Perceived Parental Protectiveness Promotes Positive Friend Inﬂuence

Infant and Child DevelopmentInf. Child. Dev. (2014)Published online in Wiley Online Library(wileyonlinelibrary.com). DOI: 10.1002/icd.1885

Perceived Parental ProtectivenessPromotes Positive Friend Influence

*CorrespondenCollege AvenuRita ŽukauskieLT-08303, Lith

Copyright © 201

Brett Laursena,*, Rita Žukauskienėb,*, Saulė Raižienėb,Cody Hiatta and Daniel J. Dicksona

aFlorida Atlantic University, Fort Lauderdale, FL, USAbMykolas Romeris University, Vilnius, Lithuania

Friend influence over prosocial behaviour and delinquent behav-iour was examined as a function of relative parental protectivenessin a community sample of Lithuanian high school students(M=16.5years old). Participants completed self-reports describingcommitment to personal values, delinquent behaviours, prosocialbehaviours, and perceived parental protectiveness. Mutual friends(158 male dyads, 241 female dyads) were identified from peernominations. Distinguishable dyad Actor–Partner Interdepen-dence Model analyses illustrate how parenting promotes positivepeer influence. The results indicate that friend influence is greatestin the context of protective parenting: Adolescents who perceivedmore parental protectiveness were positively influenced by thestrength of their friend’s personal values, whereas adolescentswho perceived less parental protectiveness were not. Copyright© 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Key words: parent; peer; influence; protectiveness

It is far simpler to proclaim the significance of parents to adolescent developmentthan it is to demonstrate it. To be sure, there is evidence that parents have a directhand in shaping adolescent outcomes, but effects, when found, tend to be modest(Laursen & Collins, 2009). Evidence of peer influence, by contrast, is robust, espe-cially during early adolescence (Hafen, Laursen, & DeLay, 2012). Vigorous debatescentre on the manner and degree to which parents contribute to adolescent devel-opment (Collins, Maccoby, Steinberg, Hetherington, & Bornstein, 2000). Nuancedmodels have emerged; some suggesting that parents shape outcomes by fosteringopportunities for peer influence. The present study was designed to illustrateprocedures for testing these opportunity models. Actor–Partner InterdependenceModel (APIM) analyses, conducted on friends drawn from a community sample

ce to: Brett Laursen, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, 3200e, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33314, USA. E-mail: [email protected]ė, Institute of Psychology, Mykolas Romeris University, Ateities str. 20, Vilniusuania. E-mail: [email protected]

4 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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of Lithuanian high school students, examined the degree to which one friend’spersonal values influenced the other friend’s prosocial behaviour and antisocialbehaviour. Friends were distinguished on the basis of parental protectiveness, todetermine whether parent restrictiveness and supervision create a climate that isconducive to peer influence.

The child’s social world changes dramatically across the transition into ad-olescence. Less time is spent in the company of parents and more time is spentin the company of peers (Larson, Richards, Moneta, Holmbeck, & Duckett,1996). As parent supervision wanes, concerns arise about the influence ofpeers, especially friends, with whom adolescents spend the bulk of their freetime. Considerable evidence suggests that affiliation with deviant peers isassociated with increases in delinquency, drinking, and substance use(e.g. Dishion & Piehler, 2009; Vitaro, Brendgen, Ladouceur, & Tremblay,2001). Less is known about positive peer influence, but recent studies suggestthat friends can promote socially desirable features, such as prosocialbehaviour (e.g. Sebanc, 2003) and school achievement (e.g.Frank et al., 2008).These studies typically share an important limitation in that they indicateonly the presence of peer influence, but fail to identify the source, leavingunclear who is influencing whom.

Conventional wisdom assumes that increases in peer influence across theadolescent years must necessarily result in declining parent influence. Scholarstake a somewhat different view, challenging the assertion that parent and peerrelationships always work at cross-purposes (e.g. Laursen & Mooney, 2008).Contemporary models of influence acknowledge that as more time is spent inthe company of peers, parents have less direct influence over child outcomes,but the source of parent influence is thought to change, rather than disappear.Instead of directly influencing child outcomes, parent–child relationships becomeimportant moderators of external influence, providing a context that facilitatesresistance to peer influence or one that promotes dependence and susceptibilityto peer pressure (Fulgini & Eccles, 1993). These contextual models assume thatparents amplify or inhibit peer influence by shaping the child’s interest in andreceptivity to outside forces.

In the present study, we examine whether peer influence varies as a func-tion of relative parent protectiveness. Protectiveness differs from other impor-tant parenting constructs, such as warmth, psychological control, andmonitoring, which describe the affective climate of the relationship, attemptsto control the child’s emotional state, and knowledge about the child’s activi-ties and whereabouts (Laursen & Collins, 2009). Protectiveness describes par-ent restrictions and supervision designed to shield children from adverseoutcomes (Kendler, 1996). As such, it represents a form of parental engage-ment that is distinct, but overlapping with other parenting practices. It isimportant to note that our conceptual model does not posit parental protec-tiveness as directly impacting adolescent outcomes. Rather, perceptions ofprotectiveness are assumed to provide a context that facilitates peer influence.There are several reasons why protectiveness may be a marker of susceptibilityto peer influence. Protectiveness may signal close relations with engagedparents, which promote a worldview that is trusting of others and open topersuasion (Kasser, Ryan, Zax, & Sameroff, 1995). Naiveté may be an unin-tended consequence of parental protectiveness (Eltringham & Aldridge,2002). Adolescents accustomed to safe or benign environments in which poten-tial sources of harm have been (or will be) mitigated may be more trusting ofpeers and more open to their influence. Protectiveness may alienate youth,

Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Inf. Child. Dev. (2014)DOI: 10.1002/icd

Parental Protectiveness

inadvertently elevating the significance of friends and romantic partners andincreasing the attraction of peer conformity and the validation it brings(Steinberg & Silverberg, 1986). Parental protectiveness may inhibit autonomydevelopment. Limits to behavioural independence may signal an inability toadvocate for one’s own view and a tendency to succumb to the wishes ofothers. Protectiveness may signal a lack of maturity in adolescent children.Parents may be vigilant of adolescent children who lack a firm identity, outof fear for their heightened susceptibility. Adolescents who display greaterautonomy appear more adult-like in the eyes of their peers and are more aptto be emulated by their less mature counterparts (Moffitt, 1993).

Adolescent behaviours are a reflection of personal values and the degree ofconviction attached to those values. Prosocial values are associated with higherlevels of prosocial behaviour and lower levels of antisocial behaviour (Hart &Fegley, 1995; Padilla-Walker & Carlo, 2007). This effect is strongest for youthwho hold the greatest commitment to their values (Simons, Whitbeck, Conger,& Conger, 1991). New evidence suggests that friend values exert a uniqueinfluence on behaviour, over and above an adolescent’s own values. One studyfound that friend moral reasoning was a unique predictor of pre-adolescentaggression (Gasser & Malti, 2012), and another found links to adolescentprosocial behaviour (Barry & Wentzel, 2006). Presumably, commitment topersonal values enhances the importance of these values, because greatercommitment implies heightened significance. It is reasonable to assume thatparental protectiveness moderates the degree to which one adolescent’s valuesshape another adolescent’s behaviour, and there is evidence that parenting bothamplifies positive effects (Mounts & Steinberg, 1995) and inhibits negative effects(Gauze, Bukowski, Aquan-Assee, & Sippola, 1996).

Methodological problems loom large in the measurement of friend influence.Statistical obstacles have plagued efforts to identify the magnitude and directionof peer influence (Laursen, 2005). Adolescent friends are often closely bound toone another, with partners reporting interdependent thoughts, feelings, andbehaviours. It follows that data collected from two friends cannot be consideredindependent. Most conventional statistical procedures assume independent datafrom participants. When parametric statistics are applied to nonindependent data,the results can be biased, sometimes dramatically so (Kenny, 1996).

Recent advances in dyadic data analyses overcome these obstacles. The APIM(Kenny, Kashy, & Cook, 2006) partitions variance shared across partners on thesame variable from variance that uniquely describes associations within dyadsand between partners. In this manner, unique associations between variables canbe measured within individuals (i.e. intra-individual influence) and acrosspartners (inter-individual influence). In the present study, we examine the degreeto which commitment to personal values is linked to prosocial behaviour anddelinquent behaviour. The distinguishable dyad APIM treats each member of thedyad as belonging to a distinct class of participants, creating separate measuresof association between variables, for each type of partner. With this tool, investiga-tors can address the question: Within a friendship dyad, who influences whom?

In the present study, we divided friends according to perceptions ofparental protectiveness, to examine whether adolescents who perceive them-selves to be more supervised than their best friend differed from adolescentswho perceive themselves to be less supervised in associations betweencommitment to personal values and prosocial or delinquent behaviour.Covariates can be added to APIM analyses, to control for attributes knownto contribute to intra-individual and inter-individual influence. The goal is


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to eliminate confounds that may account for associations between commit-ment to personal values and adolescents outcomes and to separate percep-tions of parental protectiveness from other traits that may confer influenceor susceptibility to influence. The list of potential confounds is lengthy, sowe focused on variables that describe parenting practices (e.g.warmth, psy-chological control, and monitoring) and variables that may be linked to inter-personal displays of dominance, persuasion, or malleability (e.g. personalitytraits).

Results from APIM analyses produce measures of association that reflecttwo different sources of influence. The first emphasizes the role of the agentof influence. One friend may emerge as influential, able to entice or coerce theother to do something he or she might not otherwise do. Influential friendstypically have characteristics that confer power or status. The second empha-sizes the role of the recipient of influence. One partner may emerge as suscep-tible to influence, open to being enticed or coerced into doing something he orshe might not otherwise do. Susceptible friends typically have characteristicsthat denote compliance or openness. These two possibilities can be teasedapart longitudinally (Marion, Laursen, Kiuru, Nurmi, & Salmela-Aro, 2014),but with cross-sectional data, distinctions must be made on conceptualgrounds. The present study focuses on the role of parents as facilitators offriend influence. Available evidence suggests that parenting moderates adoles-cent outcomes arising from peer experiences (e.g. Allen, Chango, Szwedo,Schad, & Marston, 2012). There is little indication that parenting shapes an ad-olescent’s effectiveness as an agent of influence (Brown & Bakken, 2011).Therefore, we assume that parental protectiveness affects the degree to whichan adolescent is susceptible to friend influence but not the degree to which anadolescent is influential.

The present study involves a community sample of high school friends.Within each dyad, one friend was more protected by parents, and the otherwas less protected by parents. APIM analyses address four goals. The firstgoal is to describe intra-individual associations between commitment to per-sonal values and outcomes. Is more commitment to personal values linkedto greater prosocial behaviour and less delinquent behaviour? Replicatingthe results of previous studies (e.g. Padilla-Walker & Carlo, 2007), weexpected personal values to be associated with favourable outcomes. Thesecond goal is to describe inter-individual associations between commitmentto personal values and outcomes. Is one friend’s commitment to personalvalues linked to the prosocial behaviour and delinquent behaviour of theother friend? Friend moral development has been tied to adolescentoutcomes (e.g. Gasser & Malti, 2012), so we expected similar findings forpersonal values. The third goal is to describe intra-individual associationsas a function of relative parental protectiveness. Does parental protectionalter the tendency of personal values to promote prosocial behaviour anddiscourage delinquent behaviour? It was not clear that parental protective-ness would play a role in inter-individual associations between values andbehaviours, although it might conceivably dampen associations should par-ent demands conflict with adolescent values. The fourth goal is to describeinter-individual associations as a function of relative parental protectiveness.Does parental protection promote susceptibility to positive influence fromfriends? Parental protectiveness was expected to enhance susceptibility tofriend influence, because adolescents who are more supervised have lessexperience with autonomous decision making (Steinberg & Silk, 2002).



METHOD

Participants

The final sample of 798 participants (316 boys and 482 girls) was drawn from theongoing POSIDEV Project, a study of all students attending five high schools(9th–12th grades) in a small city in Northeastern Lithuania. Participants rangedin age from 14 to 19 years (M=16.5, SD=1.24). According to participant reports,65.9% lived with two parents, 22.8% received free school lunch, and 21.7% hadat least one parent who was unemployed.

Procedure

Data collection took place in the spring of 2013. All five high schools in the admin-istrative region participated. Students were informed about the study duringschool hours and told that participation was voluntary. Parents were informedabout the study through a written letter and asked to contact the school or theinvestigators if they did not want their child to participate. The participation ratewas 98.9%. Trained research assistants administered questionnaires during regularschool hours. Students who were absent on the day of data collection werecontacted by research assistants the following week to complete surveys.

A total of 1729 students successfully completed questionnaires. Of this total,19.5% (n=338) were eliminated because their friendship nominations were notreciprocated. An additional 24.8% (n=429) were eliminated because their friendswere members of higher ranked mutual friend dyads. There were no differenceson study variables between those included in the analyses and those excluded.

Measures

Delinquent behaviourAdolescents completed 15 items assessing antisocial behaviour, from the Youth

Self-Report (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001). Sample item: ‘I cut classes or skip school.’Itemswere rated on a scale ranging from 0 (not true) to 2 (very true or often true). Itemswere averaged to create a scale score. Internal reliability was good (alpha= .82).

Parental protectivenessAdolescents completed nine items assessing parental restrictions and supervision,

from theMemories of Upbringing Scale (EMBU: Gerlsma, Arrindell, van der Veen, &Emmelkamp, 1991). Sample items: ‘My parents forbade me from doing things otherchildren were allowed to do because they were afraid something might happen tome.’ ‘My parents put limits on what I was and was not allowed to do.’ Items wererated on a scale ranging from 1 (no, never) to 4 (almost always). Items were averagedto create a scale score. Internal reliability was adequate (alpha= .74). The EMBU iswidely utilized in European studies of parenting. The instrument has well-documented convergent and divergent validity (Arrindell, Gerlsma, Vandereycken,Hageman, & Daeseleire, 1998), test–retest reliability (Muris, van Brakel, Arntz, &Schouten, 2011), and cross-cultural equivalence (Deković et al., 2006).

Peer nomination inventoryAdolescents identified up to eight important peers, defined as ‘someone you talk

with, hang outwith, and do thingswith’ (Laursen, Hafen, Kerr, & Stattin, 2012). Each


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was labelled friend, romantic partner, or sibling. Important peers could be older oryounger, boys or girls, from the same school or a different school.Mutual friendsweredyads with reciprocated important peer nominations labelled friendships. Mutualfriendships were overwhelmingly same sex, so we restricted our study to these rela-tionships. Each participant was limited to one friendship. Some were involved inmore than one friendship; nomination rankings were summed across dyads, andthe highest rankedmutual friends were selected (ties were resolved by giving prefer-ence to partners who would not otherwise be included).

Commitment to personal valuesAdolescents completed five items assessing the importance of adhering to per-

sonal standards, from the character subscale of the Positive Youth DevelopmentInventory (Lerner et al., 2005). Sample item: ‘I stand up for what I believe, evenwhen it’s unpopular.’ Items were rated on a scale ranging from 1 (not important)to 5 (extremely important). Items were averaged to create a scale score. Internalreliability was adequate (alpha= .78).

Prosocial behaviourAdolescents completed five items assessing empathy, helping, and cooperation,

from the Youth Self-Report (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2001). Sample item: ‘I like tohelp other people when I can.’ Items were rated on a scale ranging from 0 (not true)to 2 (very true or often true). Items were averaged to create a scale score. Internalreliability was adequate (alpha= .75).

Control variablesAdolescents completed six items describing perceptions of parental warmth

(Arrindell et al., 2001). Items were rated on a scale ranging from 1 (no, never) to 4(almost always). Internal reliability was high (alpha= .85). Adolescents completedeight items describing perceptions of parental control (Barber, 1996). Items wererated on a scale ranging from 1 (not like him/her) to 3 (a lot like him/her). Internalreliability was acceptable (alpha= .79). Adolescents completed eight items describ-ing parental monitoring (Small & Kerns, 1993). Items were rated on a scale rangingfrom 1 (never) to 5 (always). Internal reliability was high (alpha= .91). Adolescentsalso completed the NEO Five Factor Personality Inventory (Costa & McCrae,2010), which consisted of five 12-item subscales that measured Neuroticism, Extra-version, Openness, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness. Items were averaged tocreate a scale score. Internal reliability was acceptable (alpha= .65–.85). Nominationrank describes the order in which the mutual friend was listed on the peer nomina-tion inventory (range=1 to 8).

Plan of Analysis

The APIM analyses for distinguishable dyads were conducted within a structuralequation modelling framework using Mplus 6.11 (Muthén & Muthén, 1998–2010).We used a four-step procedure to examine the effects of personal values on self-and partner reports of delinquent behaviour and prosocial behaviour, within eachfriend and between friends who differed on parental protectiveness.

In the first step, we distinguished friends on the basis of perceived parentalprotectiveness. Friends were assigned to roles on the basis of self-reports, withone friend in each dyad classified as more protected (M=2.66, SD=0.44) and



the other friend classified as less protected (M=2.02, SD=0.41) by parents.Dyads in which partners differed by less than .50 standard deviation in paren-tal protectiveness scores were omitted from analyses (n= 82 dyads). An addi-tional 16 dyads were eliminated because one or both friends did not havedata on parental protectiveness. Thus, the final sample included 399 mutual frienddyads (n=158 boys and 241 girls). We tested for distinguishability on the predictorvariable (i.e.personal values) to determine whether the data were suitable for distin-guishable dyad analyses. Distinguishability is an empirical construct. Same-sex friendscan and do fall into meaningfully different categories (e.g. age, peer acceptance), and itis both appropriate to distinguish between them on the basis of these constructs andnecessary to do so if scholars are to determine whether one category of friends hasinfluence over another (Laursen, Popp, Burk, Kerr, & Stattin, 2008). The χ2 test ofdistinguishability constrained the variances, interpersonal correlations, and intraper-sonal correlations to be equal for more protected friends and less protected friends.A significant χ2 value with poor fit indicates that friends within dyads should be dis-tinguished on the basis of parental protectiveness. A nonsignificant χ2 value indicatesthat partners cannot be distinguished on the basis of parental protectiveness and thatAPIM analyses for indistinguishable dyads should be conducted (Kenny et al., 2006).

In the second step, we conducted a modified APIM analysis with two out-come variables. Figure 1 depicts the measurement model. Actor paths repre-sent associations between variables within an individual (i.e. intra-individualinfluence). Actor paths describe the degree to which the more protectedfriend’s commitment to personal values predicts his or her own prosocial be-haviour (a1) and his or her own delinquent behaviour (a2). Actor paths alsodescribe the degree to which the less protected friend’s commitment to per-sonal values predicts his or her own delinquent behaviour (a3) and his orher prosocial behaviour (a4). Partner paths represent the influence that onefriend has over the other (i.e. inter-individual influence). Partner paths describethe degree to which the more protected friend’s commitment to personalvalues predicts the less protected friend’s delinquent behaviour (p1) andprosocial behaviour (p2). Partner paths also describe the degree to which theless protected friend’s commitment to personal values predicts the moreprotected friend’s prosocial behaviour (p3) and the delinquent behaviour (p4).Correlations between friends on the predictor variable (i.e. personal values)and between and within friends on outcome variables (i.e. delinquent behav-iour and prosocial behaviour) are included to model statistical nonindepen-dence. The within-dyad correlation on the predictor variable (c) representsfriend similarity, and the residual correlations between outcome variables(rc1 through rc6) represent similarity that remains after accounting for actor ef-fects and partner effects. It is important to note that estimates of residualsimilarity are not simply error but a means to control for additional sourcesof nonindependence from unobserved variables. Fit indices are not reportedbecause the model is fully saturated.

To illustrate the results, we plotted the slopes for each path. For example, todepict the partner path for the less protected friend’s commitment to personalvalues predicting the more protected friend’s delinquent behaviour (p1), weidentified the value of the dependent variable (i.e.more protected friend’sdelinquent behaviour) at the mean of the predictor variable (i.e. less protectedfriend’s commitment to personal values), then plotted values at one standarddeviation below and above the mean using the beta weight for the associationbetween the predictor and outcome variables. Supplemental analyses includedthe addition of correlational paths between parental protectiveness and the


Less Protected Friend Prosocial Behavior

Less Protected Friend Delinquent Behavior

More Protected FriendDelinquent Behavior

More Protected Friend Prosocial Behavior

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Figure 1. Conceptual model for distinguishable dyad Actor–Partner InterdependenceModel.

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predictor variable, to ensure that actor and partner effects were not beingdriven by extreme cases on the distinguishing variable.

In the third step, follow-up moderator analyses tested for sex differencesin patterns of association. Separate multiple group APIM analyses examinewhether boys and girls differed on the magnitude and direction of actorpaths and partner paths. Group differences in the magnitude of a path weretested by constraining the path to be equal in male and female dyads. Asignificant χ2 value indicates poor fit, suggesting sex differences in the mag-nitude of a path. A nonsignificant χ2 value indicates that the magnitudeand direction of the path do not significantly differ for boys and girls.

In the fourth step, we added control variables to the model, to rule out the pos-sibility that the results were driven by variables that could account for associationsbetween commitment to personal values and delinquent behaviour or associationsbetween commitment to personal values and prosocial behaviour. The list of con-trol variables included characteristics of the family (i.e. parental warmth, parentalcontrol, parental solicitation of information) and the individual (i.e. age and per-sonality traits) that could plausibly alter results obtained from the conceptualmodel. We included the nomination rank of the friend to rule out the possibilitythat patterns of influence were a function of liking and parental protectiveness torule out the possibility that the results were driven by a few extreme cases. Theseanalyses involved the addition of correlational paths between the control variableand the predictor variable and directional paths between the control variable andthe outcome variable.

An average of 1.4% (range= 0.1% to 2.3%) of the data were missing on com-mitment to personal values, prosocial behaviour, and delinquent behaviour.Little’s MCAR test indicated that data were missing completely at random,χ2(5, N=798) = 2.49, p> .05. Full-Information Maximum Likelihood estimationprocedures were used to handle missing values.



RESULTS

Preliminary Analyses

A χ2 test of distinguishability indicated that partners should be distinguishedon the basis of relative parental protectiveness, both in the final sampleχ2(18, N=399) = 1465.72, p< .001, and in the sample that included partnerswho differed by less than .50 SD in parental protectiveness χ2(18, N=481)= 1742.93, p< .001. Intraclass correlations (interpreted as r2) indicated that thedata were not independent. There were statistically significant (p< .05) withindyad correlations for delinquent behaviour (r= .17), prosocial behaviour(r= .15), and personal values (r= .15).

Separate 2 (sex) by 2 (parental protectiveness: more protected partner andless protected partner) ANOVAs were conducted, with commitment to per-sonal values, delinquent behaviour, and prosocial behaviour as dependentvariables. For each, there was a main effect of sex, F(1, 776–793) = 20.00–31.74, p< .001. Compared with boys, girls reported higher levels of commit-ment to personal values (d= 0.35, CI= 0.20–0.49) and prosocial behaviour(d= 0.30, CI= 0.15–0.44), and lower levels of delinquent behaviour (d= 0.40,CI= 0.26–0.54). There were no statistically significant main effects or interac-tions involving parental protectiveness.

APIM Analyses for Dyads Distinguished on the Basis of Parental Protectiveness

Inter-individual influenceResults of the APIM analysis for friends distinguished on the basis of parental

protectiveness (n=399 dyads) are depicted in Figure 2. Actor paths indicated thatan adolescent’s commitment to personal values predicted his or her own prosocialbehaviour. Higher levels of personal values were associated with greater prosocialbehaviour among friends who were more protected by parents (β= .26) and amongfriends who were less protected by parents (β= .31). Actor paths also indicatedthat an adolescent’s commitment to personal values predicted his or her owndelinquent behaviour, but only for more protected friends. Higher levels ofcommitment to personal values were associated with fewer delinquent behavioursfor friends who were more protected by parents (β=�.16). The associationbetween commitment to personal values and delinquent behaviour failed to reachconventional levels of statistical significance (β=�.07, p= .17). Figure 3 depicts theseassociations for more and less protected friends.

Intra-individual influencePartner paths revealed that the friend who was more protected by parents

was positively influenced by the friend who was less protected by parents,but not the reverse. The personal values of the less protected friend wereinversely associated with the prosocial behaviour of the more protectedfriend (β=�.11), such that greater commitment to personal values in thefriend who was less protected by parents predicted fewer delinquent behav-iours in the friend who was more protected by parents. The personal valuesof the more protected friend were not associated with the delinquent behav-iour of the less protected friend (β= .04). Partner paths also indicated that thepersonal values of the less protected friend were positively associated withthe prosocial behaviour of more protected friends (β= .09), such that greater


Figure 2. Friend influence on prosocial behaviour and delinquent behaviour as a function of com-mitment to personal values for partners distinguished on the basis of relative parental protective-ness. Note: N=798 adolescents in 399 dyads. Standardized estimates presented with 95%confidence intervals in brackets. *p< .05, **p< .01.

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Figure 3. Intra-individual influence: Prosocial and delinquent behaviour as a function of com-mitment to personal values among the friend reportingmore parental protectiveness and amongthe friend reporting less parental protectiveness. Note: N=798 participants in 399 friend dyads.

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commitment to personal values in the friend who was less protected by par-ents predicted higher prosocial behaviours in the friend who was moreprotected by parents. The association between the personal values of the lessprotected friend and the delinquent behaviour of the more protected friendfailed to reach conventional levels of statistical significance (β= .08, p= .12).Figure 4 depicts the statistically significant associations between the lessprotected friend’s commitment to personal values and the more protectedfriend’s prosocial and delinquent behaviours.

Supplemental Analyses

A similar pattern of statistically significant results emerged when dyads whoseperceived parental protectiveness differed by less than .50 SD (n=82) wereincluded in the analyses.

Multiple group APIM analyses were conducted using sex as a moderator. Therewere no statistically significant χ2 differences, suggesting that the influence of lessprotected friends and more protected friends did not vary for boys and girls.

Additional analyses were conducted to rule out a series of alternative explanations.Parenting practices (warmth, control, solicitation of information), parental protective-ness, adolescent age, adolescent personality (openness, conscientiousness, extraver-sion, agreeableness, and neuroticism), and friend nomination rank were separatelyentered into the model as control variables. In each case, the pattern of statisticallysignificant results did not change.

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Figure 4. Inter-individual influence: Prosocial and delinquent behaviour among the friendreporting more parental protectiveness as a function of the commitment to personal valuesof the friend reporting less parental protectiveness. Note: N= 798 participants in 399 frienddyads.


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DISCUSSION

As expected, commitment to personal values was positively associated withadolescent prosocial behaviour and negatively associated with adolescent delin-quent behaviour, within and between friends. Unique to this study is the findingthat protective parenting promotes positive peer influence. Adolescents whoperceived more parental protectiveness were influenced by their friend’s commit-ment to personal values, whereas adolescents who perceived less parental protec-tiveness were not. The findings are consistent with the notion that the importanceof parents as socialization agents may extend beyond their direct effects onchildren and into the opportunities they create for peer influence. Restrictionsto autonomy are typically assumed to be negative because they increase adoles-cent susceptibility to adverse peer influence. The present study suggests thatparental restrictiveness is not altogether bad because it may also increase suscep-tibility to positive peer pressure.

How does a commitment to personal values shape behaviour? A cognitive devel-opmental perspective emphasizes the role of moral development, implying that moralbehaviours are a reflection of moral judgments (Kohlberg, 1984). Within individuals,personal values should promote prosocial behaviour and inhibit antisocial behaviour.However, personal values should also restrict peer influence, as the individual comesto believe that right and wrong are not a matter of opinion. Moral identity has beenproposed as a complementary source of influence. In this model, moral behaviourshould vary as a function of the degree to which morality and moral behaviour arecentral to self-concept (Aquino & Reed, 2002). Here too, personal values shouldbe related to individual behaviour but not to friend behaviour, particularly forthose who hold moral behaviour to be a central part of their identity. In contrast,social cognitive theories hold that moral agency is susceptible to peer influence(Bandura, 2001). Moral thought and moral behaviour can be shaped by percep-tions of collective agency, which are transmitted by others. Findings that friendcommitment to personal values influence adolescent prosocial and delinquentbehaviour suggest support for some form of collective agency, a conclusion thatmust be tempered by an awareness of the limitations of our cross-sectional data.Finally, there is the notion of commitment. Greater levels of commitment, towhatever cause, imply a prioritization of that cause. Being committed to personalvalues suggests being committed to their implementation. Care should be takenin extending our findings to moral influence because commitment to personalvalues does not necessarily correspond to a particular level of moral develop-ment, only to a desire to see that the values are upheld.

The findings imply that parenting provides an important backdrop for theinterpersonal application of values. Protectiveness may be perceived as over-bearing, and it may prevent age-appropriate exploration of risks, both ofwhich may prove detrimental to development. In this sense, protectivenessmay be counterproductive, because although it may reduce the risks towhich adolescents are exposed, it may also drive a wedge between parentsand adolescent children, who see to renegotiate the terms of their relation-ship (Smetana, 1988). Successful negotiation of parent–child conflict is keyto the development of adolescent autonomy (Allen et al., 2006). Thus, theparadox is that parental attempts to reduce child risk through protectivenessmay actually increase them because they preclude the necessary exchangesthat foster a unique identity and expressions of autonomy necessary to resistpeer influence.



A case can also be made for the notion that elevated susceptibility to peersstems from positive features of parental protection. Parent protection maysignal a level of involvement that facilitates the development of a self-systemthat emphasizes communalism (Kasser et al., 1995). Those with an affiliativeself-system may be amenable to principled messages from others, particularlyif they reinforce an existing worldview. Attachment theorists make a similarpoint, suggesting that adolescents who are securely attached to parents arewell-positioned to meet well-adjusted agemates and profit from constructivepeer relationships (Allen & Land, 1999). Both theories imply individualdifferences in susceptibility to friends, predicated on individual differencesin the quality of relationships with parents. In each case, the safety affordedby parental protection provides adolescents with opportunities for openengagement with agemates. Adolescents who perceive that they are protectedby parents may be inclined to explore new opportunities, assuming that fam-ily members will shield them from unanticipated trouble. Finally, adolescentswith engaged parents are likely to select friends who share affiliative values(Mounts, 2000). Thus, the ties between personal values and positive adjust-ment should be reinforced by friends who share the same inclinations.

Is parental protectiveness good or bad? Perhaps both. It is not difficult to imag-ine that some youth may view protectiveness as simultaneously positive and neg-ative, an unwelcome burden and a display of affection. We found that age did notalter patterns of friend influence. Early and late adolescents with protective par-ents were equally susceptible to influence from friends. Across the adolescentyears, peer influence over risk taking behaviour tends to peak around age 14years,waning gradually in the years that follow (Steinberg, 2004). Many assume thatpeer influence declines because adolescents become more secure in their individ-ual identities (Hafen et al., 2012). If so, our findings imply that protectivenessmay be increasingly inappropriate across the adolescent years, not just because itinterferes with autonomy development but because it may prolong a period ofheightened susceptibility to external forces.

The developmental processes postulated move beyond simple parent-drivenmodels. Parents certainly play a role in shaping adolescent values and adjustmentoutcomes, but as children grow up, parent contributions may shift to a more subtlebut equally important role in shaping the child’s perceptions of external forces andhis or her openness to peer influence. Greater attention should be given to parentsas moderators of peer experiences, for parents clearly have the potential to bufferor exacerbate the effects of friends. In statistical terms, the action is in the interac-tion. But there is more. We know that the quality of the parent–child relationship atthe outset of adolescence anticipates the impact that relationship partners have onrelationship trajectories (Laursen, DeLay, & Adams, 2010). Thus, protectivenessmay signal high quality relationships with engaged parents or poor quality rela-tionships with increasingly alienated children. Future studies of parents as moder-ators of peer influence must balance absolute levels of a behaviour against relativelevels of a behaviour (compared with peers) and against adolescent perceptions ofthe overall quality of the affiliation. It is a tall order, but necessary if we are todisentangle parenting behaviours from parent–child relationship quality.

This investigation is not without limitations. Of primary concern is the cross-sectional nature of the data. The direction of influence, from personal values to ad-olescent behaviour, is assumed, but causality is not. Longitudinal data are requiredto determine whether personal values anticipate changes in prosocial behaviourand delinquent behaviour or whether problem behaviour may cause one to waiverin commitment to personal values. In the present study, we made the a priori


B. Laursen et al.

assumption that our model measured susceptibility to influence. This assumptioncan (and should) be tested over time, with stable friends, to determine if influencevaries according to characteristics of the influencing agent, the influence recipient,or both (e.g.Marion et al., 2014). Friends select one another on the basis of similarattributes, a tendency that is stronger for observable attributes such as delinquentbehaviour than for attitudes, values, and motives (Hafen et al., 2011). Similarity onany behaviour at any particular time point should not be conflated with influence,which can only be measured by changes in similarity.

Of additional concern is the fact that personal values may be correlated withother factors that predict adolescent outcomes. Supplemental analyses that controlfor the contribution of potential confounds, such as relative age, personality, andparental warmth and control, ameliorate, but do not eliminate, this concern. Weknow that influence within a friendship differs as a function of individual charac-teristics, such as relative acceptance (Laursen et al., 2012) and relative self-confidence (DeLay et al., 2013). Although these characteristics are unlikely toaccount for differences between friends distinguished on the basis of parentalprotectiveness, other attributes correlated with parenting (e.g. birth order) maywell prove important. Finally, our outcome variables were derived solely fromself-reports. Objective measures of outcomes have the advantage of avoidingproblems arising from shared reporter variance.

Nonindependent data can pose a significant threat to the validity of research oninfluence. The APIM strategy is a powerful and flexible tool for examining influ-ence within close relationships, one that permits data from both partners to be in-cluded in the same analyses. The APIM)is an important new tool that overcomesmany of these limitations. We have demonstrated how to partition influencebetween partners from influence within partners, removing the inter-individualsimilarity that introduces bias into conventional analytic procedures. We have alsodemonstrated how to test for moderated effects, comparing influence paths acrossgroups of participants (e.g. boys and girls). Finally, we have demonstrated how torule out alternative explanations through the use of control variables.

Nonindependent data pose a challenge to family researchers. The challenge isparticularly acute when the focus is on parenting outcomes, because the researchpremise (i.e. the presence of influence) presumes a lack of statistical independence.One goal of the present investigation was to encourage scholars to apply innova-tive APIM methodology to the study of parent–child relationships. The APIMcan be adapted to address different conceptual models. In the present study, weexamined how patterns of friend influence varied as a function of parent–childrelationships, using parenting as a moderator. Alternatively, APIM analyses canbe used to examine influence within the parent–child relationship (e.g.Cook &Kenny, 2005), directly measuring the strength of influence from parent to childand from child to parent. With recent modifications, the APIM can incorporatelongitudinal data to measure influence over behavioural change (Popp, Laursen,Kerr, Stattin, & Burk, 2008).

We have demonstrated that friend influence varies as a function of relativeparental protectiveness, such that protectiveness fosters conditions in which onefriend’s commitment to personal values promotes prosocial behaviour and inhibitsdelinquent behaviour in the other friend. In so doing, we move beyond modelsthat emphasize the direct role that parents play in shaping adolescent outcomes,focusing instead on parenting as a contextual variable that contributes to individ-ual differences in susceptibility to peer influence. It may well be that during the ad-olescent years, parents have less of a direct role in shaping outcomes butnevertheless remain important, moderating socialization outcomes by shaping



the perceptions and attitudes that frame how adolescents approach an expandingsocial world.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This study was supported by a grant to Rita Žukauskienė from the EuropeanSocial Fund under the Global Grant measure (VP1-3.1-ŠMM-07-K-02-008). BrettLaursen received support for the preparation of this manuscript from the USNational Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD068421) andthe US National Science Foundation (0909733).

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Perceived Parental Protectiveness Promotes Positive Friend Inﬂuence

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