrooms with girls’ generally calmer learning style, if this can reduce violence and disruption in particular school contexts, as suggested by theory and research (Lavy & Schlosser, 2011; see also Yarnell, Pasch, Brown, Perry, & Komro, 2014).…”