Drugs, Delinquency and “Nerds”: Are Loners Deviant?

Abstract

Many studies have focused on the influence of peers on delinquency and drug use. But what about adolescents who are not part of the peer culture--the loners, or nerds? This study focuses on drug use, delinquency and lifestyle correlates of LONERS and SOCIALS. Data for a nine-year period (1976 through 1984) from the Monitoring the Future data set of high school seniors across the United States are analyzed. The lack of peer influence on the LONERS seems to contribute to less delinquency and drug use and more conventional lifestyle activities than is found among SOCIALS.

Adolescent peer group identification and characteristics: A review of the literature

“…Athletes were not represented in 11 studies. Among these, five studies referred to Elite youth as also being the athletes in the school (Cohen, 1979;Dolcini & Adler, 1994;Gotlieb, 1975;La Greca & Harrison, 2005;Michell, 1997 (Demuth, 2004;Tolone & Tieman, 1990); Rejected versus Non-rejected (Dubow & Cappas, 1988;Franzoi et al, 1994); Aggressive versus Non-aggressive (Farmer et al, 2003)). Finally, in one study of Mexican and Asian immigrants (Matute-Bianchi, 1986) no Athletes were described at the study high school.…”

“…A total of 17 studies failed to delineate academics among the groups. Of these studies, four subsumed Academics under the Elites category (Mosbach & Leventhal, 1988;Pascoe, 2003;Poveda & Crim, 1975;Sussman et al, 1999), one study subsumed Academics under the Others category (La Greca & Harrison, 2005), one only delineated two groups in the school and Academics and Elites were subsumed under an athletes category (Eckert, 1983), five focused on types of a priori group comparisons which would tend to group Academics together with other groups (e.g., Demuth, 2004;Miller et al, 2003Miller et al, , 2005Sussman et al, 1993;Tolone & Tieman, 1990), and six focused on single characteristics of groups and failed to identify Academics as a separate group (clothing styles (Eicher, Baizerman & Michelman, 1991), aggression (Farmer et al, 2003), stereotyping or popularity (Eder, 1985;Fishkin et al, 1993;Franzoi et al, 1994), masculinity and popularity (Pascoe, 2003)). …”

“…Deviants were described as a separate group in 37 studies. Of the seven studies that did not delineate deviants, five focused on types of a priori group comparisons which would tend to group Deviants together with other groups (Demuth, 2004;Eder, 1985;Fordham & Ogbu, 1986;Miller et al, 2003Miller et al, , 2005, and two studies grouped Deviants in with the Elites (Dolcini & Adler, 1994;Tolone & Tieman, 1990).…”

“…Of these, the Deviants were the group most likely to drink in 15 studies, Elites were very likely to drink in four of these studies along with Deviants, Athletes were very likely to drink in one of these studies along with Deviants, and Others were very likely to drink in one of these studies along with Deviants. Elites were the group most likely to drink alcohol in two studies (Dolcini & Adler, 1994;Tolone & Tieman, 1990). In addition, one study found that Athletes were more likely to drink than Non-athletes (Miller et al, 2003).…”

“…One study only investigated perceptions of group types, not dividing subjects into groups (Ashmore et al, 2002). Four studies used statistical methods to divide other-report or self-report measures of aggression, social network ratings of peers one desires to spend time with, or social involvement to create groups (Dubow & Cappas, 1988;Farmer et al, 2003;Franzoi et al, 1994;Tolone & Tieman, 1990).…”