Adolescent delinquent behaviours as attempts of group social integration and well-being through social acceptance?

peer reviewedLarge surveys in Western countries give pictures of adolescent well-being related to delinquency and group affiliation. The belonging to a particular country, city or neighbourhood with their social structure influences the probability to have delinquent activities in group increasing or decreasing the risk of marginalisation, the sensibility to deviant values and the well-being related to peers’ acceptance. A general process would exist by which, firstly adolescents oppose themselves to the parents’ authority and seek for acceptance among their peers. This leads to a spiral when the youth tries to resolve his cognitive dissonance between the immoral acts he is invited to commit with his friends and his personal value system learned in his family, school and other institutions. In adolescence, the influence of peers can be positive or negative; it can be “protective peer-contagion” with positive response to normative talk or “deviant peer-contagion” with positive response to deviant talk or behaviour. At the micro level, well-adjusted peers are able to resist the influence of deviant peers. The participation to non-homogenous mixed groups seems to facilitate more normative talks. This leads to the hypothesis that the progressive extension to differentiated groups when adolescence is going through will strengthen their ties with conventional norms and contribute to their well-being