Friends of the Forensic Science Club, this week we present the paper “The Salience of Antisocial Personality Disorder for Predicting Substance Use and Violent Behavior: The Moderating Role of Deviant Peers” by Wojciechowski, T. W. (2020), in which the author carries out a study to know how the relationships with adolescents with deviant behavior influence other adolescents, putting the focus of attention on violent behaviors and drug use.
We know that young people are a particularly vulnerable group of population because their personality is not fully developed. That is why we must pay special attention to what happens to them at this stage of their life so that they develop in a typical way.
A mental disorder that is especially dangerous and that appears frequently in adolescence is antisocial personality disorder (APD from now on). This disease is characterized by a pattern of manipulative, aggressive and impulsive behavior, which despises and violates the rights of others. Plus, they do not regret participating or performing illegal acts.
APD has been shown to be associated with substance use and violent crime, among other antisocial behaviors.
In the same way that having friends who like to go to the cinema can make us enjoy it more, the author wonders, then, if in this context the association with young people with deviant behaviors will also influence the development of an APD, drug abuse and/or the tendency to commit violent crimes.
The association with deviant youth has already been highlighted in previous research as a risk factor for developing APD. It is believed that one reason may be the fact that APD tends to appear early, in adolescence, when we are especially vulnerable to deviant acts performed by peers.
In fact, according to a study mentioned in the article, associating with deviant youth models and reinforces antisocial behavior, actually. If this persists, it can be very dangerous, since the reinforced entrenchment of a deviant lifestyle can inhibit the transition to a normative life.
It is suggested in other studies that, although the frequency of association with deviant partners tends to decrease in adulthood, if it existed even then, it could continue to influence the appearance of APD.
However, it should be mentioned that APD is characterized, as we have pointed out before, by manipulative and impulsive behavior and disregard for the emotions of others, so we could say that this must necessarily decrease interactions with peers.
That is to say, it is possible that after developing an APD the person will experiment certain isolation as he/she grows older, with the dangers that this entails. This is something that can happen whether someone has APD or not, but it is true that people who deal with this disease have special circumstances that can make these events particularly important.
In this study, the author focuses on studying how the relationship with deviant young people would influence violent behaviors and substance abuse.
First, because the impulsive nature of this disorder is one of the reasons attributed to the high risk of drug use. In addition, young people often use drugs understanding it as a social ritual. As the transition to adulthood occurs, there may be a continuity in this behavior for individuals diagnosed with APD.
On the other hand, the influence of deviant youth in relation to violent crimes can also be amplified for those with APD, adding to previous research findings that suggest that people with APD are at very high risk of committing violent crimes.
The author uses data obtained from a previous study of more than 1,000 juvenile offenders whose cases were followed for 84 months.
The findings show that the association with deviant partners does work as a moderator of the diagnosis of APD and of drug use and the commission of violent crimes.
However, it does not act as a moderator as it was expected in violent crimes. Individuals with APD committed violent crimes more frequently, but it did not affect contact with deviant youth. On the other hand, it did influence young people not diagnosed with APD, causing them to participate in violent crimes more frequently.
Regarding drug use in young people with APD, it was found that the association with deviant young people had a significant influence only on marijuana use, increasing it.
The author points out that intensive prevention work should be carried out from an early age to reduce the development of antisocial personality disorders, since that is when they begin to appear.
He also comments that future research could focus on investigating why the association with deviant youth affects youth with APD when using marijuana, and not using alcohol or other drugs.
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